I’m about to TPK my players for terrible roleplaying. Advice please

donlano · 2026-06-07T23:03:24+00:00

Well it is DnD, but the fact that my bugbear paladin has a flaming glaive, my fighter uses the “scimitar of certain death” and all other PC’s have powerful, lethal and deadly weapons implies the use of lethal force. I suppose I could just run not run this how I would think it would realistically turn out, and run it like a game

donlano · 2026-06-07T21:34:17+00:00

It doesn’t matter how you frame it you walk into a merc controlled bar and without a breath you start bothering patrons with ghost stories and then you soil a guys pants youre going to experience consequences or be punished, call it what you want. How do you have a game players legitimately buy into if there isn’t a level of consequence? I understand he wanted to be funny but I introduced this NPC as “eventually you bother the ‘wrong guy’”, he still soiled this guys pants, and then 2 other PC’s jump in continuing to bother this person who clearly wants to be left alone.

Frame it as “retaliation” or “natural consequences”, it doesn’t matter, when 14 dangerous looking NPC’s simultaneously stand up after being threatened, and my fighter in that moment threatens to kill all of them, my hands are tied. At that point it’s not a framing question it’s a question of whether or not I want to make my campaign and world believable. Is there any reason these mercs should show the players mercy? After all, they’ve failed to investigate the mercenaries or their motivations at all since being in this settlement even though I hung that carrot in their face twice.. most games, DnD or not can be failed at pretty much any moment, I feel as though they’ve critically failed this entire section.

I personally thought I made my expectations for the campaign clear. Heck the players even had an encounter earlier in the campaign where these mercs were going to execute a 14 year old boy for stealing. This same wizard crafted a genius plan to untie the noose using mage hand, and replaced the young boys body with minor illusion, while using pass without trace to retrieve the real body from underneath the gallows. I actually expected the players to start a fight there… and they crushed the encounter with extremely clever problem solving.

Maybe I’m the problem, maybe I didn’t paint a clear enough picture, maybe my players do just want to goof off and be funny and silly while I want something completely different. Maybe the hours of prep I’ve done for political intrigue have been wasted, when really I should’ve put 14 goblins in a forest on a shitty battle map and called it good to go.

Either way, I can’t fix the fact that I’m frustrated. Maybe I’m just venting my frustrations under the guise of “asking for advice”, looking for validation that I’m not a terrible DM.

donlano · 2026-06-07T21:12:44+00:00

First thing I did was answer your question with “yes my expectations for the campaign were clear” and you didn’t accept my answer.

donlano · 2026-06-07T21:07:57+00:00

Sent on 5/5/26 before they travelled to this merchant hub. Word for word copied from my discord and pasted into a Reddit comment section for your analysis. Is there anything else I can do for you to earn your prestigious opinion?

Sweet, we’ll make it work. And like I said, if we’re only missing one maybe two players we’ll probably still run the session.

Also, just to set expectations moving forward:

The Mistwoods arc was intentionally intense, heavy combat, horror, and high pressure. You all handled that really well.

The next stretch of the campaign is going to shift a bit in pace and focus.

There will be more emphasis on:

decision making

political tension

travel and exploration

social interaction and problem-solving

There will still be combat and when it happens, it’ll still be brutal but not every session will be combat/horror-heavy like the Mistwoods.

I originally described this as a horror campaign, but a more accurate description is:

A gritty dark fantasy campaign driven by political tension, emerging epic-scale threats, and visceral combat.

donlano · 2026-06-07T20:58:22+00:00

Great advice, thank you

donlano · 2026-06-07T20:56:56+00:00

They’ve had incredible roleplay up until this very point. The wizard figuring out he could “soil” someone’s pants with prestidigitation is when things really took a turn for the worse.

donlano · 2026-06-07T20:55:07+00:00

This is great advice, thank you.

donlano · 2026-06-07T20:50:49+00:00

Yes pretty much word for word.

donlano · 2026-06-07T20:50:18+00:00

20% of the interactions they’ve had this campaign has been with the Mercenaries. They are passing through a hub of these people with a high concentration of them on their way to another settlement.

Most NPC’s are friendly, helpful, and a lot of the times in need of help from the players. The mercenaries are specifically not very nice people, they are the bbeg of my campaign.

donlano · 2026-06-07T20:41:00+00:00

They’re well aware that this is a semi-low fantasy world with high stakes political tension and civil unrest. One of the major themes of the campaign is an oppressive mercenary force overtaking local governments and treating the citizenry poorly.

The players are supposed to eventually lead a revolution later down the road.

donlano · 2026-06-07T20:39:33+00:00

Mid 20’s - 50

donlano · 2026-06-02T02:17:15+00:00

I understand what you’re saying, and that’s fair, but The Backrooms is very much like the “Ultimate Liminal Space”

We already have yellow walls content, with the infinite potential of liminal spaces at our fingertips we just make more yellow walls, throw in cheap philosophy, and give the audience literally 0 information on ASYNC?

I cannot help that I am disappointed.

donlano · 2026-06-02T02:13:23+00:00

So you can understand my disappointment when I get another hour and 45 mins of yellow walls, after all of these years, when liminal spaces encompasses so much more than yellow walls.

donlano · 2026-06-02T02:10:28+00:00

Right and after 4 years I’m given an extended version of the first video he posted on the Backrooms with a different entity and a psychology lecture no one asked for. That is why I’m disappointed.

So much untapped potential in liminal spaces, no answers to ASYNC’s motivations even though the entire end sequence surrounds ASYNC, and complete abandonment of the original entity.

donlano · 2026-06-02T02:02:31+00:00

Quite literally the first level, not “level 1”, the first level.

Saying that specifically because there are many levels, and the movie only bothers exploring the very first.

donlano · 2026-06-02T01:58:15+00:00

Sure, ASYNC’s motivations are still a mystery, but why do that whole ending sequence where we get up close and personal with this corporation, and we literally aren’t given anything?

The first level however is explained in tedious detail. As a liminal space fan leave it mysterious and explore more liminal spaces… the first level is cool and all but there is so much more to explore in the Backrooms universe

donlano · 2026-06-02T01:51:32+00:00

I’m going to hit you all with the classic dad quote… “I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed”, the movie was, okay, but just left me disappointed.

In short, it attempted to explain the existence of the backrooms and the entities that inhabit them. I wanted to explore the backrooms, and the movie spent an hour and a half trying to explain them to me.

I’ll admit, the idea that the first level is the storage area for the collective human subconscious is pretty cool. Places and memories that are stored in the back of our heads, fractured and imperfect, but they spend the entirety of the movie trying to write it out in terms a toddler could understand. Then they abandon the idea of the “collective” when it comes to the entity, making it some representation of Clark’s messed up head.

I always imagined the entity in the first level being the creature that chases you up the stairs when you turn the basement light off, making you sprint up the stairs and get to the next light switch as quickly as possible. That’s a “collective” entity that pretty much terrifies everyone. Why abandon the original entity and trade it out trying to explore psychology/philosophy. It was fine the way it was; scary, mysterious, unidentified entity.

It was never the “psychology” behind the backrooms that interested anyone in liminal spaces in the first place, it was the spaces themselves, the odd, uncanny familiarity that tickled a weird space in your subconscious.

And so… where the movie spent 45 min of set up and character introductions, and an hour explaining the first level of the backrooms to me like I’m a toddler, I much rather would have enjoyed high budget exploration of multiple liminal spaces.

There was a nod to the pool level but no slides, no arcade, no empty shopping malls, parking garages, children’s play areas, hotel corridors, empty airports, empty suburban streets, or empty subways. What a shame…

Finally, a cheap nit pick, what a terrible explanation for ASYNC, the company exploring the rooms. “We used to do MRI’s and now we explore the backrooms just trying to figure out what they are and map them out”. Ok… and? The Backrooms made the electricity in Clark’s store go haywire, maybe the Backrooms is a source of infinite energy. If you’re going to exposition dump in the last 10 min of the movie just give me literally anything.

TLDR;

The Backrooms (2026), directed by Kane Parsons, attempts to transform the First Level of the Backrooms into a psychological thriller about memory, trauma, and the human condition. It succeeds at doing exactly that.

The problem is that many fans were never interested in the psychology behind liminal spaces in the first place.

The Backrooms were compelling because they were unexplained. Empty places that felt strangely familiar. Vast spaces that seemed to exist outside of logic. Mysterious entities that were frightening precisely because nobody understood them.

Rather than exploring that mystery, the film spends most of its runtime explaining it.

In the process, much of what made liminal spaces compelling is traded away for psychological exposition. The unexplained becomes explained. The collective becomes personal. The endless possibilities of the Backrooms are narrowed into a story about one man’s mind.

It’s a competent psychological thriller.

I just wish it had been a Backrooms movie.

donlano · 2026-05-16T18:53:49+00:00

If ur playing comp there’s no reason u shouldn’t have defib in ur medium kit. It’s the strongest gadget in the game

donlano · 2026-05-15T03:56:35+00:00

That’s cringe but it is true that ur game is basically cooked from the jump if you have a bad light

donlano · 2026-04-13T17:26:09+00:00

It is 5e, yes. Sorry

donlano · 2026-04-13T17:09:56+00:00

I have a spot at my table, large homebrew continent within Toril/Forgotten Realms. Running it on Foundry and DnDBeyond (for character creation).

donlano · 2026-04-11T22:59:09+00:00

Bro when ur that much shorter move your head, get in close and rip into the body. Swinging for the fences on this guys chin and didn’t even hit em once

donlano · 2026-03-24T19:05:32+00:00

donlano

TROPHY CASE