Creating and killing of likeable NPC

I take them to the city cleric to have them resurrected and my entire party pitches in to pay for it.

What now.

>What now.
Try not playing D&D.

>railroading
>player agency is preserved

Pick one.

You misunderstand the post, if player agency is preserved then there is no railroad.

Alright, so opinions on this seem to be kinda split. What about the choice between your character dies/you HAVE to kill him (he gets possessed by megadaemon, or his soul needs to be put to the torch Dark Souls style to prevent apocalypse).

Would railroading friendly NPC into a boss encounter piss you off? If done with proper explanation of cource.

You can't railroad NPCs. They have no agency to railroad.

It's railroading if the PCs can't keep them out of the fight through any means, no matter how hard they try or how well they roll.

>It's railroading if the PCs can't keep them out of the fight through any means, no matter how hard they try or how well they roll.
Yes, I meant exactly that.

One: this. NPCs are in your full control. Just don't make them do face-heel turn once you defined and established them.

Two: okay, so, we people are looking for a good story, a satisfying narrative. That's pretty normal. But the way to construct an enjoyable story in a game is not to enforce your narrative by railroading.

I get the desire to go for the drama, I really do. But GM trying to be a movie director isn't the strength of traditional TRPG medium. Endanger the NPC, make it really difficult to save him, make it a race against the clock. But leave a chance, however small, that players can actually save him. You see, that's narrative tension for both you and your players.

I can also see it as a more or less enjoyable twist to kill someone offscreen and turn it into a murder mystery and introduce some new threat or something. But if any scene involves players, they should have a say in it.

And yeah, if the character doesn't want to sacrifice himself for the sake of preventing the apocalypse, it's entirely up to the player. I mean, you said "choice". If that's a choice, then I let him choose.

Eh, I'm fine with my games having the occasional thing out of the player's control. Maybe throw them a bone or something and have the NPC be weaker or demonstrate that the evil magic or w/e is just that strong.