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So the first encounter the party just slaughtered the townsfolk in the graveyard. What's the best course of action in that scenario?
After the will reading while they slept I had the town form a huge mob and come board up the house and burn the PCs alive and ended the campaign with a TPK.
2 of the pcs may be pissed I'll but I feel like this is a good lesson to learn overall. Thoughts?
Well... Given what you've said.
Possibility #1
This sounds a little bit like what used to happen in my early high-school games. Overzealous teens role playing mass murderers.
Instead of countering their behavior with a ruthless (though realistic) crackdown I would recommend that you pause the game and just talk to them about it. Explain to them that you're not interested in running a game where they run rampant over the land raping, pillaging, and murdering with abandon.
If that doesn't work I'm sure you can find more reasonable and mature people to serve as players. Forget these kids.
Possibility #2
Is it possible that you did not use enough avenues to help avoid a bloodbath? Did the thugs try to back off once the fight went against them? Did they eventually throw down their rakes and hoes, get down on their hands and knees, and beg for mercy? Did you make it clear that these were ordinary villagers with families and not merely criminal thugs? Could Father Grimburrow have arrived just a little bit sooner to stop the fight or heal the wounded?
If you answered "no" to some or all of these questions... You may have overreacted.
So what actually happened? Did these players engage in a heartless slaughter, cutting down poorly armed villagers without a shred of mercy in their hearts? Or was it something else?
Re-affirming Possibility#2 from Gentlemen Wizard, and assuming they were just lethally reacting to be being attacked and not bent on murdering innocents, I would agree that you probably should have gotten the Father to intervene sooner.
I thought the townspeople were to run/plea for their lives if the PCs used lethal force as well. Did you do this and did the PCs still use lethal force? If so, then an angry mob TPK is probably not unreasonable.
I do recall that the AP suggests an angry mob should run them out of town and refuse to do business with them if they ever hit "angry mob" status. That leaves them to explore Harrowstone without a base of operations, which may or may not be painful.
Also, you could have had Father Grimburrow totally smack down and subdue the party (he is cleric 7 or something isn't he?), severly chastise them, but otherwise give them another chance to right their wrongs. In this case, their trust score should be in the tank and probably not ever to be restored. They would then have to live with clearing out Harrowstone with limitations - little/no shop support, angry snears from the townspeople, no offer to help out the council, no offer from the church to utilize their hidden cache, etc.
How did you let this happen as a DM this is like ending your own game before it starts.
Killing your players’ characters in their sleep shuts down the story and may well shut down your game.
If you want your players to run more heroic and ethical characters, talk to the players out of game.
If you don’t mind your players running scurrilous or short-sighted characters, but want them to feel the repercussions of their actions, figure out how to continue the story while still making them feel like they screwed themselves over. For example, instead of the mob burning down Kendra’s house around their ears, have the sheriff (backed not only by deputies but by a prepared Father Grimburrow and his acolytes tossing out Hold Person and the like) capture them and throw them in jail. Then have them overhear plot developments (the bloody letters, etc.) from the deputies, and get the idea that they’re being blamed for it all, and must solve the town’s mystery to win their freedom. Have a sympathetic Kendra smuggle them her father’s letters and papers so they can do research in the cell. Have Grimburrow and a town councilmember or two visit them, giving them a chance to use Diplomacy or Bluff to gain access to town or church records. After the dead begin to rise and menace the town, have the mob come for them and throw them in Harrowstone--if they’ve managed to salvage their reputation with the sheriff or a councilmember or Grimburrow by that time, that person can have stashed their gear somewhere on the grounds. Otherwise, Kendra can have done it.
The players’ characters need a motive to continue for the adventure to work, whether that’s solving the professor’s murder, helping Kendra, laying the haunt to rest, clearing their names, winning glory or whatever. If the players just want to kick ass and take names, Carrion Crown is probably not the best adventure path for them.
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So I think I came up with a fun way to fix it. Father Grimborrow will resurrect them in a week after several letters have happened and disguise them and have them work to solve the haunts. Maybe working out of a secret base on the outskirts of town.
As a 7th level cleric, Grimburrow doesn't even have the Raise Dead spell, let alone the far more preferable Resurrection. You could hand-wave this and bring them back to life, but I have another suggestion that might work for you.
Start by apologizing for burning them alive (that's essentially what the Resurrection is anyways) and then talk straight with them. Tell them that their actions have consequences and they need to be careful not to alienate NPCs with needless killing and mayhem. Then (and this is the most important part) offer to let them go back in time to the moment of the fight with the full knowledge that murders have dire consequences. Then play it out from there.
With any luck they'll have learned their lesson and will either drive the thugs off, take them prisoner, or what have you.
That's how I would do it. Take it or leave it.
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Perhaps you could make their deaths a collective Father Charletan haunting. They didn't die, they're unconscious in the burning house in spectral chains. The haunt pretends to be Father Grimburrow who has resurrected them; they need to see through his lies to escape before they burn to death.
Tell them that their actions have consequences and they need to be careful not to alienate NPCs with needless killing and mayhem. Then (and this is the most important part) offer to let them go back in time to the moment of the fight with the full knowledge that murders have dire consequences. Then play it out from there.
With any luck they'll have learned their lesson and will either drive the thugs off, take them prisoner, or what have you.
That's how I would do it. Take it or leave it.
The OP noted that some characters bragged about their killing. Surely they are aware that this isn't normal heroic behavior and just don't care. Maybe this just is the type of party they want to play, and then the GM needs to decide if he is willing to run that type of campaign (seems like no if he insta-killed them without a chance to escape the inferno), or for everyone to just move on.
I wouldn't try to salvage the previous party at this point. Though, I would apologize for going to far and outright killing them (without a chance for their party to escape and survive the inferno). Then, I would also let them know that the people of Ustalav don't respond well to people acting out violently against innocents or even misguided individuals. If they acted like this here, what are they going to do to the angry mob in the next chapter at the courthouse??
I hate the idea of just some handwaving and putting everything back to how it was though.
I would pick up where these events left off. The new party should have a reason for being in town: maybe Kendra hires them after she flees town once the angry mob burned her house down (or did Kendra die in the fire too?). It should be made very, very clear that there is tension among the townsfolk now. It seems recently, a mob of them formed unjustly and killed some recent outsiders that went too far in defending themselves when assaulted during the funeral of their recently deceased friend. It will be doubly hard now for the new outsider PCs to get any trust from the townspeople, though those who instigated the angry mob are now locked away in jail awaiting trial for murder and destruction of property. Father Grimburrow, out of respect for his old friend and Kendra, works with the PCs to investigate Grimburrow and the increasingly violent haunts occurring in town.
The new PCs will definitely feel the effects of what their previous party did, and they will have a fresh start to trying again - hopefully with everyone's egos all mended.
Perhaps you could make their deaths a collective Father Charletan haunting. They didn't die, they're unconscious in the burning house in spectral chains. The haunt pretends to be Father Grimburrow who has resurrected them; they need to see through his lies to escape before they burn to death.
That would also be excellent.
If not, forcing the new party to defeat their previous party as a haunt sounds fun too. :)
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I hate the idea of just some handwaving and putting everything back to how it was though.
I know exactly how you feel. It cheapens the experience in some ways and I would not ordinarily recommend it...
Here is my thought process:
1.
2 of the pcs may be pissed
My guess is that more than 2 of them are a little peeved by the experience, especially the one PC who actually attempted to play the encounter "right" with diplomacy.
2.
I assume (taking the risk of making an ass of myself) that these players (and possibly this GM) are relatively new to the game. Character creation is a lengthy process and, with new groups, can take a whole session in and of itself. This could put a bad taste in players' mouths with yet more lengthy prep time. They've only played one encounter after all, two if you count the lynch-burning.
3.
Given 1 and 2 I think a ret-con could be appropriate in this particular situation. It's certainly not the only viable solution.
Perhaps you could make their deaths a collective Father Charletan haunting. They didn't die, they're unconscious in the burning house in spectral chains. The haunt pretends to be Father Grimburrow who has resurrected them; they need to see through his lies to escape before they burn to death.
I agree with the other comments that this would be a fantastic idea. You will, however, have to do a lot of planning and careful consideration to pull it off effectively. Read up on all the relevant details.
My apologies for the length, I think there are several good approaches that have been suggested by Keep Calm & Justaworm.
How much work are you looking to do? If the kind of game that's fun for your players is being evil and slaughtering townsfolk then what about turning the adventure path on its head? The PCs could become various types of undead and could be hired by Lucimar the Lich-Wolf to oppose Adivion Adrissant and regain control of the Whispering Way. They'd be fighting many of the same antagonists as well as basically everyone else, but they'd have a powerful patron whose other minions could provide help/trade/information along the way.
This would be much more work than the other options presented, but might be more your players' style.
The best thing about the Father Charletan angle is that it could give your players a motive to enter Harrowstone. Roleplay the haunt in a way that pushes your players’ buttons, then as they escape (assuming they do), have the last moments of the vision hint heavily that the son-of-a-gun is in Harrowstone, and is laughing at them.
You’ll have to come up with a new vision the haunt can try to trick them with later, of course.