If this ever happens to you, just have another group of heroes try to stop the baddie's plan, only to publicly fail. It shows the world has stuff that is happening whether they buy in or not.
this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2025
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I prefer the "big bad just set up the new walmart in your town that's destroying local businesses and has paid off the guards" approach.
That can be a great option for meeting players where they're at, if they're more about running a cosy commerce sim in your genre fiction TTRPG. Either way though you ignore a 'refusal of the call' moment at your own peril. It needs to be addressed, but how is the interesting bit!
Oh have the other group of heroes succeed. Showing the world doesn't revolve around the PCs makes it feel more alive, and it lets them focus on running a tavern or whatever else they wanted to do.
Or maybe the other group of heroes meets at the tavern the players opened, and their skill in running a tavern somehow ends up being vital for that group of heroes' success. Maybe they just overhear the heroes talk about nearly being defeated, before succeeding because of something the players did. "We were nearly defeated at the last fortress. If the Dark General had been there, we'd have been toast."
Or maybe the baddies take over a country, which has some effects on the players' clientele and the drinks they serve.
I like the angle where someone else gets the job done, but it ends up being a power play that causes new problems, changes the dynamic.
You really don't get it. Evil Lords "want" to be defeated. Just think about it. How long can he keep the things going?
The villages dried out by crazy taxes. The abused mines, with countless deaths to get as much ores as possible. The corrupted government full of incompetent creeps so dumb to actually belive your evil-messiah agendas. The psyco army guards out for blood who you can barely keep in check by letting them go wild on the poor in the slums. Everything is falling apart.
So, when a party of promising idealistic good guys start a quest to get your head, you let them do their thing. Hell, you even toss a lead here and there to get them on the good track. And when they finally reach you, everything goes out with a big BANG!! And Evil Lord is no more.
Then. Some times later, somewhere far-away. A mysterious carriage fully guarded and fully loaded with gold and jewels, quietly leave the kingdom. Undisturbed and unchecked.
Reminds me a bit of a previous campaign (not DnD). We (the party) spent so much time and attention murdering and threatening our way into a coup against the sickly King that we stopped paying attention to anyone else in the story.
Then in our campaign finale, we flub every single roll to execute the coup, and our whole plan gets hijacked by a more competent NPC to seize power for herself. Queue TPK* while we all get hunted down as traitors.
* Except for the party poisoner. He was happy to spend his life in prison so long as the new government let him brew poisons for use against enemies of the state.
"Heroes! I'm sorry, the next ale delivery is gonna have to wait. Our supply routes have been under attack by those same villains the blacksmith mentioned. This seems to be the work of the Dark Mother-In-Law."
VLDL - Viva La Dirt League did a couple videos like this...
You posted the same link twice.
Thanks! Edited
The first game I ran was going to be a devious cloak and dagger antagonist with ominous hints and...
And that always just ends up going full 'burn after reading'.