Re: [GENERAL] Community Chat
A brief story from my current campaign (on roll20, not on here) cuz shit just got frustrating :D
So I play Iron Gods, and I’ve devised a parallel plot where the tiefling elemental sorcerer PC’s heritage isn’t just a choice of attributes and bloodline powers but where they descend from an extremely powerful Div producing a line of half-humans with elemental powers to further his goals of achieving godhood. This Div uses “extensive” divination ritual magic to divine the future and nudge it in such ways that he can get what he wants. What he wants will happen in the end of the AP, and should provide him with an important enough situation that he can take very real steps towards becoming a god.
Now, the PCs have just gone through the “lair” of a big bad who is also a descendant of this Div, they’ve encountered books and journals and notes and have uncovered more and more of this backstory. They have for sure begun to realize that someone is attempting to control their lives and steer them towards a goal. What I don’t want here is for them to feel that their choice doesn’t matter, or maybe their best choice could be to just gtfo and not do the AP. What they don’t know is that the mighty Div, sitting on his throne in Abaddon, has no real idea about what technology is about. The Div doesn’t understand the enemies, tools and technologies the PCs have encountered, are chasing, and have access too. He thinks it’s all a form of magic, and that the APs actual Big Bad is a form of demon. The PCs will learn this as they now encounter a portal to Abaddon, they walk through it and they draw closer to the Div without knowing it. Finally they stand outside his door, they scout through the door with magic gloves, and then spend 20+ minutes IRL discussing pre-casting buffs, resting, overcoming DR, strategies, etc. I just want them to get it over with because when they open the door, the Div will speak to them - not fight them. He has a mission for them, and he will have patience with them asking some questions as they encounter him - before he sends them back to the material plane to go on regardless if they wish to or not. Now the PCs are level 10 and they go up against an enemy they’ll encounter 8 levels away, so much later that I have barely begun designing the stat block.
As they enter his chamber, he speaks to them, and they reply only in brief words. They advance, as he keeps talking. Finally they want to cross the bridge to his throne. Damn I should’ve had a wall of force here, but rather, the Div dismisses them from the plane. DC27 Will, roll twice take the worst result. “It’s all by the rules yet I get them out of there as if I had just decided it on my own.” Cleric channels before that, he’s a cleric of desna and admittedly I have put him in there as a plot by Desna to counter this fate-altering scheme of the Div so what happens is pretty thematic. The channel gives them roll twice take the better result, cuz of a feat. Aight, it’s still DC27 Will. Druid and cleric makes it. At level 10. What are the odds.
So long story short the giant druid now has a curse of a very high DC impairing him, the actual
Big Bad has had to teleport away from the party (he doesn’t want to kill his tools), and the party has gained none of the information they should have from the encounter.
I can’t even bring myself to penalize their experience gain from the encounter because it’s not their fault that I designed the encounter to be handled in only one way. And just minutes after this encounter, as we’re about to wrap up the session, I hear “so the best thing we can do in this AP is just to not play it?”
Oh how I just pile up more work for myself xD