this post was submitted on 18 May 2024
46 points (96.0% liked)

DM Academy

718 readers
1 users here now

A community for discussion, questions, tools, or advice regarding being a Dungeon Master (or Game Master) for Dungeons and Dragons or RPG's in general

/c/DnD Network Communities

Rules (Subject to Change)

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Brunbrun6766
Devil_Master
46
help me figure out a way help my players get out of the mess they're in without ruining their fun. (lemm.ee)
submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/dm_academy
24 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

The following all happens in a town and the nearby surrounding area.

So my party, hereby referred to as their classes are currently third level and have infiltrated a cults hideout, they went there looking for Rogues friend and snuck in with disguises and managed to bluff their way into where the friend was being held. She was in a holding cell. After some deliberation they devised a plan to cast silent image and sneak her out, they couldn't manage to pick the lock and Cleric smashed the door in, this was heard by nearby cultists and they decided to just make a break for it. The cult massively outnumbered them and the party got surrounded. Sorcerer, who is an Aasimar and can fly at 3rd level, flew past everyone and escaped while the rest of the party surrendered. We ended the session there and Sorcerer told me after the session that they plan to go to Cleric's tavern to get the barkeep and any tough looking patrons to form a quick mob.

The conundrum here is that I can't think of a good reason for these cultists to not just kill the party aside from that's not fun. The cult is aware that one of them escaped is probably going to bring the law down on them, so they'll also want to leave. If I was them (and in a way I am) I'd probably kill the witnesses and bail.

Any advice?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago

Okay, there's some great ideas already, so I'm going to swerve a bit and ask some questions to see if there's an in universe reason for things.

Your assumption is that the cultists would kill the prisoners and flee.

Is that because of the cult's beliefs? If not, then there's no reason to start off from evil = kill as the first choice. You don't have to be Stupid Evil just because you're evil. What god or entity are they serving? What's the "portfolio" of the entity? What is their long term goal?

Depending on those answers, it's possible to cook things up that don't break the world building, or rely on deus ex machina to save them.

As an example, I had a similar situation with an organization in my home brew world/system. A cabal of political and social manipulating villains captured part of the group because the players just did something silly, they didn't even fail a roll until they were trying to escape, and it was already too late anyway, they would have been followed.

But, this organization was a secret organization. Disappearing people was definitely a possibility, but not when they didn't catch everyone. So the minions of the organization rendered the captured people unconscious, then used memory wiping spells along with drugs to cover their tracks more fully. They dumped the party members off near a hospital, and "sanitized" the location they were at before the party came along. Now, the leadership of the organization were rightfully pissed, and took steps for revenge that would be much easier to cover up, but they didn't make a rash decision in the moment so that they could make it clean.

It didn't work out for the organization, the party did take them down eventually, but it was a much more interesting fight along the way because the players were invested more.

Not saying that's the right answer for your story and table, it's just an example of the kind of thinking that can be done in universe.