This was my entire experience as the DM in Descent into Avernus
Every time a devil interactrd with the players they would kill them since devils are evil.
It turns out it's pretty fucking difficult to find non evil creatures in Hell...
At least you players make distinctions, mine just check if they can kill, it doesn't matter the npc race, job, age, etc. I have to create sheets for every half important npc, even if it is just a waitress or a librarian
I don't know, each iteration of characters getting slaughtered by a boss made them more and more indiscriminate about what they fought, but I think we all had a lot of fun
Having fun is what matters in the end, i get pissed sometimes but it is still fun to think on different ways to keep my players on track while giving them enough freedom to do what they want
slaps top of Lulu
This little elephant can fit so many plot patches
We had fun, it's how my players wanted to play.
I'm currently playing DiA and we have 2 idiot bloodknights in the party who regularly have to be held back from attacking the various non-enemy devils and demons we encounter. One of them is Lulu, whose backstory seemed suitable for me to build as a wild magic barbarian, but I think is meant to be much more helpful in the knowledge department than I've built her...
Yep, that's exactly how it went.
I don't remember the details anymore, but it started when they met that tiefling in candle keep (the book says "in the unlikely event of combat", they clearly have not met my murder hobos) and got worse the further into hell they got.
I decided against a TPK when they attacked Bel... They killed the Sybriex because it was trying to make telepathic contact (and all got nice and mutated in the process). After they had no way to find the rods they went back to the path of demons. They killed the guy they needed on the work crew so I had to put a note in his lunchbox from his mom about seeing motdenkeinen. That worked until the mirror, where they wouldn't deal with the devil there...
They also filled many flasks with Styx water and ichor, which they poured on creatures (getting them banned from the wandering emporium). Oh, and they used the puzzle box as a torture device and made captured creatures try to open it, with the usual outcome being their brains exploding.
