Welcome back to my crypt! It's been a while. (A year in fact!) A lot of life happened and frankly, I needed some time to get things in my personal life under control.
Shortly, I will begin working in earnest on a DCC version of the classic D&D adventure: "X1 The Isle of Dread". I will be using both the original versions and the 5e version put out in Goodman Game's OAR #2 "The Isle of Dread".
The original version will be what I pull most things from and using wholly. The 5e conversion has some excellently fleshed out maps, areas, villages and NPC's that will make my prep go a lot faster. I will also be using the DCC setting conversion guide "Dinosaur Crawl Classics" to set this somewhere on the planet, Cretasus and using the setting to the best of my ability. So far, I plan on setting up a confederate outpost on the east coast of the island, a smattering of Dinozon villages throughout the wilds, and raptor villages as well.
I will be running the "re-version" at U-CON as 2 separate events. One will be a 0-level funnel featuring 0-level characters from another world that have shipwrecked on the island.
The second scenario will be fully sandbox with 3rd level pc's tasked with one of these: 1. a way off the island. (Confederate allies.) 2. Uniting the villages against the blue ones. (Dinozon). 3. Securing the tribe's safety. (Raptors.) I will roll randomly at the start of the scenario and pass appropriate character sheets to the players. It is not required to have played in the funnel, but I will have blank 3rd level sheets for the return players to bring in their survivors.
That's all I have on that field, let's get to the meat of this post: "What do I do with a party full of murder hobos?"
Players that kill and loot everything in sight are the bane of decent story driven games and serious gamemasters with continuity in mind. Some players don't understand that every action should have a consequence. The "Challenge Rating" system implemented in 3E and kept on in recent versions of D&D as well as other games, other systems, and genres. It has programmed a lot of good players into thinking that in a world where gods are real and dragons and demons can kill with a thought that "I'm level 5, I can do what I want, these villagers are probably 1/4 CR each weaklings, same goes for these goblins!
They ignore any chance to think logically or humanely, so they go to: "Kill it! Take its stuff! There are no repercussions!"
Here is a system neutral set-up to give them a taste in verisimilitude. Think of it as a litmus test for decency,
+Players hear rumors of an elderly, retired adventurer that has a cabin in the woods and it is stocked to the brim with valuables and arcane artifacts. Easy Picking!
+Said Elder is actually a much higher level NPC. ( 3rd level pcs, 9th or or higher level old man.)
+If they visit him and act like decent people, he tells them the dragon holed up in the coal mine is a real hazard to the village they came from. If they kill it, he will give them each a treasure from his stash. (And he will!) If they immediately move to aggression, move to the last point.
+The mine is a short crawl, minions are average difficulty. The dragon? Go ahead and use a large animal's stats (Like a grizzly bear) and give it a breath weapon and flight. It should put the hurts on the party, but not be an actual threat. (This is an important part of the set up. The false confidence booster.)
+ If the party returns with proof, the old man will honor his promise, give them their prizes and see them off.
+If they choose to be monsters, they should in turn be treated as such. "The old Man" will reveal him self and systematically beat each and every one to near death and disappear with his home and treasures.
You have to be careful with the last bit, you don't want to piss off your players, or break the trust they put into you, the GM, so don't outright kill them in a single blow, or decimate them. At the same time, you are teaching an important lesson, so you do have to be the parent here, it is tricky work.
There are other ways to drill this lesson into your players, some more heavy handed than others. Killing an agent of a king means his soldiers will come for them, ban them from towns they have yet to visit, etc.
Overly chaotic actions will inevitably attract the attention of dark powers and darker consequences!
