#RPGaDAY2018 - Day 14: Describe a failure that became amazing

I talked about Eberron Unlimited in a previous post. In it, I talked about a campaign that had three separate adventuring parties, each with their own DM, with the possibility of them meeting and maybe even fighting each other.

Eberron is really cool, you guys.

The Setup

One of the parties, named the Children of Eberron [CoE] was tasked to intercept the delivery of some cargo from a boat at some lonely port in Droaam. On the other side, another party of PCs, called the Spawn of Khyber [SoK], were tasked to take the same cargo to the port and defend it until delivery. None of the parties knew that their respective employers were actually working in tandem in an effort to get rid of the two groups of adventurers by having them kill each other.

At the beginning, you could tell the players were hyped. They had been waiting for several sessions to meet each other and test their mettle against each other. But then after the second or third round, what should have been obvious to me, happened; What do you get when you pit two groups of PCs against each other, PCs that each player was attached to, and wouldn't be coming back when they inevitably die during the fight?

The Failure

You get a large group of players upset with each other. It was visible that they stopped having fun, instead having their fight or flight faces on. This is the day I learned a big lesson in regards to PvP in D&D, and how carefully it needs to be handled.

You can take a look at the following video as an example; at the end, as is expected in a World of Warcraft game with members of both the Alliance and the Horde, they fight at the end. It doesn't end well for the losing party, and you can tell some of them end up pretty bummed about it.

I want to play D&D with Terry Crews!!

I can talk in more detail about PvP in D&D another day. For today's answer, I'll just say we ended the session in a grim note, but at least before any serious damage was done. The players left very unhappy, and I also felt disappointed in myself for not seeing it coming from a mile away. I definitely could have handled things better had I given the situation more thought. My intention was for them to figure out that they had been set up, but I gave them little to no clues for them to come up with this conclusion.

The Comeback

After a few days, I talked it over with my co-DM for the SoK party, and he suggested that a big, third party NPC monster (A monster he offered to design) pop up and have the players fight that instead. It was genius! He named it Mak Thuum Ngatha, a tentacled aberration, likely basing it on a weird, obscure deity. This monster would summon another sort of filth elemental-like being (which also had a name that I forgot).

When the day arrived, I retconned most of the fight between the PCs. Mak Thuum Ngatha appeared early, and the PCs quickly and eagerly acted in response. The teams were forced to enter an uneasy alliance as this deadly monster attacked them. In the end, they forced Mak Thuum Ngatha to escape, and the two groups realized that they were both played by their employers. Everyone was ecstatic, a crystal clear contrast of their mood from their previous time together. That session would become the highlight of the campaign (at least until all three groups would meet up in the end at least).

Despite that setback, that campaign was a lot of big damn fun.