[RPG] Sildar Hallwinter died, what now

dnd-5elost-mine-of-phandelverpublished-adventures

So my party wanted to try a campaign book so we got the Lost Mine of Phandelver.

Problem is they are blood thirsty idiots and all they care about is killing goblins for xp. This lead to them letting Sildar die so they could make sure no goblins escaped.

At this point they have just had the redbrand encounter in town.

At first I though "oh well they screwed themselves". Sildar is dead, they don't get the reward for rescuing him but the more I read the more he seems to appear in the story. It appears that he is a big part of the campaign and a lot of material is left out without him present.

Seems silly to me that so much of the book is skipped because of an early decision.

Basically I don't know if I should just accept I'm only getting 2/3 of a campaign or if everything he would have done should be shifted to other NPC. If I do this though it makes his death meaningless.

Best Answer

Failure is an option

A mistake that many people make is thinking there are only 2 end states for an adventure: the party wins or the party dies. In fact, there are a multitude of outcomes and some of them represent failure and failure has consequences.

Having Sildar die makes things much harder for the players in subsequent stages of the campaign. So, the way you play this out is: it makes it much harder for the players.

From memory, his absence doesn't make it impossible for the players to proceed, it just closes one avenue of information and support: the players will have to peruse other avenues or go without.

Further, the Lord's Alliance (I think) will send a new agent who will not trust the party and ostentatiously not give them quests, rewards or information and make it really clear that this is because they don't trust the party who let Sildar die.

RPGs are different from video games - you don't get to go back to your last save and try again.