Help. My players. Oh god. Decisions. They should not be allowed to make them.

AaronJer said: The whole point of the story is that the players didn't want to have any idea what or who might be a bad guy or menace of some sort. They wanted a mystery, not a "There is a big problem/dragon/treasure, go fix/slay/steal it.". I see now that, in the reverse, this makes them think a devil *might* be a good guy. Basically, I've just decided to let the consequences play out. I've made it very clear that the public finding out they are associating with a devil would be drastically bad, even if the devil itself doesn't drag them into Hell. It was incredibly funny every other time they did something like this. For example, they rendered their one silver weapon useless (through no prompt of mine whatsoever, mind you) right before confronting a vampire, and the characters (not the players) were absolutely furious with each other, that was a good laugh. Mouse said: I would just go with what kind of chracter you had in mind for the Devil NPC (does he have use for minions, does he maybe give them something as thanks since he is lawful and then go on his merry way destroying stuff, etc.) That's just it, I didn't have anything in mind. The party contains mostly good characters and paladins and stuff. I am completely flabbergasted that they're even talking to it. They basically encountered the aftermath of a battle between vampires and devils, the intention was to investigate the scene, not revive the losers. I managed to wing it and make it look intentional, but when the session was over I was all "Oh, sweet Jesus, where do I go with this?!", but now I have an idea. The funniest thing about it is that the devil is terrible at lying, and it made up a really, really stupid story as to why they shouldn't kill it, and they just totally believed it even though it's very obviously just making shit up to avoid getting killed while it is disarmed, has around 1 hit point, and is completely surrounded. The only saving grace for the players is that it is just a soldier, and very bad at scheming. At least I can imagine the paladin's deity facepalming as hard as I am. Since you are making a game where things are more ambiguous than the typical D&D world this actually isn't that wild+crazy. If they did this in a standard setting, it would be pretty ridiculous, but since part of the assumption is based on them not knowing what is evil and what isn't it actually makes sense that they would talk to it. If I was playing a CN rogue type, I might just kill the devil to be safe, but a LG hero might not want to risk murdering an innocent even if it puts them at risk. This is just an example of PCs making decisions based on limited information (which is what they want to do based on your posts). Sometimes making decisions that won't turn out well is part of that style of game. In the context of the quoted post the actions aren't as unreasonable as when I read it in the original post (they are aware that they are supposed to ask for sense motive right?). Of course, whether or not you think the decisions are good or bad are completely irrelevant to how to referee a game. You only have to decide how the world and its denizens react to it. Now getting back to the specific question of how to handle it. I hardly think this is a campaign ender. I can't help but thing you are conflating demons and devils. If you are playing with standard Pathfinder devils it actually should avoid trying to kill the characters. While demons will tend to try to slay and destroy things, devils usually try to twist and corrupt good creatures in order to serve hell. It would be more likely to try to betray and kill the party had they trusted a demon, but since it is a devil it could actually be very cool. The devil should be trying to corrupt the characters and turning them into agents of hell rather than just killing them (or introducing them to a more manipulative devil if it is just a simple soldier of hell). Since you are running a more ambiguous game you could even toy with the idea of them turning the devil to good, or at least using its strength for good by manipulating it. Devils are one of my favorite villain archetypes for the reason that their goals are usually more complicated than "kill the PCs." Regarding how to make the NPC. Start with the vanilla devil personality and customize it. It sounds like you already have somewhat of a personality for it (big stupid fighter type). If you are feeling particularly uninspired you can use a table to generate personality types.

I finally figured them out. The devil was fighting vampires, entirely be random chance, and those vampires are pretty much the arch-nemesis of one of the PCs. Given the way the I worded things and set things up, the devils looked like they were attacking the vampires, not the other way around. The truth of the matter is that the devils were just unearthing an ancient temple, and the vampires stumbled into them on accident while looking for a way to get into an underground tunnel system. A fight broke out because both sides are violent and uncompromising, but it really, really looks like the devils were trying to stop the vampires from unearthing something evil in the ancient temple. So, from the players perspective, not only have the devils done nothing wrong (yet), they have actively opposed enemies of the players. I was under the assumption the entire time that the players thought the devils were the ones unearthing ancient evil gates to infernal realms. The important thing, however, isn't that I finally realized what was wrong, so much as that they're trying to disguise the devil, and they're actually banking on the pixie (one of the PCs) to bring them the appropriate supplies for doing so, which will never happen, because the pixie has never correctly followed anyone's instructions ever... and it's going to be hilarious.

AaronJer said: I finally figured them out. The devil was fighting vampires, entirely be random chance, and those vampires are pretty much the arch-nemesis of one of the PCs. Given the way the I worded things and set things up, the devils looked like they were attacking the vampires, not the other way around. The truth of the matter is that the devils were just unearthing an ancient temple, and the vampires stumbled into them on accident while looking for a way to get into an underground tunnel system. A fight broke out because both sides are violent and uncompromising, but it really, really looks like the devils were trying to stop the vampires from unearthing something evil in the ancient temple. So, from the players perspective, not only have the devils done nothing wrong (yet), they have actively opposed enemies of the players. I was under the assumption the entire time that the players thought the devils were the ones unearthing ancient evil gates to infernal realms. The important thing, however, isn't that I finally realized what was wrong, so much as that they're trying to disguise the devil, and they're actually banking on the pixie (one of the PCs) to bring them the appropriate supplies for doing so, which will never happen, because the pixie has never correctly followed anyone's instructions ever... and it's going to be hilarious. Sounds like you talked to them. Good. You've got a classic "The enemy of my enemy is my friend situation." All you'd have to do would be to decide that the devil still wants to kill the PCs but wants revenge on the vampires (or wants something having to do with the vampires) that much more. It could be playing along until it's in a position to kill the vampire sire, or whatever weak spot the vampire have, or whatever, hoping that the PCs will be killed or put in a position in which they'll sell their souls for the devil's help, or anything, while helping kill vampires. The players are not saved by the hand of god, and they're not instantly killed. But then you go right into making more assumptions about how the players will act. I wish you luck.

Johni said: Let them help him. Just before he finishes his goal have angel provide some heavenly guidance/help. For instance Movanic Deva. "Their rare visits to the Material Plane are usually to help powerful mortals when a great menace threatens to plunge an entire realm into evil." I actually did something similar to this before one of my players were about to complete a ritual. The players encountered a skull amidst a room filled with corpses, markings and a story. They also found a diary and notes on demon summoning, which I personally read aloud to them, the important note being that the blood seal had to be complete. When the Wizard asked the skull, I dodged the question and urged him to start the ritual. To my surprise, he did. The messed up part was the half the party was in no condition to fight, and had told him they were going to rest. I had an angel intervene and stop the ritual in time, as they played pawns in a much bigger scheme. It would end in two scenarios: TPK, which would just be stupid, or having the demon thank the Wizard and leave. The latter was a possibility, but it's too soon. Instead the Wizard, in an exchange for power, became a vessel for the demon. By proxy, he could take control of the Wizard as he's dying and be unleashed upon his death. Honestly, I'm looking forward to it. He better learn to control it, or it will spell his undoing.

I'm satisfied with how everything turned out. Everyone continued to help the devil no matter how many signs I gave that it was a very bad idea, including playing the most horrifying song and having it be visibly named getoutgetoutgetout. The devil goddess and cadre of Erinyes they helped get back into hell were surprised and happy to have the players go somewhere they could not (a shrine that would not allow evil creatures to enter it) to procure for them a gate stone (which the devils lied about the purpose of) so they could make a permanent gate to hell. Then they're all, "Well, thanks for the gate home! Oh, by the way, the gate isn't going to close, and the magic required to close it no longer exists in this world! Good luck with that!" Now the players are all high-tailing it away from an expanding horde of murderous devils, and the paladin is really, thoroughly not a paladin anymore. I figured I couldn't let ignorance be an acceptable excuse for opening a permanent gate to hell, and that pretty much was 'fallen paladin' worthy right there... but nobody has died yet at least? Everybody seems appropriately disappointed with themselves, except for the greedy grippli, who is just really happy to have ended up with a permanent +2 profane bonus to intelligence out of the whole deal.

I really hope your players are having fun. I personally try to avoid leaving players feeling "appropriately disappointed" with themselves, but your group may well vary in what they want from a game. Things I'd ponder about how things turned out: 1) I'm not sure why the Paladin's deity was so hands off if it would lead to his fall and a world changing catastrophe. 2) Are you all still playing the game you want to play or do you feel their actions (and by their actions, I really mean how you have interpreted and reacted to them, but that's a whole other thing) have pushed the game down a less interesting path? 3) If there really is no way for them to close the portal anymore what's the endgame here? Are you going to give them a way to travel to another plane to set it right? Are the devils returning to hell going to have some unforseen implications in underworld politics? Or do you fully intend to flood the game world with a near endless army of devils until it is a post apocalyptic wasteland? What about angelic realms invading the world? I always see a game as a story constructed together for the maximum enjoyment of all. Often that involves consequences, but players willingly enter into the pact and cause themselves problems to ensure they have fun and get to act out their character. It kind of seems to me like you're running a game in which the players are not comprehending their part in making the story, or possibly that you are punishing them for decisions they don't see eye to eye with you on. Now, that's not necessarily a criticism, but if you're publicly starting a thread bemoaning how they act it sounds like you need to sit down with them and decide if you're all happy. There are other styles of GMing, and you may find it less frustrating for you and leave them feeling ashamed of their supposed stupidity. I hope that helps!

Oh, no, it's all fun and games now. I've simply accepted that the players are going to generally do the worst possible thing in all situations, and I've designed the campaign around that. The paladin's goddess didn't get involved because there was a hell goddess on the material plane keeping her from doing anything within a few miles of her. She wasn't able to communicate with the paladin until the hell goddess returned to hell, and by then it was too late. The game, surprisingly, has always had fall back plans for something like this happening, and it won't break the story... in fact, this turn of events is quite beneficial to the people the player characters are trying to help. Unless the players make it even worse, the devils will end up warring with the local human empire... and then lose. This fits in with the world, because the human empire has had it's armies battling demon summoning defilers for the past fifty years, so they're getting really quite good at killing infernal things, and their armies are bloated with paladins and the like. Then the humans are going to start invading hell, since they can't close the gate, they might as well take ground on the other side, right? The way this is all good for the players is that the humans are going to be too busy attacking the devils to dedicate any time to persecuting their people anymore, thereby accomplishing one of their major goals... even if the fallen paladin is slowly turning into a blackguard, and even if everyone involved is now tainted with unholy power that causes them to appear to be evil outsiders under scrutiny of magical detection. I think only the paladin is truly unhappy with how things went... but he is playing the most strict class... and he did open a hell gate. I don't think he has room to complain. It's not like atonement isn't still a possibility, though.

In my experience back up plans almost never work, because the players will even ruin that if given the chance....how do you blow up a network of stargates?! So more of less I've had to get better at damage control than anything else, but that's more or less my method to their madness.

Nevermind, I quote the fallen paladin: "All cerealness though, I love this campaign because I actually feel bad about what I made Brand do. Normally I don't care enough because I've played in so many dumb stories." Apparently even the paladin is enjoying himself.

Trollkin said: The thing is you have made assumptions about what you think it is, should be, or how it should go. If I was a PC, i'd think it was pretty cool to heal up a devil. Basically because now a Devil owes me a favor. Being that they are lawful we make an agreement, "Devil, you will help us in a significant fashion whenever we call on you as payment. One time, k?" You've set it in your mind the Devils are evil,(yeah, they are) that they should not be helped by the PCs (except you set it up as wounded, so instead of being afraid if it, they help it.) Your scenario. You created the problem. Despairing and saying players are "naive twits" that need "handholding" is and comes off as really nasty and counterproductive to being a fair and impartial DM. If I'm a player in your game, I find out you called me Naive Twit on a hugely public forum of 1000s upon 1000s of players and it's a scenario problem you designed, I'm bailing as a player and letting everyone know you're an amateur and need to get a clue. You created the scenario, you seem to be jacked off they didn't choose "We kill it." Was it the idea that you wanted them to say, "Yeah, we killed a devil?" NOW they can say, "Woo hoo, we helped a devil!" Your job, believe it or not is to now work out a plausible result from that point. - The devil might not reform, but might be a source of jobs in the future as the players go evil. - The devil could burn them thus teaching them a lesson about messing with devils. - The devil could ignore them, and have the PCs go to a good town where they are calling for help "From a devil" thus the locals think there's a big wave of devilry going on AKA free publicity for the Devil faction, and it draws the forces of good away from where the dark forces really want stuff to happen. - All sorts of other things. I know you were looking to scapegoat your players and have the rest of the DMs chime in with stuff like "Whacky players! What a bunch a idiots!" in a "woe-is-me-as-misunderstood-DM-scenario", but I'm not doing it. Own it. Revise the twits remarks in public and your mind, and figure out where you went wrong, and gain a skill level in DMing. Dickish but also revealing. Good advice Trollkin

Good advice, I agree, but inappropriate to the circumstance. I may have come across as an asshole, because I am an asshole, but I actually really just wanted suggestions for what to do, not useless sympathy. But we already discussed that, so I guess you didn't read the whole thread... but that's not surprising, it's very long. I should add that I applied this: "The devil could burn them thus teaching them a lesson about messing with devils". Except the devil didn't burn them on purpose, just, help from a devil is not the kind of help anyone should ever want. Yay! You gained a +2 profane bonus to an ability score! Aww... it makes you appear to be an evil outsider... probably not worth it in this heavily paladin populated world.

As a player sometimes it is hard to discern what the GM intends to have happen. I recently played in a new campaign where there wasn't much exposition on the part of the DM we just woke up on a slave ship path of exile style with no explanation of how we got there. One of the party member's had one of his manacles come loose and the other was able to persuade an orc to break his. This is the only information we had so I assumed as did the other 2 players that the objective was to free ourselves from the slave ship so we did. Long story short we ended up on the shore shackled in manacles with no way of removing them so another player character and I decided to break the manacles off using rocks. Unfortunately I critically failed my roll and pretty much amputated my foot with a rock and the other character broke his foot badly as well. 30 minutes into the campaign we had 2/3 of the party members pretty much destroyed and an unrecoverable position. So we restarted the campaign. After this it was revealed that we were supposed to wait on the ship until we got to shore, and be purchased by slaves by a NPC and put into her services in exchange for our freedom. Problem is none of that was discernible from our perspectives as players. If your players act in a manner that doesn't gel with what you planned as a gm there is likely one of two reasons behind it: 1. They are doing it to troll you and/or It's funny or 2. You didn't give them enough information to make the correct decision whether this is is because of failed perception checks or outright omission of facts isn't important.

Well, this isn't a restart scenario, as I'm surprised to find out. Their own hubris is now a major plot point, even though I never originally intended it to be. I'm totally fine with throwing a lot of my old intentions out the window to more heavily focus on the players trying to undo what they just did. It'll seem a lot more personal, and they'll be acting under their own agency this way, not at the behest of some quest giver, which I consider to be a hard to achieve position to get players into, and very worth any damage they may have caused.

AaronJer said: Well, this isn't a restart scenario, as I'm surprised to find out. Their own hubris is now a major plot point, even though I never originally intended it to be. I'm totally fine with throwing a lot of my old intentions out the window to more heavily focus on the players trying to undo what they just did. It'll seem a lot more personal, and they'll be acting under their own agency this way, not at the behest of some quest giver, which I consider to be a hard to achieve position to get players into, and very worth any damage they may have caused. And that is as it should be your telling the tale of your party not the tale that you intend. Sometimes things go as you intend them too sometimes your party ends up being soulless cannibals eating kittens from cereal bowls. You have to go where ever it takes you.

AaronJer, I think you've done an excellent job of digesting what everyone has said here, for or against and making your own decision and solution. I think that's a ket ability of a GM, decisiveness. Make the call and take what comes. Exactly as it should be. My comments of two weeks ago came off harsh. My apologies. I've just been having some rough times, and a lot of work, on site here and off. There's an overwhelming amount of people coming in that are seeking "Advice" but then they slam people who "Have been doing this too long and lost perspective" only to find that THEY were mistaken. And in cases, I too am mistaken. I misjudged your initial posting. So, welcome to the club such as it is, of GMs on Roll20. With the spectrum of all of our individual strengths and flaws.

Headhunter Jones said: You can choose to see their ideas as terrible. Or you can choose to see their ideas, as I do, as terribly fun . Some practical solutions: 1. Don't base your campaign on character backstories - base it on something you can all buy into and figure out what that is before you put pen to paper. In fact, don't ask for backstories at all. Ask the players to show you who their characters are during play, not tell you before play. If you've come up with a premise prior to play that everyone buys into, ask how their characters fit into that premise and how they know each other. 2. Don't play for stakes that you can't live with. Negotiate the stakes on a roll before you roll it and make sure everyone's clear on what it means and that, win or lose, the outcome is fun for the players (even if it sucks for the characters). 3. Don't judge the choices of the players. You present problems, they present solutions. You break their solutions into mechanics appropriate to the game system and test their solution with dice according to the rules and you do this in an impartial way. 4. When you're not sure where the players are taking a given situation, stop and ask them what they have in mind. What is their goal and intent? How can it be made fun for everyone at the table (including the DM)? What fun challenges would they like to interact with along the way? Where do they see this going, and what do they expect success or failure will look like? Number 3 is an especially inspired bit of advice for those that tend to get their wires crossed in this department. It seems like I've experienced and come across a lot of STs or GMs that didn't quite grasp the simplicity and the importance of this maxim. Number 4 requires a bit more finesse than explained. You need either be familiar with the players you're GMing for, or at least able to pick up on what motivates them. You can't ask them what kind of challenges they like, and then a session later, have a challenge like that show up. They won't like it as much. It's better to be one step ahead without them realizing it. That's partly why I ask for a bit of background on characters. That helps me see right away where they're coming from and what they might want. More importantly though, backgrounds usually served in the past, as a way for me to determine if a player was fundamentally compatible with the maturity of the story, or would mesh well with the other players. I'd find it very difficult to follow number 1 in that list. But number 3 is perfect! RE: The Original Post: I'm shocked that having presented a secretly evil NPC as wounded to begin with, that the goal wasn't to get them to feel sympathy for and try to help the hidden villain. I'd be more chagrined if they outright killed him for his boots, after erroneously assuming they'd have some speck of humanity, compassion, or even simple curiosity. That said. A feeling of mild vexation expressed towards the players is a perfectly natural and amusing part of being a GM. Annoyance or being upset with them isn't. If they're really making you mad then either you picked the wrong kind of story to tell for the wrong kind of group, or have failed to get them seriously invested in it (leading to jokey, random decision making).

Since things seem to be working out, I'm just gonna say that . . . I think almost all GMs have had that issue. If it's a problem, the thing to do is talk it out. If it's not a problem, game on! I will say I've seen it from both sides of the screen. I've been the player who has missed what the GM thought were basic, obvious things. I try to keep in mind what is clear and obvious to me might not be so to everyone else - not because they're ignorant or whatever, just because they're not in my frame of mind and it's a two way street. Maybe, when the players do something, I'm missing something that they consider obvious. I do not find that being the GM makes me more perceptive or smarter.

As it turns out from hearing the players talk about it, mostly just the paladin was being a fool. Everyone else was acting in character and honestly believing that the paladin knew what he was doing, as he claimed to. The paladin did not know what he was doing, so much so that he is no longer a paladin. As far as the 'secretly evil NPC' goes... her evil was no secret. She was constantly blatantly lying to the players, and doing so *very* poorly, often revising her story or tripping over her own words while coming up with another wildly implausible reason for why the players should help her. Only the paladin was legitimately dumb enough to fall for her lies, everyone else was just assuming the paladin knew something they didn't, because he was certainly acting like he did. I honestly tried as hard as I could to get the players (and apparently just the paladin) to realize that she might not have his best interests in mind... he was just determined to help her, and now he can't even explain why, much to the frustration of the other players. On top of that, as I mentioned, she wasn't supposed to be wounded, she just happened to survive by pure luck of the rolls. I never had a plan for her in the first place and had to improv the whole situation on the spot when the players revived her. I threw a name and portrait on her quickly, so they thought it was all intentional.

Ah, Aaron. That's pretty funny. Yes. It's much more understandable. They were essentially deferring to the Paladin player.

Damsel in distress syndrome. Works like a charm on paladins worldwide ;)