So it’s my first time DMing, and I’m running a group of 7 first time players through Lost Mines of Phandelver (Sort of scaled it so it’s still difficult). I’ve gotten them to the point where they run into the Redbrand leader, the mage Glasstaff. He attempted to talk to them but our fighter shot him in the foot, so he teleported behind them and while they fought the nothic he snuck up and charmed our Paladin, the verbal part of the spell was a plea that he was just trying to defend himself and that he only wants to talk. So, while charmed, the Paladin used his turn to convince the rest of the party with a sort of persuasion check that maybe Glasstaff was right, they had been the instigators in every situation with the Redbrands so maybe they were in the wrong. After all, the only information they were going on was from Sildar Hallwinter, and they were always suspicious of him. They should at least hear Glasstaff out.
So after they’ve all stopped fighting, they heal and start talking to Glasstaff. I had been roleplaying him pretty smarmy, calling them guests and acting like he’s really happy they’re here. He said it’s unfortunate that all of his men were killed, but they only did it because they had been deceived by Gundren Rockseeker and the leaders of Phandalin. He lied and said they had been ambushing caravans along the road meant for Neverwinter, where the whole party is from, and they were low class bandits disguised as a quaint town. The Wave Echo Cave thing was just a ploy to get more greedy adventurers to come to the area so they could rob them. All lies, but the party believed him.
I just wanted to give you some background to why they would accept this quest: Glasstaff wants them to purge the town of corruption by assassinating the leaders of Phandalin, namely the townmaster Harbin Wester (who was rude to them) and Toblen Stonehill (who refused to give them a room because of how many there were), and they’ll get three times the amount Gundren was promising to pay. They took a long rest and Glasstaff made them eggs for breakfast (he’s very cunning, they love eggs), so the Paladin is no longer charmed.
So my question is: how do I help the paladin properly roleplay this, and if he goes through with it what does that mean for his Oath? He took the Oath of the Ancients, if that means anything. He isn’t very charismatic, so the morally grey party may not be too quick to accept his second change of mind even with persuasion, he got seriously lucky on the first throw. I’m getting more comfortable with doing things on the fly so I don’t care about railroading, like getting them back to finding out who the Spider is.