My campaign is about sabotaging a force laying siege to a castle...

My campaign is about sabotaging a force laying siege to a castle. The players have acted as assassins and saboteurs; I kept a tally sheet with each "point" they earned towards defending the castle.

However, after crippling the attackers, my players met a few characters they liked and have decided to abruptly switch sides.

The attackers are no longer powerful enough to win. The assault will be a failure. The players are not powerful enough to change the course of the battle themselves.

How can I still spin my campaign's conclusion battle to be fun?

First, belay the erroneous idea that Fun = Success, it will lead you poorly.
Second, if the players are in with the other side, make it apparent what their activities have done. Soldiers talk, and if they were that successful at sabotaging the people they now stand with, it should be fairly obvious. Make it clear that the castle will no stand an assault outside a brutal affair hedged by desperation alone.
Allow the players an informed decision, and play it straight from there. The actions of the players should be the first determination of what is going to happen.

Need more context. How big is the castle, how big are the forces on either side? What is the overall situation of the polities on either side of the conflict? Is this the final castle/fortified city of a doomed empire or is it just the first in a series of bastions? Basically give us the rundown of your setting.

Also, surely the players could assassinate the general leading the defense and all his clear successors just as the assault is starting? That should cripple any given defense.

user, read closer, the players switched sides to the defenders after nearly dooming them.

>sabotaging a force laying siege to a castle
>"point" they earned towards defending the castle
>after crippling the attackers
>The attackers are no longer powerful enough to win

U wot

or you could try reading closer, since you are the one for whom english is apparently not a first language...

>However, after crippling the attackers, my players met a few characters they liked and have decided to abruptly switch sides.

Classic PC behavior.

>How can I still spin my campaign's conclusion battle to be fun?
Lots of drama when the NPCs defending the castle realize that they've switched sides. Or OP could look ahead and think about what the besieging army is going to do after their siege fails. Are the PCs going to be part of a Black Company-style troupe now?

The OP says "after crippling the attackers" the players switched sides. L2 read. Not the fag you're replying to btw

Oops, I missed a crucial sentence.
My bad, y'all.

Success doesn't always equal Winning. Instead, tie the players success to these new characters they like. The players are assassins and saboteurs, I'm guessing they're not the sort who live and die for a cause. Give them opportunities, perhaps during the attack, to save these NPCs that they defected for. Will the NPCs appreciate it should they find out the players are turncoat assassins? Who knows

Going with the rest here, actions have consequences and let the players have the campaign they want.

1) as is suggested, not everyone (or even most) of the people on the attacker side are going to accept them. And that should include much of the leadership.

2) Make sure the players know the probable outcome of the attack. You need to also make sure you have a good reason for the attacking commander to go through with the attack rather than withdrawing (which may better fit what you want anyhow).

3) If it happens, it happens. If they manage to force an attack when it will fail - let it fail. Maybe they get out, maybe they don't. Let it play out as it should and let them have an effect as they should.

Why can't the PCs sabotage the defenders until they're even worse off than the weakened attackers?

Because the GM's a retard whose players don't understand character motivations.

If you really think the most fun outcome of the campaign would be the attackers succeeding in their siege, and you genuinely can't concoct any scenario where the PCs can successfully sabotage the defenders, the you could always rely on good old-fashioned deus ex machina. Oh gee, a mercenary band has conveniently camped a few miles away from the castle and the PCs need to convince them to join your cause. Whoopdy-dee, the attacker's camp is in the immediate vicinity of an ancient temple of a religion the defenders oppressed, and if they PCs fight their way to the bottom they can recruit an army of the dead to assist in the siege. Looky-loo, the lord of the defender's castle has a really bad drinking problem that hasn't been brought up before; if only there were a way to exploit that wink wink nudge nudge You can set any number of paths out of this provided you're willing to just make shit up.

Have them sneak back into the castle and sabotage the defenses enough to even the odds
Set fire to the food supplies,poison the wells, weaken battlements, screw around with the armory, Maybe open a gate during the assault.
Alternatively if the attackers are retreating the pcs will need to fend of reinforcements from the attacker that came to relieve the siege as the army is moving out.

>Why can't the PCs sabotage the defenders until they're even worse off than the weakened attackers?

They totally can. They totally won't, because they're not very good with plans.

The attack itself is occurring within the next 48 hours in-game, so they only have a limited window to cause damage, and they're using the time to assemble a battering-ram team made of ogres. Which is great, so I'm not gonna get in the way of that.

>The attack itself is occurring within the next 48 hours in-game
Why?

>Why?

Because the PCs destroyed the entire rear area of the siege camp and cut the attackers off from their homeland by causing the equivalent of a natural disaster. They have no supplies, and are also orcs.

Well, I hope you've got plans for actions that a retreating army can fight

>they're using the time to assemble a battering-ram team made of ogres
If these are assassins/saboteurs why can't they just infiltrate the castle themselves and open a point of entry for the orcs? Do the defenders know they defected? Do the PCs know the defenders tactics? Why are they not using their skills as assassins and saboteurs to assassinate and sabotage? Did they even ask about the possibilities of assassinating defender leaders, of sabotaging gates or exploiting structural weaknesses, of poisoning the water supply, burning the stables, stuff like that? Have they told the attackers all the information they know, are the attackers using that information? Why are they just assembling a battering-ram team and why are you just letting them?

See:

>How can I still spin my campaign's conclusion battle to be fun?
Pull a George RR Martin. Make it appear as if they turned the corner. Then let the NPCs they liked die horribly before their eyes after all as the attack falters due to their previous actions. Give them the opportunity to save 1 or 2 of the NPCs and escape, thus creating a bond for life between them.

>Pull a George RR Martin.

This is pretty much universally terrible advice. The fat fuck's a completely untalented hack, and no GM on Veeky Forums even has that much skill at storytelling and pulling off dramatic moments without them being boringly predictable edgy cringefests.

Good job, user. I was just yesterday arguing about how hard it is to give universally good or bad advice regarding tabletop RPGs, and you just batted it out of the park.

Because either the GM or his players are retarded.

>I have no confidence: The Post

>Why are they just assembling a battering-ram team and why are you just letting them?

the fuck does this even mean?

>"My character does X"
"No he doesn't, here's a hackneyed quest that I designed instead"

>Our team of assassins and saboteurs runs off to negotiate a battering-ram contract with ogres
>Okay, before that roll me some knowledge checks / recall checks / whatever works ... okay, so you know that that's basically a waste of time, between the battering ram's design (stolen from dwarf's) and the city's gates putting ogres on it won't change a great deal. But based on your time previously in the city, you know that there are a bunch of other things you can do to help the orc's succeed.

The GM has outright said they're doing nothing hiring ogre's to man the battering ram, while the players won't know this the character's would know this and as such they should be given the chance to make an informed decision rather than, "Well I let you spend two days doing this despite the fact it wouldn't change a damn thing."