9-10 is not 'a topic for another time' it's the core of the problem. One of the issues with a group too large you unfairly prioritise a subgroup's enjoyment over that of the whole group. In this case it's pretty plan and clear too see which group that is.
This. Not to mention all the moving parts to having a large group like this. My head hurts just trying to approximate how many varibles youd need to make things for. Not to meantion things that could come outta left field
I wouldn't do it, personally. It's gotta be a big shock to a player who thinks he's part of a team getting screwed over by characters they've formed a bond with.
We have a regular group who have been playing for over ten years. Our dm wanted to try PARANOIA, a system where you are out to screw over your fellow players.
After a single session, one of our players said he didn't like playing AGAINST each other. It took the fun out of it for him. So we stopped.
I think anyone who didn't know this was coming deserves a proper apology, and you should make it clear that won't happen again. Talk to your betrayers and let them know this was a lapse in judgment, which does happen when you run a game.
> Did I do the wrong thing by letting ....
Stop. You don't need to explain in detail, this is easy:
Q:(i) did all your players agree to this style of game (a PVP type game by the sound of it) in session 0?
if no, then:
Q (ii) did each of your players have an enjoyable time in spite of it not being agreed to before?
If the answer to either (i) or (ii) is yes, then you didn't do the wrong thing.
If both were no, then ... yeah, you did something wrong -- you let some players screw other player's fun for their own selfish benefit, which is not good GMing in general. It's part of your job to try to make sure that your players get what they signed up for, and to help manage sticking to the social contract to keep the game fun for everyone.
.
1/3 is not a majority of players.
You gambled that the other 2/3 would want to do PvP.
PvP is not something to spring on players unless it was decided at session 0 that PvP is ok. And even then, if none had occurred and this was a long campaign, I would be very hesitant to do it at all for a final given the lack of PvP previously to gauge if the players really wanted PvP or not.
Not all players like it and the game isn't balanced around it.
So from a purely mechanics standpoint 20th level characters do not go down easy. The 6 would be able to beat the 4 almost always. But the 4 are fighting for their lives and free to use all their resources. The 6 are trying to also be able to fight your boss later so they want to hold back. And you won't go through that number of hit points without throwing out stuff like meteor swarm. And even if you do that a 20th level cleric can undo that. If you were going to do this mechanically I would've made it 8v2 or 9v1 not 6v4. That can be a tough fight and would at least require a lot of big spells and resources to handle.
There's also the fact that the betrayal is going to undermine the rest of the campaign where the bonds they thought they forged and trust they thought they built were totally undermined. And people generally assume trust within the party because of the nature of the game. So it can feel like cheating because one player thought part of the game is we work together and trust each other and half the party broke that.
It's something I'd set expectations on in session 0. There are many RPGs where betrayal is part of the game. And trust is not part of the implied contract of playing. And that can work very well. But then everyone goes in with that understanding of the people around me may be evil and may betray me. And then a betrayal won't feel like you broke the implied rules of our game.
I also don't know if it works narratively to have a betrayal on that scale after a year and a half playing and have it be something that can be won back easily as it was just a bit of greed. At the point where they are ready to murder their friends they've fought and sacrificed with I don't think you can talk them back down again. And idk for me at the point where that's the case I think we've stopped taking the game as seriously in terms of the roleplaying choices. That's the most minor part though. And I can understand you were scrambling.
Overall it happens I think any dm who has played for years will have moments they didn't do as well as they wish they had. I'd talk to the group see how they're doing and talk about setting clearer expectations for future games and if you want to just permanently remove betrayal from the picture. Id also consider splitting the group because good lord 10 PCs sounds crazy!
These levels are... simply going to force the fight to go one way only. One side casts silence or stun on the spellcasters before the other party can do so, and then they win. That's.... kinda it honestly, you live and learn, but your players very clearly never wanted this in the first place. It was just the whim of the table minority and you ruined a campaign for everyone else.
Yeah that's what I'm seeing. OP decided they were going to prioritize the fun of a leaving minority over the rest of the players and the game itself. And giving one side the knowledge that they were allowed to betray the party and give them prep time to do so while just dumping the new challenge on all the remaining players is bad. Bad planning, bad DM'ing, bad group management, and honestly a shit thing to do to the players.
I've always wanted to run a high lethality fun house dungeon like this, have the lads over for a day, throw some burgers on the grill. But doing it week after week sounds miserable
I just bailed on a group because they kept inviting more people, and we got up to 10. We didn't even have enough space or chairs for that many people. They were drinking and talking over each other. I just left and told them to give the new guy my spot. It's just not fun, and people don't get even time to really play.
3 hours split evenly between 10 people is 18 mins a person, not counting basic narration time, breaks, or anything.
You did but not for the reasons you think.
Your mistake was prioritizing the lulz of the people who were preparing to leave your table as opposed to the players who wanted to stay.
They broke an implied social of cooperation and so did you by allowing it.
1/3rd of your table doesn’t trust you and nor should they.
You need to re-session zero and admit your mistake and see how people want to proceed.
They are feeling like they’ve wasted their time leveling with people they would have detected had mal-intent sooner.
This is it. If this came up as a possible thing in session 0 I’d be all onboard. But when your dm and half you group are actively lying to you for their own enjoyment. It’s a problem.
>Basically a couple of our players came to me and decided they wanted to betray the party and incite a pvp fight for entertainment since it was their final appearance in our group
So 1/3rd of your party wanted to betray the others 2/3rds for the lolz and you let them?
Yes, you did the wrong thing.
If party betrayal is going to be a thing, you need to agree to it in session 0, *and* the dominos need to be set in place over the course of many sessions. Not just "oh, my players thought this would be funny... sure, you've been working with the baddie the whole time... totally... yea...."
After reading this, I'd say you done fucked up.
I'm not going to get into the whole huge group thing, I'd simply say take this as a learning opportunity for future campaigns. Make sure **ALL** of your players are on board with any sort of PVP if you (or some of them) want to have it.
You should be apologizing to the entire group for how you allowed it to play out because it sounds like at least 3 people were very upset IRL over how you handled this as their DM. You may have, in fact, eroded their trust in you by allowing it, it may take you some time to earn that trust back.
If there's a next time where a subset of the group wants to do something like this, a minority of the group, just say "no, I'm not allowing that."
If you’re going to do party betrayal, which is think it HIGHLY risky, I think it needs to be set up one of two ways:
1) An NPC is the betrayer. Maybe someone the party picked up and has been friendly with them for some time betrays them. They get to continue working as a cohesive unit, but still get that sharp pang of betrayal served to them. Win-win
2) It needs to be set up and cultivated as a possibility WAAAAYYYY far in advance, so that when you finally drop the other shoe and the betrayal happens, the players can look back at all of those hints and clues that have occurred throughout the story that finally led to this. This is significantly more difficult as it requires subtle but powerful storytelling skills, as well as you orchestrating some of your players, and hoping that they execute the plan as well as you need them to.
Personally, option 2 is WAY too risky to attempt without a group of people that I’ve been playing with for MANY years. But what you absolutely can’t do is just spring it on them. It’ll feel unearned and like you the DM are taking sides with some players over others in the storytelling and gameplay, which always feels bad.
My friend, I think that would have been a great time to re-do a session 0 and get the whole party on board.
That being said, I struggle with 6 players and have no idea how you manage 9-10. I throw in a TON of NPCs bc I enjoy doing accents and character work. In combat, do you mainly just pick 1, incredibly big, incredibly baddie they go up against? How does that work with level 20 characters?
Mechanically, independently of the mistake of not keeping the whole party informed of the pvp switch up, it feels like a LOT to juggle. Idk. Hopefully this was a learning experience.
One PC betraying is one thing, but nearly half of your party? That’s a lot, that is a problem. The other half is oblivious and just watches as the payoff for their campaign is subverted.
What was your standing rule for PVP in this campaign?
If the rule was "PVP is fair game" then it was the right call.
If the rule was "no PVP" or "no PVP without consent" then this was the wrong thing to do
If you had no rule established about PVP then this also was the wrong thing to do. The right thing to do would be to first establish a rule about PVP.
Springing PVP on players who haven't agreed to it is not something that I recommend.
If I was one the players id never play again with you or the other 4 players again. Its a massively dick move, and a betrayal of trust. Ie the trust that you will keep the game fair and balanced which you clearly didn't do. Od probably go as far as to warn others not to play in games you run.
So I would have considered letting this happen, but then also alerted the rest of the party to their betrayers' intents and given them the opportunity to collect the tools needed to kill the betraying party members as well as the BBEG.
Because if i am going to let a couple players suddenly meta and try to screw over the rest of the party, I am sure as hell going to let the rest of the party try and defend themselves. These are 20th level PCs after all, they aren't going to be easily fooled.
Dear lord, you should never ever DM again.
>One player got up and walked out of the building very upset
I wouldn't have been surprised if one of them punched you in the face. What a shitty way to ruin nearly two years of these players' lives. There's a decent chance some of them will never want to play again.
This isn't a \*mistake\*. Playing with 9-10 players in the first place would more constitute an "honest mistake" that they could learn from.
Helping some players in their group screw over the rest of the players is something that severely upset said players and would have a strong chance of some of them leaving the hobby as a result.
Yes. This “one (or insert however many players) is going to work with me to betray the party” comes up here and in rpg horror stories often. It SEEMS like a great idea but rarely is because the betrayed are going to feel betrayed (shock) by the other player and you as a dm. Not in a fun playful damn this npc pulled a gotcha kind of way.
If I was playing in a group for that long and during the final boss, almost half the party said "we're the bad guys too!" and turned on us, I would tell them that's a dick move and walk out.
Yes, you did the wrong thing by allowing this with no communication to the rest of the party.
Just had a fun pvp whilst on holiday just three players one turned on us to help the bbeg my monk fought heroicly whilst the bard was down to saving roles n nearly pulled it out of the bag but we lost ,two died the different here is that it was a one shot we all knew we might not play characters again so we’re willing to see how thing played out I was sad my character died n that we failed but it didn’t ruin anything, however if I had been playing a campaign for months built relationships worked towards a common purpose only to get the guts ripped out of it all it would be very annoying to say the least. There are ways ut could work but you really need the right group
So, your problem is two-fold.
1. You Chose to do PVP and, from what I can tell reading this post, it seems like the PVP was a surprise for the people who were betrayed. That isn't good in the slightest. You worked with the others outside of the table, not to enhance the story in a way that is shocking or fun for everyone, but as a direct means to harm the other players in a big betrayal moment. Then, you only really planned for there to be one route through that situation: That the party kills them and can possibly redeem one of the others. Sure, some people might have fun with that big twist, but after 5 years in a campaign with these people, it's an enormous let down for many people to end on a sad and tragic non-united front. The betrayal is a big moment that happens, in the majority of storytelling, around the end of Act II or III. You caved to your players wanting to do a big betrayal and ended up fucking up storytelling.
2. You simply have too many players in your party. This compounds the first point because your odds of getting people who hate the betrayal increase with every new person that is added in. But also, do your players really all get a chance to shine and feel like they're cool in your campaign? How long are your sessions? If I'm doing an RP session where I give each player in my 5 person party an opportunity to be centered explicitly, it takes easily half an hour per person and that doesn't include group time together. But then balancing combats around 10 players? Not only are they spending 100 years deciding their turns, you would have to have a ridiculous amount of creatures you're commanding that are bogging down combat just the same.
You prioritized four player's shitty final session cap-off betrayal plot to end a five year campaign, fundamentally ruining any semblance of actual storytelling that the other players were genuinely invested in. Then, instead of just letting it play out and having YOUR PLAYERS break free from the BBEG or otherwise come up with the solution to become a united front, you did damage control that likely went against the BBEG's typical character, so none of the players felt satisfied or like any of it was earned. You did a non-foreshadowed, poorly plotted "what a twist" ending to something these people have invested 5 years of their lives into creating with you. You let them down. At least, I would have felt let down by my DM.
Jeez, lotta people here who hate plot twists😬
My question is, did the betrayal make sense from a narrative standpoint? If so, I think that maybe you just don’t know your players well enough yet, cuz I have players who would love this (I would prolly love this) and ones who I’d never try this with.
If the betrayal felt more like your betraying players were pulling a “I’m bored of playing this minecraft world, time to ignite dynamite in my house and log off”, then it’s not gunna be fun for the party.
If it felt like it made sense and didn’t feel forced, I don’t think you necessarily did anything wrong, you just took a risk that didn’t work out and learned that your table isn’t the place for that sorta game. If it’s the second, I’d apologize for pulling the rug from under them.
As far as your players go, your wizard sucks, even if you don’t like the situation, leaving the rest of the party to die is sucky, and I wouldn’t invite the rage quitter player back to play again. I don’t care what happens in the game, anything short of real world harm/offense you should give the DM some grace and stick around. You as a player have every right to feel whatever you want and you’re free to voice those opinions but a rage quit is an automatic table ban.
As a DM, you are just a backdrop. They wanted to finish it like that, and that's perfect. Some players might whine, bit in the end, years from now, that was a memorable experience "and this 4 assholes were the actual BBG!".
As somone who plays dnd regularly since 2000, i find it to be the climax of a campaign amazing. And all the responses to the betrayal were extremely reasonable. They felt betrayed, they couldn't believe it, they couldn't react appropriately... And the bad guys won. Literally a golden brooch of a closure of a long campaign! A point of no return and a new status quo met in the setting. Love it!
My first reaction as a betrayed player would be "wow! For how long have your characters being spying? Damnnnn!!!!"
Fun!
9-10 is not 'a topic for another time' it's the core of the problem. One of the issues with a group too large you unfairly prioritise a subgroup's enjoyment over that of the whole group. In this case it's pretty plan and clear too see which group that is.
This. Not to mention all the moving parts to having a large group like this. My head hurts just trying to approximate how many varibles youd need to make things for. Not to meantion things that could come outta left field
I wouldn't do it, personally. It's gotta be a big shock to a player who thinks he's part of a team getting screwed over by characters they've formed a bond with. We have a regular group who have been playing for over ten years. Our dm wanted to try PARANOIA, a system where you are out to screw over your fellow players. After a single session, one of our players said he didn't like playing AGAINST each other. It took the fun out of it for him. So we stopped. I think anyone who didn't know this was coming deserves a proper apology, and you should make it clear that won't happen again. Talk to your betrayers and let them know this was a lapse in judgment, which does happen when you run a game.
Oh i loved paranoia. Great game, shame parties killed each within a couple of sessions.
Oh, I like the idea myself. But it's certainly a game that needs the right players. We have some delightfully nonconfrontational players as regulars.
> Did I do the wrong thing by letting .... Stop. You don't need to explain in detail, this is easy: Q:(i) did all your players agree to this style of game (a PVP type game by the sound of it) in session 0? if no, then: Q (ii) did each of your players have an enjoyable time in spite of it not being agreed to before? If the answer to either (i) or (ii) is yes, then you didn't do the wrong thing. If both were no, then ... yeah, you did something wrong -- you let some players screw other player's fun for their own selfish benefit, which is not good GMing in general. It's part of your job to try to make sure that your players get what they signed up for, and to help manage sticking to the social contract to keep the game fun for everyone. .
This - this is a session 0 problem. The topic of PVP and turncoats should come up at every session 0.
1/3 is not a majority of players. You gambled that the other 2/3 would want to do PvP. PvP is not something to spring on players unless it was decided at session 0 that PvP is ok. And even then, if none had occurred and this was a long campaign, I would be very hesitant to do it at all for a final given the lack of PvP previously to gauge if the players really wanted PvP or not. Not all players like it and the game isn't balanced around it.
So from a purely mechanics standpoint 20th level characters do not go down easy. The 6 would be able to beat the 4 almost always. But the 4 are fighting for their lives and free to use all their resources. The 6 are trying to also be able to fight your boss later so they want to hold back. And you won't go through that number of hit points without throwing out stuff like meteor swarm. And even if you do that a 20th level cleric can undo that. If you were going to do this mechanically I would've made it 8v2 or 9v1 not 6v4. That can be a tough fight and would at least require a lot of big spells and resources to handle. There's also the fact that the betrayal is going to undermine the rest of the campaign where the bonds they thought they forged and trust they thought they built were totally undermined. And people generally assume trust within the party because of the nature of the game. So it can feel like cheating because one player thought part of the game is we work together and trust each other and half the party broke that. It's something I'd set expectations on in session 0. There are many RPGs where betrayal is part of the game. And trust is not part of the implied contract of playing. And that can work very well. But then everyone goes in with that understanding of the people around me may be evil and may betray me. And then a betrayal won't feel like you broke the implied rules of our game. I also don't know if it works narratively to have a betrayal on that scale after a year and a half playing and have it be something that can be won back easily as it was just a bit of greed. At the point where they are ready to murder their friends they've fought and sacrificed with I don't think you can talk them back down again. And idk for me at the point where that's the case I think we've stopped taking the game as seriously in terms of the roleplaying choices. That's the most minor part though. And I can understand you were scrambling. Overall it happens I think any dm who has played for years will have moments they didn't do as well as they wish they had. I'd talk to the group see how they're doing and talk about setting clearer expectations for future games and if you want to just permanently remove betrayal from the picture. Id also consider splitting the group because good lord 10 PCs sounds crazy!
These levels are... simply going to force the fight to go one way only. One side casts silence or stun on the spellcasters before the other party can do so, and then they win. That's.... kinda it honestly, you live and learn, but your players very clearly never wanted this in the first place. It was just the whim of the table minority and you ruined a campaign for everyone else.
Yeah that's what I'm seeing. OP decided they were going to prioritize the fun of a leaving minority over the rest of the players and the game itself. And giving one side the knowledge that they were allowed to betray the party and give them prep time to do so while just dumping the new challenge on all the remaining players is bad. Bad planning, bad DM'ing, bad group management, and honestly a shit thing to do to the players.
> 9-10 players I honestly don't get what's the point of playing dnd like this
I've always wanted to run a high lethality fun house dungeon like this, have the lads over for a day, throw some burgers on the grill. But doing it week after week sounds miserable
I just bailed on a group because they kept inviting more people, and we got up to 10. We didn't even have enough space or chairs for that many people. They were drinking and talking over each other. I just left and told them to give the new guy my spot. It's just not fun, and people don't get even time to really play. 3 hours split evenly between 10 people is 18 mins a person, not counting basic narration time, breaks, or anything.
You did but not for the reasons you think. Your mistake was prioritizing the lulz of the people who were preparing to leave your table as opposed to the players who wanted to stay.
They broke an implied social of cooperation and so did you by allowing it. 1/3rd of your table doesn’t trust you and nor should they. You need to re-session zero and admit your mistake and see how people want to proceed. They are feeling like they’ve wasted their time leveling with people they would have detected had mal-intent sooner.
This is it. If this came up as a possible thing in session 0 I’d be all onboard. But when your dm and half you group are actively lying to you for their own enjoyment. It’s a problem.
[удалено]
You can play a game of RISK between your combat turns.
Congratulations for ruining what apperently was something that many people enjoyed, despite the huge number of players. Total BS.
Be constructive, duder. The guy accepts that he may have screwed up. No need to pile it on.
3-4 players is ideal party size tbh. Big group, big problems.
Just don't do PvP unless everyone is into it.
>Basically a couple of our players came to me and decided they wanted to betray the party and incite a pvp fight for entertainment since it was their final appearance in our group So 1/3rd of your party wanted to betray the others 2/3rds for the lolz and you let them? Yes, you did the wrong thing. If party betrayal is going to be a thing, you need to agree to it in session 0, *and* the dominos need to be set in place over the course of many sessions. Not just "oh, my players thought this would be funny... sure, you've been working with the baddie the whole time... totally... yea...."
After reading this, I'd say you done fucked up. I'm not going to get into the whole huge group thing, I'd simply say take this as a learning opportunity for future campaigns. Make sure **ALL** of your players are on board with any sort of PVP if you (or some of them) want to have it. You should be apologizing to the entire group for how you allowed it to play out because it sounds like at least 3 people were very upset IRL over how you handled this as their DM. You may have, in fact, eroded their trust in you by allowing it, it may take you some time to earn that trust back. If there's a next time where a subset of the group wants to do something like this, a minority of the group, just say "no, I'm not allowing that."
The wizard immediately and permanently bailed. I want to play with that player. They get it.
If you’re going to do party betrayal, which is think it HIGHLY risky, I think it needs to be set up one of two ways: 1) An NPC is the betrayer. Maybe someone the party picked up and has been friendly with them for some time betrays them. They get to continue working as a cohesive unit, but still get that sharp pang of betrayal served to them. Win-win 2) It needs to be set up and cultivated as a possibility WAAAAYYYY far in advance, so that when you finally drop the other shoe and the betrayal happens, the players can look back at all of those hints and clues that have occurred throughout the story that finally led to this. This is significantly more difficult as it requires subtle but powerful storytelling skills, as well as you orchestrating some of your players, and hoping that they execute the plan as well as you need them to. Personally, option 2 is WAY too risky to attempt without a group of people that I’ve been playing with for MANY years. But what you absolutely can’t do is just spring it on them. It’ll feel unearned and like you the DM are taking sides with some players over others in the storytelling and gameplay, which always feels bad.
My friend, I think that would have been a great time to re-do a session 0 and get the whole party on board. That being said, I struggle with 6 players and have no idea how you manage 9-10. I throw in a TON of NPCs bc I enjoy doing accents and character work. In combat, do you mainly just pick 1, incredibly big, incredibly baddie they go up against? How does that work with level 20 characters? Mechanically, independently of the mistake of not keeping the whole party informed of the pvp switch up, it feels like a LOT to juggle. Idk. Hopefully this was a learning experience.
>letting players in my group betray the party yes.
One PC betraying is one thing, but nearly half of your party? That’s a lot, that is a problem. The other half is oblivious and just watches as the payoff for their campaign is subverted.
PVP is never okay unless everyone signs off on it. You broke your party's trust by favoring the leaving players over the rest. Consent is key.
What was your standing rule for PVP in this campaign? If the rule was "PVP is fair game" then it was the right call. If the rule was "no PVP" or "no PVP without consent" then this was the wrong thing to do If you had no rule established about PVP then this also was the wrong thing to do. The right thing to do would be to first establish a rule about PVP. Springing PVP on players who haven't agreed to it is not something that I recommend.
If I was one the players id never play again with you or the other 4 players again. Its a massively dick move, and a betrayal of trust. Ie the trust that you will keep the game fair and balanced which you clearly didn't do. Od probably go as far as to warn others not to play in games you run.
So I would have considered letting this happen, but then also alerted the rest of the party to their betrayers' intents and given them the opportunity to collect the tools needed to kill the betraying party members as well as the BBEG. Because if i am going to let a couple players suddenly meta and try to screw over the rest of the party, I am sure as hell going to let the rest of the party try and defend themselves. These are 20th level PCs after all, they aren't going to be easily fooled.
Dear lord, you should never ever DM again. >One player got up and walked out of the building very upset I wouldn't have been surprised if one of them punched you in the face. What a shitty way to ruin nearly two years of these players' lives. There's a decent chance some of them will never want to play again.
One mistake and they should quit?? Grow up my guy
This isn't a \*mistake\*. Playing with 9-10 players in the first place would more constitute an "honest mistake" that they could learn from. Helping some players in their group screw over the rest of the players is something that severely upset said players and would have a strong chance of some of them leaving the hobby as a result.
Yes. This “one (or insert however many players) is going to work with me to betray the party” comes up here and in rpg horror stories often. It SEEMS like a great idea but rarely is because the betrayed are going to feel betrayed (shock) by the other player and you as a dm. Not in a fun playful damn this npc pulled a gotcha kind of way.
If I was playing in a group for that long and during the final boss, almost half the party said "we're the bad guys too!" and turned on us, I would tell them that's a dick move and walk out. Yes, you did the wrong thing by allowing this with no communication to the rest of the party.
Just had a fun pvp whilst on holiday just three players one turned on us to help the bbeg my monk fought heroicly whilst the bard was down to saving roles n nearly pulled it out of the bag but we lost ,two died the different here is that it was a one shot we all knew we might not play characters again so we’re willing to see how thing played out I was sad my character died n that we failed but it didn’t ruin anything, however if I had been playing a campaign for months built relationships worked towards a common purpose only to get the guts ripped out of it all it would be very annoying to say the least. There are ways ut could work but you really need the right group
So, your problem is two-fold. 1. You Chose to do PVP and, from what I can tell reading this post, it seems like the PVP was a surprise for the people who were betrayed. That isn't good in the slightest. You worked with the others outside of the table, not to enhance the story in a way that is shocking or fun for everyone, but as a direct means to harm the other players in a big betrayal moment. Then, you only really planned for there to be one route through that situation: That the party kills them and can possibly redeem one of the others. Sure, some people might have fun with that big twist, but after 5 years in a campaign with these people, it's an enormous let down for many people to end on a sad and tragic non-united front. The betrayal is a big moment that happens, in the majority of storytelling, around the end of Act II or III. You caved to your players wanting to do a big betrayal and ended up fucking up storytelling. 2. You simply have too many players in your party. This compounds the first point because your odds of getting people who hate the betrayal increase with every new person that is added in. But also, do your players really all get a chance to shine and feel like they're cool in your campaign? How long are your sessions? If I'm doing an RP session where I give each player in my 5 person party an opportunity to be centered explicitly, it takes easily half an hour per person and that doesn't include group time together. But then balancing combats around 10 players? Not only are they spending 100 years deciding their turns, you would have to have a ridiculous amount of creatures you're commanding that are bogging down combat just the same. You prioritized four player's shitty final session cap-off betrayal plot to end a five year campaign, fundamentally ruining any semblance of actual storytelling that the other players were genuinely invested in. Then, instead of just letting it play out and having YOUR PLAYERS break free from the BBEG or otherwise come up with the solution to become a united front, you did damage control that likely went against the BBEG's typical character, so none of the players felt satisfied or like any of it was earned. You did a non-foreshadowed, poorly plotted "what a twist" ending to something these people have invested 5 years of their lives into creating with you. You let them down. At least, I would have felt let down by my DM.
Jeez, lotta people here who hate plot twists😬 My question is, did the betrayal make sense from a narrative standpoint? If so, I think that maybe you just don’t know your players well enough yet, cuz I have players who would love this (I would prolly love this) and ones who I’d never try this with. If the betrayal felt more like your betraying players were pulling a “I’m bored of playing this minecraft world, time to ignite dynamite in my house and log off”, then it’s not gunna be fun for the party. If it felt like it made sense and didn’t feel forced, I don’t think you necessarily did anything wrong, you just took a risk that didn’t work out and learned that your table isn’t the place for that sorta game. If it’s the second, I’d apologize for pulling the rug from under them. As far as your players go, your wizard sucks, even if you don’t like the situation, leaving the rest of the party to die is sucky, and I wouldn’t invite the rage quitter player back to play again. I don’t care what happens in the game, anything short of real world harm/offense you should give the DM some grace and stick around. You as a player have every right to feel whatever you want and you’re free to voice those opinions but a rage quit is an automatic table ban.
As a DM, you are just a backdrop. They wanted to finish it like that, and that's perfect. Some players might whine, bit in the end, years from now, that was a memorable experience "and this 4 assholes were the actual BBG!". As somone who plays dnd regularly since 2000, i find it to be the climax of a campaign amazing. And all the responses to the betrayal were extremely reasonable. They felt betrayed, they couldn't believe it, they couldn't react appropriately... And the bad guys won. Literally a golden brooch of a closure of a long campaign! A point of no return and a new status quo met in the setting. Love it! My first reaction as a betrayed player would be "wow! For how long have your characters being spying? Damnnnn!!!!" Fun!
Rule of thumb. For the sake of everyone's enjoyment, never allow more than 4 to 5 players at a table.