And they were NPCs next game?! Oh, I would love that. I would also love seeing the one-armed rogue. I'm DMing two different campaigns, and my brother in one decided to have his paladin be an amputee. He's playing it rather well, the downside he has is that his shield is basically always strapped on.
This DM didn't understand the basic principle of MY character, YOUR campaign. There's an unwritten contract between player and DM that should never be crossed. It can be bridged with collaboration, but you always ask for willing participation in twists like this. That character is their creative work and intellectual property. Nobody has a right to tamper with it without consent.
Aand don't forget "and I'm not gonna tell everyone who is involved in this idea." God I love it when the game mechanics can help against railroading story telling.
yep i've had that type of dm before as well not in forcing my character to be the BBEG but in forcing him to become follower of god that he wouldn't typically have a reason to follow nor would the deity choose the character as follower ether if given the choice given my character was CN while the deity was a LG who rarely chose champions outside his favored race
@@dragonlord498 Oh, I always hate that. When I have players try to mismatch a character with a god, I make a point of their temples being designed for their favored race? You're a gnome who wants to worship a god who favors giants? Have fun hiking to the edge of your bed and diving off it every night! And you better keep a ladder handy to get back in! Toilet? No, for you it's a swimming pool. They'll save you a seat in the mess hall. But you'll need a high chair, and a grappling hook to reach the food across the table. (All exaggerated of course, but it gets the point across. If they're going to do it, they'll have to adapt until accomodations can be made.)
While I agree that the DM overstepped, I must ask, why did the Paladin not stand his ground and explain to the DM that it's his character, and not the DMs? "You snap the Clerics neck" "Umm, isn't that MY call to make?"
True, I mean I would definitely say something about my character snapping another player's neck. That's just unnecessarily brutal considering the fact that not only was it another player, but the character was a little girl cleric. The hell is wrong with that DM not asking for consent in regards to something like that?
@ajs1031 however, there is a clear difference between forced and a good villain A forced antagonist would be that lame villain from the recent Justice league movie......a villain who is nothing but an obstacle for the hero A good villain would be the Joker, keeping with the DC comics theme, for plenty of reasons. We all love a good villain......but get bored at a lame and forced villain There was potential in the story, but a better twist antagonist would have been the cleric (after being given a proper reason to, like seeing evil characters kill children or something like that) and have them seek to purify all of what is deemed evil, even if the monsters were innocents
"The world is your's, the characters are their's." That said until the end it very much sounded like what a dark god and evil cult would do, forcing their will upon their champion and his followers, or misinterpreting their lord's will maliciously or otherwise, though when a DM ignores the mechanics of the game, they ignore the social contract each player agrees upon, "that this is how the world works". Mistakes can be made, alterations can be offered, but always the contract is to be upheld. So the DM was in the wrong, not for creating conflict by forcing a Paladin against his own God, but by ignoring the very rules of the world they agreed upon when picking up the book. "The rules are the rules."
I actually kinda like how this was handled by the Paladin's player (with a little help from the Cleric's) from a storyline perspective, and it's always fun to watch a "That Guy" DM cringe in agony as his carefully thought out but completely shit plans crumble to dust. That being said I wouldn't have allowed it to go that far. As soon as I started to notice successes that should have failed, I would have spoken up about it, and continued to speak up about it as it became more and more of a problem. On a separate note, DM shenanigans aside this is a good example of how to have a token evil teammate in a party without resulting in total anarchy.
i would have refused to pick up the gear he tried to lay at my feet. and the first time he tried to tell me that i did something i would have told him no and kept saying it until he understood that im not an npc for him to control.
Imagine if the DM had just taken a minute and slipped him a note or a text asking if he'd be okay with it... imagine if the LE Paladin said yes and got to have fun? The DM's job is to set the premise and the setting, but it's the players story, not the DM's.
Yeah, I have no clue what his deal is. I have never forced my players to take story routes that they never wanted to take. I make a campaign, see how they interact with the world, and make changes accordingly or make sure things set up in the world are made clear.
@@celestialwolf93 Yeah! I'm no DM, but I am heavily into world-building and creating settings for stories. I can imagine part of the fun of DMing is just seeing people enjoy the world you've set up. 😄
Kali as I understand it this DM fell in the common pitfall of being too engrossed in his own story, by the very nature of the job DMs are usually people who like to tell stories, so sometimes they forget that D&D is about collaborative story telling, at the end of the video it’s said that the DM complains that “his” twist villain was messed with, he forgot that the PCs didn’t belong to him but to the players, in a way he’s like a romantic book fan whose ship lost, extremely angry at the Author for not writing the story he wanted read
God... that actually sounds like it would of been an awesome ending if the DM had allowed it. Can't help but imagine a love story between the two characters now. A Dark Paladin lawful evil who sees nothing but damnation in the souls of mortals and a Cleric who sees nothing but redemption for even those who don't seek it. They confront each other and allow the other to 'test their faith' by challenging it and trying to convert others to their side. The cult of the Dark Paladin becoming too power hungry and corrupt to perform a ritual without him only to have the powers of the dark deity's corrupt the body and mind of the Dark Paladin. He then slaughters those around him that defied his order - yet the corruption has already been done. He waits and attempts to reason with his former party, explaining this wasn't what he wanted before the dark forces overwhelm his will and begin attacking his former allies, all the while the Cleric is still trying to save his soul, and in her last action she not only protects the Paladin from the dark spirit which escaped his body but healed him. Awakening from his unconsciousness, his hand snaps up and instinctively grabs the neck of the Cleric, but lets go when he realizes that she was the one who saved him. Then a battle occurs between what remains of the player and the darkened spirit that escaped the vessel, and is forced back into the realm of darkness before the doors are permanently closed. "Rest in peace Warlock. Sorry about your arm Rogue. No hard feelings about my possession? ^^;"
yeah he should have just had an backup BBEG and let them talk it out, the Paladin would have had to chose to fight the backup BBEG and propably break his oath or just do nothing.
@@JoducusKwak yeah. The part that would have had me stop the campaign from the player's seat is my character control just being yanked from me. No will/wisdom save? No checks? Nothing? Not even an explanation? Just "your character is evil therefore you kill ppl?" His character was evil, not a fucking maniac.
But it's their character, their roleplaying adventure. Dnd is about acting as your character in an epic adventure and seeing how it all works out, not the dm acting for you.
For in the end, the petty whims of gods of darkness prove to be their bane as the simple desire of a pure soul to save her friends becomes an unstoppable force for good.
This really goes to show that a DM really needs to communicate when they want to change a player. I'm guilty of this myself, I took away my Paladin's ability to smite and lay on hands as they had accidentally killed 2 people due to their recklessness. They were super frustrated, but got their powers back after some character development, and we hashed it out. Now I give my players some warning and a chance to tell me if they aren't okay with my shenanigans.
That reminds me of one of my old DM's I was playing a vengeance paladin with custom oaths that made them less edgy in my opinion which I had okayed with the DM and he stripped me of my powers for the reason of him feeling like I wasn't following said new oath and when I gave him my defense and reasoning on how I saw that I was still following the oath he basically told me tough shit his rule was law. I should have left the game then but I didn't want to cause a rift in the group so I went through his BS spirit quest thing to regain my paladin powers but thankfully soon after the game fell apart anyways since everyone was getting sick of his shit.
That is not really the same thing. Granted powers or those derived from oaths (as per the 5th edition paladin) can be lost due to the players choices and actions with their character. As a DM, you are not dictating what the character can and cannot do so much as imposing a consequence for certain actions. The only problem with this if the oath, duties, or strictures are not clearly defined as what is and is not a failing in those oaths, duties, and strictures. You as a DM have to make it fairly clear cut what the oaths, duties, and strictures are going to be and it then up to the player to fulfill their obligations or lose status.
@@BulkyMcBulkerson Then you kind of jumped the gun, didn't you? Though I cannot say I like how the current incarnation of the paladin is as it is not really a paladin anymore.
@@craigtucker1290 Yeah, I didn't change them into a fighter or affect their bard levels, but taking their paladin powers without talking to them first was my bad. We're good now though.
I actually had a DM essentially hijack my character to turn her into a minion of the BBEG (who turned out to be her half brother). I don't remember her exact alignment, but it was definitely NOT evil. This was a character I had created a particularly great backstory for, and I really was enjoying playing her. I say she was hijacked because the DM hit her with Stasis without allowing a save, and a successfully cast Dispel Magic by another player somehow failed. I was told to hand over my character sheet and roll up a new character, and a few sessions later the evil perversion of my character showed up. I was not happy. My husband and I left the game shortly after this when the DM brought back into the game one of his favorite characters, a character he had promised the entire group would not appear in the campaign. We later did play in a game that was run by another DM where he was playing a character. This game came to a screeching halt one night when he got another player so upset that he quit mid session. My husband got so upset that he called the guy out on his BS and walked out with me close at his heels. The sad part was that his toxic gameplay tainted the entire group, and the only person we still associate with is a player that we knew years before playing with the others.
That DM is a YIKES, railroading is never fun, sadly my first campaign ever involved some of it, as well as skipping a lot of my turns cause i was the only typer, not fun, but thankfully i know not all campaigns will be like that, so it won't deter me from playing in the future, just a bad first experience. Regarding the video, yeah i would have called the DM out on his bullshit real fast. Never railroad a character into decisions, actions, behaviors, or roles that they didn't agree to.
I'm a rookie GM. I just finished my first campaign about a month ago, and all of us at the table had a great time. But going in as a first time GM, I knew one critical thing: never rob your players of their agency. If I had an idea that involved a PC's character, I would PM them about to make sure they would be okay with the concept. If you want to have a twist villain that the party didn't suspect, you have a world full of NPCs that can fulfill that role. The moment you started dictating how a PC would act, you've overstepped your bounds as the GM.
Honestly, the Paladin and Cleric made this SO much cooler! The Paladin's despair at things going out of control was beautifully tragic, even out of context. And God bless that Cleric for saving him at the end. I'd love to see that second campaign with them after the fact. *chef's kiss. (Mad props to that Warlock too for kicking the DM out of his house.)
So I had to drop of a campaign for schedule reasons and my dm made my character basically have a tantrum and break all his magic items and fly off (he was a protected aasimer).so I finally got some room for my schedule to be free and I decided to join back up with the group. I asked him “ hey could I go back to my aasimer” and he said “no you can’t I have a plan for him,he’s gonna be the bbeg” and at that point I wasn’t too attached to the character....until my friend told me what he did with my character when I left.
Damn, the DM almost saved it, he just had to shadow between the pages that the dark entity was basically him, but he was ignorant to the end to his players wishes.
Someone in the curse of Strahd campaign that my DM ran, used a wish spell, who’s one effect was that Strahd did not exist. Never had, never will, Strahd as a concept was never even thought of, and it sent ripples across the multiverses. I played as a Goliath barbarian, who was resurrected, and had previously died after killing the first black dragon, in the start of the world. In the new (and now only) timeline, he never beat the dragon. I was knocked out, didn’t even die, but the dragon went and destroyed the only tribe of Goliaths to extinguish my race. Instead of dying later in life, with a wife and child to succeed him, and going to the hall of warriors, he was alive. The Last Goliath, and he went mad. The DM and I looked up Liches for other classes, and he allowed me to become the Unbowed, an immortal, roaming mass of rage and muscle. His mind rotted, his skin toughened, the man that once had a family, was dead. Thousands of years passed, he became a legend, later imprisoned by an evil kingdom that replaced the one that resurrected him in a different life. He was thrown prisoners to slaughter, and a chain was molded around his heart and fastened to his axe, he didn’t bother remove it, didn’t stop him from killing as fast as before so it clearly wasn’t a problem. Then, the party arrived, the same as the other timeline, but off, just ever so slightly. The aasimar carried a ball that sparkled, and threw it down in front of the Unbowed. Every person fell to the ground, except for the Aasimar and Goliath. The timeline stayed the same, but the memories and life of the other one was instantly given to everyone. Farmers in the original ones that were bandits and murderers in this, mercenaries in the original that instead decided to be zealots of a God. The Aasimar had already seen hers, and the goliath was forced to see everything he had missed. At this point, my DM asked me to roll a d20, I did so, rolling a 10. He asked me, “Who wins, the Unbowed, or Fleetwood (my Goliaths name)?” I was shocked, not knowing whether there was a right answer, so I decided to not give one. “Neither.” “Roll initiative.” Fleetwood was forced to watch from the inside as the Unbowed tried to cut down his former friends, and they him. All the while I was rolling to attack my friends, I was also rolling to see if Fleetwood was strong enough to take him over, and to see if the Unbowed could keep control. Near the end of the fight, the only player left that wasn’t near death was the gnome, someone Fleetwood grew close to in the precious timeline. The only way to kill an Unbowed barbarian, was to make him lose his rage, to not kill for a month. Seeing the damage, Fleetwood was finally able to stop himself, staring at a small gnome. Fleetwood tried to get a word out, but all he could do was steady himself and stars, the Unbowed fighting for dominance. The gnome helped carry his friends away, the Aasimar trying to get me to speak to her, but each time she saw a rage start to brew in Fleetwood’s eyes. They left, a dungeon, empty, two minds in one body, fighting, but never doing enough, the Hulk, if Bruce Banner was also jacked. He gripped the handle to his greataxe, shoving it into the ground. A month passed, and so did Fleetwood. The BBEG was defeated in this time, but Fleetwood never got to find out what happened to his friends, the only companion he had was the Unbowed constantly trying to claw its way back into the drivers seat. His body still stands in the dungeon, skin looking the same material as the axe, eyes shut, and waited for his time. After, he wasn’t allowed to leave, forcing a now quiet, Unbowed to watch his life unfurl.
Ah damnit. The DM could've just made the palladin's god appear and that would be the big bad. The palladin would've had some major reduction to his stats though as he was up against the very being that brought him power. The DM could've saved this shit show or at least make it passable. I'm beyond disappointed.
Notes from a NG human idiot; Greetings from lovely Restenford(i overslept today, so we went "backyard camping' and had a good time regardless ...)! A good Noble can weave a story that can encompass multiple emotions & twists: Betrayal, Heartache, Love & Loss. All of these things can happen, but only with the groups permission can it happen to them. Unfortunately, the Noble in question(while admittedly doing a good overall job) forgot to willingly get The Black Paladin's approval to turn him 'gainst the group. This whole incident reminds me of something a companion once said "To take away a person's freedom of choice, even their freedom to make a wrong choice, is to manipulate them as if they were a puppet and not a person.".... May your pantheon ever favor you(especially in these trying times), Baron Trevelyan of Restenford
what a great cleric. if i was gming this then the ending that the cleric brought WOULD have been planned.. and I would have chatted with the paladin behind the scenes to make sure of their intentions (we have a lot of good/evil PCs in my game so we all know OOC this might happen). terrible GM in the end there
I've had party members become bbegs before, but through their own choices (and slight manipulation from me). I had nobles and other people give them quests work tons of money and magical items. They took these quests, did them, and forgot. However, as they started building a mercenary army (they were all mercs somehow) and continuing their quests, I would occasionally notify them about how people sometimes seemed to visit their small city they'd built. Wasn't long before they suddenly had an entire country attacking them. They questioned why this was happening. My only words were "I told you, actions have consequences. You're all chaotic evil by the way." The country's king announced he wanted his grandson back. The party finally understood. Those quests they so eagerly took, their "merc company", the "city" they built. It was all a BBEG storyline.
First rule I was taught when DM'ing a campaign was that you, as a DM/GM, you NEVER try to control a player's character, save for certain circumstances (i.e., possession or events out of their control, like unconsciousness). I had a DM who tried to take everyone's character sheets after we made them, and felt they had the right to run our characters after we'd made them, give them their background stories, etc. I had brought a character along that I'd made for another campaign and had been given permission to use, so when they tried to take my sheet, I told them to: "go frack off; it's my character, my sheet. You don't get to play for me or roll for me." The rest of the payers grabbed their sheets back and left the DM behind, and from what I know, they never hosted another game for any group. No-one who knew how to play would ever allow them to 'run' a campaign like that.
I have read Bloody Rose by the same author and he really paints a unique perspective of a fantasy setting. I highly recommend his other book as mentioned in the video.
It is one thing to have a character possessed as a mechanic of a fight, or a deal with a Devil where you are the fool, but the DM just saying "nah evil boi is BIG EVIL now" is so indisputably dumb.
The idea of making your character a twist villain is a great one....But only if that’s what you want, and are working with the DM to that goal. A DM should never force these choices in the player
Currently, I'm working on a campaign for my group. Idea is that the Party is a group of City Guards. I showed it to one of the players, who DMs a bit, and is acting as the DM's Assistant (DM's legally blind, and thus someone has to roll and count dice for him, and keep track of bad guys' hp - he could do it himself, but this way's easier.) He was like "Looks good so far." and I mentioned the general storyline, about how the Party is in the Level 4 range (Actually, Level 3, but everyone has a "hidden" level with some Fighter abilities - such as weapons, armor, fighting style, 10+ extra hp) against a CR10+ creature - Ancient Dragon, Pit Fiend, Storm Giant, Lich, Vampire or some such thing, trying to buy time for the "civilians" to escape the danger area, as part of the Final Test. (Basically, the Big Boss is actually a Guard, or some other powerful Real Life Ally, who acts like the BBEG to see if these Rookies have what it takes to Stay in the Guards, and thus there's no actual deaths, just really big boo-boos, and injury to pride, but nothing a good long rest won't cure.) DM was like, "How is that going to work?" I'm like "The trick isn't to beat the Big Boss. Trick is to seem like a bigger danger/threat to them, in order to keep them away from the 'civilians' as they escape." DM nods and goes "Just remember one thing - players are bound to do something you won't expect." So, I put in my Notebook - "Note to Self - Expect the Unexpected." I don't know how long I'll run my campaign, as I'd like to run it like a cop show, but I hope that when I do run it, the group will like it.
This is a prime example of why communication between DMs and players is key, the DM should've discussed the idea of making the Paladin the villain with the Paladin's player and only go through with it if the Paladin's player is on board with the idea rather than just deciding "LOL YoUR tHE BaD gUY NOw!" if the DM was so committed that this was a good idea regardless of what the player thought, he should've just written a book.
"You thought you were a Player Character guiding the story with your choices, but it was me, Railroad!" And the thing is, the Evil Paladin having his cult go out of control, being possessed by some dark force, being defeated by the party, and then having the Cleric use the last of her power to redeem him isn't that bad of a redemption arc, as far as they go. I mean the dynamic between the Cleric and Paladin was INTERESTING, I would think most DMs would want to lean into that and use it, not try and break it up for a bog-standard betrayal plot where the guy most likely to betray the party betrays the party and then dies.
The Cleric using the last of her power thing confused me; did her God die or something? Surely she would have had more Cleric power after the event, unless she quite literally retired and thus, relinquished her power; although I think a retired Cleric could logically still have some power in them.
i would have fun playing the BBEG. BUT it would depend a lot on the character, you can not just turn a PC into the BBEG as it is the players choice on what to do. just played a PC that could be the BBEG and where heading that way. now he is but as a NPC (my choice and DM went for it), as i wanted to give more time for my party members as a Necromancer would take a lot of time in combat. he got further corrupted by a magic item, and i have not made a new PC, that have already been turned into a vampire and only lvl 5 :) though she takes it as a blessing to help her fight undead :) if the DM want a BBEG he/she should make one, and not force a PC to be a BBEG. the DM can effect the PC with visions, dreams and others, but never take control of a PC. remember all need to have fun both the players and the DM, and both need to take the others into account :)
Wait. So this DM had a situation where PCs clashed in one of the most minimally-disruptive but narratively-interesting ways possible and this person thought active and overt conflict would have been better? This DM dodged a bullet only to shoot themself in foot 2 seconds later.
That "DM" totally squandered a very unique opportunity for character growth and player creativity. I know not everyone can be Matt Mercer, but at least use him as an example, people, and don't railroad. On that note, the cast of Critical Role are all good examples of players being able to go with the flow and build off of one another. We can't *be* them, but we *can* look to them as inspiration to make our games better. Christ. I knew because of the title that this would never have happened, but I was honestly very eager to hear more tales about moral conflict and personality between the Paladin and the Cleric and the party. =(
I absolute love the DM's idea that would have been a great twist, but he is a control freak and should have asked for permission, I also love how the two NPC's were the cleric and the paladin
NGL, the DM could've done something WAY easier. Simply add a single usurper that drains most of the powers of the paladin, and boom you have a bad guy. For extra points, make it so that the USURPER is the BBEG, the paladin is trying to stop his zealots from overstepping
actually your character getting introduced to the party by selling them stuff is a really cool idea. however it’s not a good one for a murder hobo party just saying.
My DM of a homebrew game using pathfinder has allowed my player to join up with one of 2 BBEGs. Both villians were present when i pledged my loyalty to one and my character even wears an amulet that allows scrying at will from the BBEG. Hints are being dropped left and right that one player is evil however instead of figuring out what is going on the party is splintering into factions of who they can trust and who is questionable. The hints are vague enough that it never out right says who is evil in the group but there are enough clues that they could figure it out. The beauty is that my alignment is not a dead giveaway so the paladin isnt able to detect lies, deception, or evil as my character is honest in how they speak. I decided that i saw what the BBEG was trying to do, as I joined the game mid progress after they sided against the BBEG. I have been playing my character straight forward with what info I have ICly and so i have made decisions accordingly. The game is meant to goto lvl 20 and I hope for their safety they figure out my character is helping the BBEG before my war cleric hits lvl 20 or it won't be pretty
The different alignments part reminds me of a recent revelation one of my tables had about how each of our characters fall in the alignment chart. Cleric- Chaotic Good Ranger- Lawful Neutral Monk- Neutral Good Fighter- Lawful Good Warlock- True Neutral Wizard- Chaotic Neutral So, a lot of neutrals right? Not terrible. Nah the divide comes from the chaotic vs lawful side with cleric (myself actually) and ranger being the most at odds. Strangely we are same hometown but come from such vastly different experiences that our alignments are very opposing. Weirdly is cleric and wizard who are usually most in agreement on things. It’s past our 20th session so we expected these cracks to come to light at some point and disagree on how to wrap up missions. To party in-character gets along great with each other during missions and is a very effective group. However, it’s the after we sometimes disagree on (in-character). Um, I guess this is hard to convey but basically sometimes it’s about turning someone in, showing mercy, or so on. That sort of thing. Above table we all agree and have fun with this though and it’s been interesting to role play out how to slowly make these bonds smooth over and be sincere and caring.
Funny story: I once played a normal, everyday, devoted but still kind hearted paladin. A noble child who believed in the righteousness in people's hearts and trusted that with his guidance, they could be led to the right way. More friendly preacher than bloodthirsty soldier and he used his weapons to defend against those who were clearly evil. I was kind of forced into playing a paladin as I was told I had to for party balance, which was a red flag, but I only played warlock before, so I thought whatever, this could be interesting. We also had a cleric from the same faith, who actually fell mid-campaign, forsaking his god and becoming a warlock to some other goddess. I learned of this OOC and thought it was a cool idea and the DM actually did a good job hinting at it through...I think it was my divine sense that the cleric was no longer connected to our god the same way. Now at this point, I have already questioned him about his problems with faith and, being the helpful man of faith I was, offered my council to him with the intention of guiding him back to the right path. We both played along and it was great fun. So *does PJW voice* "imagine my shock" when the DM suddenly says to us in out of game voicechat "Phew, this campaign is going great guys! Can't wait for You (Paladin/Me) to start PvP with Him (Former Cleric guy)!" I immediately stopped it right there, saying that, at least for now, I had nothing agsinst the cleric except benevolent pity and would try to guide him to the right path instead of attacking him without question. The DM backed down, but it sounded like he'd wanted to force PvP later on if I didn't bite. I'll never know because the DM got bored of this system, whined about it a bunch and then switched us to a completely new campaign, but at one point he flat out lied to me in private chat about another supposed player that'd join, describing her supposed character in detail, only for that player to later turn out to not actually exist and the character to be an NPC, so I have my suspicions.
Yo, ngl, that original idea of the cleric and paladin agreeing to a philosophical battle and test of the party with the whole "we shall agree to not attack or impede the efforts of the other one. This is a test of the morals of the others." Was actually a really cool idea for a way for an evil and good party member to work together.
Well I would personally love to play the final boss, that is something that I would carful work out with my DM, and thankful he would be able to help me with this.
Christ. My player's monk managed to get an elder god speaking in his head and the hand of Vecna and I STILL haven't pushed the possibility of him turning evil half as hard as this DM.
Sometimes the best DMs are the ones who think they never everything and things should go exactly as they think without warning or player input. Had a really great game once for 4 sessions. And session 5 was a very stupid TPK as the end because of some DM bs and then accusing us of not preparing enough even though he shot us down whenever we tried to get equipment to prepare for the fight. The best DMs are usually the worst at actually ending a campaign or giving a crap what players think or want.
Yea you gotta ask the party about stuff like this. I have a current party member that I texted one night asking if he wanted to become a traitor for the BBEG mind flayer since he had always wanted to play an evil character. He ecstatically said yes and we agreed to try and get him possessed by an intellect devourer. He is super excited that we are going to do it next session. Gonna use the maze to my advantage and possess him w/o the party knowing. Let's see how long it takes for them to figure out!
I love playing the bbeg! Don't get me wrong, i want to be asked first, but i do enjoy being overpowered as hell and misleading the party to their doom or into secretly doing my bidding.
I actually love the dynamic of the neutral party and the evil vs good vying for the party to side with them. They still made a great ending out of it... until the DM started to screech like a child.
The way it sounds to me is that the DM has some hard expectations of evil and good being confrontational towards one another and it seems to have begun when the cleric and paladin tried to come to an understanding. The way the DM tried to start building up the paladin seemed more like he knew he was trying to split them and show the rest of the party that good and evil can't get along. even at the end, when the cleric tried to make that connection again, the DM just flat out tried to kill her using the paladin and when they all turned on the DM, he just got upset and tried to force his view. Good and evil can have understanding. After 9 years of DMing, most of my worlds are more advanced in terms of viewpoints. Evil characters can live amongst good characters as long as they aren't forcing their views on people. Towns are much stronger and tolerate both sides because it is a natural part of the world. If evil were to truly be extinguished, the world would become stagnant and there would be less drive to adjust. The forces drive each other to become more by constantly becoming stronger. If evil were to truly win, they would rule everything and eventually run out of goals or the world would just die. In the end, all things return to neutrality or growth.
My character has been made the BBEG like, 4 times over the years. 3 different dms for those. I’m super cool with it because they know I can play into it, and I enjoy the switching play. One of those characters was LG paladin who got overeager to wield a blessed sword that ended up actually being cursed as he turned and TPK’d the rest of the party in session 5. Wasn’t supposed to be but the storyline that came from it was great.
The Spellmonger is a really good series on Audible as well. I would highly recommend it. It starts off as a war Mage protecting his Village from goblins into something much greater.
Communication people! Communication! People who powertrip always bring good things to ruin and this DM power tripped pretty badly over this. Not only did he turn a player's character against the party without consent, but he hijacked the character to achieve his poorly communicated ending, and then got mad when the party brought it to ruin and foiled his plans. How does any DM do this and not expect the players not to resist? Especially when you do it without their knowing.
My sister ran an ‘open world’ campaign where we could do whatever we wanted but did have its own story going on. Well, it turned out it was sort of like a video game where the story doesn’t actually move unless we interact with it, except occasionally when people did things that didn’t seem to make any sense. We couldn’t get anywhere because she made vague (not cryptic like I think she was going for, literally vague) clues on how to proceed, and was condescendingly surprised we went in entirely the wrong direction several times. I really figured out through that campaign what I was unhappy with about the group as a whole. I’m not sure what my toxic traits were(/are) but given that nearly everyone in the group had some trait that had me feeling crappy about playing, I’m willing to accept that we were just toxic together in general. Like, we can hang out and watch a movie or play a video game. But you pull out the battle mat and we just turn into really bad people. My sister wants to tell stories, but expects us to do specific things to get the exact information we need to even engage with it much less be hooked. (I swear if against my better judgement I play with her as DM again, I won’t even bother looking for plot stuff. I’m going to put everything towards owning and training magical beasts as fucking house pets.) Another guy doesn’t see anyone else’s fun as being his ‘problem’. He plays casters but relies on other people to tell him what his spell does. Two others make characters that are fun and interesting... but always has some feature that make it hard for other characters to get along with. Or are secretly playing out their own story, or at least feel that way. Which is fine I guess but sometimes it seems like if they weren’t around for the fights they wouldn’t be there at all in terms of everyone else. One of the above gets triggered by condescending behaviour of yet another guy, who’s characters always seem to be at odds with whatever the former does. (They agreed that they don’t play well together and the group started trying to figure out how to solve that one prior to me leaving.) We have the usual DM who’s such a stickler for rules that he can’t actually wing anything and just make a ruling without holding up the game to do some research. And the first guy? Yeah he takes advantage of this in order to derail things until they find a ruling in his favour. And will return to the subject even a half hour after everyone else dropped it. And if he doesn’t get his way he sulks and makes things hard for everyone else. There really are no heroic moments in this DM’s campaigns because you can ‘only roll so many skill checks on a turn, so even if you do have the movement to do some prince of Persia bs down the hallway you can’t because it’s like, three skill checks and you only have six seconds.’ I am so glad I left, though the DM keeps hinting that my leaving somehow triggered the dissolution of a D&D group that was tearing apart friendships, and that it’s unfortunate that we all stopped playing. We still all hang out, I call that a victory. I have since joined a group that has some of them as well, different DM. The DM is aware of my concerns about how we get along. And already I have an inkling of what might become an issue with ‘your fun isn’t my responsibility’ down the road. But I’ve changed up my play style a little, I am the healer this time around, my AC is higher than our tanks without enhancements. And I’m not afraid to have my character yell at another, if he thinks they could move their asses. Or just pick a direction already. When the party starts to get into drawn out discussions about how to scale a twenty foot cliff. (First game, at the bottom of a chute that was going to fill with water as the tide came in. I’m in plate waiting at the bottom while the nimble characters go up and tie off ropes so I can get up. Took us almost a half hour to get off the first ledge, I didn’t fail any checks going up even accounting for my armour it was all them discussing what they wanted for tie offs and shit, the nimble guy did just fine on his own for the first ledge but for some reason everyone wanted to not pick his way for the next
Never remove your players' agency without very good reason. If you must do so, you should at least be able to make the affected player understand why their agency has been removed (charm spell, possession etc.).
If that was my dm I would have to pull them aside and have a talk with them about what's going on and what they thought they were doing taking control of my character. I have done the exact opposition before and literally through my stuff before and stopped playing. So I caution effective communication from all sides before actions like this are taken, not after
I could understand the DM imagining that a Lorgar character wanting to be ascended into an evil form while saying otherwise, because that is consistent with the character's inspiration. But if they saw the player was not happy with it and that it was not true to their version of the character, he should have done something else. Like make the evil gods pull them into their realm and make the party either defeat them, persuade them or wrest power from them via a trial. You could even do something like have a second cursed personality that would keep tempting them with that power. But railroading players like that just feels cheap.
this is interesting the story tells both something that is a story with a nice ending (minus the angry dm), and a lesson for people who do play both as a dm and a player. -i really need to get involved in DnD-
I thought it was cool making it an internal battle between good and evil. It's messed up that the dm ended up ruining internal conflict to build his own bbeg. He could have even made the bbeg a follower of the faith that took the conquest too far, and it would have given the paladin motive to fight with the party. A dm should never supercede a player as to what his or her character becomes, and doing that takes from the beauty of dnd. It's not a fun game because everything goes your way in the end, but because it's nearly imposible to know the outcome. No set story, no determined fate. Nothing but freedom, creativity, and chance.
It's a cool twist, but one that the player and DM should have been in on together. If I were that player, I would have used that charisma to tell the group too that this was happening without my will. Good on the cleric for resolving it in the end.
YIRBEL LIVES. I-I i’m confused...this is giving me flashbacks kind of how often does this sort of thing happen?! “Happen to know the exact counter spell of the uber banishment” indeeed. YA CAN’T JUST...DOUBLE POSSESS A CHARACTER bah
“You either die a Hero or live long enough to see yourself become a Villain” is a quote used to denote that people glorified as heroes or seen as paragons of morality usually are killers and monsters in to the other peoples. The fact is, the values we hold are subjective to circumstances and a good person to you could be the reason for the suffering of another.
The statement is more about the decay of age, as you grow old you grow bitter, it's a word of warning to a individual not a word of wisdom about how to perceive your heros
There are people that say having a bad DM is better than not playing the game at all. If they've heard stories like this and still say that, then they're probably people you should never play the game with.
something like this has happened before but we werent forced to kill him and everything went smoothly. we were all level 5-6 and the guy who was level 13 got possessed. we had to either bring his hp to 0 or knock him out so that the spirit will leave him in search of a new vesle. it was a pretty tough fight but we opted to do physical damage because it would o been harder to do non lethal damage and he could easlily killed all of us if we did it that way. after we killed the spirit the cleric healed his wounds and helped him stabalize and what was supose to be an easy in and out job turned into an epic boss fight.
At first I kinda understood where the DM was coming from wanting fake character drama because it does add to the story if the players are mature enough but at the same time the players kinda made it very clear they were not interested in a plot leading to them PVPing each other. So I think he should have instead gave them situations where they’re beliefs would utilized in a creative way so they have agency with roleplay encounters.
If you had one more session of time before that “i snap the clerics neck” Moment The paladin might have been able to cast the uber banishment on the DM, also known as the mighty bonk
The first campaign I ever played had me become the BBEG’s Second-In-Command (TV Tropes would call it the “Dragon With An Agenda”), and while it definitely wasn’t my choice or even my preference to be that starting out, the way it was handled and how it ended up playing out meant I had an absolute blast. So while I do believe there is a place for this kind of turnabout in DnD, it’s important to make sure your player at least is okay with this first and foremost. This DM was just an arsehole.
If I was told before the campaign, I'd like to try being the villain, but I have characters it might work with and ones it absolutely wouldn't, not to mention I might just not be in a villaining mood DM should check with player before trying to pull s*** like that. Period. Edit: Correcting dumb typo
Honestly, I feel like I know what went on here. I used to be kind of a crap DM, (still not the best), and I don't think I ever did something like this, but it definitely *feels* like something I might have tried. I think the problem is that the DM had played a game, watched a movie, or read a book, etc, where in the main character becomes the villain unexpectedly and wanted to recreate that sensation for their players. The problem is, the medium that the DM took inspiration from didn't account for the free will of a TTRPG. This could have obviously been resolved by talking with the player, but then they wouldn't have gotten the full affect of the surprise. So, from the DM's perspective, it's like trying super hard to get your friend to come over cause you've planned a surprise party, and after you've practically dragged them back to your place and finally flip the light, they start complaining cause it's bright and loud and everything's too surgery or too salty. And you can't help but wonder why you even bothered going to all the effort of creating that feeling of surprise joy in the first place. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say the DM is blameless or that the players are in the wrong, I'm just saying that, as a DM who has made similar mistakes that have made the game less enjoyable for everyone involved, this is what I believe their mistake was.
I'm doing a campaign where one of my friends is being the secret bbeg trying to summon an old dark god and we've been talking about it with each other way before this
Come on that set up was AWESOME. It would be awesome to see a build your own adventure with the cleric and paladin swaying the party. Then instead of just building up the paladin as a twist final boss it could have been either the paladin If the party chose good or the cleric if the party chose evil
Has your DM ever tried to manipulate any part of your campaign? How did you deal with it?
Dude I was first
@@gibbous_silver I did see
Yes
_fast_
That DM sounds like they are power hungry
The “No! He was obviously possessed by an evil spirit” bit kills me every time. XD Bless the soul of that Cleric.
And they were NPCs next game?! Oh, I would love that. I would also love seeing the one-armed rogue.
I'm DMing two different campaigns, and my brother in one decided to have his paladin be an amputee. He's playing it rather well, the downside he has is that his shield is basically always strapped on.
@@treyatkinson7564 "They call him the One Armed Bandit."
@@HKgunner Nice Borderlands reference, my dude
This seems like a typical case of "I have one good idea and I'm not letting anyone stop from doing it!"
DnD rfacepalm
This DM didn't understand the basic principle of MY character, YOUR campaign. There's an unwritten contract between player and DM that should never be crossed. It can be bridged with collaboration, but you always ask for willing participation in twists like this. That character is their creative work and intellectual property. Nobody has a right to tamper with it without consent.
Aand don't forget "and I'm not gonna tell everyone who is involved in this idea."
God I love it when the game mechanics can help against railroading story telling.
yep i've had that type of dm before as well not in forcing my character to be the BBEG but in forcing him to become follower of god that he wouldn't typically have a reason to follow nor would the deity choose the character as follower ether if given the choice given my character was CN while the deity was a LG who rarely chose champions outside his favored race
@@dragonlord498 Oh, I always hate that. When I have players try to mismatch a character with a god, I make a point of their temples being designed for their favored race? You're a gnome who wants to worship a god who favors giants? Have fun hiking to the edge of your bed and diving off it every night! And you better keep a ladder handy to get back in! Toilet? No, for you it's a swimming pool. They'll save you a seat in the mess hall. But you'll need a high chair, and a grappling hook to reach the food across the table. (All exaggerated of course, but it gets the point across. If they're going to do it, they'll have to adapt until accomodations can be made.)
While I agree that the DM overstepped, I must ask, why did the Paladin not stand his ground and explain to the DM that it's his character, and not the DMs?
"You snap the Clerics neck"
"Umm, isn't that MY call to make?"
True, I mean I would definitely say something about my character snapping another player's neck. That's just unnecessarily brutal considering the fact that not only was it another player, but the character was a little girl cleric. The hell is wrong with that DM not asking for consent in regards to something like that?
He probably tried too throughout the fight but the dm wouldn't listen.
Because it was supposed to be the evil spirit that did it - not the Paladin himself.
That's why the Cleric stopped him
@@weebikarp1806 then the DM should have had him rolled will saves and apone fail simply told him he was possessed and took the sheet, instead of This.
@@connorschultz380 *upon fail
Being a villain is more rewarding than being a hero, but _becoming_ a villain after seeking to become a hero is just depressing.
@ajs1031 however, there is a clear difference between forced and a good villain
A forced antagonist would be that lame villain from the recent Justice league movie......a villain who is nothing but an obstacle for the hero
A good villain would be the Joker, keeping with the DC comics theme, for plenty of reasons.
We all love a good villain......but get bored at a lame and forced villain
There was potential in the story, but a better twist antagonist would have been the cleric (after being given a proper reason to, like seeing evil characters kill children or something like that) and have them seek to purify all of what is deemed evil, even if the monsters were innocents
Becoming a hero after trying to be a villain is profit.
It's enriching either way, to be privy to the story of the change, but it does need to be organic.
for my understanding he wanted to be a vilain but not the BBEG just another bad guy among bad guys
Honestly? Redemption arcs are probably the most profound story lines. When they come organically? It's probably some of the best story arcs.
"The world is your's, the characters are their's." That said until the end it very much sounded like what a dark god and evil cult would do, forcing their will upon their champion and his followers, or misinterpreting their lord's will maliciously or otherwise, though when a DM ignores the mechanics of the game, they ignore the social contract each player agrees upon, "that this is how the world works". Mistakes can be made, alterations can be offered, but always the contract is to be upheld. So the DM was in the wrong, not for creating conflict by forcing a Paladin against his own God, but by ignoring the very rules of the world they agreed upon when picking up the book. "The rules are the rules."
yours* and theirs*
you don't need apostrophes there
I actually kinda like how this was handled by the Paladin's player (with a little help from the Cleric's) from a storyline perspective, and it's always fun to watch a "That Guy" DM cringe in agony as his carefully thought out but completely shit plans crumble to dust. That being said I wouldn't have allowed it to go that far. As soon as I started to notice successes that should have failed, I would have spoken up about it, and continued to speak up about it as it became more and more of a problem.
On a separate note, DM shenanigans aside this is a good example of how to have a token evil teammate in a party without resulting in total anarchy.
i would have refused to pick up the gear he tried to lay at my feet. and the first time he tried to tell me that i did something i would have told him no and kept saying it until he understood that im not an npc for him to control.
Imagine if the DM had just taken a minute and slipped him a note or a text asking if he'd be okay with it... imagine if the LE Paladin said yes and got to have fun? The DM's job is to set the premise and the setting, but it's the players story, not the DM's.
Yeah, I have no clue what his deal is. I have never forced my players to take story routes that they never wanted to take. I make a campaign, see how they interact with the world, and make changes accordingly or make sure things set up in the world are made clear.
@@celestialwolf93 Yeah! I'm no DM, but I am heavily into world-building and creating settings for stories. I can imagine part of the fun of DMing is just seeing people enjoy the world you've set up. 😄
You’re wrong in only one aspect, it’s half the players and DM’s story. A collaboration between both to make a fun game. Otherwise you’re correct
Kali as I understand it this DM fell in the common pitfall of being too engrossed in his own story, by the very nature of the job DMs are usually people who like to tell stories, so sometimes they forget that D&D is about collaborative story telling, at the end of the video it’s said that the DM complains that “his” twist villain was messed with, he forgot that the PCs didn’t belong to him but to the players, in a way he’s like a romantic book fan whose ship lost, extremely angry at the Author for not writing the story he wanted read
@@victormagoco9752 he should become a novelist, then, not a DM
God... that actually sounds like it would of been an awesome ending if the DM had allowed it. Can't help but imagine a love story between the two characters now. A Dark Paladin lawful evil who sees nothing but damnation in the souls of mortals and a Cleric who sees nothing but redemption for even those who don't seek it. They confront each other and allow the other to 'test their faith' by challenging it and trying to convert others to their side. The cult of the Dark Paladin becoming too power hungry and corrupt to perform a ritual without him only to have the powers of the dark deity's corrupt the body and mind of the Dark Paladin. He then slaughters those around him that defied his order - yet the corruption has already been done. He waits and attempts to reason with his former party, explaining this wasn't what he wanted before the dark forces overwhelm his will and begin attacking his former allies, all the while the Cleric is still trying to save his soul, and in her last action she not only protects the Paladin from the dark spirit which escaped his body but healed him. Awakening from his unconsciousness, his hand snaps up and instinctively grabs the neck of the Cleric, but lets go when he realizes that she was the one who saved him. Then a battle occurs between what remains of the player and the darkened spirit that escaped the vessel, and is forced back into the realm of darkness before the doors are permanently closed.
"Rest in peace Warlock. Sorry about your arm Rogue. No hard feelings about my possession? ^^;"
That sounds like a good story.
yeah he should have just had an backup BBEG and let them talk it out, the Paladin would have had to chose to fight the backup BBEG and propably break his oath or just do nothing.
That is perfect
Sounds like an unintentional story this DM kade through his blundering.
@@JoducusKwak yeah. The part that would have had me stop the campaign from the player's seat is my character control just being yanked from me.
No will/wisdom save? No checks? Nothing? Not even an explanation? Just "your character is evil therefore you kill ppl?"
His character was evil, not a fucking maniac.
The evil spirit that controlled the Paladin was the DM.
Perfect 108 likes right now
Oh wow, what an ass move from the DM. The DM himself should have been hit by the Uber-Banishment. '-'
Nice one
I mean, what's more Uber than getting kicked out of someones house irl lol
@@Datenitefan touché my friend
personally I would’ve killed them in the worst way possible.
@@Datenitefan A restraining order.
Its kind of sad how the campaign had to end , but the DM should never have to 'Tell' a player how their character acts . Overall it'a a nice story
the Dm is being quite unfair though, you can't just twist a story like that without talking to the player
Technically, they can.
But they must not do that ever
Or roll initiative for them
@@Nioureux Seriously, what numpty thinks it's okay to roll for a player?!
But it's their character, their roleplaying adventure. Dnd is about acting as your character in an epic adventure and seeing how it all works out, not the dm acting for you.
For in the end, the petty whims of gods of darkness prove to be their bane as the simple desire of a pure soul to save her friends becomes an unstoppable force for good.
This really goes to show that a DM really needs to communicate when they want to change a player. I'm guilty of this myself, I took away my Paladin's ability to smite and lay on hands as they had accidentally killed 2 people due to their recklessness. They were super frustrated, but got their powers back after some character development, and we hashed it out. Now I give my players some warning and a chance to tell me if they aren't okay with my shenanigans.
That reminds me of one of my old DM's I was playing a vengeance paladin with custom oaths that made them less edgy in my opinion which I had okayed with the DM and he stripped me of my powers for the reason of him feeling like I wasn't following said new oath and when I gave him my defense and reasoning on how I saw that I was still following the oath he basically told me tough shit his rule was law. I should have left the game then but I didn't want to cause a rift in the group so I went through his BS spirit quest thing to regain my paladin powers but thankfully soon after the game fell apart anyways since everyone was getting sick of his shit.
That is not really the same thing. Granted powers or those derived from oaths (as per the 5th edition paladin) can be lost due to the players choices and actions with their character. As a DM, you are not dictating what the character can and cannot do so much as imposing a consequence for certain actions. The only problem with this if the oath, duties, or strictures are not clearly defined as what is and is not a failing in those oaths, duties, and strictures. You as a DM have to make it fairly clear cut what the oaths, duties, and strictures are going to be and it then up to the player to fulfill their obligations or lose status.
@@craigtucker1290 Here's the thing, they hadn't taken their oaths yet (they were a 2nd level paladin).
@@BulkyMcBulkerson Then you kind of jumped the gun, didn't you?
Though I cannot say I like how the current incarnation of the paladin is as it is not really a paladin anymore.
@@craigtucker1290 Yeah, I didn't change them into a fighter or affect their bard levels, but taking their paladin powers without talking to them first was my bad. We're good now though.
Consent could have solved this entire thing, but the story was rather epic in its telling.
I actually had a DM essentially hijack my character to turn her into a minion of the BBEG (who turned out to be her half brother). I don't remember her exact alignment, but it was definitely NOT evil.
This was a character I had created a particularly great backstory for, and I really was enjoying playing her. I say she was hijacked because the DM hit her with Stasis without allowing a save, and a successfully cast Dispel Magic by another player somehow failed. I was told to hand over my character sheet and roll up a new character, and a few sessions later the evil perversion of my character showed up. I was not happy.
My husband and I left the game shortly after this when the DM brought back into the game one of his favorite characters, a character he had promised the entire group would not appear in the campaign.
We later did play in a game that was run by another DM where he was playing a character. This game came to a screeching halt one night when he got another player so upset that he quit mid session. My husband got so upset that he called the guy out on his BS and walked out with me close at his heels. The sad part was that his toxic gameplay tainted the entire group, and the only person we still associate with is a player that we knew years before playing with the others.
That really sucks! I’m so sorry you had such horrible experiences playing. The game really shouldn’t be like this...
That DM is a YIKES, railroading is never fun, sadly my first campaign ever involved some of it, as well as skipping a lot of my turns cause i was the only typer, not fun, but thankfully i know not all campaigns will be like that, so it won't deter me from playing in the future, just a bad first experience.
Regarding the video, yeah i would have called the DM out on his bullshit real fast. Never railroad a character into decisions, actions, behaviors, or roles that they didn't agree to.
It's worse than just railroading. This was the attempted hijacking of a character.
@@VestedUTuber Well yeah, true
"I never wanted to be the bad guy, but that's just how the story goes"
What's that a reference to?
@@IamaPERSON A song, called "The Bad Guy"
I'm a rookie GM. I just finished my first campaign about a month ago, and all of us at the table had a great time. But going in as a first time GM, I knew one critical thing: never rob your players of their agency. If I had an idea that involved a PC's character, I would PM them about to make sure they would be okay with the concept.
If you want to have a twist villain that the party didn't suspect, you have a world full of NPCs that can fulfill that role. The moment you started dictating how a PC would act, you've overstepped your bounds as the GM.
That cleric is the nicest ever.
She and Imhotep would be the ultimate combined force for good.
I really want to play a secret BBEG someday, but it's stupid for the dm to do this without even asking the player
Honestly, the Paladin and Cleric made this SO much cooler! The Paladin's despair at things going out of control was beautifully tragic, even out of context. And God bless that Cleric for saving him at the end. I'd love to see that second campaign with them after the fact. *chef's kiss.
(Mad props to that Warlock too for kicking the DM out of his house.)
Love that that cleric cast protection from good and evil first smelling DM BS
I'll drink to that little nugget of cleverness.
So I had to drop of a campaign for schedule reasons and my dm made my character basically have a tantrum and break all his magic items and fly off (he was a protected aasimer).so I finally got some room for my schedule to be free and I decided to join back up with the group. I asked him “ hey could I go back to my aasimer” and he said “no you can’t I have a plan for him,he’s gonna be the bbeg” and at that point I wasn’t too attached to the character....until my friend told me what he did with my character when I left.
I feel like a lot of DM’s don’t get the nuance of alignment. I liked how you and the cleric wanted to approach the group dynamic.
Once they kicked out the DM, just retcon everything after the bad twist and pick a new DM.
Damn, the DM almost saved it, he just had to shadow between the pages that the dark entity was basically him, but he was ignorant to the end to his players wishes.
I read the title as "GM tries to turn me into the BBEG Again," and now I wanna hear THAT story...
Someone in the curse of Strahd campaign that my DM ran, used a wish spell, who’s one effect was that Strahd did not exist. Never had, never will, Strahd as a concept was never even thought of, and it sent ripples across the multiverses. I played as a Goliath barbarian, who was resurrected, and had previously died after killing the first black dragon, in the start of the world. In the new (and now only) timeline, he never beat the dragon. I was knocked out, didn’t even die, but the dragon went and destroyed the only tribe of Goliaths to extinguish my race. Instead of dying later in life, with a wife and child to succeed him, and going to the hall of warriors, he was alive. The Last Goliath, and he went mad. The DM and I looked up Liches for other classes, and he allowed me to become the Unbowed, an immortal, roaming mass of rage and muscle. His mind rotted, his skin toughened, the man that once had a family, was dead. Thousands of years passed, he became a legend, later imprisoned by an evil kingdom that replaced the one that resurrected him in a different life. He was thrown prisoners to slaughter, and a chain was molded around his heart and fastened to his axe, he didn’t bother remove it, didn’t stop him from killing as fast as before so it clearly wasn’t a problem. Then, the party arrived, the same as the other timeline, but off, just ever so slightly. The aasimar carried a ball that sparkled, and threw it down in front of the Unbowed. Every person fell to the ground, except for the Aasimar and Goliath. The timeline stayed the same, but the memories and life of the other one was instantly given to everyone. Farmers in the original ones that were bandits and murderers in this, mercenaries in the original that instead decided to be zealots of a God. The Aasimar had already seen hers, and the goliath was forced to see everything he had missed. At this point, my DM asked me to roll a d20, I did so, rolling a 10. He asked me, “Who wins, the Unbowed, or Fleetwood (my Goliaths name)?” I was shocked, not knowing whether there was a right answer, so I decided to not give one. “Neither.” “Roll initiative.” Fleetwood was forced to watch from the inside as the Unbowed tried to cut down his former friends, and they him. All the while I was rolling to attack my friends, I was also rolling to see if Fleetwood was strong enough to take him over, and to see if the Unbowed could keep control. Near the end of the fight, the only player left that wasn’t near death was the gnome, someone Fleetwood grew close to in the precious timeline. The only way to kill an Unbowed barbarian, was to make him lose his rage, to not kill for a month. Seeing the damage, Fleetwood was finally able to stop himself, staring at a small gnome. Fleetwood tried to get a word out, but all he could do was steady himself and stars, the Unbowed fighting for dominance. The gnome helped carry his friends away, the Aasimar trying to get me to speak to her, but each time she saw a rage start to brew in Fleetwood’s eyes. They left, a dungeon, empty, two minds in one body, fighting, but never doing enough, the Hulk, if Bruce Banner was also jacked. He gripped the handle to his greataxe, shoving it into the ground. A month passed, and so did Fleetwood. The BBEG was defeated in this time, but Fleetwood never got to find out what happened to his friends, the only companion he had was the Unbowed constantly trying to claw its way back into the drivers seat. His body still stands in the dungeon, skin looking the same material as the axe, eyes shut, and waited for his time. After, he wasn’t allowed to leave, forcing a now quiet, Unbowed to watch his life unfurl.
Jesus, that's the legit definition of a Dark Souls lore vid right there man. Still tho, epic story 😅
Ah damnit. The DM could've just made the palladin's god appear and that would be the big bad. The palladin would've had some major reduction to his stats though as he was up against the very being that brought him power.
The DM could've saved this shit show or at least make it passable. I'm beyond disappointed.
Notes from a NG human idiot;
Greetings from lovely Restenford(i overslept today, so we went "backyard camping' and had a good time regardless ...)!
A good Noble can weave a story that can encompass multiple emotions & twists: Betrayal, Heartache, Love & Loss. All of these things can happen, but only with the groups permission can it happen to them. Unfortunately, the Noble in question(while admittedly doing a good overall job) forgot to willingly get The Black Paladin's approval to turn him 'gainst the group. This whole incident reminds me of something a companion once said "To take away a person's freedom of choice, even their freedom to make a wrong choice, is to manipulate them as if they were a puppet and not a person."....
May your pantheon ever favor you(especially in these trying times),
Baron Trevelyan of Restenford
what a great cleric. if i was gming this then the ending that the cleric brought WOULD have been planned.. and I would have chatted with the paladin behind the scenes to make sure of their intentions (we have a lot of good/evil PCs in my game so we all know OOC this might happen). terrible GM in the end there
I've had party members become bbegs before, but through their own choices (and slight manipulation from me). I had nobles and other people give them quests work tons of money and magical items. They took these quests, did them, and forgot. However, as they started building a mercenary army (they were all mercs somehow) and continuing their quests, I would occasionally notify them about how people sometimes seemed to visit their small city they'd built. Wasn't long before they suddenly had an entire country attacking them. They questioned why this was happening. My only words were "I told you, actions have consequences. You're all chaotic evil by the way." The country's king announced he wanted his grandson back. The party finally understood. Those quests they so eagerly took, their "merc company", the "city" they built. It was all a BBEG storyline.
First rule I was taught when DM'ing a campaign was that you, as a DM/GM, you NEVER try to control a player's character, save for certain circumstances (i.e., possession or events out of their control, like unconsciousness). I had a DM who tried to take everyone's character sheets after we made them, and felt they had the right to run our characters after we'd made them, give them their background stories, etc. I had brought a character along that I'd made for another campaign and had been given permission to use, so when they tried to take my sheet, I told them to: "go frack off; it's my character, my sheet. You don't get to play for me or roll for me." The rest of the payers grabbed their sheets back and left the DM behind, and from what I know, they never hosted another game for any group. No-one who knew how to play would ever allow them to 'run' a campaign like that.
I would have given him a pen and a notebook and said: "try writing this as a book instead.".
Nice video bruh I love your history of the goblins since that video I started following you.
I was _fast_
I was slow
I have read Bloody Rose by the same author and he really paints a unique perspective of a fantasy setting. I highly recommend his other book as mentioned in the video.
It is one thing to have a character possessed as a mechanic of a fight, or a deal with a Devil where you are the fool, but the DM just saying "nah evil boi is BIG EVIL now" is so indisputably dumb.
The idea of making your character a twist villain is a great one....But only if that’s what you want, and are working with the DM to that goal. A DM should never force these choices in the player
Currently, I'm working on a campaign for my group. Idea is that the Party is a group of City Guards. I showed it to one of the players, who DMs a bit, and is acting as the DM's Assistant (DM's legally blind, and thus someone has to roll and count dice for him, and keep track of bad guys' hp - he could do it himself, but this way's easier.) He was like "Looks good so far." and I mentioned the general storyline, about how the Party is in the Level 4 range (Actually, Level 3, but everyone has a "hidden" level with some Fighter abilities - such as weapons, armor, fighting style, 10+ extra hp) against a CR10+ creature - Ancient Dragon, Pit Fiend, Storm Giant, Lich, Vampire or some such thing, trying to buy time for the "civilians" to escape the danger area, as part of the Final Test. (Basically, the Big Boss is actually a Guard, or some other powerful Real Life Ally, who acts like the BBEG to see if these Rookies have what it takes to Stay in the Guards, and thus there's no actual deaths, just really big boo-boos, and injury to pride, but nothing a good long rest won't cure.)
DM was like, "How is that going to work?"
I'm like "The trick isn't to beat the Big Boss. Trick is to seem like a bigger danger/threat to them, in order to keep them away from the 'civilians' as they escape."
DM nods and goes "Just remember one thing - players are bound to do something you won't expect."
So, I put in my Notebook - "Note to Self - Expect the Unexpected."
I don't know how long I'll run my campaign, as I'd like to run it like a cop show, but I hope that when I do run it, the group will like it.
This is a prime example of why communication between DMs and players is key, the DM should've discussed the idea of making the Paladin the villain with the Paladin's player and only go through with it if the Paladin's player is on board with the idea rather than just deciding "LOL YoUR tHE BaD gUY NOw!" if the DM was so committed that this was a good idea regardless of what the player thought, he should've just written a book.
"You thought you were a Player Character guiding the story with your choices, but it was me, Railroad!"
And the thing is, the Evil Paladin having his cult go out of control, being possessed by some dark force, being defeated by the party, and then having the Cleric use the last of her power to redeem him isn't that bad of a redemption arc, as far as they go. I mean the dynamic between the Cleric and Paladin was INTERESTING, I would think most DMs would want to lean into that and use it, not try and break it up for a bog-standard betrayal plot where the guy most likely to betray the party betrays the party and then dies.
The Cleric using the last of her power thing confused me; did her God die or something?
Surely she would have had more Cleric power after the event, unless she quite literally retired and thus, relinquished her power; although I think a retired Cleric could logically still have some power in them.
i would have fun playing the BBEG.
BUT it would depend a lot on the character, you can not just turn a PC into the BBEG as it is the players choice on what to do.
just played a PC that could be the BBEG and where heading that way.
now he is but as a NPC (my choice and DM went for it), as i wanted to give more time for my party members as a Necromancer would take a lot of time in combat.
he got further corrupted by a magic item, and i have not made a new PC, that have already been turned into a vampire and only lvl 5 :)
though she takes it as a blessing to help her fight undead :)
if the DM want a BBEG he/she should make one, and not force a PC to be a BBEG.
the DM can effect the PC with visions, dreams and others, but never take control of a PC.
remember all need to have fun both the players and the DM, and both need to take the others into account :)
I love that the cleric, evan as a new player could tell that something was wrong
Wait. So this DM had a situation where PCs clashed in one of the most minimally-disruptive but narratively-interesting ways possible and this person thought active and overt conflict would have been better? This DM dodged a bullet only to shoot themself in foot 2 seconds later.
That "DM" totally squandered a very unique opportunity for character growth and player creativity. I know not everyone can be Matt Mercer, but at least use him as an example, people, and don't railroad. On that note, the cast of Critical Role are all good examples of players being able to go with the flow and build off of one another. We can't *be* them, but we *can* look to them as inspiration to make our games better. Christ.
I knew because of the title that this would never have happened, but I was honestly very eager to hear more tales about moral conflict and personality between the Paladin and the Cleric and the party. =(
I absolute love the DM's idea that would have been a great twist, but he is a control freak and should have asked
for permission, I also love how the two NPC's were the cleric and the paladin
NGL, the DM could've done something WAY easier.
Simply add a single usurper that drains most of the powers of the paladin, and boom you have a bad guy.
For extra points, make it so that the USURPER is the BBEG, the paladin is trying to stop his zealots from overstepping
The DM railroaded so hard by the end and didn't even care about the player's nor character's personality. Smart thinking by the cleric.
Sounds like a classic case of my story dm.
The kind that get to attach to there story.
My condolence.
I want to play a Druid that only got involved cus he was selling the party mushrooms
Sounds like a good character 👌
Then we need to add a warlock who's using your mushroom to contact there patron
actually your character getting introduced to the party by selling them stuff is a really cool idea. however it’s not a good one for a murder hobo party just saying.
stealing this
Obviously circle of spores
I like it when players become villains but I myself have never done it in a satisfying way
My DM of a homebrew game using pathfinder has allowed my player to join up with one of 2 BBEGs. Both villians were present when i pledged my loyalty to one and my character even wears an amulet that allows scrying at will from the BBEG. Hints are being dropped left and right that one player is evil however instead of figuring out what is going on the party is splintering into factions of who they can trust and who is questionable. The hints are vague enough that it never out right says who is evil in the group but there are enough clues that they could figure it out. The beauty is that my alignment is not a dead giveaway so the paladin isnt able to detect lies, deception, or evil as my character is honest in how they speak. I decided that i saw what the BBEG was trying to do, as I joined the game mid progress after they sided against the BBEG. I have been playing my character straight forward with what info I have ICly and so i have made decisions accordingly. The game is meant to goto lvl 20 and I hope for their safety they figure out my character is helping the BBEG before my war cleric hits lvl 20 or it won't be pretty
The different alignments part reminds me of a recent revelation one of my tables had about how each of our characters fall in the alignment chart.
Cleric- Chaotic Good
Ranger- Lawful Neutral
Monk- Neutral Good
Fighter- Lawful Good
Warlock- True Neutral
Wizard- Chaotic Neutral
So, a lot of neutrals right? Not terrible. Nah the divide comes from the chaotic vs lawful side with cleric (myself actually) and ranger being the most at odds. Strangely we are same hometown but come from such vastly different experiences that our alignments are very opposing. Weirdly is cleric and wizard who are usually most in agreement on things. It’s past our 20th session so we expected these cracks to come to light at some point and disagree on how to wrap up missions. To party in-character gets along great with each other during missions and is a very effective group. However, it’s the after we sometimes disagree on (in-character). Um, I guess this is hard to convey but basically sometimes it’s about turning someone in, showing mercy, or so on. That sort of thing. Above table we all agree and have fun with this though and it’s been interesting to role play out how to slowly make these bonds smooth over and be sincere and caring.
Yknow videos like this make me thankful for my current campaign in which my bard and the rogue are like best bros
Funny story:
I once played a normal, everyday, devoted but still kind hearted paladin. A noble child who believed in the righteousness in people's hearts and trusted that with his guidance, they could be led to the right way. More friendly preacher than bloodthirsty soldier and he used his weapons to defend against those who were clearly evil.
I was kind of forced into playing a paladin as I was told I had to for party balance, which was a red flag, but I only played warlock before, so I thought whatever, this could be interesting.
We also had a cleric from the same faith, who actually fell mid-campaign, forsaking his god and becoming a warlock to some other goddess. I learned of this OOC and thought it was a cool idea and the DM actually did a good job hinting at it through...I think it was my divine sense that the cleric was no longer connected to our god the same way. Now at this point, I have already questioned him about his problems with faith and, being the helpful man of faith I was, offered my council to him with the intention of guiding him back to the right path. We both played along and it was great fun.
So *does PJW voice* "imagine my shock" when the DM suddenly says to us in out of game voicechat "Phew, this campaign is going great guys! Can't wait for You (Paladin/Me) to start PvP with Him (Former Cleric guy)!"
I immediately stopped it right there, saying that, at least for now, I had nothing agsinst the cleric except benevolent pity and would try to guide him to the right path instead of attacking him without question. The DM backed down, but it sounded like he'd wanted to force PvP later on if I didn't bite.
I'll never know because the DM got bored of this system, whined about it a bunch and then switched us to a completely new campaign, but at one point he flat out lied to me in private chat about another supposed player that'd join, describing her supposed character in detail, only for that player to later turn out to not actually exist and the character to be an NPC, so I have my suspicions.
Yo, ngl, that original idea of the cleric and paladin agreeing to a philosophical battle and test of the party with the whole "we shall agree to not attack or impede the efforts of the other one. This is a test of the morals of the others." Was actually a really cool idea for a way for an evil and good party member to work together.
I have read the title and i am already mad
RIP
Well I would personally love to play the final boss, that is something that I would carful work out with my DM, and thankful he would be able to help me with this.
Christ. My player's monk managed to get an elder god speaking in his head and the hand of Vecna and I STILL haven't pushed the possibility of him turning evil half as hard as this DM.
Sometimes the best DMs are the ones who think they never everything and things should go exactly as they think without warning or player input. Had a really great game once for 4 sessions. And session 5 was a very stupid TPK as the end because of some DM bs and then accusing us of not preparing enough even though he shot us down whenever we tried to get equipment to prepare for the fight. The best DMs are usually the worst at actually ending a campaign or giving a crap what players think or want.
Yea you gotta ask the party about stuff like this. I have a current party member that I texted one night asking if he wanted to become a traitor for the BBEG mind flayer since he had always wanted to play an evil character. He ecstatically said yes and we agreed to try and get him possessed by an intellect devourer. He is super excited that we are going to do it next session. Gonna use the maze to my advantage and possess him w/o the party knowing. Let's see how long it takes for them to figure out!
I love playing the bbeg! Don't get me wrong, i want to be asked first, but i do enjoy being overpowered as hell and misleading the party to their doom or into secretly doing my bidding.
I'm going to have a twist villain in my campaign but the player is the one who approached me with the idea.
I actually love the dynamic of the neutral party and the evil vs good vying for the party to side with them.
They still made a great ending out of it... until the DM started to screech like a child.
I actually thought to dynamic of the two flip sides trying to bring the group to their respect ends was interesting. Before the DM stepped in ...
The way it sounds to me is that the DM has some hard expectations of evil and good being confrontational towards one another and it seems to have begun when the cleric and paladin tried to come to an understanding. The way the DM tried to start building up the paladin seemed more like he knew he was trying to split them and show the rest of the party that good and evil can't get along. even at the end, when the cleric tried to make that connection again, the DM just flat out tried to kill her using the paladin and when they all turned on the DM, he just got upset and tried to force his view.
Good and evil can have understanding. After 9 years of DMing, most of my worlds are more advanced in terms of viewpoints. Evil characters can live amongst good characters as long as they aren't forcing their views on people. Towns are much stronger and tolerate both sides because it is a natural part of the world. If evil were to truly be extinguished, the world would become stagnant and there would be less drive to adjust. The forces drive each other to become more by constantly becoming stronger. If evil were to truly win, they would rule everything and eventually run out of goals or the world would just die. In the end, all things return to neutrality or growth.
My character has been made the BBEG like, 4 times over the years. 3 different dms for those. I’m super cool with it because they know I can play into it, and I enjoy the switching play. One of those characters was LG paladin who got overeager to wield a blessed sword that ended up actually being cursed as he turned and TPK’d the rest of the party in session 5. Wasn’t supposed to be but the storyline that came from it was great.
I adored the ending the two players came up with to spite the DM. These two really brought their A game.
The Spellmonger is a really good series on Audible as well. I would highly recommend it. It starts off as a war Mage protecting his Village from goblins into something much greater.
Communication people! Communication! People who powertrip always bring good things to ruin and this DM power tripped pretty badly over this. Not only did he turn a player's character against the party without consent, but he hijacked the character to achieve his poorly communicated ending, and then got mad when the party brought it to ruin and foiled his plans. How does any DM do this and not expect the players not to resist? Especially when you do it without their knowing.
My sister ran an ‘open world’ campaign where we could do whatever we wanted but did have its own story going on. Well, it turned out it was sort of like a video game where the story doesn’t actually move unless we interact with it, except occasionally when people did things that didn’t seem to make any sense. We couldn’t get anywhere because she made vague (not cryptic like I think she was going for, literally vague) clues on how to proceed, and was condescendingly surprised we went in entirely the wrong direction several times. I really figured out through that campaign what I was unhappy with about the group as a whole. I’m not sure what my toxic traits were(/are) but given that nearly everyone in the group had some trait that had me feeling crappy about playing, I’m willing to accept that we were just toxic together in general. Like, we can hang out and watch a movie or play a video game. But you pull out the battle mat and we just turn into really bad people.
My sister wants to tell stories, but expects us to do specific things to get the exact information we need to even engage with it much less be hooked. (I swear if against my better judgement I play with her as DM again, I won’t even bother looking for plot stuff. I’m going to put everything towards owning and training magical beasts as fucking house pets.)
Another guy doesn’t see anyone else’s fun as being his ‘problem’. He plays casters but relies on other people to tell him what his spell does.
Two others make characters that are fun and interesting... but always has some feature that make it hard for other characters to get along with. Or are secretly playing out their own story, or at least feel that way. Which is fine I guess but sometimes it seems like if they weren’t around for the fights they wouldn’t be there at all in terms of everyone else.
One of the above gets triggered by condescending behaviour of yet another guy, who’s characters always seem to be at odds with whatever the former does. (They agreed that they don’t play well together and the group started trying to figure out how to solve that one prior to me leaving.)
We have the usual DM who’s such a stickler for rules that he can’t actually wing anything and just make a ruling without holding up the game to do some research. And the first guy? Yeah he takes advantage of this in order to derail things until they find a ruling in his favour. And will return to the subject even a half hour after everyone else dropped it. And if he doesn’t get his way he sulks and makes things hard for everyone else. There really are no heroic moments in this DM’s campaigns because you can ‘only roll so many skill checks on a turn, so even if you do have the movement to do some prince of Persia bs down the hallway you can’t because it’s like, three skill checks and you only have six seconds.’
I am so glad I left, though the DM keeps hinting that my leaving somehow triggered the dissolution of a D&D group that was tearing apart friendships, and that it’s unfortunate that we all stopped playing. We still all hang out, I call that a victory.
I have since joined a group that has some of them as well, different DM. The DM is aware of my concerns about how we get along. And already I have an inkling of what might become an issue with ‘your fun isn’t my responsibility’ down the road. But I’ve changed up my play style a little, I am the healer this time around, my AC is higher than our tanks without enhancements. And I’m not afraid to have my character yell at another, if he thinks they could move their asses. Or just pick a direction already. When the party starts to get into drawn out discussions about how to scale a twenty foot cliff. (First game, at the bottom of a chute that was going to fill with water as the tide came in. I’m in plate waiting at the bottom while the nimble characters go up and tie off ropes so I can get up. Took us almost a half hour to get off the first ledge, I didn’t fail any checks going up even accounting for my armour it was all them discussing what they wanted for tie offs and shit, the nimble guy did just fine on his own for the first ledge but for some reason everyone wanted to not pick his way for the next
Never remove your players' agency without very good reason. If you must do so, you should at least be able to make the affected player understand why their agency has been removed (charm spell, possession etc.).
Even then I think overuse of Charm and Possession could be considered bad taste by some.
I've had this happen to me. I stopped playing and walked away from the table.
That player is a real "Boss"
If that was my dm I would have to pull them aside and have a talk with them about what's going on and what they thought they were doing taking control of my character. I have done the exact opposition before and literally through my stuff before and stopped playing. So I caution effective communication from all sides before actions like this are taken, not after
I could understand the DM imagining that a Lorgar character wanting to be ascended into an evil form while saying otherwise, because that is consistent with the character's inspiration. But if they saw the player was not happy with it and that it was not true to their version of the character, he should have done something else. Like make the evil gods pull them into their realm and make the party either defeat them, persuade them or wrest power from them via a trial. You could even do something like have a second cursed personality that would keep tempting them with that power. But railroading players like that just feels cheap.
this is interesting
the story tells both something that is a story with a nice ending (minus the angry dm), and a lesson for people who do play both as a dm and a player. -i really need to get involved in DnD-
How are you doing today everyone
Did you just flex on us
@@gibbous_silver not purposely
Undead Steampunk ok
Flexing channel emojis
@@allthingsdnd now I am
"NO! I cast Uber-Banishment on YOU! There is no Save, and it is Permanent! Now get the Hell out of MY house!" - Warlock
The “cultists take the leader’s idea to the extreme” sound like a good campaign to do.
I thought it was cool making it an internal battle between good and evil. It's messed up that the dm ended up ruining internal conflict to build his own bbeg. He could have even made the bbeg a follower of the faith that took the conquest too far, and it would have given the paladin motive to fight with the party. A dm should never supercede a player as to what his or her character becomes, and doing that takes from the beauty of dnd. It's not a fun game because everything goes your way in the end, but because it's nearly imposible to know the outcome. No set story, no determined fate. Nothing but freedom, creativity, and chance.
Lorgar? At least he wasn't Erebus
It's a cool twist, but one that the player and DM should have been in on together.
If I were that player, I would have used that charisma to tell the group too that this was happening without my will. Good on the cleric for resolving it in the end.
YIRBEL LIVES. I-I i’m confused...this is giving me flashbacks kind of how often does this sort of thing happen?! “Happen to know the exact counter spell of the uber banishment” indeeed. YA CAN’T JUST...DOUBLE POSSESS A CHARACTER bah
I hope you like this emoji
All Things DnD I LOVED IT! Had to scrummage around the house for a computer to see it get voted on!
“You either die a Hero or live long enough to see yourself become a Villain” is a quote used to denote that people glorified as heroes or seen as paragons of morality usually are killers and monsters in to the other peoples. The fact is, the values we hold are subjective to circumstances and a good person to you could be the reason for the suffering of another.
The statement is more about the decay of age, as you grow old you grow bitter, it's a word of warning to a individual not a word of wisdom about how to perceive your heros
There are people that say having a bad DM is better than not playing the game at all. If they've heard stories like this and still say that, then they're probably people you should never play the game with.
something like this has happened before but we werent forced to kill him and everything went smoothly. we were all level 5-6 and the guy who was level 13 got possessed. we had to either bring his hp to 0 or knock him out so that the spirit will leave him in search of a new vesle. it was a pretty tough fight but we opted to do physical damage because it would o been harder to do non lethal damage and he could easlily killed all of us if we did it that way. after we killed the spirit the cleric healed his wounds and helped him stabalize and what was supose to be an easy in and out job turned into an epic boss fight.
DM tries to kick him out?!?!?! Plot twist, not his house!!! AHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA! Gold.
At first I kinda understood where the DM was coming from wanting fake character drama because it does add to the story if the players are mature enough but at the same time the players kinda made it very clear they were not interested in a plot leading to them PVPing each other. So I think he should have instead gave them situations where they’re beliefs would utilized in a creative way so they have agency with roleplay encounters.
I know that normally the DM is the BBEG, but this guy takes the cake
If you had one more session of time before that “i snap the clerics neck”
Moment
The paladin might have been able to cast the uber banishment on the DM, also known as the mighty bonk
The first campaign I ever played had me become the BBEG’s Second-In-Command (TV Tropes would call it the “Dragon With An Agenda”), and while it definitely wasn’t my choice or even my preference to be that starting out, the way it was handled and how it ended up playing out meant I had an absolute blast. So while I do believe there is a place for this kind of turnabout in DnD, it’s important to make sure your player at least is okay with this first and foremost. This DM was just an arsehole.
Selective railroading is the worst DM offense that can be committed.
If I was told before the campaign, I'd like to try being the villain, but I have characters it might work with and ones it absolutely wouldn't, not to mention I might just not be in a villaining mood DM should check with player before trying to pull s*** like that. Period.
Edit: Correcting dumb typo
The twist could have been great if he had just asked, and the real twist was fantastic. Cleric for the win.
Honestly, I feel like I know what went on here. I used to be kind of a crap DM, (still not the best), and I don't think I ever did something like this, but it definitely *feels* like something I might have tried.
I think the problem is that the DM had played a game, watched a movie, or read a book, etc, where in the main character becomes the villain unexpectedly and wanted to recreate that sensation for their players. The problem is, the medium that the DM took inspiration from didn't account for the free will of a TTRPG. This could have obviously been resolved by talking with the player, but then they wouldn't have gotten the full affect of the surprise. So, from the DM's perspective, it's like trying super hard to get your friend to come over cause you've planned a surprise party, and after you've practically dragged them back to your place and finally flip the light, they start complaining cause it's bright and loud and everything's too surgery or too salty. And you can't help but wonder why you even bothered going to all the effort of creating that feeling of surprise joy in the first place.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say the DM is blameless or that the players are in the wrong, I'm just saying that, as a DM who has made similar mistakes that have made the game less enjoyable for everyone involved, this is what I believe their mistake was.
I'm doing a campaign where one of my friends is being the secret bbeg trying to summon an old dark god and we've been talking about it with each other way before this
Mr. DM wants to make me the BBEG? ok. Lemme dust off THAT guy. The TF2 Demoman build. And git mah pan.
Dun-mah-glass!!!
Come on that set up was AWESOME. It would be awesome to see a build your own adventure with the cleric and paladin swaying the party. Then instead of just building up the paladin as a twist final boss it could have been either the paladin If the party chose good or the cleric if the party chose evil