Had a pretty dang epic session last night in my group. I've lurked D&D most of my life, but this has been my first campaign. Anyway, our heroes return expecting parades and instead we face tribunal for murder hoboing.
I talked our way out via a stream of role playing and persuasion / performance rolls. But dangit if the rl girls in the group aren't shitty lol. Everybody there is at least several bad player tropes (according to YouTube), but they're the worst. We have a barbarian that has the best stats by far but spends her time stealing things during action and wandering off to do her own thing and we have a thief who is playing a catperson that basically just lounges around and naps - even during the fight with the big bad. When we get back? the cat totally tries to throw everybody under the bus, shouting, "He did it! He did!." (luckily I wasn't the he). I miraculously rolled a nat. 20 with an uproarious cheer from everybody.
Tonight's session we got blindsided. The sessions have been lore heavy and we've been learning this unique homebrew world and the 9 tribes who run it. The six of us are each high ranking individuals in a different tribe with three remaining tribes have been the subject of intrigue. One wants to rule everybody, another wants us dead for murder hoboing, and the other are religious fanatics.
There's a very real threat going on that's on a very real timer, but even though the three parts of our main quest are pretty straightforward, side quests have been plentiful - helping allies tribes, uncovering and subduing one of the three deviant tribes, etc.
Well tonight we finally completed 2/3 of the prerequisite for 1/3 of the main quest: rescue the prince; defeat the miniboss.
There has been a pattern of facing a tribunal after main quest milestones. Sure enough that happened.
I took stage like I usually do at these but rolled poorly. Also, other players wanted to try the persuasion game also. I hate being the ballhog so I let them. It became a fun dynamic and we were turning it around - then we get raided by a people never before encountered. Roll for initiative.
They steal the prince. Mind you we have our armies here, so we give chase and it was a trap, we're completely surrounded by this completely new faction from across the sea. We've invested so much in this super continent with so much more to uncover that we got blindsided by essentially a dues ex machina.
It was heartbreaking. Volleys of arrows nearly kill us all. Some cunning plays and good rolls turn it around but then the army at our back ignore orders and close in our formation's flanks, betraying us. This hard fought ally joins the new arrival. We managed to get back the prince, before the doublecross.
The tatical player was disappointed because he didn't see it coming. We suspected one of the existing problem factions. But none of us suspected over seas slavers.
But then he noticed his girlfriend's expression. "Wait, you knew?! It must have been your mother, this was her doing, her idea?"
Well she reveals that during downtime, she communicated with the DM. The major subplot of figuring out who was assassinating the tribes that stirred up most of the sidequests and bullshit weren't any of the three npc tribes, but she!
She was the one who released three basilisks in the valley tribe killing them all. And she was the one who planted the evidence against the fanatical NPC tribe. She was the one. After every session, she apparently had private sessions with dm over messenger.
She was the one who threw us under the bus, "he did it, he did it." She was the one who would stealth away during battles and not contribute, only to return to take stuff.
But worse was she told us instead of letting us figure out the mystery. Two months of intrigue.
And why? First she said, "my character is chaotic evil!" And then she said she wanted to break the campaign.
It could have been cool. But it's not
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