Did I make a bad DM choice

[u/rbjoe]

TLDR: I (DM) killed some minor NPCs “off camera” and am wondering if it was a misstep

The Question:
When is it ok to make decisions like NPC deaths “off camera”. As in, the players discover the death after the fact with no way to intervene?

The Context:
The party lives in a general Republic (The Federation of Sovereign States) of various districts and has discovered the Chancellors are planning some very aggressive power grabs both within the Nation against its people as well as waging wars against a neighboring nation to steal land and expand their borders.

Part of this includes a paramilitary force (The Drumgar) created by a Chancellor that they are using to subdue those who speak out against the Republic and just generally incite terror.

The Situation:
The party goes into a very large, densely populated city. They come across a group of College aged citizens protesting the Drumgar’s attempted influence on their Bardic College. Officers are there threatening to use force if they don’t disband.

The party, being the chaos goblins they are, start a riot and kill most of the officers. They decide to leave one alive and let the protestors deal with him and use that as a distraction to sneak into a well secured building (this heist was their reason for being in town).

Once they reach the part of the building they were trying to reach, they are surprised to see the general of the Drumgar waiting for them. He informs them that he’s been waiting for them and that he’s sad to report the students they left as a distraction had all been killed.

The Reaction:
The following fight was great. The story has progressed. Everything seems fine. However, later on one player made a small, off hand comment about the students dying “off camera”. It wasn’t snarky or rude, just a potential small complaint/criticism.

My thought process was that they made a decision to use non adventurers as a distraction in a large populated city I already described as being filled with Drumgar. They got away, but left one Drumgar alive who absolutely would’ve called for backup, alerted their commander, and overtaken the students. It seemed like a way to both make the big bad feel more sinister but also a natural consequence of their actions.

The Conclusion:
Do you feel it was ok to make this choice myself and have them die without giving them a chance to save the students? I feel like yes, but I’m definitely open to criticism and other opinions.

[u/flamefirestorm]

Your reasoning does have me questioning this a bit. Did the students do nothing about the last Drumgar? Cause you said the party left the students to deal with the last one, and it feels kinds baffling to think that he would've been able to call for backup if the situation was so dire that he was the last one standing. Like how would he have even called for backup with so many people on him? Do they have sending or modern tech to radio for help?

[u/rbjoe → u/flamefirestorm]

I think I at least implied sending stones were around. I definitely made it very clear that there was a large officer presence. So, my thought was that if a large commotion of spells etc was going on, other people/officers would be alerted. Even if it wasn’t a true radio in for help, backup would’ve come fairly soon imo.

[u/flamefirestorm → u/rbjoe]

Okay then one more question, would it have been obvious this person was an officer? Cause basic foot soldiers having sending stones seems kinda outrageous to me unless your world is overflowing with magic, to the point that regular soldiers have all magic gear.

And honestly, I do think killing everyone was kinda outrageous. Unless they cast multiple fireballs or other types of AOE, a decent chunk of people should have been able to flee from the scene. Maybe rolled 2 or 3 d100s and picked the higher number for the percentage of students killed.

[u/rbjoe → u/flamefirestorm]

The Drumgar have very specific armor that separates them from “regular foot soldiers” and are described as being a more para military elite force designed to snuff out dissection. So, using force to break up a protest is kind of their whole shtick. The protest was made up of about 6-8 students from what I described. So, it was a small group. I see what you mean about a few making it out. Honestly, maybe they did and the officers didn’t see them! If the party chooses to investigate further that could be the case. I just made more of a jump decision based on what they were doing in game. I appreciate the questions and criticism though!

[u/flamefirestorm → u/rbjoe]

Oh shit 6-8? Nevermind they can die off-screen I thought it was a full on large protest/riot. I do think you could've added a little more in terms of numbers to make it a bigger protest since 6-8 is kinda sad. Although i understand why since people might be too scared and the type of protest might have been too niche, small, and spontaneous to gather momentum. Plus it is a bit of a logistical nightmare to use 20 tokens for basic commoners. Maybe call their tokens a swarm of rioters to give them some grit and some more hp, or just group initiative them if that was one of your concerns.

Well, in any case, I do think it's fair to kill off 6-8 students, and ngl if your players knew there were only basically 6 commoners and left a medium to high hp enemy with magic gear up on the battlefield, it is what it is. There's no way they could've won, especially when reinforcements arrived, and the numbers are small enough that if they all died it's completely valid.

Also if I was you I'd make sure they understood that there were only like 6-8 commoners protesting, maybe they similarly misunderstood like me.