Giving Players Difficult choices

I could probably write a lot about the second season of D&D which I have been running, but lets keep this simple and to the point. This is all about a season finale for a set of adventures and the difficult choices that it included and the results it had. There is quite a bit of background to read, but its worth the read to understand the importance of the decisions.

The season has been very much like a TV series, a set of episodes (one-shot adventures) with generally the same cast (player characters), but a few guest stars (PC's who join for a session or two). As the season progresses, there is a general theme to the adventures and the actions which the characters take have effects or consequences in later adventures. The players enjoy this style of play as it makes the campaign feel alive and it helps keep the story together.

The regulars

Of the table of 5-6, three of the regulars characters meshed themselves into the campaign story:

• Eion the Dwarven Paladin of no-particular-god. At the end of season one, he was fighting along side a group of knights of Bahamut (good dragon god) and was rolling hopelessly. So out of frustration/desperation he called upon Tiamat (evil dragon god) for aid and started rolling well. Seeing an opportunity, I took it. We had the closing scene for Eion in a dream and Tiamat declaring that Eion was now his servant. And so he became a Paladin of Tiamat.
• Sunny the Tiefling Warlock. Sunny is the parties chaos engine and McGuffin. She is a young Tiefling who was held for her entire life in captivity by a cult. She only broke away from them recently, murdering the cult in the process. So she has a rather naive/childish outlook on life, but the potential to also be destructive when she wants to. Her current fixations are her 'brother' (Eion), talking wolves, dragons and shiny things (which she puts in her mouth).
• Tak the half elf Warlock. She is the parties mainly functional drunk. Spending most of the time drinking and trying to hit off anything male. When she first appeared, towards the end of season 1, she spent her first session trying to hit off with a Revenant knight, who was later lost into a portal to hell at the season finale

So quite an interesting bunch of characters to work with.

Beginning of the season

As the beginning of season 2, we were working through some of the old D&D adventurers league missions, which put the PC's against the dragon cult. The idea was for the adventurers to fight through cultist and kobolds, eventually working their way up to fighting a dragon. But no plan survives contact with the players. What actually happened was the first time they encounter a small dragon they hang back and start planning what to do. Eion walk's up and starts befriending the dragon, as he is a follower of Tiamat. Sunny decides that this is a good idea and joins him, and starts going all googly eyes over a real dragon, even if it is the size of a large dog. Eventually Lakonic (dragon hunting ranger) decides to try to kill the dragon, which promptly escapes and the PC's end up arguing on whether or not they should be fighting the dragons.

Errr... Scrap all current plans and go for plan B.

Then try to figure out what plan B is.

Plan B

Plan B involved activating my other bad guy. The Revenant knight (Sir Keegan) who was lost to a portal of hell and came back as an Incubus (male succubus). At the start of the season there has been a throwaway scene which saw the Keegan seducing Tak, sleeping with her and then flying off into the distance. At end of session I had asked Tak's player (out of earshot of the others) whether Tak was pregnant. Her response was, "why not".

Suddenly there was a plan B. Keegan started appearing regularly, finding a certain artifact (massive gem) and causing issues at the same time.

Season finale

Without going through the adventure details, the PC's had returned home from a mission to discover their home city covered in an energy dome, put there by Keegan. The party meet a rather angry, but powerful white dragon who demands they go into the city and find a big gem which the dragon has decided is his. They get in, fight Keegan, find the gem (a source of great magical power) which Tak picks up and then all hell breaks loose.

• Tak with a demon baby inside her and a gem of vast magic in her hands suddently goes into spasm and her belly starts contorting (think Alien chest-burster) as the baby is coming out
• Sunny who was distracted by the wonderful colours of the stained glass window of the Regents throne room (where they were all fighting) is standing in front of them when the angry dragon (Grathnax) bursts through, landing (on Sunny) and demanding his gem

I then called a break and handed out love letters to Eion, Sunny & Tak. 

The love letter is a idea I got from some of the PBTA RPG's. They gives each character a vignette and choices on what they wish to do. Normally they are not this drastic, but these letters gave each of the three characters the option to remove themselves from the story in a suitable dramatic manner, but they also has the option to keep their character providing dramatic salvation to them. By giving them time (the break) and encouraging them to talk between themselves, I hoped to get a suitably epic outcome to the story.

Here are the letters (as I gave it to them):

I hope you have enjoyed this season, and I hope you are ok with the story liberties I have taken with your characters to put them into this situation. Now its your turn to control the story. I have a set of possible options on how the story progresses and what happens to people. In the adventure introduction it was asked “How much are our heroes prepared to sacrifice to be victorious? Will this price be too high?” Lets find out.

There are no best choices: the right choice is the thing that gives the most epic and memorable story. I want you to make this story epic and memorable. 

For all these choices, if you can narrate a great event, go for it! If you would rather not, I will take any suggestions and run with the ideas.

Tak: Your stomach splits as the Cambion (Demon spawn) erupts from your body. 

• Option1: Tak dies, Keegan dies/killed. You are joined together in the afterlife 

• Option2: Tak dies, Keegan lives, Keegan remains on the dark side, (Sunny may yet try to kill Keegan, so he is not confirmed safe) 

• Option3: Keegan dies restoring Tak’s life, Keegan is redeemed, Tak will be bitter forever 

• Option4: Tak and Keegan live. But you are going to have to think of a very good reason why/how this can happen

Bonus: the Cambion is going to be a major force in the upcoming season, as the mother you get to name him (or her). Alternatively he will be known as Raphael

Sunny: You are badly (possibly mortally) wounded and under a dragons claw, it is looking down at you. Pain is making is difficult to see clearly, but you vaguely see a red-brown shape in the rafters and you remember Angelo’s words: “One day soon, you are going to be facing the open jaws of a dragon and it may be too late to change your mind. I pray that it is not”. You also know that, it's not just you who is in trouble, you can sense Eoin near you and know what a dreadful challenge he will be facing  

• Option1: Sunny unleashed with whatever magic she has left, the dragon will lose an eye from your assault but it will eat Sunny. Eion will be free to act as he wishes (probably following Tiamat) 

• Option2: Sunny stays put/feigns death/cries for help. This gives you time, but it means that Eion is going to have to make the toughest decision of his life 

• Option3: (if Keegan is still alive) Sunny can burn the last of her life energy to destroy Keegan forever, but it will cost Sunny’s life

Eion: Tak is in a bad way, but Sunny is lying in a pool of pinkish blood under the claw of Grathanx. It looks at you smiling, challenging you, then it looks at the small form of the Tiefling under its claw and licks its lips hungrily. As for the voice of Tiamat, it is deathly silent, but you know she is watching you.

• Option1: Kill Sunny. Prove your dedication to Tiamat by sacrificing everything. Eion will become a major NPC in the upcoming season and Sunny will be dead 

• Option2: Join with the dragon on condition of sparing Sunny’s life. Eion will become a minor NPC in the upcoming season, but Sunny will live 

• Option3: Suicide charge, you don’t stand a chance against this creature, but you could give is a scar or two so it remembers you by. You have no idea if this will save Sunny, but it will give her a chance 

• Option4: Curse Tiamat and refuse to serve her. Eion will lose his Paladin status and be considered a fighter (we need to work this out), and he still needs to come up with a plan to stay alive and save Sunny

Let me ask you reader, what would you choose? Would you keep your characters alive or lose them for the storyline?

I tried to balance the options, but its not possible to keep them completely balanced, but I tried to make them reasonable. (I would not recommend giving a character the option to execute his fellow party member, this might have gone horribly wrong and we could have had some major fallout at the table. But because of the table dynamics, knowing the players, and general level of trust at the table, I knew I could offer this option.)

The results

As planned, the decisions were hard, some harder than others.

• Tak chose to die. I wasn't surprised. When I wrote the love letter, I didn't know that the player was thinking about dropping out anyway. But it gave her a suitable way out of the story with a memorable exit
• Sunny chose to burst into tears (almost literal tears from the player), she called to her patron (an old one known only as mother) for help. Again this didn't surprise me too much, Sunny is much too fun a character to let die, so I didn't expect her to take any of the martyr options
• Eion (who I purposely left to last) was left in a very difficult situation, Sunny's tears had made it much harder for all at the table, and Eion's player did comment that he was close to tears. As he narrated the story.

I was not sure what Eion was going to choose, I half expecting he might turn away from Tiamat, but his choice delivered the most moving storyline:

Eion looks the dragon in the face, "Spare her, I will bring you the gem and serve you!" 

The dragon kicks the Tiefling away. Eion walks away from the party, Sabrina (the cleric who sprinted to Sunny and burned her last spell points saving her) is holding a crying Sunny back as the dwarf climbed onto the back of the dragon. "I'm sorry" he says as the dragon takes to the air and flies off.

This is how legends are made.

Mark

PS. I cannot wait to see whats going to happen in Season 3, but I don't think I want to end a season like this again. It cheapens the decisions which happened this season. They should be remembered.

But I will be doing love letters again at lower stakes.