My DW group is in a bit of a pickle— to make a long story short, two of my players each made deals independently with a highly unstable and capricious fire goddess, one thing led to another and now she’s asked that one player kill the other, and that player agreed.
I’ve been following the principles (begin & end with the fiction, think dangerous), and everyone was all grins up until the point when fighting broke out and it became clear that, yes, one of them was going to have to die to get out of this.
Problem is, now they don’t want to kill each other, and this is a pretty damn powerful deity they’ve gotten themselves mixed up with. They definitely knew what they were getting themselves into, but the reality is disappointing.
Half of me wants let the harsh reality of this problem play itself out— the other half wants to help them find a way out of this mess. Any suggestions?
Well, one of them can fake their own death. Or you can have the two of them refuse to kill each other at the last moment, and go on to try to fight the goddess rather than each other. Or one of them can go through with killing the other and be plagued by guilt for the rest of forever, while the other dude rolls up a new character.
Play to find out. Death is fun. I bet she makes great bargains.
What Marshall Miller said. Death is not the end (unless your roll sucks)
Well, if they don’t want to kill each other it seems like the best option is for them to shake hands and turn on the goddess. Sure, she’s powerful, but that just means they have to go at it sideways.
Thanks for the good feedback guys— sometimes you already know what you should do and you just need to hear it from someone else!
Good lord do I ever feel you on that one…
Ask them questions..
I think that when you make a bad deal with a power, a ‘nice’ solution is to offer an even worse power with a worse deal to solve their problem.
Deeper and deeper in debt.
Well a goddess might just want to have something out of it instead of fighting them outright, it would actually be well beneath her, if they made a deal, then the object of said deal if the thing to be taken away, destroyed, and so on.
Let them live, knowing they have an enemy and lost what they wanted.
Was thinking along the same line. Using ‘financial derivatives’ to postpone it and make it worst.
Let’s say the deal was to be rich, the goddess might make them be stolen, make their money actually disappear from their purses, or even turn into worthless deals, like wooden coins. If they wanted power she can actually give them trouble by sending people who want power after them, make it able to be taken away if they are killed.
Pondering about what they wanted out of the deal in the first place is the exact way to make them pay for not fulfilling their end of the bargain.
Gods are capricious and while killing might settle it, they can have a lot more fun with them alive. Think Hera in Greek mythology
Are there other gods/goddesses? One that might be looking to spite the fire goddess? It’s deus ex machina, but, hey, you’re being a fan of the characters… And a friend to your players, if they don’t want their characters to die.
Fire goddess, huh? I’m sure there’s a jilted water god lover who’d help them out, if it means hurting his ex…
Seems to me you have a pretty epic quest/front coming up. Something along the lines of Kill the Fire Goddess Who’s Pissed at Everybody Now. Make it hard on the players, and constantly remind them that they could end it by killing their friend.
You could also have he deal be nullified by the gif of True Sacrifice.
One of the players sacrifices himself for the sake of his companion.
The goddess takes his soul prisoner or demands he help her release her lover from the heart of the sun or some other epic quest that will have disastrous results.
Or perhaps the dead guy has to fight through the afterlife to the black gate. His living friends must perform a dangerous ritual to bring him back to life. Death being the end of a well loved characters’ adventure is a boring option, when it can merely be another doorway to more adventure.
One thing though, if the consequence for not following with the deal was death then strike them down right there and then, and have them roll for last breath. Otherwise you could just have an antagonizing god appear to the dead instead, no roll required, he offers a new deal…
So we played this out— first player managed to talk the other into letting her kill him under the impression that he’d be brought back. He waived his deal with death and the party struck yet more deals with a god of the undead to bring the slain player back… well, let’s just say the letter of the deal was upheld, and you get what you pay for…