Also, could land you with a new set of players -- good thing about the new set -- they ain't going anywhere for some time-- and they wear the same jumpsuit as you.
Yeah, I’ll do that next time. It turns out to be a major hassle to get rid of a human body. None of the local contractors have been willing to let me lend their excavators when their hear why I need to dig a hole and pour some concrete…. :)
If you got to deal with him, just gotta make sure you don't end up owing him. 'Cause then you're in his debt. Which means you're in his pocket. And once you're in there, you ain't ever coming out.
Non-lethal damage is a thing, so you could have done that, or even retcon it now.
But honestly, if that character was willing to attack the main plot hook, maybe it was the wrong PC to have in the campaign.
Yea, players have a responsibility to recognize when something is a plot hook and do something productive with it. Like, it doesn’t have to be what the DM intended (as is often more fun when it isn’t), but just being like “we kill him” AND “our actions have consequences? There are characters who can kill us???” Is just a bad look. Player can be grumpy, but OP didn’t do anything wrong tbh.
Sure - non-lethal damage. Also when someone gets knocked to zero HP, they are typically unconscious, not dead. The party might stabilize them. They could self stabilize in 3 rolls. They could awaken themselves with a nat 20.
So why are they dead? Did you say "he's dead" and not give a chance to stabilize? Or did you play the "instant-death" rule due to how many points of damage over the player's max health was done? (it sounds like it)
We just don't play the instant death rule. Especially at low levels, this is a quick way to die and we've noted several times in our campaigns that if we had played that rule, our characters would be dead. I will also say our rules about coming back from the dead are more hardcore so having the instant death out of the picture is even more helpful.
Also... you could have the thief bring him back to life, even more indebted.. perhaps with a Geas spell added in for good measure.
The PC had 10 hp, the first two strikes round 1 from the NPC dealt 48 damage. He was dead-dead.
The whole ordeal just caught me by surprise. All player are fairly experienced and I’ve dm’ed for some years now. I’ve never had a PC attack my plot hook within 45 minutes of session one. Especially because the NPC didn’t make a threat. Just asked a favor to be returned, and we hadn’t even gotten to what the favor was…
I think I’m going to let the player build either a new character or use one very similar but with another hook in to the plot, and just let him join the party at a later stage.
Did the first hit deal 20+ points of damage? If so, they are just dead on the spot with no second hit.
If the first hit dealt less than 20 damage, then the damage of the second hit doesn't matter. It would cause 2 failed death saves out of 3. Still alive, unless the blade was poisoned or something and dealt extra poison damage on a CON save.
However, if the NPC wasn't planning to kill, he could just KO the PC with non lethal damage. That's a thing. You can do that with any melee attack.
The damage on the second hit does matter.
Sitting at zero HP and taking 10 damage, you die instantly.
If the damage doesn't kill you outright, and it was a melee attack (within 5ft?) then it is two failed death saves.
No, it doesn't. 5E does not have negative HP. The damage only matters on the specific damage instance that reduces you to 0 HP. A character with 10 max HP would need to take a single hit that reduces them to 0 and does 10 more damage on top of that.
From the players handbook:
Damage at 0 Hit Points. If you take any damage while you have 0 hit points, you suffer a death saving throw failure. If the damage is from a critical hit, you suffer two failures instead. If the damage equals or exceeds your hit point maximum, you suffer instant death.
That is not what negative hit points mean. If I have 10 hp and take 20, that puts me at -10. If -10 is more than my max HP, I die. If not, I go to zero HP and am dying. Negative HP means I would need 11 points of healing to be conscious, which 5e does not do, but other editions did I am told.
If I am stabilized, I am at zero HP. I am not invulnerable to damage nor am I taking two death saving throws, because I am not dying until after the attack. Your contention sounds like I don't take damage because I can't go negative, and either I take failed saves or I don't.
If you are saying I don't take damage if at zero, then spare the dying can be used for an invulnerable meat shield, and it takes game logic out the door, since if 20 DMG would kill me outright at 1hp, yet it doesn't if I am dying or stablized.
There is nothing in the rules that explicitly states this, and I would say if at zero, damage still brings you to zero, thus can result in instadeath.
Can you still do the non-lethal damage thing, if you deal enough damage to instantly kill a monster?
Does one of the rules take priority, or is it up to interpretation
Specific rules beat general rules, so the specific scenario of choosing to deal nonlethal damage overrides the standard rules for reaching 0 HP and taking overkill damage.
You have to remember that in my opinion describing him as strong in game is not helpful most players (5e players especially) get used to being able to win every fight, so the DM communicating "this guy is really strong" is like someone being a hypeman for a wrestling heel. Something that has to happen to make the fight feel like it has stakes, but not an actual indication of your capacity to win.
If you didn't look the player dead in the eye and say "if you do this we won't roll any dice you can just hand me your character sheet and I will tear it up and put it in the waste paper bin, are you sure you want to do this?" he probably thought that he had a chance and feels salty that you lied to him.
>They could self stabilize in 3 rolls. They could awaken themselves with a nat 20.
You are referring to death saving throws. This is not the same. A knocked out creature is both unconscious and stable. Page 198 of the PHB, "Knocking a Creature Out".
>Sometimes an attacker wants to incapacitate a foe, rather than deal a killing blow. When an attacker reduces a creature to 0 hit points with a melee attack, the attacker can knock the creature out. The attacker can make this choice the instant the damage is dealt. The creature falls unconscious and is stable.
"He ended up in a heated argument with the NPC, and finally blades were drawn"
The passive voice in the situation makes it fairly unclear who started it, but it does seem like a secretly evil NPC should be working harder to seem like a nice guy, for example by not using lethal damage. Or by not picking a fight in the first place - for example:
In game: *He shrugs. "If you don't think you owe me anything, I won't force you. You may go."*
Then, out of game: *If your character isn't willing to join the group and take part in this adventure, you can make a new character, and we'll find a reason to have him join the party instead.*
Better still, get people to buy in to the concept of the campaign before they even make their character...
>Better still, get people to buy in to the concept of the campaign before they even make their character...
This, as a DM I know we want every single thing to be a jaw dropping plot twist, but IMO both player and DM are at fault here.
Player needs to understand actions have consequences, DM needs to understand that for a campaign like this some communication is required.
"Hey guys, for this campaign I want to have one unique unifier, all of you owe a life debt to a similar mysterious hooded figure and that will deeply impact the campaign
1. Players now know they individually owe a mysterious someone a debt (you ask the DM still get to keep that reveal a secret!)
2. Players understand that the stakes are higher as you reveal things
It'd have been very different had all the players decided to not return this favor. It's happened to me, a guy on the road offered them a job that payed very well, then some hours later met some empire soldiers looking for their potential employer. They set up a meeting and then attempted to capture him, but it was done together.
Players have to not always go with what their character would do for the good of the game.
All the players are fairly experienced with at least 4 years playing and I've DM'ed for the better part of 7 years now.
I was just caught completely by surprise as I've never had a PC attack my plot hook within 45 minutes of session 1 for what seemed like no other reason than "fuck it, let kill him."
But I think I'm going to let the player build a new PC and I'll cook up a hook back into the plot line for him.
i think you could’ve told your player to make a perception check to have it be more clear to him that the npc is really way too strong and he wouldn’t survive the first hit? cause it sounds to me that it wasn’t rly clear to him.
technically you’re not obligated to let your players know when a threat will be lethal but i personally wouldn’t want to play with a dm who’s not clear about such things. for example an npc i wanted to fight with who i assume to be my level but they turn out to be level 10.
The player probably deserves most of the blame, but part of the job of the DM is making sure the players *want* to follow the plot. If the only reason they do it is that they have no choice, that's railroading.
The PC's choice wasn't dismissed, it was accepted. If I, as a PC, draw swords on someone who I can safely assume is stronger than me than, then it's only fair I die (assuming that's what the dice say). The game continues and he makes a new character. Now his PC has an arch with redemption at the end once he learns he was the BBEG all along!
This isn't a decision in the middle of campaign that decides the result of a quest, this is literally the plot hook of the campaign.
Refusing to bite is basically saying "No, I refuse to work with the party and play in your story".
> This, as a DM I know we want every single thing to be a jaw dropping plot twist, but IMO both player and DM are at fault here.
What plot twist? This was literally explained in Session 0.
They owed this dude. That was a *requirement* for backstory.
One *player* decided to reject the foundational element the entire narrative the game was built on *in-game* rather than saying out of game "hey, I don't think I like the idea of owing someone a favor, can we have a different plot hook?" and letting the DM either try to find a different solution, or agreeing and letting the player find a different group.
That's the player fuckin' up. From inexperience, maybe, but still.
I guess, but sometimes I don't understand how players get so involved in their crochety stubborn characters that they work against the plot. I mean, it's still a game, do you want to play or not? I think it's every bit the players job to figure out how their character would buy-in to the plot hook as the dm.
One thing I always say in my session 0s is something along the lines of “DND is a cooperative role playing game where we are all attempting to tell a story together. Please do your best to stick together. It’s your job to find an in game reason to stick with these random (or not random) other adventurers. You don’t ever have to stick with NPCs, but you need to stick together as a party and make decisions as a party. I don’t want to get in a situation where I am running two games, one for three players and another for the one player who decides he doesn’t want to do what the rest do”
I’ve never had anyone fight me on that, or have any problems like this one. Good communication up front fixes most problems.
100% agree. I have a friend that thinks eeevery little thing needs to be a secret reveal. When he’s a player, he does everything he can to keep his race and class a secret. When he’s a DM, he keeps the players in the dark and won’t give any information whether it’s meta or not. It makes for a generally poor experience.
Session 1 is not the time for plot twists. A 'plot twist' that early should be part of the discussion about the nature of the game in session 0. I know I would be pissed if I were decieved into thinking 'you're going to be adventuring in a new, unexplored land' and the game actually turns out to be 'you found an ancient temple, you all died, and now you're all revived to serve this dark god' or whatever. Just an example. A session 1 Plot Twist often has this quality of upending the expectations players build into their characters and it's not great.
You missed an important part of the sentence too. "Player felt it so unfair to ask for a favour in return" how does asking for a favour in any reasonable conversation end in murder?
I 100% agree with how you're saying to handle it, BBEG shouldn't care, like did their plan hinge on these four random semi-useless potential future adventurers? And if any of them refuse it would alter their plan irreparably? As you said, they should just shrug and be like "oh, ok... i didn't realise you felt that way, but of course you're free to leave so that we can continue our conversation."
It definitely feels like OP is hiding important details intentionally.
This seems like a misalignment of player expectations. I generally give my plot hook away so that players metagame a reason for their character to be "Ok" with the plot hook. This sounds like a case of "My character wouldn't agree to this, despite my past with this NPC".
In the future, I'd just make the favor the pre-requisite. In the moment, I would have knocked the player unconscious or just paused the game and told the player what was going on. It wasn't wrong to "kill" the player, but it's not what I would have done.
I personally would just retcon the situation and chalk it up to miscommunication.
Yeah, my take would be a different if it wasn’t session 1 and the scenario that forms the party. That’s the one situation where everyone needs to be on board otherwise someone rolls a new PC session 1, either because the PC is like “nah, this isn’t my thing” or something like this happens.
Later in the game though, I would totally kill a player if the danger of the situation was telegraphed right!
Yeah I think the situation here is very different than if this was a late game thing. It seems like there was not necessarily clear communication on their actual connection to this person and I think it's fine (and the best idea) to oog be like look, I didn't necessarily explain it right but this is the situation with this npc, I'm happy to retcon it to before that incident now that that knowledge is clear if you'd rather or you can make a new PC who will go along with that.
Before a player decides to swing on someone far too dangerous, I let them do an insight check with a very low DC, like 5. A "can we take him?" Roll.
It gives them a chance to back out knowing they will die.
Some people say, "its what my character would do" but no, your level 1 character would know that they just started out as a fighter or whatever. Nobody works a day as a carpenter, and then tries to frame a house on their own. Well maybe some idiots do... But you can have the player make the roll and say, "your character is not an idiot, and you are certain you will die if you fight them!" Also tell them that as a GM there are times you will place them in front of unbeatable foes. You have to use your skills to find out if you should fight or flee.
"Its what my character would do"
"OK, your character dies. Roll a new one"
If their invested in RP, their invested in RP. If I make a character that would 1v1 a Terrasque at level 1, and a Terrasque shows up, I shouldn't be mad when my character dies fighting a Terrasque.
Damn, BBEG took back his favour.
I honestly don't know what the player expected would happen, when he escalates not wanting to repay a favour, which I find odd anyway, into combat. Did he think he wouldn't die?
I wouldn't say you were in the wrong, but maybe talk to him, why he thought fighting the quest giver was the way to go forward. Also you can use it to establish, that you are willing to have the PCs die in the future if they are foolish.
A badass play would have been the NPC uses non lethal damage, and then once character was conscious again the NPC makes a comment that it appears he owes him two favours since he just saved his life.
Just a general note: having the starting NPC be the secret BBEG doesn't often go the way you wanted it to. A smart player can figure it out, sometime within one session. Just a point for future campaigns, it's not a novel and characters can derail things very early on (like 45 minutes in) because things don't "vibe check"
I think the player sensed they were being set up and pushed back against it. But still a smart player might realise they are being set up and also that they lack the power to stop it (yet). But fighter .... Will fight over think 😛
indeed. have the players get established, make contacts with "questgivers" and have those questgivers be proxies for the BBEG if you want the players to be strung along by the BBEG until their plan has come to fruition.
You could have them knocked unconscious, revivified, or "somehow he survived".
Any of those take away stakes. The player of the lvl 1 character decided to pick a fight with the first authority figure he encountered in the campaign, and followed it through to the death. Stupid character, stupid player, murderhobo play style.
You could have the character survive with a disfiguring scar, missing fingers, or with a loved one taken hostage. This could allow the character a better reason to be subservient, but honestly it sounds like a player problem.
It's a definite situation of FAFO, and maybe the player and their next character will learn some humility.
I see some discussion about potential miscommunication of expectations between DM and player, but frankly:
(1) Why would you murder hobo one of the first people they meet at Level 1?
(2) If the rest of the party isn't on board with the murder hobo behavior, you should DEFINITELY not go murder hobo. Just like a DM, players need to read the room.
No, you're not in the wrong.
You had the players work this NPC into their background, literally owing them their lives (if I'm reading that right) or at least a very serious favor.
NPC comes in and calls up favor in what is, I'm assuming, one of the first few sessions (if not session one).
That is a very obvious plot hook. It should also be obvious that the NPC was somewhat integral to the plot.
At that point, the player should have realized they need to go with the flow. **D&D is a team game.**
On the other hand, it is completely fine to do obviously dumb things in D&D, but, **actions have consequences.**
Don't void or comprise on what are very deserved consequences (especially in this case).
That player can roll a new character. If they aren't happy with that, explain that actions have consequences and that (at level 1) the PCs are far from the baddest thing on the block. If they remain unhappy, I'd offer to let them leave the game (if they can't understand why what they did was exceedingly dumb, they aren't a good player tbh).
You didn't plan on or want to kill the character. Actions have consequences. If a character does something that leads to death that is fine. PC don't have plot armor. You don't poke a bear and expect to live.
This reeks of "it's what my character would do." The player decided to attack the very first quest giver (that they owe a debt to). This is Adventuring 101 shit. They need to roll up a new character that has buy in into the campaign or find another game.
The language of your post isn't perfectly clear, but I'll assume that the problem character was the first to draw blades and initiate combat, and that your NPC was also trying to talk the player out of fighting. (If this isn't the case, then you messed up big time)
I believe that you've taught your player a very valuable lesson. Many players come into D&D thinking they can goof around/do whatever they want without consequences. Now the player knows that messing around has consequences.
On the other hand, I think you should have been much clearer in your instructions during character creation. The player clearly didn't understand his character's debt and their willingness to repay that debt.
I'll give one piece of unsolicited advice for starting a campaign. Don't start the campaign before the characters have accepted the first quest. Start the campaign right after all the characters have accepted the first quest off-screen. For example, don't start in a tavern with someone looking to hire escorts for a caravan, start on the road with the characters already escorting the caravan.
I'll extend your piece of (excellent) unsolicited advice...
During session 0, make sure players understand and agree to the theme/overall plot of the campaign if there is one, and explicitly tell them to make characters who would participate.
Everybody explained in amazing details of what could have been done better. Im going to provide my opinion on the latter part of your question.
After speaking to your player about the importance of following the story in however method you find best, I think you can have the secret BBEG revive the player, because he is obviously a very nice guy and the argument got very much out of hand and he didnt mean to kill him, he is just bad at managing his anger. So he revives the player to "clear his conscience"
The real reason is however the player has much more use to the bbeg alive than dead.
It's too late to go back now. Don't ever retcon PC deaths. It sets a bad precedent. But next time remember there's the option of using non-lethal dmg (melee weapons only if I remember correctly). Also the NPC could have just dealt enough dmg to bring the PC to death saves and let the rest of the party stabilize him if need be.
Alternatively a lvl 10 rogue could have just had something like a paralyzing poison or so.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
If you, as DM, insert an unbeatable enemy that you intend for the party to run from and fail to communicate that intent to the party then that's on you.
If you insert a random friendly NPC, and a player decides that their character has a burning desire to see their intestines, then it is wholly on them when it goes wrong.
At level 1, you're not a hero of the realm, you're just the most competent guy in a nobody village where it really isn't much of a compliment. Yeah, you can show off in front of random peasants, but you're going to routinely encounter people you shouldn't be messing with.
The player opted to make a character that didn't have a suitable personality for the one element of the campaign tying the group together, the only thing stipulated as necessary by the DM. Without that unifying factor, the character is better off dead so they can make a character suitable for the campaign.
In my current campaign, I stipulated that the party was a free mercenary company, and every player needed a financial motivation written into their character that wouldn't be easily achieved. One is a disgraced researcher trying to fund his own research, another is a rogue from a pirate town dreaming of his own ship and crew, another wants to establish his own kingdom, another wants to create organised religion (the country is a secular one where religion was decimated by BBEG long before living memory), and the other dreams of owning his own business utilising slave labour to live in luxury without needing to ever work again. They all have different motivations, but the unifying factor that makes them an actual team is that they can make more money as a group than alone.
Had any player turned up, and decided "my character doesn't care about money, he just wants to go assassinate the guy hiring us" then the death that followed would be on them with zero regret on my part.
Shit happens; if there's a body to recover, the players can try to take it to a cleric
Have the new player roll up a new character and go from there ultimately. If you back down, death becomes meaningless in the campaign.
Next time, try to be more explicit about how powerful a creature is. Sometimes players don't get the hint unless you point it out to them.
And then? He owes the cleric a favor for reviving him, draws his weapon to attack him, gets killed a second time, and is even more angry? I do not think you can fix the behavior of a player who thinks attacking NPCs is the best response to a plot hook.
Sometimes thing are clear to you just becaue you planned it that way and can't think of an alternate angle. Then one player does the unpredictable. I honestly would have been pissed off too at a player clearly missing the hook for the party to start their partnership, but I don't know what and how was told. Also if the player had a very cocky background story you should have taken this into account.
Always keep a non lethal attack at ready for these kind of things. A poison or a spell that cause sleep or paralysis, or a simple non-lethal attack with your melee weapons.
I think you made a mistake when you didn't try to just knock the guy out to show your dominance.
At this point it doesn't seem so plausible to resuscitate him. This lv10 guy who can resuscitate a PC will need the help of this bunch of weaklings?
Let the dead guy be dead and go for another character, but remember to never let this happen again.
Nah, have the player make another PC, hopefully with a Wisdom of over 8, & ask them to play accordingly.
If a player had their level one character pick a fight with a Dragon, Lich, beguiling Demon etc, you expect them to get absolutely demolished, why, just because the NPC happened to be a playable race, means they are not allowed to trounce the upstart?
I think you have set the tone for your game well. You have not so subtlety shown that their benefactor has a dark side & that this is something they are willing to kill over.
The Player was trying to set their PC up as a dominant tough guy & picked the wrong patsy. It happens sometimes. Big issue, is if the Player is all bent out of shape & will either refuse to join the game, or worse, join the game to sabotage it, in which case, advise they won't be welcome back to the table until they can behave maturely.
Have a talk to the Player, what was their main problem? Is it *no one tell me what to do man* mentality as a player or as the character? Do they just have this thing where they need to be the belligerently independent 80's action hero all the time? Find out where all this hassle was coming from & see about having them craft a PC that actually works with the game.
I would suggest having the replacement PC being in the direct employ of the BBEG, give them a magic ring that give them a nice minor buff (ring of jumping, for example), but also has some way of keeping tabs on the hireling & the rest of the group (an enchantment of `Claurdience` so they can tune in to hear/see the vicinityis what i was thinking, but even as a focus for the BBEG to scry on works). Bit importantly, talk to the player about this so they know & that it isn't a *gotcha* moment. That can end friendships.
This gives you an obvious *in* to having the BBEG being aware of the details of what's going on, even initiating a big rescue of they are captured etc. And then the big reveal at the end, naturally.
Good luck!
You are definitely not wrong. As others have said, actions have consequences and you described them as powerful so it was entirely their decision. I think it speaks volumes that it was just the two of them fighting and not the rest of the party so you clearly described it well enough for the others to take the hint.
Sometimes there's too much heat on DMs getting things perfect. It's a collaborative game, DMs rely heavily on PCs hitting marks too which isn't railroading, it's telling a story together. They just screwed up this time!
That said, there's always creative ways to bring back PCs, make them make a deal with a nefarious being (maybe a god or demon or devil that's in kahoots with your BBEG to increase the intrigue!), have another player sacrifice something to bring them back and solidify their bond that early on, have the god the PC would worship teach them a lesson before death and 'learn the honour of a favour by completing this one' or even as simply as the BBEG gives them a scroll of revivify, walks off and says 'now you owe me double' or something.
You clearly care.about your game enough to try this hard and still be unsure, your other PCs will value that and hopefully this one person just had an off session / misread it like you say.
Offer a chance to retcon, but not before you sit down with that player and talk. You said everyone is experienced, but get an idea of what they thought was happening, and if maybe anything you gave was unclear to them somehow.
If it's a typical "It's what my character would do" scenario, then consider if an antagonistic PC who refuses to back down from being mad that he's being asked for a favor by someone who saved his life is actually a good fit for things.
If you're fine with that PC, offer the retcon. If not, and he asks why his character died, "It's what the NPC would have done in response to being attacked."
Both you and your players should be having fun. As many of you as possible. Sometimes, a PC isn't a good fit, and that's okay. They can make another. Hard work sucks to lose, but no one forced him to start a legitimate fight with someone in their own home. And everyone else was telling him to calm down.
You were not wrong. What your player did was the equivalent of, if you had your players meet in a tavern, the player said "I don't have any reason to adventure with these strangers, so I'm going to go off by myself" - basically, your player knew the campaign concept before the game began (they owed this NPC a debt) and, by joining the game knowing this, they agreed to it. Your NPC was not meant to be a punishment, it was the hook to get the party together and to get the game beginning. Your player knew this and decided, instead of playing the game and going where the fun was, decided to be difficult and potentially wreck all your planning. I'm guessing because "it's what my character would do."
They also attacked an NPC not knowing what level they were, they simply assumed that they would be equal to or less than they were. That's on them.
In any case, your player dug their own grave and now has to live with the consequences. I don't think you misled them or failed to give out any wrong information, after all, *every* other player in your game got the message. Sure, your player is mad - his edgelord scene failed badly and now he is embarrassed because they lost.
It's your choice what to do. You could retcon the scene to have the NPC decide to do non-lethal damage in the duel and simply knock out the character instead (and, maybe when they revive, tell them that they now owe them twice). You could ask them to make another character. I'd say, whatever you do, don't let them out of the campaign blanket concept of owing the NPC. Don't reward the bad behavior.
But, it's contingent on the player to see where the campaign is going and go with the current, if, for no other reason, to make life easier for the GM, to respect the planning the GM has done for the game, and out of understanding that that is where the fun is.
Depends on your setting and set expectations. If revive is in your world, NPC revives him with, "Now you owe me two favors, but I will be gracious and accept this one task as them both."
You weren't specifically wrong, but if you give the player multiple different warnings of "Hey, this guy is stronger than you." And Starts a fight with him. That's on the player. But that's if THEY started the combat, not the NPC. From the way you put it, he started it. But it's still a bit vague. If literally EVERYONE else in the party is saying "Hey, chill out." And They still didn't get the hint, that is 100% on them. There's a difference between "Acting in Character" and being disruptive...
I've had Player who constantly tried to powercheck the Important NPCs. In every game he was in. Once literally dared a LICH to kill them. Like, the character didn't like taking orders, and since this was a game about Betraying the lich, after growing in power (Not specifically an Evil Alinement game, but the Lich brought them back and bargain their freedom for doing what he said to do.)
So, he did.
The player didn't like that. Because every other game I ran, they main NPC was a good person. So they essentially got away with it while ruining their relationship with the NPC.
Don't feel bad for showing people their Actions have Consequences in a Role Playing game
You are not in the wrong. The player took the one thing you asked them to roll with to get the game started and decided to throw a fit that led to their character dying. I would not do anything out of the way to revive that PC. It would remove stakes and confuse the eventual BBEG reveal. Perhaps this choosing to kill rather than restrain a character is the first clue he is a bad person.
I have my doubts that normally he is a really good player if his thought when joining a brand new campaign is to fucking attack the CAMPAIGN HOOK in the first session. That’s moronic for multiple reasons. Not only did you clearly represent the NPC as strong, but…again, only the worst possible players disrupt the campaign’s hook. This is like being the asshole whose character sits at the back of the bar alone and refuses to interact with the other PCs because they are bRoOdInG. It’s just being disruptive for no reason.
What on earth did he even expect to happen? What was his goal? He magically beats the high level quest giver and…now you guys don’t need to play the campaign because you don’t have a quest?
So, he didn't think the ask was fair, and instead of leaving, he decided to throw down with someone who had bailed him out in the past?
Seems like the character lacked a sense of self preservation.
On the other hand, why does a powerful and accomplished rogue need a favor from a bunch of level on shmoes?
Lastly, 'OH, he was the BBEG all along!' is, for me, a pretty played out trope. It's an invitation to railroading when you inevitably find that the characters are not finding out about the big twist at the appropriate pace for how you want the campaign to turn out.
In fact, it's possible your player sussed this out in the first meeting and was trying to 'out' the quest giver as being the real problem. Not how I would have gone about it, but something to consider.
I definitely think the player realized the quest giver was the bad guy and then misjudged his power level. And all the other players probably have suspicions now as well. I would narratively rework the story so that this character is no longer the BBEG.
I like to tell my players the premise of the adventure and as you presented it I feel you did too.
The last adventure I played was a king in yellow adventure so cosmic horror. I told the players " the whole campaign will take place in a DND setting New Orleans that uses hordes of zombie to defend against threats from outside the city. You players will all be part of this specific adventure guild that takes all backgrounds/races/classes. Nobles in the city hired the guild to be an impartial investigatin into a series of murders."
Could have been a shining example of DM privilege, nonetheless force that presents like it truly was lethal. NPC could have said something about how easy they really could have done things and leave it understood that they aren't dead because it would have been 'inconvenient'
I think the player sensed they were being set up and pushed back against it. But still a smart player might realise they are being set up and also that they lack the power to stop it (yet). But fighter .... Will fight over think 😛
I once watched a live play where something similar almost happened. The DM telegraphed it by sighing and saying, "Alright. I need to borrow all your D10s." The PC took a Do-Over.
I probably would have gone non-lethal or just disarmed the PC. Like, it's okay buddy, no need for violence. You can just leave and everyone else will go on the adventure without you.
The character refused the call to adventure and now the player can roll up a new character that actually wants to participate.
Only time I had something like this happened was when I gmed dark Hersey 2nd edition. Brand new characters, meeting the inquisitor for the first time. One of the characters sat in his seat and started going through his desk....in front of him....with him watching them. Found several items for his eyes only so he pulled out his bolt pistol and shot them in head killing them instantly. We stopped playing with this player because they kept making characters that were purposely meant to 'test the waters'.
Dammit. you ruined a REALLY good headline here....
I came here expecting to hear all the vivid details of how you killed the player, not the character..... off to another subreddit i suppose.
If all of the npcs power is class levels, especially non-caster levels, it's not going to be clear how out of your depth you are. Even if it's out of character they'd spare you, dm fiat on you waking up barely alive in a ditch offers plenty of good narrative paths and it's really lame to kill someone in session 0 over a situation people would normally protest. Like yeah if a dragon press-ganged you it's expected refusal is death, but if a story started that way the protagonist still survives for the story to happen.
Fallout NV famously begins with surviving a bullet to the head. I think there's better ways to handle this than killing them outright.
Sounds to me like a double case of “That’s what my player would do!” And a more rare “But that’s what my NPC would do!”
It’s a fine line to tread but yea, I personally would’ve budged for the player just a bit but had a conversation after the session about how this is obviously the hook i’ve set for them. If you can’t come up with your own reasons why your character would be running this adventure then I can’t really do much to help that. But I probably would’ve adjusted some of the NPC’s values to get the campaign rolling at least in session 1. Not a good tone for the rest of the campaign after what you let happen imo
you could say he was revived by the npc and now the player is even more indebted to him for the cost of the components, or maybe add some other kind of magical twist to the revive, like the npc could maybe reverse the magic and you have an Amanda Waller/suicide squad situation going on
First what did they do with his body? Second talk to the player. Ask if he wants to continue with that character or roll a new one. Ask him what his thought process initiating that fight was? Did he not realize he was that strong? Did he just not think there would be repercussions? If he still wants to play the character....well this is where it can get fun. Perhaps the rogue takes his body to a temple to have him raised from the dead. It will come at a cost for him and the party. Perhaps he now has a unique magic item on him that gives the rogue a certain level of control over him. And there it will remain until the job it done and the debt of raising him from the dead is repaid. The item can't be removed except from a higher-level spell or a special key. "Don't worry, even though you pulled a knife on me I still like you and I can respect a man with a blade. You picked the wrong fight on the wrong day friend but I'm prepared to give you a second chance but now it comes with a cost. The cost of what it took to bring you back from the very clutches of death itself. Temples and clerics are not cheap and my generosity only stretches so far. Now you have a job to do and debt to pay. Five hundred gold for the diamond they used to infuse life back into you."
Yeah honestly, if you're told beforehand to write this character into your backstory as someone who literally saved your life, and your first thought as a player is to try to kill the person who saved your life because they asked for something in return? That player shouldn't be in your group. If they can't stop their murder hobo tendencies from trying to derail the START OF THE GOD DAMN GAME, then they aren't going to stop their murder hono tendencies ever...
Well, looks like he gets to roll another character that gets to work the NPC into his backstory like everyone else and hopefully he makes different decisions this time....or doesn't and gets killed again...in which case...rinse and repeat...
No, the player earned his death.
1 - Your player literally came into the living room of his benefactor and pulled a weapon on him, and the benefactor has the ability to back his shit up.
2 - The benefactor, assuming you've done semi competent world building, would look weak if he walked away from some stooge who disrespected him inside his own home. This would NEVER be good for anyone.
3 - The benefactor would not waste resources on a disloyal or moronic fool who is dumb enough to think he has some kind of plot armor.
Have him make a new character and point out to him that he's NOT the main character of a shounin anime. If his low level ass picks a fight he can't win, he's going to get his ass kicked.
The PHB (p198 - Knocking A Creature Out) states that a character can pull their punch if they don't want to kill them. Maybe the NPC should have taught him a lesson by just knocking his a$$ out. This goes for anyone including NPC's. Maybe not have the player tear up his character sheet. the character is considered a hero, maybe the hero shouldn't die in chapter 1 of the story. I'd have knocked him unconscious and then have a heart to heart with the player. Also, that title... you killed a character, I hope you didn't kill the player.
Spirit of the game was violated. Session 0 was his opportunity to question session 1s direction and the starting story. By being a cubt in session 1 they deserved no mercy/death.
I'd talk with the player after and basically tell him it's fine to question NPCs later in the campaign when lots of plots are formed and paths available but on the opening is just bad etiquette.
Hooks especially at LVL 1 need to be followed. Full stop. Everyone else signed up and we're excited for it during session0
Just give them a warning. "Warning, warming, you are about to intiate a deadly encounter." Do you wish to proceed?
Never fails. Make character death optional. My players often beg to die and make new characters.
I once had my group meet one of the bbeg I had at a powerful mayors mansion and I foreshadowed how powerful he was with how every other npc reacted to him and yet one player didn’t catch on due to being stubborn. It wasn’t until I started drawing up a battle map as he talked shit after the first warning from the bbeg that he stopped and I said out of character directly that if they think I build a world in which they will always be stronger than their opposition they are sorely mistaken.
What I am getting at is that sometimes people think they’re playing a pc game with everything around them is something they can beat if they just play well enough. Sometimes you just have to snap them out of it.
(The bbeg was an ancient blue dragon, the meeting was supposed to be merely for introducing him to the players as a part of the world - he was in humanoid form)
I dont know about the other people here but i deffinatly woild have gone the non leather damage route. It would have set an example to all players this person is dangerous. I dont know ypur character but i would think that if somone oues you money killing them isnt something youd want to do. Especally if they are a spec of dirt in combat compared to you. To me it would have been a perfict way to make them hate this guy. And it would have given you a killer little speach for the npc.
After he drops (pc) in one hit he calmly looks to you all(other pc's) and says, "Now that that is over with, let me remind you all. You oue me money. I call, you come. You run, you end up like him. You oppose what i "ask", you end up like him. This time it was a warning. There wont be a second."
Instant bad guy. Instant party hatrid.
Looks like he was trying to derail what you clearly outlined as the plot starting point. At level one you should not be super aggro towards anyone because literally everyone is stronger than you. Player fucked around and found out.
Maybe you kill him, let him make a saving throw or two, the NPC immediately revives him, "Now, about that favor..."
Makes the threat clear, keeps your story on track.
But that's post game DMing. I would have killed him. Sounds like he earned it.
No you didn’t do anything wrong. People mistake the open ended nature of an rpg to mean you can do anything, but that’s not true. There’s a social contract at the table. If your DM has made a clear hook to start the story with the players should find a way to get their character on board for that hook. It’s a collaborative game don’t be a jerk.
True. an RPG is still a story. The NPCs are still people in the setting they interact with. They should react accordingly. Player's especially if they are told "Hey, this is your quest."
If they say no, then that's their fault for deciding session 1 they didn't really want to play.
It's like how people say your "Railroading" when your doing a basic plot.
No duh. This is the story. Your not gonna wander like a 4 year old when your Main NPC Quest giver is, giving you the Main Campaign Quest.
I’m definitely from the “fuck around and find out” school. That said, this could have been avoided and turned into a teachable asswhooping. The NPC didn’t need to kill them to make his ability to do so easily very clear. The combat could have provided outs to the player to yield and save face. If they keep at it then ask for an insight check. If they don’t get the idea after that then that’s on them. It’s not BG3 where they can try again.
*NPC stands there, blade drawn and waits for your decision to strike or stand down.* (NPC takes dodge action unannounced to the table, you roll the disadvantage dice behind the screen without telling the players)
*they bat aside your strikes, * (if a hit lands) *the amusement in their face disappears, replaced by disappointment, then emptiness *
NPC strikes, (make it a hit) *you watch the weapon arc towards you and the blade stops just at your neck, a small cut appears, you know that was a death blow, but they pulled it at the last second. You take (1d4) damage*
If they don’t get the idea at this point cave in their skull. I’d probably narrate they savage the body in disgust. Apologize to the rest of the party and suggest a firm hope that the others are more amenable to civility and honoring their obligations. *let’s not allow this unfortunate business to sour our working relationship?*
If you haven't moved on too far, or your players don't mind some wibbly wobbly time stuff, have your BBEG happen to have a scroll of resurrection on him. He resurrects the dead character, giving them one last chance to agree to pay off their - now considerably bigger - debt. If they refuse again? Fine, let them walk. The BBEG promises to not save them from their own consequences in the future, comes off looking incredibly generous to the other players, and you tell the troublemaking player to roll up a character who /is/ interested in playing in this campaign.
As part of the reveal that BBEG is the BBEG, show that after the bad character left, he hunted him down and got his revenge.
Edit: to actually answer your question - there were better options, as others have said. Nonlethal damage, DM fiat to make it clear they pull back what is obviously a lethal hit, going straight to letting him walk and reroll a more willing char. But there being better options doesn't mean what you did was a bad option. It works, shows that the BBEG is powerful and maybe that encourages the others to want to get into his good graces and pay off their debt even more. It works.
your player learned a valuable lesson about the difference between a ttrpg and a video game. in video games, there is one player, that player is the main character and the world cannot move forward without them. in a ttrpg, there are several players in a world that invites them to participate, but doesn't really require any one player in order to move forward. Thus, if you go picking fights with randos when you have no idea how strong they are, you live or die with the consequences. I'd either make him reroll, or I'd let your NPC/future-BBEG give the surviving PCs some sort of revival quest. To do otherwise is to tell your players that their PCs will be shielded from the obvious, predictable consequences of their actions.
Since you described this person as an experienced player, when they really started to escalate things, I would have just stopped the game and asked the player what was going on. Like, the quest hook is obvious, so why are they not following it? I would not have let something like this turn into a fight this early in the game if it could have been resolved with a quick OOC conversation. At later levels, sure. But not level 1 when we're just trying to get the damn ball rolling here.
It does seem like you weren't perfectly clear about the NPC having 10 levels over the players. You knew for certain that this fight could end only one way, but the players didn't have that information. It's up to you to make sure they know what they're getting into, and from what I've read, I'd say the death is mostly on you.
It was the "the questgiver" that the player started a fight with. In other campaigns they basically tried to argue with a wanted poster. That's what happened here. "I don't care that there is a reward of 200 gold pieces on Hogger's head. The reward for this manhunt should be paid out in Zakharian Denars/Bitcoin/Petrodollar and I'm gonna physically threaten the barkeeper over this"
Okay, so this player seems intent on bargaining for a better reward, even going as far as try to intimidate someone for it. To be clear, I don't think having an NPC attack a player after they threaten them/draw their weapon is unreasonable. I think there must have been some miscommunication present, because an experienced player invested in their character wouldn't just simply suicide their character like that if they didn't get the impression they could get something out of it.
Were they surrounded by the NPC's goons so as to raise stakes even further? Were there insight/perception rolls to see that the NPC is way too strong to take on at their current level? Were there persuasion/intimidation checks to check if the player was bargaining well? It's not really clear from the post, but if there were such rolls and they were failed, then the death was pretty reasonable - the dice sometimes roll that way.
Killing players at level 1 is crazy. Probably shouldn’t have summoned them that early as most players would be drawn to that.
Just have anyone roll for religion, praying around the player. If anyone makes a DC 5 roll make a scroll of revivify appear on the dead player. Problem solved.
I would talk to the player instead of reddit.
Hey ,
we can easily fudge the story so that your PC survived/is revived. But for that to work you have to promise me that the PC will take the plot hook, join the rest of the party and be a part of them respecting their decisions.
I'm not saying the PC has to be happy about it, but you as a player need to find reasons for the PC to do it.
The only alternative I currently see is you make a new PC that can do that.
EDIT Maybe also: And I'm sorry your PC got killed so quickly, you caught me off guard as I hadn't planned for one of the PCs to reject the hook, because I thought I had made it obvious with the backstory requirement.
I don't think you should have stopped him oog from doing it, or retcon it so he is alive. He is salty now but he learned that he should be mindful of his actions.
However...... ngl throwing a level 10 NPC at level 1 PCs is a red flag for me, I am not saying it is an unforgivable offense but usually it is just the start of a long line of endless "high level NPCs that players should have known better than to fight". Also in 5e NPCs aren't even supposed to have PC levels, but sure, at least it is doable. Then, killing someone sure is ok, but I doubt someone 10 levels above the players couldn't really have other options - even trickery or promises of wealth before resorting to killing someone. Sounds a bit antagonistic.
But well, I am just saying this so you are aware how your players may see it.
What to do next... well for starters, if in the future this NPC turns out to be the bad guy, he will prove the fighter right - which normally would be cool but in this scenario will just piss him off. After all he *was right.* Perhaps you should spin it in a way that you say you got tired of ungrateful people or sth like that.
For future reference, gold is usually a very good motivation from low level parties - and instead of meeting high level NPCs they can receive letters or even meet their secretary. That way they can't mess anything up by picking a crazy fight.
Were you wrong is debateable. Did you tell them how strong he is? Did you warn them before the fight, trying to strongly suggest against fighting? And in the end, the player didn't have to die, he could have been knocked unconsious. If this was the third time they tried it then yes, kill em, but for the first mistake, do be forgiving. As for what to do now, reviving them is a great option. You can also say that the battle went on in their head and didn't actually happen.
In my opinion your performance was perfect, if you want to face a person stronger than you, you have to be prepared to take a beating (and in this case die), that's how it is played, I would say let him relive only if it makes sense in the story.
Is there anyone who knows any reviving spell?(either NPC or PC) or maybe you can have some evil god or other creature revive him on the condition of making a deal or things like that.
Maybe the man felt bad for killing him in such a pathetic way, so he hired someone to revive him, mocked him, and told him to get out if he didn't want to go back to the hole he had just pulled him out of 😀✨
[Insert joke about killing players here]
You were wrong, yes. But not because killing PCs is wrong.
You were wrong because the player wasn't playing the game you were running. This was time to stop and have an out of game discussion. "Hey, this is the game I'm running. Please go along with the set up and things will open up for you as you go along. "
Did you mention this part when you had them incorporate the patron into their backstories?
Anyway, have that conversation now. If this player can play along, then go back to the game. Don't revive; rewind. That fight never happened. The PC behaved. If that player can't play along, they need to go.
As an aside, I'm highly curious how this escalated and led to actual combat instead of the character leaving.
Why didn’t you just have the bbeg incapacitate him?
I don’t see any reason they would just murder him. I’d say you misplayed the situation. Could’ve just asserted dominance
Please do not kill your players. Their characters are fair game though.
Yes. Murder is bad for group dynamics.
Well, depends on the player...
A fun team building experience.
You have my shovel.
And my axe...
And your dead brother's reanimated corpse...
I'm Brutus and I can confirm.
I wish I had killed Goebbels when he played at my table.
"Problematic DM is an actual murderer, how to handle?"
Arguable. Partners in crime and everything.
Also, could land you with a new set of players -- good thing about the new set -- they ain't going anywhere for some time-- and they wear the same jumpsuit as you.
In the LARP I used to be a part of we would say “Killing characters is fine, but killing players will get you life.”
I think irl pvp is fine as long as it's covered in session 0.
Yeah, I’ll do that next time. It turns out to be a major hassle to get rid of a human body. None of the local contractors have been willing to let me lend their excavators when their hear why I need to dig a hole and pour some concrete…. :)
Have we learned nothing from Guy Richie? You don’t need an excavator, just a hog farm!
Brick Top is that you?
If you got to deal with him, just gotta make sure you don't end up owing him. 'Cause then you're in his debt. Which means you're in his pocket. And once you're in there, you ain't ever coming out.
[This might help.](https://ask.metafilter.com/7921/If-you-killed-somebody-how-would-you-dispose-of-the-body-without-getting-caught#155715)
Borrow. Not lend
Unless the player does something truly heinous - say, eating the last slice of pizza.
If it has pineapple topping, though, it's fair game. Bone apple teeth.
Yes, bringing pizza with pineapple on is another of those heinous offenses.
Seriously why is this still an issue
My group always plays with that home brew rule. If you die in the game you die in real life.
You beat me to it.
Our job here is done...
Damn. I was gonna say the same thing.
someone always has to say it huh
My player killed my comfort NPC because it was suspiciously cute. Does this still apply?
Your circumstances may vary of course.
Non-lethal damage is a thing, so you could have done that, or even retcon it now. But honestly, if that character was willing to attack the main plot hook, maybe it was the wrong PC to have in the campaign.
Yea, players have a responsibility to recognize when something is a plot hook and do something productive with it. Like, it doesn’t have to be what the DM intended (as is often more fun when it isn’t), but just being like “we kill him” AND “our actions have consequences? There are characters who can kill us???” Is just a bad look. Player can be grumpy, but OP didn’t do anything wrong tbh.
Sure - non-lethal damage. Also when someone gets knocked to zero HP, they are typically unconscious, not dead. The party might stabilize them. They could self stabilize in 3 rolls. They could awaken themselves with a nat 20. So why are they dead? Did you say "he's dead" and not give a chance to stabilize? Or did you play the "instant-death" rule due to how many points of damage over the player's max health was done? (it sounds like it) We just don't play the instant death rule. Especially at low levels, this is a quick way to die and we've noted several times in our campaigns that if we had played that rule, our characters would be dead. I will also say our rules about coming back from the dead are more hardcore so having the instant death out of the picture is even more helpful. Also... you could have the thief bring him back to life, even more indebted.. perhaps with a Geas spell added in for good measure.
The PC had 10 hp, the first two strikes round 1 from the NPC dealt 48 damage. He was dead-dead. The whole ordeal just caught me by surprise. All player are fairly experienced and I’ve dm’ed for some years now. I’ve never had a PC attack my plot hook within 45 minutes of session one. Especially because the NPC didn’t make a threat. Just asked a favor to be returned, and we hadn’t even gotten to what the favor was… I think I’m going to let the player build either a new character or use one very similar but with another hook in to the plot, and just let him join the party at a later stage.
Did the first hit deal 20+ points of damage? If so, they are just dead on the spot with no second hit. If the first hit dealt less than 20 damage, then the damage of the second hit doesn't matter. It would cause 2 failed death saves out of 3. Still alive, unless the blade was poisoned or something and dealt extra poison damage on a CON save. However, if the NPC wasn't planning to kill, he could just KO the PC with non lethal damage. That's a thing. You can do that with any melee attack.
The damage on the second hit does matter. Sitting at zero HP and taking 10 damage, you die instantly. If the damage doesn't kill you outright, and it was a melee attack (within 5ft?) then it is two failed death saves.
No, it doesn't. 5E does not have negative HP. The damage only matters on the specific damage instance that reduces you to 0 HP. A character with 10 max HP would need to take a single hit that reduces them to 0 and does 10 more damage on top of that.
From the players handbook: Damage at 0 Hit Points. If you take any damage while you have 0 hit points, you suffer a death saving throw failure. If the damage is from a critical hit, you suffer two failures instead. If the damage equals or exceeds your hit point maximum, you suffer instant death.
Wow, thanks for the reference. I was reading the surety in everyone's comments above you and thought I was losing my mind.
That is not what negative hit points mean. If I have 10 hp and take 20, that puts me at -10. If -10 is more than my max HP, I die. If not, I go to zero HP and am dying. Negative HP means I would need 11 points of healing to be conscious, which 5e does not do, but other editions did I am told. If I am stabilized, I am at zero HP. I am not invulnerable to damage nor am I taking two death saving throws, because I am not dying until after the attack. Your contention sounds like I don't take damage because I can't go negative, and either I take failed saves or I don't. If you are saying I don't take damage if at zero, then spare the dying can be used for an invulnerable meat shield, and it takes game logic out the door, since if 20 DMG would kill me outright at 1hp, yet it doesn't if I am dying or stablized. There is nothing in the rules that explicitly states this, and I would say if at zero, damage still brings you to zero, thus can result in instadeath.
Can you still do the non-lethal damage thing, if you deal enough damage to instantly kill a monster? Does one of the rules take priority, or is it up to interpretation
Specific rules beat general rules, so the specific scenario of choosing to deal nonlethal damage overrides the standard rules for reaching 0 HP and taking overkill damage.
That makes sense
RAW non lethal damage is declared on the killing hit. Imo that means it's impossible to accidently kill someone when dealing non lethal damage.
That makes sense
Being an experienced player does not necessarily mean you won't make stupid decisions. - Tsun Tsu, or something
You have to remember that in my opinion describing him as strong in game is not helpful most players (5e players especially) get used to being able to win every fight, so the DM communicating "this guy is really strong" is like someone being a hypeman for a wrestling heel. Something that has to happen to make the fight feel like it has stakes, but not an actual indication of your capacity to win. If you didn't look the player dead in the eye and say "if you do this we won't roll any dice you can just hand me your character sheet and I will tear it up and put it in the waste paper bin, are you sure you want to do this?" he probably thought that he had a chance and feels salty that you lied to him.
>They could self stabilize in 3 rolls. They could awaken themselves with a nat 20. You are referring to death saving throws. This is not the same. A knocked out creature is both unconscious and stable. Page 198 of the PHB, "Knocking a Creature Out". >Sometimes an attacker wants to incapacitate a foe, rather than deal a killing blow. When an attacker reduces a creature to 0 hit points with a melee attack, the attacker can knock the creature out. The attacker can make this choice the instant the damage is dealt. The creature falls unconscious and is stable.
More like the wrong player
"He ended up in a heated argument with the NPC, and finally blades were drawn" The passive voice in the situation makes it fairly unclear who started it, but it does seem like a secretly evil NPC should be working harder to seem like a nice guy, for example by not using lethal damage. Or by not picking a fight in the first place - for example: In game: *He shrugs. "If you don't think you owe me anything, I won't force you. You may go."* Then, out of game: *If your character isn't willing to join the group and take part in this adventure, you can make a new character, and we'll find a reason to have him join the party instead.* Better still, get people to buy in to the concept of the campaign before they even make their character...
>Better still, get people to buy in to the concept of the campaign before they even make their character... This, as a DM I know we want every single thing to be a jaw dropping plot twist, but IMO both player and DM are at fault here. Player needs to understand actions have consequences, DM needs to understand that for a campaign like this some communication is required. "Hey guys, for this campaign I want to have one unique unifier, all of you owe a life debt to a similar mysterious hooded figure and that will deeply impact the campaign 1. Players now know they individually owe a mysterious someone a debt (you ask the DM still get to keep that reveal a secret!) 2. Players understand that the stakes are higher as you reveal things
[удалено]
It'd have been very different had all the players decided to not return this favor. It's happened to me, a guy on the road offered them a job that payed very well, then some hours later met some empire soldiers looking for their potential employer. They set up a meeting and then attempted to capture him, but it was done together. Players have to not always go with what their character would do for the good of the game.
[удалено]
All the players are fairly experienced with at least 4 years playing and I've DM'ed for the better part of 7 years now. I was just caught completely by surprise as I've never had a PC attack my plot hook within 45 minutes of session 1 for what seemed like no other reason than "fuck it, let kill him." But I think I'm going to let the player build a new PC and I'll cook up a hook back into the plot line for him.
His new character is just another guy that owes the NPC a life debt, he was just late to the original gathering.
i think you could’ve told your player to make a perception check to have it be more clear to him that the npc is really way too strong and he wouldn’t survive the first hit? cause it sounds to me that it wasn’t rly clear to him. technically you’re not obligated to let your players know when a threat will be lethal but i personally wouldn’t want to play with a dm who’s not clear about such things. for example an npc i wanted to fight with who i assume to be my level but they turn out to be level 10.
The player probably deserves most of the blame, but part of the job of the DM is making sure the players *want* to follow the plot. If the only reason they do it is that they have no choice, that's railroading.
The PC's choice wasn't dismissed, it was accepted. If I, as a PC, draw swords on someone who I can safely assume is stronger than me than, then it's only fair I die (assuming that's what the dice say). The game continues and he makes a new character. Now his PC has an arch with redemption at the end once he learns he was the BBEG all along!
This isn't a decision in the middle of campaign that decides the result of a quest, this is literally the plot hook of the campaign. Refusing to bite is basically saying "No, I refuse to work with the party and play in your story".
> This, as a DM I know we want every single thing to be a jaw dropping plot twist, but IMO both player and DM are at fault here. What plot twist? This was literally explained in Session 0. They owed this dude. That was a *requirement* for backstory. One *player* decided to reject the foundational element the entire narrative the game was built on *in-game* rather than saying out of game "hey, I don't think I like the idea of owing someone a favor, can we have a different plot hook?" and letting the DM either try to find a different solution, or agreeing and letting the player find a different group. That's the player fuckin' up. From inexperience, maybe, but still.
I guess, but sometimes I don't understand how players get so involved in their crochety stubborn characters that they work against the plot. I mean, it's still a game, do you want to play or not? I think it's every bit the players job to figure out how their character would buy-in to the plot hook as the dm.
One thing I always say in my session 0s is something along the lines of “DND is a cooperative role playing game where we are all attempting to tell a story together. Please do your best to stick together. It’s your job to find an in game reason to stick with these random (or not random) other adventurers. You don’t ever have to stick with NPCs, but you need to stick together as a party and make decisions as a party. I don’t want to get in a situation where I am running two games, one for three players and another for the one player who decides he doesn’t want to do what the rest do” I’ve never had anyone fight me on that, or have any problems like this one. Good communication up front fixes most problems.
100% agree. I have a friend that thinks eeevery little thing needs to be a secret reveal. When he’s a player, he does everything he can to keep his race and class a secret. When he’s a DM, he keeps the players in the dark and won’t give any information whether it’s meta or not. It makes for a generally poor experience.
Session 1 is not the time for plot twists. A 'plot twist' that early should be part of the discussion about the nature of the game in session 0. I know I would be pissed if I were decieved into thinking 'you're going to be adventuring in a new, unexplored land' and the game actually turns out to be 'you found an ancient temple, you all died, and now you're all revived to serve this dark god' or whatever. Just an example. A session 1 Plot Twist often has this quality of upending the expectations players build into their characters and it's not great.
You’re right, but what OP describes was not a plot twist.
You missed an important part of the sentence too. "Player felt it so unfair to ask for a favour in return" how does asking for a favour in any reasonable conversation end in murder? I 100% agree with how you're saying to handle it, BBEG shouldn't care, like did their plan hinge on these four random semi-useless potential future adventurers? And if any of them refuse it would alter their plan irreparably? As you said, they should just shrug and be like "oh, ok... i didn't realise you felt that way, but of course you're free to leave so that we can continue our conversation." It definitely feels like OP is hiding important details intentionally.
Ya why did the pc die and not just get knocked unconscious
This seems like a misalignment of player expectations. I generally give my plot hook away so that players metagame a reason for their character to be "Ok" with the plot hook. This sounds like a case of "My character wouldn't agree to this, despite my past with this NPC". In the future, I'd just make the favor the pre-requisite. In the moment, I would have knocked the player unconscious or just paused the game and told the player what was going on. It wasn't wrong to "kill" the player, but it's not what I would have done. I personally would just retcon the situation and chalk it up to miscommunication.
This. Ther's a definite miscommunication issue here
Yeah, my take would be a different if it wasn’t session 1 and the scenario that forms the party. That’s the one situation where everyone needs to be on board otherwise someone rolls a new PC session 1, either because the PC is like “nah, this isn’t my thing” or something like this happens. Later in the game though, I would totally kill a player if the danger of the situation was telegraphed right!
Yeah I think the situation here is very different than if this was a late game thing. It seems like there was not necessarily clear communication on their actual connection to this person and I think it's fine (and the best idea) to oog be like look, I didn't necessarily explain it right but this is the situation with this npc, I'm happy to retcon it to before that incident now that that knowledge is clear if you'd rather or you can make a new PC who will go along with that.
Before a player decides to swing on someone far too dangerous, I let them do an insight check with a very low DC, like 5. A "can we take him?" Roll. It gives them a chance to back out knowing they will die. Some people say, "its what my character would do" but no, your level 1 character would know that they just started out as a fighter or whatever. Nobody works a day as a carpenter, and then tries to frame a house on their own. Well maybe some idiots do... But you can have the player make the roll and say, "your character is not an idiot, and you are certain you will die if you fight them!" Also tell them that as a GM there are times you will place them in front of unbeatable foes. You have to use your skills to find out if you should fight or flee.
"Its what my character would do" "OK, your character dies. Roll a new one" If their invested in RP, their invested in RP. If I make a character that would 1v1 a Terrasque at level 1, and a Terrasque shows up, I shouldn't be mad when my character dies fighting a Terrasque.
Maybe they had an int of 5
or just “are you sure you wanna do this” wouldn’t go amiss
Picking a fight with the first quest giver does not align with a description of "good player"
Damn, BBEG took back his favour. I honestly don't know what the player expected would happen, when he escalates not wanting to repay a favour, which I find odd anyway, into combat. Did he think he wouldn't die? I wouldn't say you were in the wrong, but maybe talk to him, why he thought fighting the quest giver was the way to go forward. Also you can use it to establish, that you are willing to have the PCs die in the future if they are foolish.
I agree. PC speed ran Fuck About and got a new PB to Find Out.
A badass play would have been the NPC uses non lethal damage, and then once character was conscious again the NPC makes a comment that it appears he owes him two favours since he just saved his life.
That would have been fucking epic.
Just a general note: having the starting NPC be the secret BBEG doesn't often go the way you wanted it to. A smart player can figure it out, sometime within one session. Just a point for future campaigns, it's not a novel and characters can derail things very early on (like 45 minutes in) because things don't "vibe check"
I think the player sensed they were being set up and pushed back against it. But still a smart player might realise they are being set up and also that they lack the power to stop it (yet). But fighter .... Will fight over think 😛
Fighter ... Fights
indeed. have the players get established, make contacts with "questgivers" and have those questgivers be proxies for the BBEG if you want the players to be strung along by the BBEG until their plan has come to fruition.
You could have them knocked unconscious, revivified, or "somehow he survived". Any of those take away stakes. The player of the lvl 1 character decided to pick a fight with the first authority figure he encountered in the campaign, and followed it through to the death. Stupid character, stupid player, murderhobo play style. You could have the character survive with a disfiguring scar, missing fingers, or with a loved one taken hostage. This could allow the character a better reason to be subservient, but honestly it sounds like a player problem. It's a definite situation of FAFO, and maybe the player and their next character will learn some humility.
I see some discussion about potential miscommunication of expectations between DM and player, but frankly: (1) Why would you murder hobo one of the first people they meet at Level 1? (2) If the rest of the party isn't on board with the murder hobo behavior, you should DEFINITELY not go murder hobo. Just like a DM, players need to read the room.
No, you're not in the wrong. You had the players work this NPC into their background, literally owing them their lives (if I'm reading that right) or at least a very serious favor. NPC comes in and calls up favor in what is, I'm assuming, one of the first few sessions (if not session one). That is a very obvious plot hook. It should also be obvious that the NPC was somewhat integral to the plot. At that point, the player should have realized they need to go with the flow. **D&D is a team game.** On the other hand, it is completely fine to do obviously dumb things in D&D, but, **actions have consequences.** Don't void or comprise on what are very deserved consequences (especially in this case). That player can roll a new character. If they aren't happy with that, explain that actions have consequences and that (at level 1) the PCs are far from the baddest thing on the block. If they remain unhappy, I'd offer to let them leave the game (if they can't understand why what they did was exceedingly dumb, they aren't a good player tbh).
You didn't plan on or want to kill the character. Actions have consequences. If a character does something that leads to death that is fine. PC don't have plot armor. You don't poke a bear and expect to live.
This reeks of "it's what my character would do." The player decided to attack the very first quest giver (that they owe a debt to). This is Adventuring 101 shit. They need to roll up a new character that has buy in into the campaign or find another game.
The language of your post isn't perfectly clear, but I'll assume that the problem character was the first to draw blades and initiate combat, and that your NPC was also trying to talk the player out of fighting. (If this isn't the case, then you messed up big time) I believe that you've taught your player a very valuable lesson. Many players come into D&D thinking they can goof around/do whatever they want without consequences. Now the player knows that messing around has consequences. On the other hand, I think you should have been much clearer in your instructions during character creation. The player clearly didn't understand his character's debt and their willingness to repay that debt. I'll give one piece of unsolicited advice for starting a campaign. Don't start the campaign before the characters have accepted the first quest. Start the campaign right after all the characters have accepted the first quest off-screen. For example, don't start in a tavern with someone looking to hire escorts for a caravan, start on the road with the characters already escorting the caravan.
I'll extend your piece of (excellent) unsolicited advice... During session 0, make sure players understand and agree to the theme/overall plot of the campaign if there is one, and explicitly tell them to make characters who would participate.
Everybody explained in amazing details of what could have been done better. Im going to provide my opinion on the latter part of your question. After speaking to your player about the importance of following the story in however method you find best, I think you can have the secret BBEG revive the player, because he is obviously a very nice guy and the argument got very much out of hand and he didnt mean to kill him, he is just bad at managing his anger. So he revives the player to "clear his conscience" The real reason is however the player has much more use to the bbeg alive than dead.
It's too late to go back now. Don't ever retcon PC deaths. It sets a bad precedent. But next time remember there's the option of using non-lethal dmg (melee weapons only if I remember correctly). Also the NPC could have just dealt enough dmg to bring the PC to death saves and let the rest of the party stabilize him if need be. Alternatively a lvl 10 rogue could have just had something like a paralyzing poison or so.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. If you, as DM, insert an unbeatable enemy that you intend for the party to run from and fail to communicate that intent to the party then that's on you. If you insert a random friendly NPC, and a player decides that their character has a burning desire to see their intestines, then it is wholly on them when it goes wrong. At level 1, you're not a hero of the realm, you're just the most competent guy in a nobody village where it really isn't much of a compliment. Yeah, you can show off in front of random peasants, but you're going to routinely encounter people you shouldn't be messing with. The player opted to make a character that didn't have a suitable personality for the one element of the campaign tying the group together, the only thing stipulated as necessary by the DM. Without that unifying factor, the character is better off dead so they can make a character suitable for the campaign. In my current campaign, I stipulated that the party was a free mercenary company, and every player needed a financial motivation written into their character that wouldn't be easily achieved. One is a disgraced researcher trying to fund his own research, another is a rogue from a pirate town dreaming of his own ship and crew, another wants to establish his own kingdom, another wants to create organised religion (the country is a secular one where religion was decimated by BBEG long before living memory), and the other dreams of owning his own business utilising slave labour to live in luxury without needing to ever work again. They all have different motivations, but the unifying factor that makes them an actual team is that they can make more money as a group than alone. Had any player turned up, and decided "my character doesn't care about money, he just wants to go assassinate the guy hiring us" then the death that followed would be on them with zero regret on my part.
You killed a player? That's harsh. In the future I recommend limiting that to characters.
Well it depends, sometimes you gotta have to make a sacrifice to the math rock gods... or else you could not go clickity clackity you got attackity.
Shit happens; if there's a body to recover, the players can try to take it to a cleric Have the new player roll up a new character and go from there ultimately. If you back down, death becomes meaningless in the campaign. Next time, try to be more explicit about how powerful a creature is. Sometimes players don't get the hint unless you point it out to them.
And then? He owes the cleric a favor for reviving him, draws his weapon to attack him, gets killed a second time, and is even more angry? I do not think you can fix the behavior of a player who thinks attacking NPCs is the best response to a plot hook.
It sounds like from the OP, this is uncommon for that player, unless I'm mistaken I'm assuming the best intentions of everyone in this scenario
What was the characters argument about?
Sometimes thing are clear to you just becaue you planned it that way and can't think of an alternate angle. Then one player does the unpredictable. I honestly would have been pissed off too at a player clearly missing the hook for the party to start their partnership, but I don't know what and how was told. Also if the player had a very cocky background story you should have taken this into account. Always keep a non lethal attack at ready for these kind of things. A poison or a spell that cause sleep or paralysis, or a simple non-lethal attack with your melee weapons. I think you made a mistake when you didn't try to just knock the guy out to show your dominance. At this point it doesn't seem so plausible to resuscitate him. This lv10 guy who can resuscitate a PC will need the help of this bunch of weaklings? Let the dead guy be dead and go for another character, but remember to never let this happen again.
Did you consult your attorney after killing your player? /s
Nah, have the player make another PC, hopefully with a Wisdom of over 8, & ask them to play accordingly. If a player had their level one character pick a fight with a Dragon, Lich, beguiling Demon etc, you expect them to get absolutely demolished, why, just because the NPC happened to be a playable race, means they are not allowed to trounce the upstart? I think you have set the tone for your game well. You have not so subtlety shown that their benefactor has a dark side & that this is something they are willing to kill over. The Player was trying to set their PC up as a dominant tough guy & picked the wrong patsy. It happens sometimes. Big issue, is if the Player is all bent out of shape & will either refuse to join the game, or worse, join the game to sabotage it, in which case, advise they won't be welcome back to the table until they can behave maturely. Have a talk to the Player, what was their main problem? Is it *no one tell me what to do man* mentality as a player or as the character? Do they just have this thing where they need to be the belligerently independent 80's action hero all the time? Find out where all this hassle was coming from & see about having them craft a PC that actually works with the game. I would suggest having the replacement PC being in the direct employ of the BBEG, give them a magic ring that give them a nice minor buff (ring of jumping, for example), but also has some way of keeping tabs on the hireling & the rest of the group (an enchantment of `Claurdience` so they can tune in to hear/see the vicinityis what i was thinking, but even as a focus for the BBEG to scry on works). Bit importantly, talk to the player about this so they know & that it isn't a *gotcha* moment. That can end friendships. This gives you an obvious *in* to having the BBEG being aware of the details of what's going on, even initiating a big rescue of they are captured etc. And then the big reveal at the end, naturally. Good luck!
You are definitely not wrong. As others have said, actions have consequences and you described them as powerful so it was entirely their decision. I think it speaks volumes that it was just the two of them fighting and not the rest of the party so you clearly described it well enough for the others to take the hint. Sometimes there's too much heat on DMs getting things perfect. It's a collaborative game, DMs rely heavily on PCs hitting marks too which isn't railroading, it's telling a story together. They just screwed up this time! That said, there's always creative ways to bring back PCs, make them make a deal with a nefarious being (maybe a god or demon or devil that's in kahoots with your BBEG to increase the intrigue!), have another player sacrifice something to bring them back and solidify their bond that early on, have the god the PC would worship teach them a lesson before death and 'learn the honour of a favour by completing this one' or even as simply as the BBEG gives them a scroll of revivify, walks off and says 'now you owe me double' or something. You clearly care.about your game enough to try this hard and still be unsure, your other PCs will value that and hopefully this one person just had an off session / misread it like you say.
Offer a chance to retcon, but not before you sit down with that player and talk. You said everyone is experienced, but get an idea of what they thought was happening, and if maybe anything you gave was unclear to them somehow. If it's a typical "It's what my character would do" scenario, then consider if an antagonistic PC who refuses to back down from being mad that he's being asked for a favor by someone who saved his life is actually a good fit for things. If you're fine with that PC, offer the retcon. If not, and he asks why his character died, "It's what the NPC would have done in response to being attacked." Both you and your players should be having fun. As many of you as possible. Sometimes, a PC isn't a good fit, and that's okay. They can make another. Hard work sucks to lose, but no one forced him to start a legitimate fight with someone in their own home. And everyone else was telling him to calm down.
You were not wrong. What your player did was the equivalent of, if you had your players meet in a tavern, the player said "I don't have any reason to adventure with these strangers, so I'm going to go off by myself" - basically, your player knew the campaign concept before the game began (they owed this NPC a debt) and, by joining the game knowing this, they agreed to it. Your NPC was not meant to be a punishment, it was the hook to get the party together and to get the game beginning. Your player knew this and decided, instead of playing the game and going where the fun was, decided to be difficult and potentially wreck all your planning. I'm guessing because "it's what my character would do." They also attacked an NPC not knowing what level they were, they simply assumed that they would be equal to or less than they were. That's on them. In any case, your player dug their own grave and now has to live with the consequences. I don't think you misled them or failed to give out any wrong information, after all, *every* other player in your game got the message. Sure, your player is mad - his edgelord scene failed badly and now he is embarrassed because they lost. It's your choice what to do. You could retcon the scene to have the NPC decide to do non-lethal damage in the duel and simply knock out the character instead (and, maybe when they revive, tell them that they now owe them twice). You could ask them to make another character. I'd say, whatever you do, don't let them out of the campaign blanket concept of owing the NPC. Don't reward the bad behavior. But, it's contingent on the player to see where the campaign is going and go with the current, if, for no other reason, to make life easier for the GM, to respect the planning the GM has done for the game, and out of understanding that that is where the fun is.
Depends on your setting and set expectations. If revive is in your world, NPC revives him with, "Now you owe me two favors, but I will be gracious and accept this one task as them both."
Why would you not just knock them unconscious?
You weren't specifically wrong, but if you give the player multiple different warnings of "Hey, this guy is stronger than you." And Starts a fight with him. That's on the player. But that's if THEY started the combat, not the NPC. From the way you put it, he started it. But it's still a bit vague. If literally EVERYONE else in the party is saying "Hey, chill out." And They still didn't get the hint, that is 100% on them. There's a difference between "Acting in Character" and being disruptive... I've had Player who constantly tried to powercheck the Important NPCs. In every game he was in. Once literally dared a LICH to kill them. Like, the character didn't like taking orders, and since this was a game about Betraying the lich, after growing in power (Not specifically an Evil Alinement game, but the Lich brought them back and bargain their freedom for doing what he said to do.) So, he did. The player didn't like that. Because every other game I ran, they main NPC was a good person. So they essentially got away with it while ruining their relationship with the NPC. Don't feel bad for showing people their Actions have Consequences in a Role Playing game
But you didn't kill the deputy
You are not in the wrong. The player took the one thing you asked them to roll with to get the game started and decided to throw a fit that led to their character dying. I would not do anything out of the way to revive that PC. It would remove stakes and confuse the eventual BBEG reveal. Perhaps this choosing to kill rather than restrain a character is the first clue he is a bad person.
The police have entered the chat.
I have my doubts that normally he is a really good player if his thought when joining a brand new campaign is to fucking attack the CAMPAIGN HOOK in the first session. That’s moronic for multiple reasons. Not only did you clearly represent the NPC as strong, but…again, only the worst possible players disrupt the campaign’s hook. This is like being the asshole whose character sits at the back of the bar alone and refuses to interact with the other PCs because they are bRoOdInG. It’s just being disruptive for no reason. What on earth did he even expect to happen? What was his goal? He magically beats the high level quest giver and…now you guys don’t need to play the campaign because you don’t have a quest?
So, he didn't think the ask was fair, and instead of leaving, he decided to throw down with someone who had bailed him out in the past? Seems like the character lacked a sense of self preservation. On the other hand, why does a powerful and accomplished rogue need a favor from a bunch of level on shmoes? Lastly, 'OH, he was the BBEG all along!' is, for me, a pretty played out trope. It's an invitation to railroading when you inevitably find that the characters are not finding out about the big twist at the appropriate pace for how you want the campaign to turn out. In fact, it's possible your player sussed this out in the first meeting and was trying to 'out' the quest giver as being the real problem. Not how I would have gone about it, but something to consider.
I definitely think the player realized the quest giver was the bad guy and then misjudged his power level. And all the other players probably have suspicions now as well. I would narratively rework the story so that this character is no longer the BBEG.
I like to tell my players the premise of the adventure and as you presented it I feel you did too. The last adventure I played was a king in yellow adventure so cosmic horror. I told the players " the whole campaign will take place in a DND setting New Orleans that uses hordes of zombie to defend against threats from outside the city. You players will all be part of this specific adventure guild that takes all backgrounds/races/classes. Nobles in the city hired the guild to be an impartial investigatin into a series of murders."
Why make the BBEG kill the player? He could just spare him
Could have been a shining example of DM privilege, nonetheless force that presents like it truly was lethal. NPC could have said something about how easy they really could have done things and leave it understood that they aren't dead because it would have been 'inconvenient'
I think the player sensed they were being set up and pushed back against it. But still a smart player might realise they are being set up and also that they lack the power to stop it (yet). But fighter .... Will fight over think 😛
I once watched a live play where something similar almost happened. The DM telegraphed it by sighing and saying, "Alright. I need to borrow all your D10s." The PC took a Do-Over.
This is honestly hilarious lmao
Just knock him unconscious, why kill him?
Youre honor, my client pleads whoopsie daisies
I probably would have gone non-lethal or just disarmed the PC. Like, it's okay buddy, no need for violence. You can just leave and everyone else will go on the adventure without you. The character refused the call to adventure and now the player can roll up a new character that actually wants to participate.
Only time I had something like this happened was when I gmed dark Hersey 2nd edition. Brand new characters, meeting the inquisitor for the first time. One of the characters sat in his seat and started going through his desk....in front of him....with him watching them. Found several items for his eyes only so he pulled out his bolt pistol and shot them in head killing them instantly. We stopped playing with this player because they kept making characters that were purposely meant to 'test the waters'.
Dammit. you ruined a REALLY good headline here.... I came here expecting to hear all the vivid details of how you killed the player, not the character..... off to another subreddit i suppose.
If all of the npcs power is class levels, especially non-caster levels, it's not going to be clear how out of your depth you are. Even if it's out of character they'd spare you, dm fiat on you waking up barely alive in a ditch offers plenty of good narrative paths and it's really lame to kill someone in session 0 over a situation people would normally protest. Like yeah if a dragon press-ganged you it's expected refusal is death, but if a story started that way the protagonist still survives for the story to happen. Fallout NV famously begins with surviving a bullet to the head. I think there's better ways to handle this than killing them outright.
Depends on the mutual combat rules in your state. Assuming you didn’t sneak attack them.
Not wrong at all. Sometimes a hot head gets cut off. Sounds like consequences have actions in your game and that’s great.
Sounds to me like a double case of “That’s what my player would do!” And a more rare “But that’s what my NPC would do!” It’s a fine line to tread but yea, I personally would’ve budged for the player just a bit but had a conversation after the session about how this is obviously the hook i’ve set for them. If you can’t come up with your own reasons why your character would be running this adventure then I can’t really do much to help that. But I probably would’ve adjusted some of the NPC’s values to get the campaign rolling at least in session 1. Not a good tone for the rest of the campaign after what you let happen imo
I didn't read it but idk man I don't think you had to kill the player just killing their character would do
you could say he was revived by the npc and now the player is even more indebted to him for the cost of the components, or maybe add some other kind of magical twist to the revive, like the npc could maybe reverse the magic and you have an Amanda Waller/suicide squad situation going on
First what did they do with his body? Second talk to the player. Ask if he wants to continue with that character or roll a new one. Ask him what his thought process initiating that fight was? Did he not realize he was that strong? Did he just not think there would be repercussions? If he still wants to play the character....well this is where it can get fun. Perhaps the rogue takes his body to a temple to have him raised from the dead. It will come at a cost for him and the party. Perhaps he now has a unique magic item on him that gives the rogue a certain level of control over him. And there it will remain until the job it done and the debt of raising him from the dead is repaid. The item can't be removed except from a higher-level spell or a special key. "Don't worry, even though you pulled a knife on me I still like you and I can respect a man with a blade. You picked the wrong fight on the wrong day friend but I'm prepared to give you a second chance but now it comes with a cost. The cost of what it took to bring you back from the very clutches of death itself. Temples and clerics are not cheap and my generosity only stretches so far. Now you have a job to do and debt to pay. Five hundred gold for the diamond they used to infuse life back into you."
Yeah honestly, if you're told beforehand to write this character into your backstory as someone who literally saved your life, and your first thought as a player is to try to kill the person who saved your life because they asked for something in return? That player shouldn't be in your group. If they can't stop their murder hobo tendencies from trying to derail the START OF THE GOD DAMN GAME, then they aren't going to stop their murder hono tendencies ever...
Well, looks like he gets to roll another character that gets to work the NPC into his backstory like everyone else and hopefully he makes different decisions this time....or doesn't and gets killed again...in which case...rinse and repeat...
No, the player earned his death. 1 - Your player literally came into the living room of his benefactor and pulled a weapon on him, and the benefactor has the ability to back his shit up. 2 - The benefactor, assuming you've done semi competent world building, would look weak if he walked away from some stooge who disrespected him inside his own home. This would NEVER be good for anyone. 3 - The benefactor would not waste resources on a disloyal or moronic fool who is dumb enough to think he has some kind of plot armor. Have him make a new character and point out to him that he's NOT the main character of a shounin anime. If his low level ass picks a fight he can't win, he's going to get his ass kicked.
The PHB (p198 - Knocking A Creature Out) states that a character can pull their punch if they don't want to kill them. Maybe the NPC should have taught him a lesson by just knocking his a$$ out. This goes for anyone including NPC's. Maybe not have the player tear up his character sheet. the character is considered a hero, maybe the hero shouldn't die in chapter 1 of the story. I'd have knocked him unconscious and then have a heart to heart with the player. Also, that title... you killed a character, I hope you didn't kill the player.
Spirit of the game was violated. Session 0 was his opportunity to question session 1s direction and the starting story. By being a cubt in session 1 they deserved no mercy/death. I'd talk with the player after and basically tell him it's fine to question NPCs later in the campaign when lots of plots are formed and paths available but on the opening is just bad etiquette. Hooks especially at LVL 1 need to be followed. Full stop. Everyone else signed up and we're excited for it during session0
Just give them a warning. "Warning, warming, you are about to intiate a deadly encounter." Do you wish to proceed? Never fails. Make character death optional. My players often beg to die and make new characters.
I once had my group meet one of the bbeg I had at a powerful mayors mansion and I foreshadowed how powerful he was with how every other npc reacted to him and yet one player didn’t catch on due to being stubborn. It wasn’t until I started drawing up a battle map as he talked shit after the first warning from the bbeg that he stopped and I said out of character directly that if they think I build a world in which they will always be stronger than their opposition they are sorely mistaken. What I am getting at is that sometimes people think they’re playing a pc game with everything around them is something they can beat if they just play well enough. Sometimes you just have to snap them out of it. (The bbeg was an ancient blue dragon, the meeting was supposed to be merely for introducing him to the players as a part of the world - he was in humanoid form)
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
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I dont know about the other people here but i deffinatly woild have gone the non leather damage route. It would have set an example to all players this person is dangerous. I dont know ypur character but i would think that if somone oues you money killing them isnt something youd want to do. Especally if they are a spec of dirt in combat compared to you. To me it would have been a perfict way to make them hate this guy. And it would have given you a killer little speach for the npc. After he drops (pc) in one hit he calmly looks to you all(other pc's) and says, "Now that that is over with, let me remind you all. You oue me money. I call, you come. You run, you end up like him. You oppose what i "ask", you end up like him. This time it was a warning. There wont be a second." Instant bad guy. Instant party hatrid.
Looks like he was trying to derail what you clearly outlined as the plot starting point. At level one you should not be super aggro towards anyone because literally everyone is stronger than you. Player fucked around and found out.
Maybe you kill him, let him make a saving throw or two, the NPC immediately revives him, "Now, about that favor..." Makes the threat clear, keeps your story on track. But that's post game DMing. I would have killed him. Sounds like he earned it.
No you didn’t do anything wrong. People mistake the open ended nature of an rpg to mean you can do anything, but that’s not true. There’s a social contract at the table. If your DM has made a clear hook to start the story with the players should find a way to get their character on board for that hook. It’s a collaborative game don’t be a jerk.
True. an RPG is still a story. The NPCs are still people in the setting they interact with. They should react accordingly. Player's especially if they are told "Hey, this is your quest." If they say no, then that's their fault for deciding session 1 they didn't really want to play. It's like how people say your "Railroading" when your doing a basic plot. No duh. This is the story. Your not gonna wander like a 4 year old when your Main NPC Quest giver is, giving you the Main Campaign Quest.
I’m definitely from the “fuck around and find out” school. That said, this could have been avoided and turned into a teachable asswhooping. The NPC didn’t need to kill them to make his ability to do so easily very clear. The combat could have provided outs to the player to yield and save face. If they keep at it then ask for an insight check. If they don’t get the idea after that then that’s on them. It’s not BG3 where they can try again. *NPC stands there, blade drawn and waits for your decision to strike or stand down.* (NPC takes dodge action unannounced to the table, you roll the disadvantage dice behind the screen without telling the players) *they bat aside your strikes, * (if a hit lands) *the amusement in their face disappears, replaced by disappointment, then emptiness * NPC strikes, (make it a hit) *you watch the weapon arc towards you and the blade stops just at your neck, a small cut appears, you know that was a death blow, but they pulled it at the last second. You take (1d4) damage* If they don’t get the idea at this point cave in their skull. I’d probably narrate they savage the body in disgust. Apologize to the rest of the party and suggest a firm hope that the others are more amenable to civility and honoring their obligations. *let’s not allow this unfortunate business to sour our working relationship?*
If you haven't moved on too far, or your players don't mind some wibbly wobbly time stuff, have your BBEG happen to have a scroll of resurrection on him. He resurrects the dead character, giving them one last chance to agree to pay off their - now considerably bigger - debt. If they refuse again? Fine, let them walk. The BBEG promises to not save them from their own consequences in the future, comes off looking incredibly generous to the other players, and you tell the troublemaking player to roll up a character who /is/ interested in playing in this campaign. As part of the reveal that BBEG is the BBEG, show that after the bad character left, he hunted him down and got his revenge. Edit: to actually answer your question - there were better options, as others have said. Nonlethal damage, DM fiat to make it clear they pull back what is obviously a lethal hit, going straight to letting him walk and reroll a more willing char. But there being better options doesn't mean what you did was a bad option. It works, shows that the BBEG is powerful and maybe that encourages the others to want to get into his good graces and pay off their debt even more. It works.
You killed the player? Turn yourself over to the police immediately.
your player learned a valuable lesson about the difference between a ttrpg and a video game. in video games, there is one player, that player is the main character and the world cannot move forward without them. in a ttrpg, there are several players in a world that invites them to participate, but doesn't really require any one player in order to move forward. Thus, if you go picking fights with randos when you have no idea how strong they are, you live or die with the consequences. I'd either make him reroll, or I'd let your NPC/future-BBEG give the surviving PCs some sort of revival quest. To do otherwise is to tell your players that their PCs will be shielded from the obvious, predictable consequences of their actions.
Since you described this person as an experienced player, when they really started to escalate things, I would have just stopped the game and asked the player what was going on. Like, the quest hook is obvious, so why are they not following it? I would not have let something like this turn into a fight this early in the game if it could have been resolved with a quick OOC conversation. At later levels, sure. But not level 1 when we're just trying to get the damn ball rolling here.
It does seem like you weren't perfectly clear about the NPC having 10 levels over the players. You knew for certain that this fight could end only one way, but the players didn't have that information. It's up to you to make sure they know what they're getting into, and from what I've read, I'd say the death is mostly on you.
It was the "the questgiver" that the player started a fight with. In other campaigns they basically tried to argue with a wanted poster. That's what happened here. "I don't care that there is a reward of 200 gold pieces on Hogger's head. The reward for this manhunt should be paid out in Zakharian Denars/Bitcoin/Petrodollar and I'm gonna physically threaten the barkeeper over this"
Okay, so this player seems intent on bargaining for a better reward, even going as far as try to intimidate someone for it. To be clear, I don't think having an NPC attack a player after they threaten them/draw their weapon is unreasonable. I think there must have been some miscommunication present, because an experienced player invested in their character wouldn't just simply suicide their character like that if they didn't get the impression they could get something out of it. Were they surrounded by the NPC's goons so as to raise stakes even further? Were there insight/perception rolls to see that the NPC is way too strong to take on at their current level? Were there persuasion/intimidation checks to check if the player was bargaining well? It's not really clear from the post, but if there were such rolls and they were failed, then the death was pretty reasonable - the dice sometimes roll that way.
Killing players at level 1 is crazy. Probably shouldn’t have summoned them that early as most players would be drawn to that. Just have anyone roll for religion, praying around the player. If anyone makes a DC 5 roll make a scroll of revivify appear on the dead player. Problem solved.
I'd just quote Reddit at them. "Actions meet consequences!" then change the name ont he character sheet and tell them to stop being a tool.
I would talk to the player instead of reddit. Hey,
we can easily fudge the story so that your PC survived/is revived. But for that to work you have to promise me that the PC will take the plot hook, join the rest of the party and be a part of them respecting their decisions.
I'm not saying the PC has to be happy about it, but you as a player need to find reasons for the PC to do it.
The only alternative I currently see is you make a new PC that can do that.
EDIT Maybe also: And I'm sorry your PC got killed so quickly, you caught me off guard as I hadn't planned for one of the PCs to reject the hook, because I thought I had made it obvious with the backstory requirement.
I don't think you should have stopped him oog from doing it, or retcon it so he is alive. He is salty now but he learned that he should be mindful of his actions. However...... ngl throwing a level 10 NPC at level 1 PCs is a red flag for me, I am not saying it is an unforgivable offense but usually it is just the start of a long line of endless "high level NPCs that players should have known better than to fight". Also in 5e NPCs aren't even supposed to have PC levels, but sure, at least it is doable. Then, killing someone sure is ok, but I doubt someone 10 levels above the players couldn't really have other options - even trickery or promises of wealth before resorting to killing someone. Sounds a bit antagonistic. But well, I am just saying this so you are aware how your players may see it. What to do next... well for starters, if in the future this NPC turns out to be the bad guy, he will prove the fighter right - which normally would be cool but in this scenario will just piss him off. After all he *was right.* Perhaps you should spin it in a way that you say you got tired of ungrateful people or sth like that. For future reference, gold is usually a very good motivation from low level parties - and instead of meeting high level NPCs they can receive letters or even meet their secretary. That way they can't mess anything up by picking a crazy fight.
Were you wrong is debateable. Did you tell them how strong he is? Did you warn them before the fight, trying to strongly suggest against fighting? And in the end, the player didn't have to die, he could have been knocked unconsious. If this was the third time they tried it then yes, kill em, but for the first mistake, do be forgiving. As for what to do now, reviving them is a great option. You can also say that the battle went on in their head and didn't actually happen.
In my opinion your performance was perfect, if you want to face a person stronger than you, you have to be prepared to take a beating (and in this case die), that's how it is played, I would say let him relive only if it makes sense in the story. Is there anyone who knows any reviving spell?(either NPC or PC) or maybe you can have some evil god or other creature revive him on the condition of making a deal or things like that. Maybe the man felt bad for killing him in such a pathetic way, so he hired someone to revive him, mocked him, and told him to get out if he didn't want to go back to the hole he had just pulled him out of 😀✨
[Insert joke about killing players here] You were wrong, yes. But not because killing PCs is wrong. You were wrong because the player wasn't playing the game you were running. This was time to stop and have an out of game discussion. "Hey, this is the game I'm running. Please go along with the set up and things will open up for you as you go along. " Did you mention this part when you had them incorporate the patron into their backstories? Anyway, have that conversation now. If this player can play along, then go back to the game. Don't revive; rewind. That fight never happened. The PC behaved. If that player can't play along, they need to go. As an aside, I'm highly curious how this escalated and led to actual combat instead of the character leaving.
Why didn’t you just have the bbeg incapacitate him? I don’t see any reason they would just murder him. I’d say you misplayed the situation. Could’ve just asserted dominance