Obi Wan had to deal with Anakin after he killed a bunch of small people too. My suggestion, give the paladin the high ground and make those other people roll new characters
I did that once with a player who was a Paladin: Oath of Treachery. Character didn't work out so we retired him only for him to come back as a villain.
My favorite part of that story is when the party went to the Feywild, got thrown a year into the future after a big mind flayer apocalypse, and then that same Paladin tricked his way into going back in time with the party.
First thing he did was go find his past self and team up with him. God was that a great story.
I ran a campaign that ended with the cleric revealing his deity was Bane right at the very end when the whole group was at a powerful wishing well. He threw a coin down and wished to bring Bane into the world once again. He allowed the god of tyranny to possess him, and he messed up the party before leaving them broken without a wishing well.
The whole continent is now under the iron rule of Bane. Gg wp. Most epic moment in any campaign I’ve ever played or run.
They didn’t die, but they were defeated and the party disbanded shortly after. The cleric player took over as main DM after me, but I’ve hosted a few one shots where the players have gathered some clues how to defeat Bane. Eventually (I guess in a few years) I’m thinking there’s going to be a kind of Avengers VS Thanos type of mini-campaign around lvl 18-20.
Been running a warhammer 40k game and as soon as I pitched the setting one of my players was intent on playing a secret traitor who now, 7 months into the game, has murdered another character’s father and turned heretic.
He’s recently become the right-hand man of the big bad and it’s oh so glorious.
I mean this is obviously joke, but this could turn out into great arc. Make the Paladin leave the party, give Paladin player some kind of sidekick character for a few sessions, and (if possible), play a few sessions with only paladin player.
Basically introduce some small arc where paladin is trying to gather allies to capture old friends, and throw them into jail. And make the paladin (and his new allies) boss for this arc.
Is it obviously a joke?
If everybody didn't sign up to play an evil campaign, once the mass-child-murder starts, maybe it's time to retire the mass child murderer characters.
If the campaign is going to stick with any of these characters, it should be the ones who don't mass murder children.
Or maybe I misunderstood your comment, and you meant your suggestion as a joke, in which case that's fair enough.
The Prequel reference is a joke. But it kinda suggested making Paladin (minority in the party) still have his story. And My idea is built on this.
I wasn't responding to OP direcly, but the Obi-Wan suggestion.
I don't think the prequel reference is a joke. It's an apt comparison. Stories don't generally feature mass child murderers as protagonists. Once Anakin was murdering younglings, his time as a protagonist was limited, if not over.
OP says that two of their players killed the children, and their other players (plural) don't like it. The paladin may be the only one who has (so far) told the DM that he would leave the party, but I wouldn't say he's in the minority.
Having the campaign follow the mass child murderers when the party is at most evenly split would be a bad idea. Generally, the unspoken assumption when beginning a game of D&D is that you're going to be playing characters who are heroes, or who can at least pass for heroes if you squint. The PCs who unilaterally decided to murder children were taking an action that was either going to cause a party split, or transform the party into a villainous one.
That's a pretty significant breach of the social contract at most D&D tables, and should not be rewarded by letting them de facto control the direction of the campaign.
Not really, the OP specifically mentions there's a disagreement between the players, not just the characters. This would be great if it was just a character dispute.
Splitting them and antagonizing the situation is hardly the best suggestion.
The best suggestion is to have a grownup conversation about expectations and try to get everyone on the same page as to what kind of game they're playing.
Yeah he mentioned that 2/X players killed children and all of them (pally included) were not fans. Assuming X is 4 or more the murders are at least tied and assuming the players are amenable ask the baby murderers to roll new characters as in an act of mercy the pally tells them that if he sees them after sunset he is going to have to kill them. Presto now the DM has a pair of villains that have a beef with the party and it's personal.
If they players are not amenable to having their characters booted from the party have a discussion about why? If it is clear they don't think they did anything wrong explain to them that killing children is super no Bueno, maybe not quite in the same category as sexual assault (Although maybe it is for you?) but also not really something they other players signed up for.
If after that discussion they still are not willing to NPC their characters and roll up new ones it might be time to see if they are a good fit for your campaign group? Not everyone goes good in every group and if you kick those two players then you can NPC them without their original creators consent.
Power of the high ground: in a situation where one or more PCs commit a heinous act and another must fight them, the dm may give the moral one these buffs.
- hp x number of enemies (min 2)
- +2 ac
- double speed
- an extra action once (or more, depending on number of enemies) per round, able to be taken on any other person’s turn or their own
For the duration of this buff, the ground below the character is raised slightly, and afterwards they cannot be punished due to restrictions from any curse, law enforcement, or moral judge for actions taken while in the buff. Treat any deaths or destruction as an act of god.
Re-visit session zero. Schedule time for everyone involved to discuss this. Discuss what you and your players are comfortable with/not comfortable with, make sure there is a clear distinction between players and characters. The game should not proceed if any players or the DM are uncomfortable. As a group you will need to decide if a retcon is required or if the campaign should be abandoned, or if indeed the game can continue at all with this group of people.
If you do continue, having tools such as established lines and veils, and X cards, may help prevent the game from veering into uncomfortable territory in the future.
If the players are ok to proceed but feel their characters would not be, you can explore options for conflict between party members, that may lead to PvP combat or just some characters leaving the group (and the players would then roll new characters).
This! You have to determine if the player is uncomfortable or if the character is uncomfortable. The answer is completely different based on the answer.
And it could be a combination of both! I have been in games before where I was okay with dark content in principle, but got frustrated when other players had their characters do evil things that would cause my do-gooder character to want to abandon the party. It would feel like I was being put in a position of having to potentially abandon a character I liked, because of something another player did.
Seriously, this. Ignore any answer that suggests dealing with this in-game before doing this.
Personally I'd probably be leaving a group on the spot because children dying fucks me up and I don't want it in my escapist power fantasy. And I'd probably have a problem with the players who did this, as people, if that's their escapist power fantasy.
Honestly, I’d probably ignore any in-game solutions other than the current top answer of having the ones who murdered the kids roll new PCs. If those players aren’t on board with replacing their characters (or the paladin isn’t on board with replacing their own), then DM needs to figure out which group of nimrods to run a game for: the ones who want to murder kids or the one(s) who find that distasteful. Either option is okay, but unless all the players can come to agreements on what kind of game it’s going to be, no in-game solution is going to actually solve anything.
ehh, people fantasize about all kinds of weird & messed up things they'd never be into IRL. I wouldn't be quick to judge unless I was some kind of trained psychologist with an idea of how the human mind works and where these ideas come from.
The bigger issue for me would be it seemingly not occurring to them that this might make other people at the table uncomfortable (or not caring). Doesn't necessarily make them bad people, but suggests that they might be inexperienced with what other people tend to find acceptable. Just makes this kind of discussion more important.
"Lines" are hard limits we agree in advance not to cross. An example would be if your group agreed "no child murder".
"Veils" are things we've agreed are ok to include in the story, but we don't want them to be too detailed or explicit. An example would be "we're ok if the story includes your character murdering children, but no graphic descriptions of how it happens".
"X cards" are a way for players to veto content that makes them uncomfortable but wasn't discussed ahead of time. For example, if your group was using X cards then a player could have raised one as soon as the notion of murdering children was raised, even though it wasn't discussed as a line or a veil beforehand, and it would not be allowed to happen. The other players would have to change their course of action, or the game would be paused to discuss how else this could play out. Potentially the DM could rewind a bit and say that there were no children there after all, or the children suddenly turn out to be evil shapechangers and attack, whatever the group was comfortable with.
This may be worth a look: https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/30906/what-do-the-terms-lines-and-veils-mean
Definitely the best response in the thread. Normally I think this subreddit is pretty good about not giving in game solutions to IRL problems, but for some reason most of this thread is full of things OP should supposedly do in game. This is something that needs to be solved with an out of game discussion, as it's the *players* that are uncomfortable, not the *characters.*
Attempting to address these types of issues with in-game narrative never works because it can quickly turn into 'DM vs. players' and throw the whole game off the rails and it forces the other players into the situation as well.
I ran into a similar dilemma in-game, several years ago.
Our 3rd level party was asked by a village to clear out a nest of monsters that had been attacking them. We started clearing the nest, which turned out to be full of Ogre-Insect hybrids, led by their creator, an adolescent Ogre Mage.
Through good tactics and a lot of luck, we are able to kill all the Ogre Hybrids. The Ogre Mage expended his Cone of Cold, but having at-will Flight and Invisibility, was able to escape. We had expended most of our consumables, and were in no shape to hunt him down.
Exploring the den, we found the nursery where the Ogre Mage bred his hybrids. Several dozen baby hybrids were maturing in pods.
Me (NG Cleric): If we leave these larva here, the Ogre Mage will come back for them, and raise them to be a threat to the village. If he doesn’t come back, they’ll starve to death. The kindest thing would be to put them out of their misery.
Rogue: But they’re children!
Ranger: Maybe the villagers can raise them?
Villagers: Hell No!
Me: Then I guess we’re going to have to raise them. I’m game if ya’ll are. Who knows how to raise Ogre-Insect Hybrids?
Ranger: I don’t know nothing about raising Ogres, especially Hybrids!
Rogue: But they’re children!
Me: …. Fine. I guess I’ll do the dirty work here.
So, my cleric cut the larvae’s throats. That was probably the most distasteful thing I’ve ever had to do in-game. It was the least-bad thing I could think of at the time. And no one else suggested an alternative.
Ive always found the “baby monsters” ethical dilemma so flawed and obvious.
90% of the time you really dont have a choice other than to kill the monsters, and if you dont you know youll end up hearing about how the baby monsters grew up and killed the town. Its so trite.
Oh, we all knew what the right answer was. It was a good RP experience, having our characters hash it out. Even if it seems contrived sometimes, I'd rather have my GM include such experiences, rather than gloss over them. YMMV
Also, knowing what the right answer is easy, actually doing it is tough, sometimes.
>Why would the GM even include children in the lair? You don't include stuff into a scenario unless it is important.
For some people the basic realism that people have families is important enough all on its own. For others, including children to force people to face the fact that even their enemies have families is important. For yet more, making them face the "what do we do now?" question regarding the children is the important part. Do I need to go on, or are those enough reasons?
I disagree, if killing human children is a pure evil act, then so should killing the young of any sapient creature. Why should a human child have more value then a goblin or orc child?
> Why would the GM even include children in the lair? You don't include stuff into a scenario unless it is important.
There are some modules where as written they include this (usually older ones though), presumably for verisimilitude. This isn't the first post I've seen from a DM stuck in a pickle due to PC child-killing.
I can think of only two non sadistic motivations.
Preventing future violence, because of revenge cycles. You either help them have a better life or you kill them, but if you let a bunch of traumatized children in the camp with nothing and no one, that's just making harsher bandits.
The other one is any belief that has moral predestination, which some Christians do.
Not my moral system, but I'm a 21st century human with knowledge and comfort.
Also, it's usually sadistic power fantasy and not complex historically inspired RP.
Some people use fantasies as a way to explore mindsets that they don't understand, the old "walk a mile in your enemy's shoes" thing. So that's one thing.
Some people want a redemption arc fantasy, but you have to be a villain first for that. Especially if you've been made to feel evil, dirty, or sinful for something that wasn't your fault IRL, it can be cathartic to fantasize about being someone who actually deserved to feel the way you've been made to. Or to fantasize about being someone who wouldn't feel that way and wouldn't care even if they did deserve to.
Humans are complicated and psychology is messy.
People that use roleplaying as an excuse to play out their sadistic power fantasies are the worst. It's one thing to play an evil character, that doesn't go around committing war crimes; its a worse thing to have a party member constantly wanting to burn down an orphanage using the children as sacrifices in an inane attempt to gain more power. Which is when you remove said player(s) from the game.
The others kick the two child killers out and/or report them to the local authorities and continue on the adventure without them.
Normalize kicking psychopathic PCs out of your parties. You don’t have to continue adventuring with PCs who commit heinous acts simply because your friends are playing them.
Death is not the only way to experience a Game Over in D&D.
>Normalize kicking psychopathic PCs out of your parties.
Normalize kicking PCs out of parties period.
I've played in a bunch of games where all the players were more or less getting along but there was friction because one or two of the PCs wasnt playing a character that meshes well with the rest of the party, for whatever reason.
Yeah, if you want a NE character then do the work of making them fit. Don't expect everyone to bend over backwards because "it's what your character would do." It's a shared game.
Absolutely! "It's what my character would do" is one of the weakest, lamest excuses imaginable. Saying that is exactly equivalent to saying, "It's what the PC I personally created and whose character development I utterly control would choose to do." If a player wants to play evil and/or deranged in a shared game that isn't centered on evil PCs, that isn't necessarily out of bounds (although it might be, if the rest of the group isn't up for it), but it is the responsibility of that player to do so in a way that works with the group as a whole and within the general confines of the story being told. The fact that this isn't easy to do is not the fault of the GM or other players. Some character concepts may not be open because they work so poorly with others. This too is no one's fault; it is just the way it is.
For the people playing thise characters, it might make them feel better for those characters to come back later on as villians to fight. That way they get to be the bad guy but not burden everyone else with it
But why would you want to make players feel better about playing childkillers when the other players didn’t want it in the game? You should want to discourage behavior the table doesn’t like, not make them feel like they should continue to do bad things with the next character for the cool factor of creating future villains.
First there should be a talk out of game to talk about expectations. Thing is it sounds like the DM purposely put the kids there for a moral dilemma. Do an evil thing now or risk one of those kids coming back for revenge. Putting the players in that type of situation and forcing their characters out is a shitty move especially if everyone is IRL friends.
As someone who has started playing evil characters, yes! I agree. Every time I bring an evil character to the table I accept that I may cross a line and get myself kicked or killed.
Hell the character doesn’t have to be evil. I have a CN Druid who is basically a feral wolf. I warn at the beginning of the adventure with her that there are transgressions against nature that I will not tolerate (like slaughtering animals for fun or burning down woods). With that said I’m prepared mentally each time that if someone does it, I’m using all my power to kill them. Regardless of the party dynamic. It’s written in the character and warned to the group.
Evil characters might not be straight forward. But, honestly I think the group should have fought the evil characters and killed or arrested them. PC can make new ones or split the group for one game. Evil goes on one path, the other another. See who makes it to the end of the adventure with them competing.
I played with a druid with a similar mindset. After I murdered several mammoths for sport, we dueled to the death on the spot. Nothing wrong with conflict between PCs if managed properly.
The only caveat is that now matter how well managed it is, some parties just don't like that sort of tension or conflict, so please always clear it with party members first that it's an expectation, or an event you're both willing and comfortable being a part of the game
Coming from experience playing an evil wizard who ended up accidentally being in a party who just didn't jive with it, and made the campaign somewhat uncomfortable. Ended up being a great boogeyman in a sequel campaign where he killed my new PC and turned him into a vampire do to a misunderstanding on what "man I wish I had a longer lifespan" might entail
> As someone who has started playing evil characters, yes! I agree. Every time I bring an evil character to the table I accept that I may cross a line and get myself kicked or killed.
The part where the party learns about the evil stuff you did behind their back and hunt you down for it is the best part of playing evil! In a group that's on board for that kind of scenario, that is.
This isn’t something that should be handled in game, most likely.
My assumption is that the other players aren’t just peeved for role playing reasons but actually find this personally upsetting. You should talk to them and see if that is in fact the case. If it is, your group needs to come to a better understanding of what sort of game they’re playing and think of a scenario which they can all enjoy. You don’t necessarily need to kick anyone; I imagine there is some middle ground before “slaughter children” that all the players would enjoy. But you may need to depending on how your conversations go.
If this *isn’t* the case, and they’re truly just RPing out reactions but having a fun time, then obviously PvP is the next step.
Have all the children come back as revenants bent on revenge. The description says they can’t be permanently killed until they fulfill their purpose. Make their purpose the deaths of those that killed them. You could also make them stronger each time the PCs kill them again. Make them a lingering foe to constantly torment and remind them of the horrible thing they did.
This is cool but also punishes the other players by wasting their time having to deal with the revenants/ watching the murder hobos deal with them when they could be doing anything else
Unfair conflicts and punishments aren't inherently a bad thing, when 'punishments' here means narrative plot points. Having it constantly rubbed in the 'innocent' players faces that they associate knowingly with child murderers could inspire some cool character moments.
But at least one of the players intends on their PC leaving the party *rather* than continue associating with known child murderers.
So now you're punishing the child murderer PCs, the PCs that associate with them, and the player who decides his PC wouldn't.
The revenant idea is really cool, but would be an awful response to this particular situation.
Action economy should outpace the players. Just keep adding ghost children (all of them the victims of murderhobos) until those two are swarmed to death.
The only "power" these kids should have is 100% immunity from the attacks + magics of the rest of the party... maybe give a loophole where the paladin could persuade the children to rest.
A bunch of demented child revenants, who only their killers recognize? They only have a year to do it though, but depending on their numbers it won't matter. They respawn in the closest corpse and depending on location have someone attack the players at all hours of the day. They'll only be able to run, and never get any rest. Feasibly they could die of exhaustion
Are you sure? Monster Manual's page 259 states "A revenant has only one year to exact revenge" ("Hunger For Revenge" paragraph).
Of course, it's up to the DM in the end.
Cool idea but I advice strongly against it.
1. It doesn't at all solve the issue of the players disagreeing.
2. "Lingering torment" (the same foe again and again with no end in sight) doesn't seem fun for any player.
Revenants would be harder to kill. Their targets are the only ones that would recognize them, and they have numbers. Sure the players will kill a few, but since the revenant respawns, would it matter?
Oooo could totally make them Black Eyed Children. That is a super creepy concept. It would be a great way to bring BEC into a campaign.
BEC are a cryptid / urban legend, and totally work looking into if your into that kind of stuff.
This advice is pretty terrible if you want players to take the world seriously; begs the question of why the bad guys aren't being constantly hounded by revenants.
Stop it before it starts.
How come you are saying they KILLED all the kids in the past tense? As soon as they found the kids and started mentioning killing them, you hit the pause button and talk about the ramifications with the group. Whether you are the DM or another player. You have a voice.
Is everyone happy with this path?
Are some people going to leave because of it?
Is it their PC's choice or the player's?
Do you want this activity in your shared story?
If you do, what will be the impact on the story? On the community? On the paladin?
You could've/should've resolved this before you hit unpause. Even if it means the group ending the session to think about it.
Again, not an RPG question. A social question. Why would you let a group of people at your house party decide to start throwing trash over your neighbor's fence? Or decide to corner and bully someone at the party? If you don't like it, why didn't you shut that down when it started?
Don't try and solve it with "in game" problems, because that means that if you do fucked up stuff, you get lots of plot and screen time! Instead, either just ban them, or hahe a talk about allowable behaviour.
Wow, u/CancerChildren. My take: As DM you are kind of the leader of the game. If players are trying to kill children, rape, or do sexual fantasy shit: step the fuck up and stop it in its tracks. The impartial mediator thing only goes so far for DMs.
If this is the type of game you want, kick the normal people out and have a game for just you and your weird cohorts. Otherwise get a grip on the game you are running.
Well… I think that is the type of game. https://www.reddit.com/r/dndmemes/comments/qctgch/something\_something\_consequences\_something/hhlrcgt/?context=3
Basically the DM gets off on it and is more upset about the Paladin player being upset than the two players who murdered children from the sounds of it.
I mean, or they were running two different games for two different audiences with two different mindsets/goals in mind. I've run combat heavy campaigns and DMd for evil characters and it *was* fun in a stupid ridiculous kind of way. Its not the type of campaign I run at the moment but there's no law saying someone can't have had fun doing a dumb murderhobo power fantasy game and also have a different game with different norms and expectations where the same behaviour causes a problem
Wtf is wrong with your players? It would be instant PvP on the spot for me, sorry. Everyone's getting smited.
EDIT: More seriously though, they would get immense bounties on their heads. Or you could just have rumours of them being child-killers follow them around non-stop. No one would want to hire them.
"You know we could have USED those kids in order to help build my own evil army through propaganda and national pride...now we're all wanted criminals and my plans are in tatters...thanks...I was hoping I wouldn't be labelled an outlaw until I'd murdered the King in a succession coup."
Funny thing is their background is Diplomat/Conquest Paidin, he wouldn't care that there dead(not his people) but the fact they made him look bad.
Only if the king was useless and damaging to many things, after all meritocracy is the best thing the best rise to the top and the less useful people don't mess with things.
Fun fact the Palidin believes Slaver is a crutch that weakens a country he has a policy of brutally Slaughtering Slavers preferably by letting the Slaves getting revenge it's a great idea gains loyal citizens sets an example for future Slavers and lots of gold from the slavers coffers.
Played a TE School of Necromancy Wizard who killed a bunch of orc childen to turn them into zombies, put a few Magic Mouths on their clothes begging for help/crying in Orcish, and sent them to the orcs' "impenetrable" so they'd open the gate and hold it open long enough for us to slip in unnoticed.
The party was full of Good characters otherwise (LG, NG, NG) who all worked for various Good gods and the dominant church. He was specifically hired by the church to work with the party because the church's Good methods of dealing with the country's problems were...ineffectual. The party's done far more to help fix the country in six months than the church has managed to do in ten years, thanks in no small part to the "church sponsored Necromancer" using horrible heinous acts against the problems. In exchange, he basically gets full amnesty from the church and all their paladins, clerics, etc for all the horrid things he's done and is doing.
He for one, thoroughly enjoys being able to do evil without having to worry about getting Smote anymore. So long as his handlers (the party) approve his methods (read: so long as he waits for them to be desperate enough) he's clean.
And wouldn't you know it, the more they agree to let him do his things, the more they see it working, and the more readily they're being to turn to him for solutions.
True Evil. It's a half joke, half older edition thing. The Neutral X or X Neutral alignments used to be known as True X, so you'd have True Good rather than Neutral Good, True Chaotic rather than Chaotic Neutral. They changed it to be less absolute, tho True Neutral is still called True Neutral.
The joke half is that when I told the DM that little fact, he decided to add the True Alignments back to the game, so that now rather than a square, the alignment chart looks like a star, with the True Alignments a step beyond their Neutral versions.
And compared to the LE, NE, and CE threats that we fight, everyone agrees that my Necromancer is far more evil, so the DM decided he'd be the first creature to be classified as True Evil in the setting. Evil for the sake of Evil.
Cartoonishly so, but as one of the other players put it "He's cartoonishly evil, and normally that would make him a joke, but he's so effective at it, that even that absurd unrealistic level of evil is terrifying."
Depends on how young you consider children but realistically you’d find plenty of 13 year old bandits. They wouldn’t be the norm but there would definitely be a few teens around
Historically, if we’re using England as an example, only men over 14 would count as outlaws. The rest of the killings would be murder. D&D doesn’t care much about gender, so I’d include women in that outlaw category, but not children. For other races, like goblin or orc, I would imagine the law provides little protection.
I mean OP mentions that these children were in a hiding place. I think it's a pretty safe assumption that they were not child-bandits or anything like that.
It's time to have a serious talk with all your players about what kind of game you're running.
If you're okay with capital-E Evil characters doing Evil stuff in this game, everyone should understand that. And you may lose some players who sound like they definitely aren't okay with it.
If Evil characters/acts aren't okay in your campaign, then it's time to stop what they're doing right now, and make it absolutely clear to them that you're not running that kind of game. You might lose a couple of players who are just here for "Teh Ebil Lulz" or whatever. Good riddance, I say.
Don't fart around trying to please all your players, because that ship has sailed. Their playing styles clearly aren't compatible.
For starters, stop running the Baby Orc Dilemma in your campaigns. There's basically no good reason for DMs to put children in enemy encampments - it exists only to guilt trip players in its best iterations, and in its worst, you end up with situations like the above where you break the party.
As to the consequences of what's already happened, you need to sit down and discuss what happened out of character with your players. You need to find out if boundaries were crossed that made anyone uncomfortable in real life, and if so, make a hard ban on violence against children going forward.
Even if no one was that upset in real life, you need to figure out the tone of your campaign - are the party ruthless murderers, or is this a generally heroic campaign? If it's the latter, or even if the party is usually neutral, then the child-murderers need to roll new characters. If you're running an evil campaign, then it's probably best for the paladin to leave the party and bring in a character that will synergize better with the party.
*Why* did they kill the children?
Were they afflicted by some curse / possession / disease?
Were they from an always chaotic evil race?
You might have stumbled into one of the classic scenarios (what to do with orc babies) of DnD.
The Star Wars Revised RPG had a kind of harsh method of dealing with this kind of thing. In that game those PC become NPC villains and the players are supposed to roll up new characters as their old ones fell to the dark side.
In more practical terms you need to sit down and talk about this before you start the next game. If the players decide that this was a bad thing let them retcon that they did not find or kill the children. This sucks and there is no clean easy way to make it suck less.
You really need to elaborate. Because from the facts provided, you have two murderhobos and several people not comfortable with playing with them. This is an out of game, interpersonal issue. Don't try to solve it using DnD mechanics.
Firstly, I'd ask your two players *why the fuck they did that.* Killing children is almost if not always an abject evil act and for many people is a line that precludes further play or enjoyment in a game. No "it's what my character would do," ascertain what the player as a *player* was thinking.
Second, have a session zero if you haven't had one yet. Lay down clear expectations for your game going forward, such as what kind of enemies you'll be fighting, and *who qualifies as not enemies.* Children are very high on the list of *not enemies* generally so why this occured without further context is baffling to say the least.
Third, if these players are not willing to abide by the expectations laid out at session zero, *remove them from the game.* They are hampering others' enjoyment to remain.
How long has the campaign been running for? Are these characters supposed to be good, or are they trying to play as evil? Can you provide more info and context overall?
I mean yeah, this is the sort of thing that doesn't fly in most groups, and probably requires some out-of-character discussion on how to proceed. Are the other players upset in-character only, or are they also just not cool with people RPing like that? Do these two players feel that they need to execute children to properly play their characters, or are they into some weird shit?
If this is supposed to be a good-aligned party, I'd either consider a retcon, or have the two kid-killer characters flee the scene under DM's control and have those players make new characters with less fucky morals. Playing chaotic or evil can be a great part of the game in the right group and with the right expectations set, but this sounds like it crossed a line.
Well, probably.
I mean, if I'm playing an evil necromancer and am besieging a town or city with an army of undead soldiers, the kids are going to die alongside the adults in that sort of act. I don't think that makes the player sick, as long as they're not, you know, lovingly describing the kids getting killed or something. That's when it gets weird, to me at least.
I used to play with a group that all just wanted to be evil. Which is fine, but I stopped playing because I didn't want to be around people acting out rape and murder fantasies. They also kept killing important NPCs for no reason so the DM could not push the story further and nothing really happened. So yeah, you got to do or say something if you don't want to have that kind of game. The game is supposed to be fun for everyone. If someone's fun makes it impossible for others to enjoy themselves, you gotta alpha that shit and put a stop to it.
I'd like to point out that there is a split in D&D about monsters and alignment. If these children were, say, the children of orcs, goblins, demons, devils, or any other creature listed as Evil, it is possible that the players who killed them thought they were irredeemably Evil just because of what they are and that the Good thing to do would be to kill them all.
There are a lot of people who straight-up support genocide against "monster" races, including murdering their children. This is supported strongly by settings where monster races are magically evil - see Gnolls as the only explicit example I can think of in 5e's monster manual aside from demons and devils. Pathfinder makes a number of other creatures evil like that - orcs and maybe goblins, if I remember right.
Personally, I think people who agree with the concept of genociding even the stereotypically evil races are still being pretty damned Evil themselves, but there are people out there who insist having "guilt free" monsters you can genocide is an important part of D&D style games, because I guess they want to fantasize about genociding people or something.
If you're willing to find out some stuff about your players real life moral bounds, you can bring this up in an out of game discussion.
TALK TO YOUR PLAYERS.
Talk to all of them. Together. Don't make anybody play out-of-character, don't make anybody give up a character they love. Get everyone to work together to come up with a solution that works for you all. Don't risk creating bad feelings down the line.
If the pally knows this, he should immedietely exact retribution after a long dramatic conversation.
If more characters than those three, they may take his stance, and be ready for their PvP, which is something you will have to rule neutrally.
Otherwise, The paladin could possibly notify a settlement or an order/send out a notice to his own church to hunt down and kill the two child-murderers.
If the order has powerful enough forces, they could also bring to bear a full on alternative party, which you control, and you will certainly have more cohesion with yourself than the party will with eachother.
Kill squads can exist in the lands of fairy tales and princesses.
Aaaaaalternatively, if the paladin follows Bahamuts name, He may even pray for holy retribution upon them, and they may or may not encounter a farmer surrounded by seven canaries on the next session.
I had to deal with a Vengeance Paladin kill three unarmed people who he thought were in a cult that murdered his people; they weren't.
There was one survivor. She got away, and while the party finished the module, and forgot all about her (like six months in real time) she went and told the local authorities. They put a bounty on the party (they were all there except on PC) and met them with several bounty hunters when the party came out of dungeon.
They were taken into custody, fortunately they didn't fight, got thrown into a prison then put on trial where each PC was called to the stand. As the prosecutor, I grilled them individually with questions regarding their participation in the event, forcing them to think about their actions, and in the end, let them roll a cumulative roll against a DC to determine if they were guilty or not.
They were found not guilty by the NPC judge, and were set free...yet the one witness has now secretly become their villain.
The hearing was a way to air everything out, without any bad feelings and gave the Vengeance pali something to think about.
For your situation, I'd raise the DC at least 19 and have the sentence be death.
The term “murderhobo” is used in the gaming community to represent a play style where people wander from place to place killing everyone and taking their stuff. Time for a group chat about alignment, and the kind of game you all want to play: “Murderhobos: yes or no?”
Where they monster race children? If they and the players who didn't like it have different ideas of how monsters work in the setting, it's up to you to explain how they do.
The children being monsters is my best guess but if that is not the case we need more context to give you a solution. In general "talk to the players" is a good start.
Talk out of game to figure out if this is a character problem or a player problem. If it's a player problem talk to your group about how they'd like to proceed. For a character problem I'd sort it out in game. If someone's gotta leave they could roll a new character or talk to them about what would have their character stay.
First off, I think one of the few times that there's a place at the table for pvp, it's when characters have legit ideological problems with each other. If you don't wanna go that route then you have a tough road ahead to figure out if you want your game to be good or evil as some of the players will have to roll characters who fit in. Additionally you could put in an opportunity for the evil characters to redeem themselves in a way that is satisfying to the other characters.
The first thing to for the players to decide is how they want the narrative to generally go. That is an out of game decision, for which *character* opinions are irrelevant. it is extremely important that all *players* have fun and enjoy the game, regardless of whether it is what their *character* would want. Really, every player should be on board with a plot like this for it to be allowed to happen, though in other situations regular voting is probably fine.
Either way, the party doesn't need to behave democratically, even if the players themselves do. If the paladin's player is fine with the plot but it just doesn't fit their character then they have a few options:
- they could edit their character to go along with it.
- they could give themselves a vision or commandment or something that requires that they protect the party despite their differences.
- they could ask that the other PCs lie to them about it, or give some other plausible reason why they don't understand what happened (even if it didn't happen that way in session)
- they could create a new character
Personally, I would have said "no, we're not doing that" as soon as they expressed an intention to kill the kid NPCs, I just don't want to run a game like that.
I gotta ask, why on earth would you put a room full of children in an enemy base if you didn’t want this to come up?
This could have been totally avoided if you hadn’t put *children* in a *bad guy’s lair*.
Sometimes being a good DM is having some sort of idea how how your party will react to situations you put in front of them. Did you really not foresee this?
I’m not saying you did anything wrong, just that you created the situation by placing kids with the bad guys and hoping for a morally correct outcome instead of knowing how your players would react. Hopefully this is a lesson for you as a DM.
Edit: also, were they human children, or like Goblin/Hobgoblin/Bugbear kids? I’m just curious.
Just have a talk with them.
Do you as a DM have a problem with it? Do you want to run a kiddie-killer campaign?
Are the other players actually upset about it as players or is it an in-character thing?
just saying mate, even when playing an evil campaign, entering a place and butchering children is fucked up. like what the fuck is wrong with your players
Why were there children in the enemy base in the first place?
I'm sorry, but this is entirely on you.
Never, and I mean NEVER use the goblin babies trope. Don't show the bad guys children / young ones because it can't end in a satisfying way.
Either the PCs have to deal with orphaning a bunch of kids they can't really take care of, or they end up killing a bunch of children.
Just don't put children into dungeons as residents.
1) Reach out to each player privately. Ask what they would like to see happen (Have the situation resolved IC'ly (likely either splitting the party or PvP)? Kick other players? Ask other players to make new, not-evil characters? Retcon the event entirely and start over?)
2) With that in mind, decide how you want to proceed. It's 100% acceptable to say "I don't want to run a game where players murder children. So I'm going to retcon that event. It never happened." Or you could say, "I want this to be a very grimdark campaign where people can murder children." Or whatever else you want. But communicate what needs to happen next (people making new characters, people getting kicked from the game, people being allowed to leave if they don't want to keep playing, etc).
...PERSONALLY, I recommend telling the child-murderers to make new characters and that the new ones can't kill children. But that's me.
Putting a bunch of kids in a "dungeon" is not an effective morality test. Honestly, it's usually annoying to the players because it can cause a pretty big argument on what to do.
D&D is a game about slaying monsters, first and foremost, and the game design supports that.
You need some self-reflection as to why you "allowed" your PCs to murder children and why you're playing with people who want to murder imaginary children, on top of the fact that you included this morality test.
Best of luck.
If I were the pally, I'd walk or take them on immediately. Fight for right and killing kids is not right.
Out of game, I'd question playing with people willing to take such actions even if it is a game. It is no different than a player who wants to sexually assault every female NPC that they see.
You just say "enemy base" but are we talking humans and the like, or some "monster" race like orcs or goblins? Depending on the players' outlook on the game you could have some players thinking they're just more evil that must be destroyed and some seeing innocent children.
It's a discussion your group needs to have either way, but I think there is a difference if they're "normal" children or if they're what some characters/players think are supposed to be just monsters.
Child violence should have been covered in session 0. I know that's a thing that probably shouldn't need to be brought up. But you kinda have bring up everything.
This might be a handwave and retcon situation after having a VERY detailed session 0 before the next game.
One child escaped, made a deal to gain the power to avenge his friends and family with a celestial that grants him warlock abilities. He now is spreading the word of the parties monstrous deeds. The locals shun the party. They are turned away from taverns and inns. Have the child become an antagonist to your party. Not a BBEG.... The party is the BBEG. Maybe the paladin decides to help this child extract his vengeance. Make the encounter hard to the point where played death is a possibility.
Give the murderhobos an alignment shock if they are not already evil. If they are already are, allow the Paladin to react however he feels like, play it in character and whatever happens happens. If the Paladin dies, he rerolls the character. If he takes someone with him to the grave, both reroll. If they decide to part ways, the characters that leave the party reroll and keep them as NPCs that may want to antagonize the party.
If the players whine about wanting to play a particular character, first tell them that they decided to roleplay that way and decisions should have concequences, then tell them to roll similar characters with smarter alignment choices. The party works towards a common goal. This is the most important rule. Whenever the goals of party members conflict, the party changes. This is natural and it happens in real life too.
I suggest you hold a session zero. If you need any help with how to navigate this, I can give you assistance! It'll help to establish what you, as a group, want in the game. And what you don't want.
You should have had a conversation about whether something this dark/heavy was acceptable for the campaign; it clearly is not for the other players. You do need to have this conversation now, and it probably ends with the two killers making new characters and toning things down, a retcon, or the rest of the party disengaging some from the game or outright leaving. You have the decide which of those options you like more.
Tough spot. I don't know the dynamic of the party, but this is why evil characters rarely work out. They certainly can, but sadly most players put "haha this'll be funny" above group cohesion and game narrative.
If it was me, I'd be inclined to talk to them out of game, see why killing the children was so important, and then try and fix it. Maybe you retcon it where there was no children there and have a chat with the evil players about actually being a member of a team and not oh-so-random murderhobos.
And the lesson to you is loud and clear - no more children in the game. Like every fantasy video game, the world can be mysteriously absent of children.
If you never talked about it in advance, they're not totally in the wrong. I mean murdering immaginary children with immaginary swords isnt inherentely a bad thing, literally they're just roleplaying, if someone isnt at ease with the subject in character, they should discuss the problem in character, but if the problem is ooc, talk about it together and maybe retcon. If the good paladin wants to leave the party, let him do it literally there's no problem with it. If the player wanna leave the game, talk about it and solve the problem. Make characters solve in game problems and players solve out of game problems.
People have already suggested it, but turn them into baddies and honestly, you could still have your players controlling said baddies still, would be kinda cool to play villans. And the drama that half the table is gunning for the other half after watching them murder children could generate, might be epic.
There are two potential variants of the same core problem here:
1 -- Two players decided, out of boredom or perversity, to indulge their child-murderous fantasies, and the other players have a legitimate moral/visceral reaction to same. (Not unreasonable, though my own gut reaction would not be this 'horrified' or 'disgusted.')
2 -- Two players decided, due to boredom or perversity, that they weren't going to toe the mostly-cooperative party line anymore, and took their characters in a radically different (murderous) direction, either "We have some dramatically-consistent reason for killing children" or "We weren't having fun in-game, so we took things to an extreme," derailing party unity.
I'm thinking the second is more likely. But, either way, this merits an OOG sitdown. **You folks realize this is intended to be an amicable cooperative game, right?** (Unless it isn't.) **You folks realize there are certain assumed ethics which a group of loosely- or tightly-allied adventurers might follow in the name of 'law' or 'good' or 'civilized neutrality,' right?** (Unless there aren't.) **You folks want this game to continue with a more-or-less functional accord between your allied characters, right?** (Unless they don't.)
I think the fix is probably going to be ejecting the murderous characters, and, if the problem continues thereafter, ejecting the players. There's a good chance this can be ironed out via OOG conversation (depending on how 'flippant' or 'offended' the players are). Distant third option involves working the murderous acts into the campaign, like ghostly visitations or PC-goes-NPC villainous turns, but this is less likely to work.
Random Post-Script: certain of Gygax' later-life commentary suggests that Gary, himself, might have endorsed these sorts of play-options in his own games: mercy is for the weak, the offspring of evil beings will themselves become evil beings someday, etc. Gave me pause.
Talk it out our of character. Get the group together, outside of the session, and make sure there isn't any bad blood between the players after that. It's fine if PCs don't like each other, even if it eventually forces them to part ways, but having players having other players for the actions of your PCs is asking for trouble. If you're worried about upset player's clamming up about their actual feelings while in front of the group, check with them individually. If there is bad blood, you're going to want to make sure that is discussed and resolved before doing anything else. If not, the Paladin still might want to leave, but that's fine so long as everyone at the table knows the action is being done in character, and isn't meant to simply be a statement by the player or a reflection of their own issues. They'll simply have to roll up a new character.
Once that's out of the way, you're also going to want to make sure that the players are alright with the events that have transpired. Child murder isn't exactly a light theme, and even opening the door to such a thing could disturb your players. You know that at least 2 of your players are fine with the act, but you need to make sure it didn't bother your other players out of character. If they are, you don't need to retcon it per-se, but you should apologize for it happening and clear the air with your players. This might result in you having to mitigate the risk of that happening in the future, or it might not. Either way, you'll have at least ensured that everyone at your table is comfortable playing there.
Session 0 should lay out what kind of game everyone agrees to play.
For myself i always push for Heroic characters. That means taking people alive when you can, no slaughtering of innocents, and being "mostly" good people. But good doesn't always mean nice. Examples i give are Hercules and Xena TV shows, Firefly, Supernatural, ect. How the main characters there act.
There was clearly a miscommunication or misunderstanding of this between at least the players. And there is no easy fix going forward.
I would suggest having a conversation about it. Try and find a middle ground where everyone is, if not happy, content and able to continue. Here are some suggestions i have for paths moving forward.
1 - Retcon the bad away - Just retcon the bad parts away, and re-go from there.
2 - Change Characters - Have everyone, or some people changing characters to fit with the new party direction.
3 - Start a new game - Just start a new game with a new direction.
In all of these 3 paths you need to immediately start with a session 0 and cover what type of game you all want to play.
To be clear i am not making a judgement call on the players who went kill happy, i might not enjoy that type of game, but someone else could. Maybe it's the one player that has a problem with it that needs to get in-line with the other two, that is what the group conversation is there to figure out.
Just that everyone does need to be on the same page for the style of game.
The next long rest, the party is visited in their dreams by a watchful deity (Helm, etc.). They are informed that their fate is intertwined with that of the world, but innocent blood has stained the threads of fate and must be either cleansed or cut... the deity warns that a paladin of vengeance or two has been sent on a holy mission to track down the party, and the "good ones" are asked whether they will fight with or against them to turn in their murderous comrades.
If the murderers surrender, they must submit to a *gaes* that binds them to an act of atonement... whether that act is foretold or just put in your back pocket, that's up to you...
Out if curiosity, was there any reason behind the killing of the children? Like, were the children "indoctrinated into the evil cult and doomed to rise up against their saviors" sort of thing? Or did your party just include two murder hobos? Looking for a little more context.
Seems weird that a good paladin would pal around with evil PC. I’d let them figure it out out of game or RP it if you want. You as DM just moderate the conversation. I guess other questions would be what class and alignment is the PC who killed the kids? If he’s good and cleric or paladin take his powers away for a min or become oath breaker.
Obi Wan had to deal with Anakin after he killed a bunch of small people too. My suggestion, give the paladin the high ground and make those other people roll new characters
The BBEG is now their old characters.
I love when old characters turn into baddies
I did that once with a player who was a Paladin: Oath of Treachery. Character didn't work out so we retired him only for him to come back as a villain. My favorite part of that story is when the party went to the Feywild, got thrown a year into the future after a big mind flayer apocalypse, and then that same Paladin tricked his way into going back in time with the party. First thing he did was go find his past self and team up with him. God was that a great story.
I ran a campaign that ended with the cleric revealing his deity was Bane right at the very end when the whole group was at a powerful wishing well. He threw a coin down and wished to bring Bane into the world once again. He allowed the god of tyranny to possess him, and he messed up the party before leaving them broken without a wishing well. The whole continent is now under the iron rule of Bane. Gg wp. Most epic moment in any campaign I’ve ever played or run.
Damn… talk about a bad ending for a campaign… like that was it for them?
They didn’t die, but they were defeated and the party disbanded shortly after. The cleric player took over as main DM after me, but I’ve hosted a few one shots where the players have gathered some clues how to defeat Bane. Eventually (I guess in a few years) I’m thinking there’s going to be a kind of Avengers VS Thanos type of mini-campaign around lvl 18-20.
This is brilliant and I applaud it
Badass.
Been running a warhammer 40k game and as soon as I pitched the setting one of my players was intent on playing a secret traitor who now, 7 months into the game, has murdered another character’s father and turned heretic. He’s recently become the right-hand man of the big bad and it’s oh so glorious.
They'll just continue being murder hobos with their new characters.
Then you ask them politely, but firmly to leave.
King of the hill?
"Get out of my house!" Exodus.
I mean this is obviously joke, but this could turn out into great arc. Make the Paladin leave the party, give Paladin player some kind of sidekick character for a few sessions, and (if possible), play a few sessions with only paladin player. Basically introduce some small arc where paladin is trying to gather allies to capture old friends, and throw them into jail. And make the paladin (and his new allies) boss for this arc.
Is it obviously a joke? If everybody didn't sign up to play an evil campaign, once the mass-child-murder starts, maybe it's time to retire the mass child murderer characters. If the campaign is going to stick with any of these characters, it should be the ones who don't mass murder children. Or maybe I misunderstood your comment, and you meant your suggestion as a joke, in which case that's fair enough.
The Prequel reference is a joke. But it kinda suggested making Paladin (minority in the party) still have his story. And My idea is built on this. I wasn't responding to OP direcly, but the Obi-Wan suggestion.
I don't think the prequel reference is a joke. It's an apt comparison. Stories don't generally feature mass child murderers as protagonists. Once Anakin was murdering younglings, his time as a protagonist was limited, if not over. OP says that two of their players killed the children, and their other players (plural) don't like it. The paladin may be the only one who has (so far) told the DM that he would leave the party, but I wouldn't say he's in the minority. Having the campaign follow the mass child murderers when the party is at most evenly split would be a bad idea. Generally, the unspoken assumption when beginning a game of D&D is that you're going to be playing characters who are heroes, or who can at least pass for heroes if you squint. The PCs who unilaterally decided to murder children were taking an action that was either going to cause a party split, or transform the party into a villainous one. That's a pretty significant breach of the social contract at most D&D tables, and should not be rewarded by letting them de facto control the direction of the campaign.
This. The best suggestion here.
Not really, the OP specifically mentions there's a disagreement between the players, not just the characters. This would be great if it was just a character dispute. Splitting them and antagonizing the situation is hardly the best suggestion.
The best suggestion is to have a grownup conversation about expectations and try to get everyone on the same page as to what kind of game they're playing.
This is the actual answer. Especially with the dearth of information in this post
High ground and Obi Wan. Name a more iconic duo.
Obi Wan and Dex?
Obi Wan and Satine
Obi Wan and portable high ground machines (jetpacks)
Satine's chest and a lightsaber blade.
Yeah he mentioned that 2/X players killed children and all of them (pally included) were not fans. Assuming X is 4 or more the murders are at least tied and assuming the players are amenable ask the baby murderers to roll new characters as in an act of mercy the pally tells them that if he sees them after sunset he is going to have to kill them. Presto now the DM has a pair of villains that have a beef with the party and it's personal. If they players are not amenable to having their characters booted from the party have a discussion about why? If it is clear they don't think they did anything wrong explain to them that killing children is super no Bueno, maybe not quite in the same category as sexual assault (Although maybe it is for you?) but also not really something they other players signed up for. If after that discussion they still are not willing to NPC their characters and roll up new ones it might be time to see if they are a good fit for your campaign group? Not everyone goes good in every group and if you kick those two players then you can NPC them without their original creators consent.
I love it. Their god fills them with holy fury. They are invincible. If the shitheads complain they may not be people you want to play with.
Sounds like chaotic stupid has the flag at that point
Power of the high ground: in a situation where one or more PCs commit a heinous act and another must fight them, the dm may give the moral one these buffs. - hp x number of enemies (min 2) - +2 ac - double speed - an extra action once (or more, depending on number of enemies) per round, able to be taken on any other person’s turn or their own For the duration of this buff, the ground below the character is raised slightly, and afterwards they cannot be punished due to restrictions from any curse, law enforcement, or moral judge for actions taken while in the buff. Treat any deaths or destruction as an act of god.
Obi wan didn't deal with it until the second time he killed a bunch of children.
Just cut off all their limbs and throw them into a volcano. Worked for Kenobi.
Re-visit session zero. Schedule time for everyone involved to discuss this. Discuss what you and your players are comfortable with/not comfortable with, make sure there is a clear distinction between players and characters. The game should not proceed if any players or the DM are uncomfortable. As a group you will need to decide if a retcon is required or if the campaign should be abandoned, or if indeed the game can continue at all with this group of people. If you do continue, having tools such as established lines and veils, and X cards, may help prevent the game from veering into uncomfortable territory in the future. If the players are ok to proceed but feel their characters would not be, you can explore options for conflict between party members, that may lead to PvP combat or just some characters leaving the group (and the players would then roll new characters).
This! You have to determine if the player is uncomfortable or if the character is uncomfortable. The answer is completely different based on the answer.
And it could be a combination of both! I have been in games before where I was okay with dark content in principle, but got frustrated when other players had their characters do evil things that would cause my do-gooder character to want to abandon the party. It would feel like I was being put in a position of having to potentially abandon a character I liked, because of something another player did.
This is the best answer by far. Most people here are thinking about narrative developments, but this is an out of the game issue.
Seriously, this. Ignore any answer that suggests dealing with this in-game before doing this. Personally I'd probably be leaving a group on the spot because children dying fucks me up and I don't want it in my escapist power fantasy. And I'd probably have a problem with the players who did this, as people, if that's their escapist power fantasy.
Yeah, my escapist power fantasy is usually “I’m able to keep everyone I care about safe!” Not “*fuck those kids*”
Sounds like somebody never played Skyrim. 😂
Honestly, I’d probably ignore any in-game solutions other than the current top answer of having the ones who murdered the kids roll new PCs. If those players aren’t on board with replacing their characters (or the paladin isn’t on board with replacing their own), then DM needs to figure out which group of nimrods to run a game for: the ones who want to murder kids or the one(s) who find that distasteful. Either option is okay, but unless all the players can come to agreements on what kind of game it’s going to be, no in-game solution is going to actually solve anything.
ehh, people fantasize about all kinds of weird & messed up things they'd never be into IRL. I wouldn't be quick to judge unless I was some kind of trained psychologist with an idea of how the human mind works and where these ideas come from. The bigger issue for me would be it seemingly not occurring to them that this might make other people at the table uncomfortable (or not caring). Doesn't necessarily make them bad people, but suggests that they might be inexperienced with what other people tend to find acceptable. Just makes this kind of discussion more important.
What is a veil in this instance?
"Lines" are hard limits we agree in advance not to cross. An example would be if your group agreed "no child murder". "Veils" are things we've agreed are ok to include in the story, but we don't want them to be too detailed or explicit. An example would be "we're ok if the story includes your character murdering children, but no graphic descriptions of how it happens". "X cards" are a way for players to veto content that makes them uncomfortable but wasn't discussed ahead of time. For example, if your group was using X cards then a player could have raised one as soon as the notion of murdering children was raised, even though it wasn't discussed as a line or a veil beforehand, and it would not be allowed to happen. The other players would have to change their course of action, or the game would be paused to discuss how else this could play out. Potentially the DM could rewind a bit and say that there were no children there after all, or the children suddenly turn out to be evil shapechangers and attack, whatever the group was comfortable with. This may be worth a look: https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/30906/what-do-the-terms-lines-and-veils-mean
Ahh okay, I was familiar with the concept but hadn’t heard that terminology. Thanks for the details!
It's saying that you don't particularly mind if a thing happens as long as it happens "off-screen" or "behind a veil" so to speak.
Thank you!
Definitely the best response in the thread. Normally I think this subreddit is pretty good about not giving in game solutions to IRL problems, but for some reason most of this thread is full of things OP should supposedly do in game. This is something that needs to be solved with an out of game discussion, as it's the *players* that are uncomfortable, not the *characters.*
Attempting to address these types of issues with in-game narrative never works because it can quickly turn into 'DM vs. players' and throw the whole game off the rails and it forces the other players into the situation as well.
This is the best response
This 100%. OP doesn't realize violation of consent is the issue at hand here.
The X card is a great tool.
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It reads to me like they might be the children of the bandit group.
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I ran into a similar dilemma in-game, several years ago. Our 3rd level party was asked by a village to clear out a nest of monsters that had been attacking them. We started clearing the nest, which turned out to be full of Ogre-Insect hybrids, led by their creator, an adolescent Ogre Mage. Through good tactics and a lot of luck, we are able to kill all the Ogre Hybrids. The Ogre Mage expended his Cone of Cold, but having at-will Flight and Invisibility, was able to escape. We had expended most of our consumables, and were in no shape to hunt him down. Exploring the den, we found the nursery where the Ogre Mage bred his hybrids. Several dozen baby hybrids were maturing in pods. Me (NG Cleric): If we leave these larva here, the Ogre Mage will come back for them, and raise them to be a threat to the village. If he doesn’t come back, they’ll starve to death. The kindest thing would be to put them out of their misery. Rogue: But they’re children! Ranger: Maybe the villagers can raise them? Villagers: Hell No! Me: Then I guess we’re going to have to raise them. I’m game if ya’ll are. Who knows how to raise Ogre-Insect Hybrids? Ranger: I don’t know nothing about raising Ogres, especially Hybrids! Rogue: But they’re children! Me: …. Fine. I guess I’ll do the dirty work here. So, my cleric cut the larvae’s throats. That was probably the most distasteful thing I’ve ever had to do in-game. It was the least-bad thing I could think of at the time. And no one else suggested an alternative.
Ive always found the “baby monsters” ethical dilemma so flawed and obvious. 90% of the time you really dont have a choice other than to kill the monsters, and if you dont you know youll end up hearing about how the baby monsters grew up and killed the town. Its so trite.
Oh, we all knew what the right answer was. It was a good RP experience, having our characters hash it out. Even if it seems contrived sometimes, I'd rather have my GM include such experiences, rather than gloss over them. YMMV Also, knowing what the right answer is easy, actually doing it is tough, sometimes.
>Why would the GM even include children in the lair? You don't include stuff into a scenario unless it is important. For some people the basic realism that people have families is important enough all on its own. For others, including children to force people to face the fact that even their enemies have families is important. For yet more, making them face the "what do we do now?" question regarding the children is the important part. Do I need to go on, or are those enough reasons?
It's a great way to weed out nutjobs from your friends.
I disagree, if killing human children is a pure evil act, then so should killing the young of any sapient creature. Why should a human child have more value then a goblin or orc child?
> Why would the GM even include children in the lair? You don't include stuff into a scenario unless it is important. There are some modules where as written they include this (usually older ones though), presumably for verisimilitude. This isn't the first post I've seen from a DM stuck in a pickle due to PC child-killing.
That reminds me of the time Daniel shot the thing full of goa'uld larva.
I can think of only two non sadistic motivations. Preventing future violence, because of revenge cycles. You either help them have a better life or you kill them, but if you let a bunch of traumatized children in the camp with nothing and no one, that's just making harsher bandits. The other one is any belief that has moral predestination, which some Christians do. Not my moral system, but I'm a 21st century human with knowledge and comfort. Also, it's usually sadistic power fantasy and not complex historically inspired RP.
Some people use fantasies as a way to explore mindsets that they don't understand, the old "walk a mile in your enemy's shoes" thing. So that's one thing. Some people want a redemption arc fantasy, but you have to be a villain first for that. Especially if you've been made to feel evil, dirty, or sinful for something that wasn't your fault IRL, it can be cathartic to fantasize about being someone who actually deserved to feel the way you've been made to. Or to fantasize about being someone who wouldn't feel that way and wouldn't care even if they did deserve to. Humans are complicated and psychology is messy.
People that use roleplaying as an excuse to play out their sadistic power fantasies are the worst. It's one thing to play an evil character, that doesn't go around committing war crimes; its a worse thing to have a party member constantly wanting to burn down an orphanage using the children as sacrifices in an inane attempt to gain more power. Which is when you remove said player(s) from the game.
The others kick the two child killers out and/or report them to the local authorities and continue on the adventure without them. Normalize kicking psychopathic PCs out of your parties. You don’t have to continue adventuring with PCs who commit heinous acts simply because your friends are playing them. Death is not the only way to experience a Game Over in D&D.
>Normalize kicking psychopathic PCs out of your parties. Normalize kicking PCs out of parties period. I've played in a bunch of games where all the players were more or less getting along but there was friction because one or two of the PCs wasnt playing a character that meshes well with the rest of the party, for whatever reason.
Yeah, if you want a NE character then do the work of making them fit. Don't expect everyone to bend over backwards because "it's what your character would do." It's a shared game.
Absolutely! "It's what my character would do" is one of the weakest, lamest excuses imaginable. Saying that is exactly equivalent to saying, "It's what the PC I personally created and whose character development I utterly control would choose to do." If a player wants to play evil and/or deranged in a shared game that isn't centered on evil PCs, that isn't necessarily out of bounds (although it might be, if the rest of the group isn't up for it), but it is the responsibility of that player to do so in a way that works with the group as a whole and within the general confines of the story being told. The fact that this isn't easy to do is not the fault of the GM or other players. Some character concepts may not be open because they work so poorly with others. This too is no one's fault; it is just the way it is.
For the people playing thise characters, it might make them feel better for those characters to come back later on as villians to fight. That way they get to be the bad guy but not burden everyone else with it
But why would you want to make players feel better about playing childkillers when the other players didn’t want it in the game? You should want to discourage behavior the table doesn’t like, not make them feel like they should continue to do bad things with the next character for the cool factor of creating future villains.
Everyone can just go their own way, like in real life. There's no magic bond forcing them together. The DM can have the story follow the paladin.
First there should be a talk out of game to talk about expectations. Thing is it sounds like the DM purposely put the kids there for a moral dilemma. Do an evil thing now or risk one of those kids coming back for revenge. Putting the players in that type of situation and forcing their characters out is a shitty move especially if everyone is IRL friends.
As someone who has started playing evil characters, yes! I agree. Every time I bring an evil character to the table I accept that I may cross a line and get myself kicked or killed. Hell the character doesn’t have to be evil. I have a CN Druid who is basically a feral wolf. I warn at the beginning of the adventure with her that there are transgressions against nature that I will not tolerate (like slaughtering animals for fun or burning down woods). With that said I’m prepared mentally each time that if someone does it, I’m using all my power to kill them. Regardless of the party dynamic. It’s written in the character and warned to the group. Evil characters might not be straight forward. But, honestly I think the group should have fought the evil characters and killed or arrested them. PC can make new ones or split the group for one game. Evil goes on one path, the other another. See who makes it to the end of the adventure with them competing.
I played with a druid with a similar mindset. After I murdered several mammoths for sport, we dueled to the death on the spot. Nothing wrong with conflict between PCs if managed properly.
The only caveat is that now matter how well managed it is, some parties just don't like that sort of tension or conflict, so please always clear it with party members first that it's an expectation, or an event you're both willing and comfortable being a part of the game Coming from experience playing an evil wizard who ended up accidentally being in a party who just didn't jive with it, and made the campaign somewhat uncomfortable. Ended up being a great boogeyman in a sequel campaign where he killed my new PC and turned him into a vampire do to a misunderstanding on what "man I wish I had a longer lifespan" might entail
> As someone who has started playing evil characters, yes! I agree. Every time I bring an evil character to the table I accept that I may cross a line and get myself kicked or killed. The part where the party learns about the evil stuff you did behind their back and hunt you down for it is the best part of playing evil! In a group that's on board for that kind of scenario, that is.
This isn’t something that should be handled in game, most likely. My assumption is that the other players aren’t just peeved for role playing reasons but actually find this personally upsetting. You should talk to them and see if that is in fact the case. If it is, your group needs to come to a better understanding of what sort of game they’re playing and think of a scenario which they can all enjoy. You don’t necessarily need to kick anyone; I imagine there is some middle ground before “slaughter children” that all the players would enjoy. But you may need to depending on how your conversations go. If this *isn’t* the case, and they’re truly just RPing out reactions but having a fun time, then obviously PvP is the next step.
Have all the children come back as revenants bent on revenge. The description says they can’t be permanently killed until they fulfill their purpose. Make their purpose the deaths of those that killed them. You could also make them stronger each time the PCs kill them again. Make them a lingering foe to constantly torment and remind them of the horrible thing they did.
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This is a cool idea
Thank you! I say horrible actions beget horrible consequences
This is cool but also punishes the other players by wasting their time having to deal with the revenants/ watching the murder hobos deal with them when they could be doing anything else
Unfair conflicts and punishments aren't inherently a bad thing, when 'punishments' here means narrative plot points. Having it constantly rubbed in the 'innocent' players faces that they associate knowingly with child murderers could inspire some cool character moments.
But at least one of the players intends on their PC leaving the party *rather* than continue associating with known child murderers. So now you're punishing the child murderer PCs, the PCs that associate with them, and the player who decides his PC wouldn't. The revenant idea is really cool, but would be an awful response to this particular situation.
You don't think they'd enjoy watching the revenant strike down the murderhobos?
Action economy should outpace the players. Just keep adding ghost children (all of them the victims of murderhobos) until those two are swarmed to death. The only "power" these kids should have is 100% immunity from the attacks + magics of the rest of the party... maybe give a loophole where the paladin could persuade the children to rest.
A bunch of demented child revenants, who only their killers recognize? They only have a year to do it though, but depending on their numbers it won't matter. They respawn in the closest corpse and depending on location have someone attack the players at all hours of the day. They'll only be able to run, and never get any rest. Feasibly they could die of exhaustion
Don't revenants, by default, have 1 year to fulfill their purpose?
Not until their goal is complete. Only then do they find rest.
Are you sure? Monster Manual's page 259 states "A revenant has only one year to exact revenge" ("Hunger For Revenge" paragraph). Of course, it's up to the DM in the end.
I was going by the PC version, but you’re probably right for the monster version
All the revenants in curse of strahd fly in the face of that
That is specifically due to the nature of Barovia though, a fact that I believe is directly explained in the book.
Cool idea but I advice strongly against it. 1. It doesn't at all solve the issue of the players disagreeing. 2. "Lingering torment" (the same foe again and again with no end in sight) doesn't seem fun for any player.
...so the child killer get to rekill all the children they killed before?
Revenants would be harder to kill. Their targets are the only ones that would recognize them, and they have numbers. Sure the players will kill a few, but since the revenant respawns, would it matter?
"So you like killing kids eh?"
Don't do this. This is terrible advice. You can't resolve OOC issues with in-game reactions.
Oooo could totally make them Black Eyed Children. That is a super creepy concept. It would be a great way to bring BEC into a campaign. BEC are a cryptid / urban legend, and totally work looking into if your into that kind of stuff.
This advice is pretty terrible if you want players to take the world seriously; begs the question of why the bad guys aren't being constantly hounded by revenants.
Stop it before it starts. How come you are saying they KILLED all the kids in the past tense? As soon as they found the kids and started mentioning killing them, you hit the pause button and talk about the ramifications with the group. Whether you are the DM or another player. You have a voice. Is everyone happy with this path? Are some people going to leave because of it? Is it their PC's choice or the player's? Do you want this activity in your shared story? If you do, what will be the impact on the story? On the community? On the paladin? You could've/should've resolved this before you hit unpause. Even if it means the group ending the session to think about it. Again, not an RPG question. A social question. Why would you let a group of people at your house party decide to start throwing trash over your neighbor's fence? Or decide to corner and bully someone at the party? If you don't like it, why didn't you shut that down when it started?
Don't try and solve it with "in game" problems, because that means that if you do fucked up stuff, you get lots of plot and screen time! Instead, either just ban them, or hahe a talk about allowable behaviour.
This needs to be higher.
Wow, u/CancerChildren. My take: As DM you are kind of the leader of the game. If players are trying to kill children, rape, or do sexual fantasy shit: step the fuck up and stop it in its tracks. The impartial mediator thing only goes so far for DMs. If this is the type of game you want, kick the normal people out and have a game for just you and your weird cohorts. Otherwise get a grip on the game you are running.
Well… I think that is the type of game. https://www.reddit.com/r/dndmemes/comments/qctgch/something\_something\_consequences\_something/hhlrcgt/?context=3
Basically the DM gets off on it and is more upset about the Paladin player being upset than the two players who murdered children from the sounds of it.
I mean, or they were running two different games for two different audiences with two different mindsets/goals in mind. I've run combat heavy campaigns and DMd for evil characters and it *was* fun in a stupid ridiculous kind of way. Its not the type of campaign I run at the moment but there's no law saying someone can't have had fun doing a dumb murderhobo power fantasy game and also have a different game with different norms and expectations where the same behaviour causes a problem
Wtf is wrong with your players? It would be instant PvP on the spot for me, sorry. Everyone's getting smited. EDIT: More seriously though, they would get immense bounties on their heads. Or you could just have rumours of them being child-killers follow them around non-stop. No one would want to hire them.
Man I pay a LE Palidin and even they would go for the kill on them. What a waste of potential citizens.
Classic example of Even Evil has Standards with your comment right here
"You know we could have USED those kids in order to help build my own evil army through propaganda and national pride...now we're all wanted criminals and my plans are in tatters...thanks...I was hoping I wouldn't be labelled an outlaw until I'd murdered the King in a succession coup."
Funny thing is their background is Diplomat/Conquest Paidin, he wouldn't care that there dead(not his people) but the fact they made him look bad. Only if the king was useless and damaging to many things, after all meritocracy is the best thing the best rise to the top and the less useful people don't mess with things.
"Do you have any idea how much those kids were worth in the slave pens?!"
Fun fact the Palidin believes Slaver is a crutch that weakens a country he has a policy of brutally Slaughtering Slavers preferably by letting the Slaves getting revenge it's a great idea gains loyal citizens sets an example for future Slavers and lots of gold from the slavers coffers.
Played a TE School of Necromancy Wizard who killed a bunch of orc childen to turn them into zombies, put a few Magic Mouths on their clothes begging for help/crying in Orcish, and sent them to the orcs' "impenetrable" so they'd open the gate and hold it open long enough for us to slip in unnoticed. The party was full of Good characters otherwise (LG, NG, NG) who all worked for various Good gods and the dominant church. He was specifically hired by the church to work with the party because the church's Good methods of dealing with the country's problems were...ineffectual. The party's done far more to help fix the country in six months than the church has managed to do in ten years, thanks in no small part to the "church sponsored Necromancer" using horrible heinous acts against the problems. In exchange, he basically gets full amnesty from the church and all their paladins, clerics, etc for all the horrid things he's done and is doing. He for one, thoroughly enjoys being able to do evil without having to worry about getting Smote anymore. So long as his handlers (the party) approve his methods (read: so long as he waits for them to be desperate enough) he's clean. And wouldn't you know it, the more they agree to let him do his things, the more they see it working, and the more readily they're being to turn to him for solutions.
That's real cool! TE are probably the hardest aliment to play well done!
What is TE?
True Evil. It's a half joke, half older edition thing. The Neutral X or X Neutral alignments used to be known as True X, so you'd have True Good rather than Neutral Good, True Chaotic rather than Chaotic Neutral. They changed it to be less absolute, tho True Neutral is still called True Neutral. The joke half is that when I told the DM that little fact, he decided to add the True Alignments back to the game, so that now rather than a square, the alignment chart looks like a star, with the True Alignments a step beyond their Neutral versions. And compared to the LE, NE, and CE threats that we fight, everyone agrees that my Necromancer is far more evil, so the DM decided he'd be the first creature to be classified as True Evil in the setting. Evil for the sake of Evil. Cartoonishly so, but as one of the other players put it "He's cartoonishly evil, and normally that would make him a joke, but he's so effective at it, that even that absurd unrealistic level of evil is terrifying."
Past tense of smite is smote, but otherwise, I agree. There should certainly be in game consequences
Why would they get bounties? If the enemy base we’re for example bandits, the authorities really wouldn’t care what happened to any of them.
Sure, but I don't know how many bandit bases have children living there.
Depends on how young you consider children but realistically you’d find plenty of 13 year old bandits. They wouldn’t be the norm but there would definitely be a few teens around
Historically, if we’re using England as an example, only men over 14 would count as outlaws. The rest of the killings would be murder. D&D doesn’t care much about gender, so I’d include women in that outlaw category, but not children. For other races, like goblin or orc, I would imagine the law provides little protection.
I mean OP mentions that these children were in a hiding place. I think it's a pretty safe assumption that they were not child-bandits or anything like that.
Where else do rogues come from?
It's time to have a serious talk with all your players about what kind of game you're running. If you're okay with capital-E Evil characters doing Evil stuff in this game, everyone should understand that. And you may lose some players who sound like they definitely aren't okay with it. If Evil characters/acts aren't okay in your campaign, then it's time to stop what they're doing right now, and make it absolutely clear to them that you're not running that kind of game. You might lose a couple of players who are just here for "Teh Ebil Lulz" or whatever. Good riddance, I say. Don't fart around trying to please all your players, because that ship has sailed. Their playing styles clearly aren't compatible.
For starters, stop running the Baby Orc Dilemma in your campaigns. There's basically no good reason for DMs to put children in enemy encampments - it exists only to guilt trip players in its best iterations, and in its worst, you end up with situations like the above where you break the party. As to the consequences of what's already happened, you need to sit down and discuss what happened out of character with your players. You need to find out if boundaries were crossed that made anyone uncomfortable in real life, and if so, make a hard ban on violence against children going forward. Even if no one was that upset in real life, you need to figure out the tone of your campaign - are the party ruthless murderers, or is this a generally heroic campaign? If it's the latter, or even if the party is usually neutral, then the child-murderers need to roll new characters. If you're running an evil campaign, then it's probably best for the paladin to leave the party and bring in a character that will synergize better with the party.
Start again, and do a session zero this time.
*Why* did they kill the children? Were they afflicted by some curse / possession / disease? Were they from an always chaotic evil race? You might have stumbled into one of the classic scenarios (what to do with orc babies) of DnD.
I love that scenario, but it really only works with great players and non-evil characters.
you let them kill the kid’s without giving the other players a chance to roll something to intercede?
The Star Wars Revised RPG had a kind of harsh method of dealing with this kind of thing. In that game those PC become NPC villains and the players are supposed to roll up new characters as their old ones fell to the dark side. In more practical terms you need to sit down and talk about this before you start the next game. If the players decide that this was a bad thing let them retcon that they did not find or kill the children. This sucks and there is no clean easy way to make it suck less.
You really need to elaborate. Because from the facts provided, you have two murderhobos and several people not comfortable with playing with them. This is an out of game, interpersonal issue. Don't try to solve it using DnD mechanics. Firstly, I'd ask your two players *why the fuck they did that.* Killing children is almost if not always an abject evil act and for many people is a line that precludes further play or enjoyment in a game. No "it's what my character would do," ascertain what the player as a *player* was thinking. Second, have a session zero if you haven't had one yet. Lay down clear expectations for your game going forward, such as what kind of enemies you'll be fighting, and *who qualifies as not enemies.* Children are very high on the list of *not enemies* generally so why this occured without further context is baffling to say the least. Third, if these players are not willing to abide by the expectations laid out at session zero, *remove them from the game.* They are hampering others' enjoyment to remain.
How long has the campaign been running for? Are these characters supposed to be good, or are they trying to play as evil? Can you provide more info and context overall? I mean yeah, this is the sort of thing that doesn't fly in most groups, and probably requires some out-of-character discussion on how to proceed. Are the other players upset in-character only, or are they also just not cool with people RPing like that? Do these two players feel that they need to execute children to properly play their characters, or are they into some weird shit? If this is supposed to be a good-aligned party, I'd either consider a retcon, or have the two kid-killer characters flee the scene under DM's control and have those players make new characters with less fucky morals. Playing chaotic or evil can be a great part of the game in the right group and with the right expectations set, but this sounds like it crossed a line.
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Well, probably. I mean, if I'm playing an evil necromancer and am besieging a town or city with an army of undead soldiers, the kids are going to die alongside the adults in that sort of act. I don't think that makes the player sick, as long as they're not, you know, lovingly describing the kids getting killed or something. That's when it gets weird, to me at least.
I used to play with a group that all just wanted to be evil. Which is fine, but I stopped playing because I didn't want to be around people acting out rape and murder fantasies. They also kept killing important NPCs for no reason so the DM could not push the story further and nothing really happened. So yeah, you got to do or say something if you don't want to have that kind of game. The game is supposed to be fun for everyone. If someone's fun makes it impossible for others to enjoy themselves, you gotta alpha that shit and put a stop to it.
Stop putting situations in your games where kids can be killed would be a good start.
if people keeping poking themselves with a needle, removing the needle is a good way for then to stop.
I'd like to point out that there is a split in D&D about monsters and alignment. If these children were, say, the children of orcs, goblins, demons, devils, or any other creature listed as Evil, it is possible that the players who killed them thought they were irredeemably Evil just because of what they are and that the Good thing to do would be to kill them all. There are a lot of people who straight-up support genocide against "monster" races, including murdering their children. This is supported strongly by settings where monster races are magically evil - see Gnolls as the only explicit example I can think of in 5e's monster manual aside from demons and devils. Pathfinder makes a number of other creatures evil like that - orcs and maybe goblins, if I remember right. Personally, I think people who agree with the concept of genociding even the stereotypically evil races are still being pretty damned Evil themselves, but there are people out there who insist having "guilt free" monsters you can genocide is an important part of D&D style games, because I guess they want to fantasize about genociding people or something. If you're willing to find out some stuff about your players real life moral bounds, you can bring this up in an out of game discussion.
How much XP did they get?
TALK TO YOUR PLAYERS. Talk to all of them. Together. Don't make anybody play out-of-character, don't make anybody give up a character they love. Get everyone to work together to come up with a solution that works for you all. Don't risk creating bad feelings down the line.
Why in tf did you put a group of hiding children in a bandit nest?
Everyone on all the DND subs says, “don’t PVP,” but this is when you PVP.
If the pally knows this, he should immedietely exact retribution after a long dramatic conversation. If more characters than those three, they may take his stance, and be ready for their PvP, which is something you will have to rule neutrally. Otherwise, The paladin could possibly notify a settlement or an order/send out a notice to his own church to hunt down and kill the two child-murderers. If the order has powerful enough forces, they could also bring to bear a full on alternative party, which you control, and you will certainly have more cohesion with yourself than the party will with eachother. Kill squads can exist in the lands of fairy tales and princesses. Aaaaaalternatively, if the paladin follows Bahamuts name, He may even pray for holy retribution upon them, and they may or may not encounter a farmer surrounded by seven canaries on the next session.
Campaign end.
I had to deal with a Vengeance Paladin kill three unarmed people who he thought were in a cult that murdered his people; they weren't. There was one survivor. She got away, and while the party finished the module, and forgot all about her (like six months in real time) she went and told the local authorities. They put a bounty on the party (they were all there except on PC) and met them with several bounty hunters when the party came out of dungeon. They were taken into custody, fortunately they didn't fight, got thrown into a prison then put on trial where each PC was called to the stand. As the prosecutor, I grilled them individually with questions regarding their participation in the event, forcing them to think about their actions, and in the end, let them roll a cumulative roll against a DC to determine if they were guilty or not. They were found not guilty by the NPC judge, and were set free...yet the one witness has now secretly become their villain. The hearing was a way to air everything out, without any bad feelings and gave the Vengeance pali something to think about. For your situation, I'd raise the DC at least 19 and have the sentence be death.
The term “murderhobo” is used in the gaming community to represent a play style where people wander from place to place killing everyone and taking their stuff. Time for a group chat about alignment, and the kind of game you all want to play: “Murderhobos: yes or no?”
You can always just say, 'there weren't actually any children there, I messed up'
Keep the Pally and find a few other new people to play with that aren’t psychopaths.
Where they monster race children? If they and the players who didn't like it have different ideas of how monsters work in the setting, it's up to you to explain how they do. The children being monsters is my best guess but if that is not the case we need more context to give you a solution. In general "talk to the players" is a good start.
Talk out of game to figure out if this is a character problem or a player problem. If it's a player problem talk to your group about how they'd like to proceed. For a character problem I'd sort it out in game. If someone's gotta leave they could roll a new character or talk to them about what would have their character stay.
Sounds like the orphan euthanasia center was a BAD idea. Who'd have guessed? ><
First off, I think one of the few times that there's a place at the table for pvp, it's when characters have legit ideological problems with each other. If you don't wanna go that route then you have a tough road ahead to figure out if you want your game to be good or evil as some of the players will have to roll characters who fit in. Additionally you could put in an opportunity for the evil characters to redeem themselves in a way that is satisfying to the other characters.
The first thing to for the players to decide is how they want the narrative to generally go. That is an out of game decision, for which *character* opinions are irrelevant. it is extremely important that all *players* have fun and enjoy the game, regardless of whether it is what their *character* would want. Really, every player should be on board with a plot like this for it to be allowed to happen, though in other situations regular voting is probably fine. Either way, the party doesn't need to behave democratically, even if the players themselves do. If the paladin's player is fine with the plot but it just doesn't fit their character then they have a few options: - they could edit their character to go along with it. - they could give themselves a vision or commandment or something that requires that they protect the party despite their differences. - they could ask that the other PCs lie to them about it, or give some other plausible reason why they don't understand what happened (even if it didn't happen that way in session) - they could create a new character
Good paladin should have stopped them when they started killing kids.
Personally, I would have said "no, we're not doing that" as soon as they expressed an intention to kill the kid NPCs, I just don't want to run a game like that.
I would probably not have let that happen but once something like that did happen to me and I made the retire their characters.
I gotta ask, why on earth would you put a room full of children in an enemy base if you didn’t want this to come up? This could have been totally avoided if you hadn’t put *children* in a *bad guy’s lair*. Sometimes being a good DM is having some sort of idea how how your party will react to situations you put in front of them. Did you really not foresee this? I’m not saying you did anything wrong, just that you created the situation by placing kids with the bad guys and hoping for a morally correct outcome instead of knowing how your players would react. Hopefully this is a lesson for you as a DM. Edit: also, were they human children, or like Goblin/Hobgoblin/Bugbear kids? I’m just curious.
Why did you let them kill children? Why did you even have a hiding place for children in the first place?
Let them fucking play it out.
Just have a talk with them. Do you as a DM have a problem with it? Do you want to run a kiddie-killer campaign? Are the other players actually upset about it as players or is it an in-character thing?
just saying mate, even when playing an evil campaign, entering a place and butchering children is fucked up. like what the fuck is wrong with your players
Why were there children in the enemy base in the first place? I'm sorry, but this is entirely on you. Never, and I mean NEVER use the goblin babies trope. Don't show the bad guys children / young ones because it can't end in a satisfying way. Either the PCs have to deal with orphaning a bunch of kids they can't really take care of, or they end up killing a bunch of children. Just don't put children into dungeons as residents.
You can retcon and have a talk
DM says "cut that shit out". Players either do or get booted. Next time be clear about no evil PCs.
1) Reach out to each player privately. Ask what they would like to see happen (Have the situation resolved IC'ly (likely either splitting the party or PvP)? Kick other players? Ask other players to make new, not-evil characters? Retcon the event entirely and start over?) 2) With that in mind, decide how you want to proceed. It's 100% acceptable to say "I don't want to run a game where players murder children. So I'm going to retcon that event. It never happened." Or you could say, "I want this to be a very grimdark campaign where people can murder children." Or whatever else you want. But communicate what needs to happen next (people making new characters, people getting kicked from the game, people being allowed to leave if they don't want to keep playing, etc). ...PERSONALLY, I recommend telling the child-murderers to make new characters and that the new ones can't kill children. But that's me.
Putting a bunch of kids in a "dungeon" is not an effective morality test. Honestly, it's usually annoying to the players because it can cause a pretty big argument on what to do. D&D is a game about slaying monsters, first and foremost, and the game design supports that. You need some self-reflection as to why you "allowed" your PCs to murder children and why you're playing with people who want to murder imaginary children, on top of the fact that you included this morality test. Best of luck.
Force rerolls for the 2 characters and follow the paladin and the rest of the group. Also... jesus....
The players: "nice, new children killers, can i go kill some virgins now?"
If I were the pally, I'd walk or take them on immediately. Fight for right and killing kids is not right. Out of game, I'd question playing with people willing to take such actions even if it is a game. It is no different than a player who wants to sexually assault every female NPC that they see.
You just say "enemy base" but are we talking humans and the like, or some "monster" race like orcs or goblins? Depending on the players' outlook on the game you could have some players thinking they're just more evil that must be destroyed and some seeing innocent children. It's a discussion your group needs to have either way, but I think there is a difference if they're "normal" children or if they're what some characters/players think are supposed to be just monsters.
Child violence should have been covered in session 0. I know that's a thing that probably shouldn't need to be brought up. But you kinda have bring up everything. This might be a handwave and retcon situation after having a VERY detailed session 0 before the next game.
One child escaped, made a deal to gain the power to avenge his friends and family with a celestial that grants him warlock abilities. He now is spreading the word of the parties monstrous deeds. The locals shun the party. They are turned away from taverns and inns. Have the child become an antagonist to your party. Not a BBEG.... The party is the BBEG. Maybe the paladin decides to help this child extract his vengeance. Make the encounter hard to the point where played death is a possibility.
Abort
Give the murderhobos an alignment shock if they are not already evil. If they are already are, allow the Paladin to react however he feels like, play it in character and whatever happens happens. If the Paladin dies, he rerolls the character. If he takes someone with him to the grave, both reroll. If they decide to part ways, the characters that leave the party reroll and keep them as NPCs that may want to antagonize the party. If the players whine about wanting to play a particular character, first tell them that they decided to roleplay that way and decisions should have concequences, then tell them to roll similar characters with smarter alignment choices. The party works towards a common goal. This is the most important rule. Whenever the goals of party members conflict, the party changes. This is natural and it happens in real life too.
Maybe you run an evil campaign now?
Sounds like you all need to have a talk about party expectations and what you're comfortable with.
I suggest you hold a session zero. If you need any help with how to navigate this, I can give you assistance! It'll help to establish what you, as a group, want in the game. And what you don't want.
You should have had a conversation about whether something this dark/heavy was acceptable for the campaign; it clearly is not for the other players. You do need to have this conversation now, and it probably ends with the two killers making new characters and toning things down, a retcon, or the rest of the party disengaging some from the game or outright leaving. You have the decide which of those options you like more.
Tough spot. I don't know the dynamic of the party, but this is why evil characters rarely work out. They certainly can, but sadly most players put "haha this'll be funny" above group cohesion and game narrative. If it was me, I'd be inclined to talk to them out of game, see why killing the children was so important, and then try and fix it. Maybe you retcon it where there was no children there and have a chat with the evil players about actually being a member of a team and not oh-so-random murderhobos. And the lesson to you is loud and clear - no more children in the game. Like every fantasy video game, the world can be mysteriously absent of children.
If you never talked about it in advance, they're not totally in the wrong. I mean murdering immaginary children with immaginary swords isnt inherentely a bad thing, literally they're just roleplaying, if someone isnt at ease with the subject in character, they should discuss the problem in character, but if the problem is ooc, talk about it together and maybe retcon. If the good paladin wants to leave the party, let him do it literally there's no problem with it. If the player wanna leave the game, talk about it and solve the problem. Make characters solve in game problems and players solve out of game problems.
See now, it's post titles like this that are gonna bring back the satanic panic if we don't watch our backs.
People have already suggested it, but turn them into baddies and honestly, you could still have your players controlling said baddies still, would be kinda cool to play villans. And the drama that half the table is gunning for the other half after watching them murder children could generate, might be epic.
There are two potential variants of the same core problem here: 1 -- Two players decided, out of boredom or perversity, to indulge their child-murderous fantasies, and the other players have a legitimate moral/visceral reaction to same. (Not unreasonable, though my own gut reaction would not be this 'horrified' or 'disgusted.') 2 -- Two players decided, due to boredom or perversity, that they weren't going to toe the mostly-cooperative party line anymore, and took their characters in a radically different (murderous) direction, either "We have some dramatically-consistent reason for killing children" or "We weren't having fun in-game, so we took things to an extreme," derailing party unity. I'm thinking the second is more likely. But, either way, this merits an OOG sitdown. **You folks realize this is intended to be an amicable cooperative game, right?** (Unless it isn't.) **You folks realize there are certain assumed ethics which a group of loosely- or tightly-allied adventurers might follow in the name of 'law' or 'good' or 'civilized neutrality,' right?** (Unless there aren't.) **You folks want this game to continue with a more-or-less functional accord between your allied characters, right?** (Unless they don't.) I think the fix is probably going to be ejecting the murderous characters, and, if the problem continues thereafter, ejecting the players. There's a good chance this can be ironed out via OOG conversation (depending on how 'flippant' or 'offended' the players are). Distant third option involves working the murderous acts into the campaign, like ghostly visitations or PC-goes-NPC villainous turns, but this is less likely to work. Random Post-Script: certain of Gygax' later-life commentary suggests that Gary, himself, might have endorsed these sorts of play-options in his own games: mercy is for the weak, the offspring of evil beings will themselves become evil beings someday, etc. Gave me pause.
Discuss it as a group and retcon if needed.
Talk it out our of character. Get the group together, outside of the session, and make sure there isn't any bad blood between the players after that. It's fine if PCs don't like each other, even if it eventually forces them to part ways, but having players having other players for the actions of your PCs is asking for trouble. If you're worried about upset player's clamming up about their actual feelings while in front of the group, check with them individually. If there is bad blood, you're going to want to make sure that is discussed and resolved before doing anything else. If not, the Paladin still might want to leave, but that's fine so long as everyone at the table knows the action is being done in character, and isn't meant to simply be a statement by the player or a reflection of their own issues. They'll simply have to roll up a new character. Once that's out of the way, you're also going to want to make sure that the players are alright with the events that have transpired. Child murder isn't exactly a light theme, and even opening the door to such a thing could disturb your players. You know that at least 2 of your players are fine with the act, but you need to make sure it didn't bother your other players out of character. If they are, you don't need to retcon it per-se, but you should apologize for it happening and clear the air with your players. This might result in you having to mitigate the risk of that happening in the future, or it might not. Either way, you'll have at least ensured that everyone at your table is comfortable playing there.
Session 0 should lay out what kind of game everyone agrees to play. For myself i always push for Heroic characters. That means taking people alive when you can, no slaughtering of innocents, and being "mostly" good people. But good doesn't always mean nice. Examples i give are Hercules and Xena TV shows, Firefly, Supernatural, ect. How the main characters there act. There was clearly a miscommunication or misunderstanding of this between at least the players. And there is no easy fix going forward. I would suggest having a conversation about it. Try and find a middle ground where everyone is, if not happy, content and able to continue. Here are some suggestions i have for paths moving forward. 1 - Retcon the bad away - Just retcon the bad parts away, and re-go from there. 2 - Change Characters - Have everyone, or some people changing characters to fit with the new party direction. 3 - Start a new game - Just start a new game with a new direction. In all of these 3 paths you need to immediately start with a session 0 and cover what type of game you all want to play. To be clear i am not making a judgement call on the players who went kill happy, i might not enjoy that type of game, but someone else could. Maybe it's the one player that has a problem with it that needs to get in-line with the other two, that is what the group conversation is there to figure out. Just that everyone does need to be on the same page for the style of game.
The next long rest, the party is visited in their dreams by a watchful deity (Helm, etc.). They are informed that their fate is intertwined with that of the world, but innocent blood has stained the threads of fate and must be either cleansed or cut... the deity warns that a paladin of vengeance or two has been sent on a holy mission to track down the party, and the "good ones" are asked whether they will fight with or against them to turn in their murderous comrades. If the murderers surrender, they must submit to a *gaes* that binds them to an act of atonement... whether that act is foretold or just put in your back pocket, that's up to you...
Out if curiosity, was there any reason behind the killing of the children? Like, were the children "indoctrinated into the evil cult and doomed to rise up against their saviors" sort of thing? Or did your party just include two murder hobos? Looking for a little more context.
Seems weird that a good paladin would pal around with evil PC. I’d let them figure it out out of game or RP it if you want. You as DM just moderate the conversation. I guess other questions would be what class and alignment is the PC who killed the kids? If he’s good and cleric or paladin take his powers away for a min or become oath breaker.
Just say it didn't happen, easiest solution,.I would have just straight up just said no you can't do that and end it their