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nrg89
2016-07-27, 05:27 AM
My players had just been attacked by a pirate galley. Because of a fire, most of the pirate crew died, but one of the rowers survived and was held captive below deck on the PCs ship.
One of my players correctly assumed that they were targeted by the pirates because of an artifact they're carrying around and wanted to interrogate the prisoner. My player got some answers out of him but, being a lowly rower, he didn't know many details that wasn't obvious to the player. The PC pulled out his mace and said "talk or die". After a successful intimidation attempt, the prisoner rolled and told him everything he knew. The PC said "thanks" and said he killed the prisoner in cold blood, without warning. I didn't see it coming at all.

The mood around the table was very disturbed. I was so taken a back by it I skimmed over the reactions from the captain aboard instead of roleplaying him like I usually do. I even completely forgot to address how the merchant navy, who actually owns the ship, thinks about this when the PCs are received at port.

I felt bad afterwards because I failed at improvising and I also failed to communicate to the player that these kinds of actions have consequences. The other players were also startled and didn't really know how their characters should react.

Am I too squeamish to be a GM? How do you usually react to a PC doing something terrible and how do you usually prepare for it?

Yuki Akuma
2016-07-27, 05:40 AM
My PCs do this all the goddamn time. I'm really going to have to think up some sort of karmic punishment for them eventually...

They don't called adventurers "murderhobos" for nothing, I guess.

Spiryt
2016-07-27, 06:18 AM
Depends on the setting, really.

Throughout much of the real world's history, such an act wouldn't really be all that bothering to any one.

A pirate would be expected to get executed right on the open see anyway. Or in some nastier, more elaborate way in a port.

So in a way PC might have actually been merciful, depends on circumstances, I guess.

Vitruviansquid
2016-07-27, 06:49 AM
No, you're fine. This is all a part of the process.

As your players find new and interesting ways to be psychotic, your insides will gradually wither and die while your exterior will become callused, and that callus will harden until it's an impervious shell.

Eventually, you won't even be fazed by your players declaring baby-murder.

Cluedrew
2016-07-27, 07:05 AM
Am I too squeamish to be a GM? How do you usually react to a PC doing something terrible and how do you usually prepare for it?No, you are not too squeamish to be a GM. But there are certain types of games you might want to stay away from if you don't want to deal with that. Personally I don't like that type of game, because I am interested in the "big heroes" type of story.

As for how I deal with that. I usually try to kill/dump the PC because I have never played a character who would go "you are a psychopath who murders people randomly, OK cool". (I should mention I have never actually had this problem as a GM, only as another player.) I mean there are times when that sort of thing make sense, but usually the character just comes off as a dangerously insane (i.e. badly done) so I asked them to stop. If you do it when it makes sense that might be different but has come up only once (and that was torcher not random killing) and I just when with it then.

CharonsHelper
2016-07-27, 07:13 AM
In part it depends upon his motives.

If he just did it for expedience, it's much too murderhobo for my taste.

If he did it in a justice/execution sort of way and gave him a clean death, I wouldn't have any issue. After all - he was a pirate. And despite how Hollywood has portrayed them, that means that he was a professional murderer/plunderer and likely dabbled in more explicit crimes.

awa
2016-07-27, 07:15 AM
If I want to encourage certain kinds of behavior I tend to give it a cosmic weight. For example in my last game players were encouraged to be honorable and performing certain types of dishonorable acts like for example killing prisoners or breaking promises would give them mechanical bad luck. The thing is bad guys had to deal with this too so for the most part everyone was honorable and those bad guys who were immune to it were noted as being unusual in setting.

Of course this was made explicit early on and shaped society

goto124
2016-07-27, 07:20 AM
Come to an agreement with your players on how the game will approach morality. Same page and all that.

PersonMan
2016-07-27, 07:51 AM
I felt bad afterwards because I failed at improvising and I also failed to communicate to the player that these kinds of actions have consequences. The other players were also startled and didn't really know how their characters should react.

Do remember that there should be a difference between "actions have consequences" and "anything that I dislike will be punished by laser-guided karma", unless there's a deific being that's meting out punishments.

Becoming known (presumably via witnesses, probably on their side) for ruthlessly killing prisoners is likely to result in a reputation for brutality. Which can be good or bad - you won't get prisoners, but you're more likely to drive enemies out of the fight. After all, losing to you means death, and a reputation for killing prisoners but letting enemies who run go could break otherwise formidable groups up.

On the other hand, you're much less likely to be seen as heroic, or be given help or even acceptance by people. The "Butchers of Newtown" may not be welcome where the "Heroes of the South Sea" are given free room and board.

Pugwampy
2016-07-27, 08:15 AM
Yeah sometimes players can shock you . My players tried to steal fairy eggs and when a pixie intervened they killed her . I had so much emotional content invested into that pixie i was literally crying on the inside .

When i look back at that I think well players are somewhat allowed to do horrible things like that as long as they are having fun and working together . Because of that I have "dont kill my favorite village people rule" and they are happy to comply .

Back to your situation . To be honest a lawful good hero in my opinion has a duty to meet out such justice to a pirate scum . Your average pirate , cannibal or bandit automatically have a death sentence on their heads . I of course as DM would never tell them to do that but i would support it .

nrg89
2016-07-27, 08:58 AM
It's a pulpy, low magic bronze age setting. I cited Casablanca, Indiana Jones, Conan, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, China Town and Zorro as inspiration for examples of tone and I could definitely see this action taking place in these worlds. China Town ended with a girl being killed by her rapist and losing her only child, but it was these kinds of things that Jake wanted to stop. Pulpy heroes are still heroes.

There's slavery, the death penalty and torture in the world so that pirate was in pretty deep trouble anyway, the merchants were going to kill him but I was prepared for that, I just wasn't prepared for the PCs lashing out in anger. I was thinking it would turn out like "Yep, now that you're in port, you're assured that pirate is going to get a close shave" but instead it was "Oh, ok. Well, he's in chains, roll to hit him. Ok, you hit him, he survived, but ... oh, again? Ok, he's hurt real bad and unconscious. Again? Ok..." until he was eventually dead. He even asked me if there was blood on his chest and hands that he had to wash off.
I described in great detail how an axe absolutely split open the head of the pirate captain in the previous battle, but now I was stumped. I think I'll just have to get used to this though and practice improvisation some more. :smallsmile:

CharonsHelper
2016-07-27, 09:09 AM
1. The kid dying is different from this situation. That's a bad thing happening to an innocent. This situation is a bad thing happening to a bad person. (Who it sounds like was going to be killed anyway.) Though the lashing out in anger makes it a bit shady.

2. If the prisoner was in chains, why wasn't it just a coupe de grace? No rolling needed, and likely a cleaner death. If more pain was done on purpose, then it was an evil act. (would fall under torture - which is always evil)

Martin Greywolf
2016-07-27, 09:17 AM
It's a pulpy, low magic bronze age setting. I cited Casablanca, Indiana Jones, Conan, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, China Town and Zorro as inspiration for examples of tone and I could definitely see this action taking place in these worlds. China Town ended with a girl being killed by her rapist and losing her only child, but it was these kinds of things that Jake wanted to stop.

Well, there's two ways to see this. Legally, your character was slightly out of line and will maybe get some slight grief for it from the authorities - in this case, the ship's captain. The captain is there to make a decision what to do with a pirate, if your PC doesn't listen, well, it depends: he can get a chewing out, or he can get keelhauled for mutiny. In this case, chewing out is more likely, since it wasn't a very high-profile prisoner, and they were going to kill him anyway. Most of the time, policy with pirates was to hang them on the spot.

Morally, it's somewhat sketchy, but not that much. Remember, this world doesn't have that much in the realm of law enforcement, and no christianity that would preach thou shall not kill. The attitude Romans had towards killing people was so different that their soldiers almost didn't suffer from PTSD because of killing itself. Your mistake here is taking modern morals into a setting that just doesn't have them - though if you're playing anything with alignment, that is a problem the system has anyway.

So, unless the heroes want to be Gandhi/Jesus/Random-superpacifist-guy, this kind of thing is okay. Now, if that was a soldier of an opposing nation, the situation would be a lot different, killing POWs like this will get you nasty looks if you do it on a whim (as opposed to when absolutely necessary). English got into a lot of trouble with international community when they executed their prisoners at Agincourt.

Segev
2016-07-27, 09:42 AM
When players do things that make you uncomfortable, don't be afraid to call a brief break and discuss it, OOC. Ask them if they're sure they want to do that, and maybe why. If it's making you uncomfortable, mention it. Don't tell them they can't do it, necessarily, but do let the players know that you aren't comfortable with it. Even if you're not sure why. Let them know that, too.

It may or may not change anything, but maybe they can help you be more comfortable with it, give you advice how to run it, or come to an agreement on how better to handle it.

Keep a bond of trust with your players and they won't feel railroaded. Clearly, you weren't saving this guy for some plot event and had to deny them the kill to ensure it; this is discomfort over the cold-blooded killing (and tacit word-breaking, since the guy did everything they asked him to in order to get his life spared).

If you don't want to run a game where that kind of thing happens, you definitely need to discuss it with the players. The line doesn't have to be bright and clear; it can be fuzzy and situational. But you should mention it when it comes up. Eventually, you and they will figure something out, but only if you communicate clearly when it comes up.

CharonsHelper
2016-07-27, 09:49 AM
Remember, this world doesn't have that much in the realm of law enforcement, and no christianity that would preach thou shall not kill. The attitude Romans had towards killing people was so different that their soldiers almost didn't suffer from PTSD because of killing itself. Your mistake here is taking modern morals into a setting that just doesn't have them - though if you're playing anything with alignment, that is a problem the system has anyway.

So, unless the heroes want to be Gandhi/Jesus/Random-superpacifist-guy, this kind of thing is okay.

Actually - Christianity/Judaism don't actually have "Thou Shalt not Kill" - it's a mistranslation. It's actually "Thou Shalt not Murder". They have no issue with execution or killing in war. And while Gandhi was one, Jesus was no pacifist. He literally chased the crooked merchants out of the temple with a whip. Twice. Plus at least one of his disciples (Peter) carried a sword.

The 'turn the other cheek' thing is commonly taken out of context. It isn't a pacifist thing. Culturally at the time slapping with the back of your hand was done to an inferior, while slapping with the open hand was done in an argument to an equal. So - 'turn the other cheek' is about making them respect you even as they disagree/insult you while not insulting them back.

Segev
2016-07-27, 10:13 AM
The 'turn the other cheek' thing is commonly taken out of context. It isn't a pacifist thing. Culturally at the time slapping with the back of your hand was done to an inferior, while slapping with the open hand was done in an argument to an equal. So - 'turn the other cheek' is about making them respect you even as they disagree/insult you while not insulting them back.

This bit of cultural history, I did not know. Interesting.

nrg89
2016-07-27, 10:13 AM
If the prisoner was in chains, why wasn't it just a coupe de grace? No rolling needed, and likely a cleaner death. If more pain was done on purpose, then it was an evil act. (would fall under torture - which is always evil)

It was not D20, it was a much less powered system where I didn't find any rules for coup de graces. In retrospect, I think that's a good sign that it should just be narrated anyway, no rolls necessary, because in this case the target can't do anything.


Well, there's two ways to see this. Legally, your character was slightly out of line and will maybe get some slight grief for it from the authorities - in this case, the ship's captain. The captain is there to make a decision what to do with a pirate, if your PC doesn't listen, well, it depends: he can get a chewing out, or he can get keelhauled for mutiny. In this case, chewing out is more likely, since it wasn't a very high-profile prisoner, and they were going to kill him anyway. Most of the time, policy with pirates was to hang them on the spot.


Ok, I'm starting to feel ok glossing over the reactions from the society now because I guess it was expected by everyone, even the players, that this pirate was a dead man. I hadn't revealed it earlier to them, so they must've figured it out themselves.

When it comes to morals, well, this player is a sorcerer. The only way to become that in my setting is to make a pact with a demon. Everytime you fail a spell miserably, you get a point of corruption until you get entirely corrupted and have to roll up a new character. His backstory was that he did it to save someone he loved long ago. I guess this is something within his character's frame of morality.


When players do things that make you uncomfortable, don't be afraid to call a brief break and discuss it, OOC. Ask them if they're sure they want to do that, and maybe why. If it's making you uncomfortable, mention it. Don't tell them they can't do it, necessarily, but do let the players know that you aren't comfortable with it. Even if you're not sure why. Let them know that, too.


Thanks, I definitely will!


Actually - Christianity/Judaism don't actually have "Thou Shalt not Kill" - it's a mistranslation. It's actually "Thou Shalt not Murder".

Please, let's not turn this discussion into something else.

CharonsHelper
2016-07-27, 10:21 AM
It was not D20, it was a much less powered system where I didn't find any rules for coup de graces. In retrospect, I think that's a good sign that it should just be narrated anyway, no rolls necessary, because in this case the target can't do anything.


My bad. Unless someone says otherwise, I tend to assume some form of d20.

TheYell
2016-07-27, 10:28 AM
The artifact is now haunted. Whoever holds it sees a halfnaked man in chains who says "(name) lied, I died" and then bears all the wounds he did in death before vanishing.

D+1
2016-07-27, 10:42 AM
I felt bad afterwards because I failed at improvising and I also failed to communicate to the player that these kinds of actions have consequences. The other players were also startled and didn't really know how their characters should react.

Am I too squeamish to be a GM? How do you usually react to a PC doing something terrible and how do you usually prepare for it?
You're not necessarily too squeamish, it's just that by your own admission you haven't had to deal with something like this until now. Learn from it. Announce to EVERYONE that although this particular incident will be allowed to stand (simply because retconning such things gets to be more of a mess than it's ever worth) if it happens again things will be different.

Alignment is as good a place to start as any. Players can have their characters behave any way they choose - but things like execution of people you're interrogating who are otherwise harmless are going to have alignment implications. If players FORGET to consider alignment implications then you, as DM, can at least have the presence of mind in such moments to say, "Really? That seems awfully pointlessly cold-blooded and murderous. Is that REALLY what you're going to do? If it is, please explain WHY your character is going to suddenly take such a surprising and dark, twisted turn towards chaotic and evil behavior." If the player can't really justify it then they ought to be pressured to change their minds about taking the action. If they won't then apply consequences as appropriate.

Those consequences extend to more than just altering a two-letter code on a character sheet. Any NPC who sees it, discovers the aftermath, or even just hears about it later WILL react appropriately to whatever extent they are capable of. They may argue about it, refuse to associate with the PC (or associate with anyone else who associates with the PC), or whatever. NPC's should NEVER just ignore such things. Remember that if the player later complains about how NPC's are treating him and remind him that you WARNED him and gave him the opportunity to change his actions at the time he took it.

Other PC's get to react in WHATEVER way they think is appropriate for their character. If it means they no longer like or trust that PC then the PC in question may just get kicked out of the party and the player will be forced to just roll up a new character.

Now, as the DM you also have the job of keeping a lid on things that will truly needlessly disrupt the game. If you think something about it all does not need to be tolerated then DON'T tolerate it. Refuse to allow the action in the first place if the potential fallout from it is going to be too big to deal with - players possibly forced to roll up new PC's, PC-vs-PC conflict, etc. Don't let it happen in the FIRST PLACE and you don't have to lose sleep over how to deal with the aftermath in the second place.

You prepare for stuff like this by having it happen and learning from how you handled it (or mishandled it) in the past. Now that it's happened to you, just put some time into thinking about how you should have handled it at the time. Let it go THIS time, but have a better idea of what to do if it happens again. And most important of all COMMUNICATE to ALL your players what you've decided and make it clear to all of them that next time it will be handled different - handled BETTER.

legomaster00156
2016-07-27, 10:44 AM
As your players find new and interesting ways to be psychotic, your insides will gradually wither and die while your exterior will become callused, and that callus will harden until it's an impervious shell.

Eventually, you won't even be fazed by your players declaring baby-murder.
Can I sig this?

Vitruviansquid
2016-07-27, 10:48 AM
Go for it. :)

Koo Rehtorb
2016-07-27, 11:00 AM
You react to it the same way you react to anything else. You realistically portray the world the PCs are in and pass no out of game judgement on the player's choices.

thedanster7000
2016-07-27, 11:05 AM
I don't see an issue with a hardened adventurer PC killing someone who just tried to kill them and would try again given the opportunity.

Slipperychicken
2016-07-27, 11:13 AM
He was the enemy. I doubt the PCs or even the DM were mourning the other sailors they killed, so what makes him so different?


And what were they supposed to do with this guy? Let him live so he can contemplate revenge? Ask him "oh that whole 'being attacked for your stuff' thing is just water under the bridge now, please join our crew"? They just killed all his buddies and threatened him for information, that's not exactly the kind of thing you forgive and forget. I guess you could have an outstanding bounty for pirates and their crews, so the PCs have a reason to take him in alive, but I doubt you had that established in the lore.


And besides, he's been working for pirates. Who are nothing more than a bunch of murderous, thieving, rapacious dregs of society who steal the livelihoods of honest people and profit off the misery of others. He knew what he signed up for. The life of that kind of person isn't worth a bucket of cow piss anyway.

D+1
2016-07-27, 11:22 AM
China Town ended with a girl being killed by her rapist and losing her only child, but it was these kinds of things that Jake wanted to stop. Pulpy heroes are still heroes.
You are significantly misremembering Chinatown. The woman who had been raped by her father had just shot her father in the arm and was attempting to drive away and escape with her daughter/sister in the car, was shot at by a policeman and hit in the head, killing her instantly, leaving everyone - child, father, Jake, policemen, and citizens of Chinatown - with little to do but simply gawk at the bloody scene. Jake's final comment of, "... As little as possible," is a reference back to an earlier line in the movie:

Jake Gittes: Actually, this hasn't happened to me for a long time.
Evelyn Mulwray: When was the last time?
Jake Gittes: Why?
Evelyn Mulwray: It's an innocent question.
Jake Gittes: In Chinatown.
Evelyn Mulwray: What were you doing there?
Jake Gittes: Working for the District Attorney.
Evelyn Mulwray: Doing what?
Jake Gittes: As little as possible.
Evelyn Mulwray: The District Attorney gives his men advice like that?
Jake Gittes: They do in Chinatown.

It suggests that in his own time working in Chinatown (I've always thought he was working as a special investigator of some kind for a DA who probably put together a "task force" to "get tough on crime in Chinatown" to get the DA job, but knew wouldn't be effective) he apparently wasn't able to do much about all the terrible things that were going on around him, so he did as little as possible. As a private detective on this case Jake uncovered adultery, conspiracy, political corruption, murder, and incest. Although he had done a great deal trying to put a stop to it all, in the end he was still a failure at really managing anything to change all the lies, deceit and hidden horrors that were going on just out of sight. This reaction is reinforced by his partner who tells him, "Forget it Jake. It's Chinatown." It's not just a direct reference to them being in Chinatown and that nobody will care, but that nothing he does at this point will change anything that has happened, or is going to happen. It's an expression of futility, like, "You can't fight City Hall."

nrg89
2016-07-27, 11:51 AM
The artifact is now haunted. Whoever holds it sees a halfnaked man in chains who says "(name) lied, I died" and then bears all the wounds he did in death before vanishing.

LOL! I'll immediately get to work on it. The weapon he used was intelligent too, so I could maybe use that in some interesting way.



You prepare for stuff like this by having it happen and learning from how you handled it (or mishandled it) in the past. Now that it's happened to you, just put some time into thinking about how you should have handled it at the time. Let it go THIS time, but have a better idea of what to do if it happens again. And most important of all COMMUNICATE to ALL your players what you've decided and make it clear to all of them that next time it will be handled different - handled BETTER.

Yeah, I think I'll need to become more battle hardened. I've had strange actions from players before, one time a player interpreted chaotic neutral to mean that he should vandalize street signs in plain sight of the guards, then attack them when they tried to restrain him. He bitched and moaned a lot when I hauled his ass off to jail, but I did that reaction because I suspected this was an attempt by him of off-game power play and put me in my place, that's the vibe I got from him. I found out afterwards that he was having an affair with my girlfriend, too.

But when something like that happens, I'm in full defense mode and don't really care what he or she thinks, I want this disruptor off my table. This time a player did what he thinks was logical (I suppose, haven't talked to him since), this startled me and I failed to deliver a good reaction from the environment. And this is a somewhat new group (their third session), I introduced this group to the RPG hobby (I've been playing various tabletop RPGs myself for almost 15 years and GM'd on and off for about 10 years, but for some reason I flinched this time) so I really want to get them hooked.


I don't see an issue with a hardened adventurer PC killing someone who just tried to kill them and would try again given the opportunity.



And what were they supposed to do with this guy?

I thought they would let the merchants who owned the boat handle it, or the captain since he works directly for the merchants while the players are basically just hitching a ride, but apparently not. If I'd asked my player about this I might've gotten an answer, maybe his character didn't trust the merchants.


You are significantly misremembering Chinatown. The woman who had been raped by her father had just shot her father in the arm and was attempting to drive away and escape with her daughter/sister in the car, was shot at by a policeman and hit in the head, killing her instantly, leaving everyone - child, father, Jake, policemen, and citizens of Chinatown - with little to do but simply gawk at the bloody scene. Jake's final comment of, "... As little as possible," is a reference back to an earlier line in the movie:

Jake Gittes: Actually, this hasn't happened to me for a long time.
Evelyn Mulwray: When was the last time?
Jake Gittes: Why?
Evelyn Mulwray: It's an innocent question.
Jake Gittes: In Chinatown.
Evelyn Mulwray: What were you doing there?
Jake Gittes: Working for the District Attorney.
Evelyn Mulwray: Doing what?
Jake Gittes: As little as possible.
Evelyn Mulwray: The District Attorney gives his men advice like that?
Jake Gittes: They do in Chinatown.

It suggests that in his own time working in Chinatown (I've always thought he was working as a special investigator of some kind for a DA who probably put together a "task force" to "get tough on crime in Chinatown" to get the DA job, but knew wouldn't be effective) he apparently wasn't able to do much about all the terrible things that were going on around him, so he did as little as possible. As a private detective on this case Jake uncovered adultery, conspiracy, political corruption, murder, and incest. Although he had done a great deal trying to put a stop to it all, in the end he was still a failure at really managing anything to change all the lies, deceit and hidden horrors that were going on just out of sight. This reaction is reinforced by his partner who tells him, "Forget it Jake. It's Chinatown." It's not just a direct reference to them being in Chinatown and that nobody will care, but that nothing he does at this point will change anything that has happened, or is going to happen. It's an expression of futility, like, "You can't fight City Hall."

Ah! Yes, it, was the police who killed her, I misremembered! Anyway, what I was getting at is that this poor woman had a pretty terrible closure of her arc; she lost her child, never got revenge on her rapist, was killed and will be remembered as a mad lady by everyone but Jake. A pretty sad ending.

thedanster7000
2016-07-27, 12:12 PM
It depends on the character to be honest, I'm sure a lot of my players' characters would be pleased with the opportunity of vengeful execution upon their would-be murderers. But then again some would leave them for the authorities (not really).

Knaight
2016-07-27, 01:16 PM
Remember, this world doesn't have that much in the realm of law enforcement, and no christianity that would preach thou shall not kill.

It potentially has any number of other sources saying the same thing, much the same way that there have been any number of other sources saying the same thing on Earth.

Kish
2016-07-27, 01:20 PM
Come to an agreement with your players on how the game will approach morality. Same page and all that.
This.

I don't see anything wrong with what the player did in what you're describing. I don't consider "hand him over to be executed" superior to "execute him." On the other hand, I left a group where--I found out the hard way--the default assumption was that someone who was a criminal but wasn't actually an enemy of the PCs would be casually tortured for information. The important thing, is that everyone's on the same page with regard to what's morally acceptable behavior for a PC.

veti
2016-07-27, 04:03 PM
If he did it in a justice/execution sort of way and gave him a clean death, I wouldn't have any issue. After all - he was a pirate. And despite how Hollywood has portrayed them, that means that he was a professional murderer/plunderer and likely dabbled in more explicit crimes.

He was a rower. That probably translates to "someone who was captured by the pirates, then given a choice between rowing and being murdered on the spot".

But this was a bronze-age setting? Then you're worrying on quite an alien basis. The idea that enemies have "rights" of any kind, including but not limited to the right not to be tortured, raped, enslaved, maimed or killed completely at whim, would strike any of your NPCs as somewhere between hilariously and dangerously insane. The only people you owe anything to are those in your own group (family, team, crew, army, nation, empire if appropriate, in expanding circles of weakening importance); everyone else is fair game.

RickAllison
2016-07-27, 04:17 PM
While I don't think the player did anything wrong (Chaotic, but not Evil), be on the lookout for further incidents like this.

I have had a grand total of one player attempt this on me. Unfortunately for him, he chose to do it against a shopkeeper who was well-known for dealing with criminals (so he had good guards) and alone. Ended up losing his dual fancy pistols, all his credits, his grenades, and even his clothes. He did stay alive, though. Oh, and he succeeded in killing the shopkeeper with one burst to the face.

No one has done it since...

Spiryt
2016-07-27, 04:54 PM
Actually - Christianity/Judaism don't actually have "Thou Shalt not Kill" - it's a mistranslation. It's actually "Thou Shalt not Murder".

This is Murder though.

Prisoner is at players mercy and before killing, he should have some kind of process/ceremony/whatever, 'officially' condemning him for his guilts and executing.

So, as noted, it does depend on culture in TS setting. If it had actually developed some kind of 'thou shall not murder' or is it at some more 'primal' state of being.

RickAllison
2016-07-27, 05:11 PM
This is Murder though.

Prisoner is at players mercy and before killing, he should have some kind of process/ceremony/whatever, 'officially' condemning him for his guilts and executing.

So, as noted, it does depend on culture in TS setting. If it had actually developed some kind of 'thou shall not murder' or is it at some more 'primal' state of being.

I think he was more pointing out the mistranslation rather than saying it applied. It would be like correcting someone mentioning laws about plagiarism that they are really about copyright infringement since plagiarism is a moral crime rather than a legal one. It changes absolutely nothing in the conversation to do so, it is just editing.

icefractal
2016-07-27, 05:30 PM
You react to it the same way you react to anything else. You realistically portray the world the PCs are in and pass no out of game judgement on the player's choices.Eh ... to an extent. I mean, I agree that you shouldn't insert illogical "consequences" like a bunch of high-level Paladins just happened to be walking past, or some random bandit had an unbreakable death curse.

But the GM is a player too, and they're not obligated to run a game that squicks them out. If someone IMC decided to be Hannibal Lector, for example, they could probably avoid any IC consequences with the right skills/spells. But I'm not interested in GMing "the gourmet adventures of a psychopath". That character can go ahead and be a successful serial killer, I'm just not going to point the "camera" at them - meaning they're not a PC anymore. Obviously I would tell people about this before it crossed that line.

And to clarify, I'm not saying the player in the OP is anywhere near that level of psycho! I wouldn't even consider "killing a prisoner yourself" vs "handing them over to authorities you know will execute them" to be any different on the good/evil axis, just less lawful. I'm just disagreeing with the idea that the GM is obligated to be a perfectly neutral bystander who accepts any characters equally.

CharonsHelper
2016-07-27, 05:47 PM
I think he was more pointing out the mistranslation rather than saying it applied. It would be like correcting someone mentioning laws about plagiarism that they are really about copyright infringement since plagiarism is a moral crime rather than a legal one. It changes absolutely nothing in the conversation to do so, it is just editing.

Indeed. With a slightly different context it might be a summary execution, but that doesn't quite seem to apply here. (Possibly it does - we don't have a lot of world-building info.)

Mostly that's just a pet peeve of mine. (If it was actually 'kill' then The Old Testament would be all sorts of hypocritical considering how much war the Israelites waged a generation after they got those rules.)

Koo Rehtorb
2016-07-27, 06:07 PM
Eh ... to an extent. I mean, I agree that you shouldn't insert illogical "consequences" like a bunch of high-level Paladins just happened to be walking past, or some random bandit had an unbreakable death curse.

But the GM is a player too, and they're not obligated to run a game that squicks them out. If someone IMC decided to be Hannibal Lector, for example, they could probably avoid any IC consequences with the right skills/spells. But I'm not interested in GMing "the gourmet adventures of a psychopath". That character can go ahead and be a successful serial killer, I'm just not going to point the "camera" at them - meaning they're not a PC anymore. Obviously I would tell people about this before it crossed that line.

And to clarify, I'm not saying the player in the OP is anywhere near that level of psycho! I wouldn't even consider "killing a prisoner yourself" vs "handing them over to authorities you know will execute them" to be any different on the good/evil axis, just less lawful. I'm just disagreeing with the idea that the GM is obligated to be a perfectly neutral bystander who accepts any characters equally.

Well there are a few things you can do. To start with the entire group should discuss before the first session and agree on a sort of theme. If anyone makes a character that goes wildly outside of that established theme then they're messing up. BUT, if people don't do that then anything pretty much goes. There's no default assumptions.

Second, you obviously don't have to spend time going into detail about things that make you uncomfortable. It's perfectly acceptable for anyone at the table, including the GM, to say that something's making them uncomfortable and they'd prefer if the scene was glossed over. You don't have to spend ten minutes describing Hannibal Lecter eating someone. You can just say "I eat them" and move on.

Cluedrew
2016-07-27, 06:26 PM
The idea that enemies have "rights" of any kind, including but not limited to the right not to be tortured, raped, enslaved, maimed or killed completely at whim, would strike any of your NPCs as somewhere between hilariously and dangerously insane.Not always, they lived a long time ago, but that doesn't make them cartoon barbarians. Maybe that isn't the best way to put it. But a lot of the old cultures actually had a lot of respect for their enemies. I could give you a couple of anecdotes but perhaps unless it is a historic setting, what the world was actually like is not actually that important.

CharonsHelper
2016-07-27, 06:31 PM
Not always, they lived a long time ago, but that doesn't make them cartoon barbarians. Maybe that isn't the best way to put it. But a lot of the old cultures actually had a lot of respect for their enemies. I could give you a couple of anecdotes but perhaps unless it is a historic setting, what the world was actually like is not actually that important.

Depends upon the culture you're talking about. The Assyrians went out of their way to do horrific things to their fallen foes in order to strike fear into their enemies. They even bragged about them in their artwork (especially around the equivalent of their ambassadors' waiting room). Except for Babylon - Assyria didn't mess with the city itself too much. Assyria liked Babylonian culture and considered it a bit sacrosanct, sort of like how Rome felt about Athens.

That's the reason that when Assyria finally fell, their enemies did everything that they could to destroy and scatter both them and even the memories of them. They freakin' hated the Assyrians. (Those were the same guys who caused there to be the 'ten lost tribes' of Israel.)

Darth Ultron
2016-07-27, 07:36 PM
How do you usually react to a PC doing something terrible and how do you usually prepare for it?

This is normal for a lot of players.

In general, if a player is a known murderhobo then they will simply get fewer targets as I manipulate the game.

And, in general, I'm strict about alignment. So any non evil character doing vile evil acts will get in trouble.

And, in general, my gods are very active and watch the PC's and micromanage them, even more so if they use divine power.

So I might do something like: ''Your weapon explodes doing 50 points of damage(no save) and your blasted off the ship and plunge into the ocean.'' Though I mght have something like an ''innocent blood ghost golem haunt the character too...

Liquor Box
2016-07-27, 07:51 PM
I don't think there is much wrong with the PC's actions unless he was a paladin or had taken some vow of morality or something. It is slightly evilish and chaotic, but not outside the scope of behaviour that one might expect from a hardened adventurer in the circumstances.

How to handle it - the same way you handle any in game action, in a way that is realistic in the setting. In this case he might have some trouble with the authorities, or gain a little renown for brutality. Mechanically, he may edge ever so slightly toward chaotic.

Koo Rehtorb
2016-07-27, 07:59 PM
This is normal for a lot of players.

In general, if a player is a known murderhobo then they will simply get fewer targets as I manipulate the game.

And, in general, I'm strict about alignment. So any non evil character doing vile evil acts will get in trouble.

And, in general, my gods are very active and watch the PC's and micromanage them, even more so if they use divine power.

So I might do something like: ''Your weapon explodes doing 50 points of damage(no save) and your blasted off the ship and plunge into the ocean.'' Though I mght have something like an ''innocent blood ghost golem haunt the character too...

This sounds pretty awful.

Deophaun
2016-07-27, 08:17 PM
Prisoner is at players mercy and before killing, he should have some kind of process/ceremony/whatever, 'officially' condemning him for his guilts and executing.
The ceremony was saying "Thanks." Requirement met.

Really, it's a pirate. You had the right of it above: this is how pirates were historically dealt with. You were not expected to keep them locked up, eating your stores and depriving you of manpower to run the ship so they could be securely guarded, until you reached port. Instead, you fed them to the sharks. Verdict: neutral.

Yuki Akuma
2016-07-27, 08:18 PM
This sounds pretty awful.

Seconded. Consequences should not literally be unavoidable divine punishment.

RickAllison
2016-07-27, 08:39 PM
Seconded. Consequences should not literally be unavoidable divine punishment.

Not to mention that if Good gods can punish Evil actions out of the blue, why can't Evil gods do the same for Good actions? The LE God of Tyranny (I can't remember his name), for example, tends to frown upon showing mercy because he is about having the strongest rise to the top. If a merciful God can create a bolt from the blue for personally declaring judgement, he should be able to smite anyone who shows mercy to a weakling.

Darth Ultron
2016-07-27, 08:58 PM
Seconded. Consequences should not literally be unavoidable divine punishment.

Most consequences are unavoidable.


Not to mention that if Good gods can punish Evil actions out of the blue, why can't Evil gods do the same for Good actions?

I never said it was only the good gods. It's all the gods...

Mr Beer
2016-07-27, 09:26 PM
I would deal with PCs killing in cold blood on the basis that actions have consequences.

Murdering a low-grade pirate on the high seas in the immediate aftermath of being attacked by said pirates is an action that would generally have zero consequences. I mean I could plot something up but the chances are nobody cares.

If they cut down a merchant in the middle of Greyhawk city for haggling too hard over a suit of armour or something, you bet there will be serious and immediate consequences. They'll be lucky to be able to surrender safely and the murderer(s) will probably be tried and executed.

In other words, I'll try to base consequences in what I think would reasonably happen rather than what I think should happen. That said, if they want to go around torturing and raping helpless peasantry or something, they can find a different GM. I'm not enabling some weirdo's low-budget Game of Thrones fetish fantasy.

RazorChain
2016-07-27, 09:32 PM
My players had just been attacked by a pirate galley. Because of a fire, most of the pirate crew died, but one of the rowers survived and was held captive below deck on the PCs ship.
One of my players correctly assumed that they were targeted by the pirates because of an artifact they're carrying around and wanted to interrogate the prisoner. My player got some answers out of him but, being a lowly rower, he didn't know many details that wasn't obvious to the player. The PC pulled out his mace and said "talk or die". After a successful intimidation attempt, the prisoner rolled and told him everything he knew. The PC said "thanks" and said he killed the prisoner in cold blood, without warning. I didn't see it coming at all.

The mood around the table was very disturbed. I was so taken a back by it I skimmed over the reactions from the captain aboard instead of roleplaying him like I usually do. I even completely forgot to address how the merchant navy, who actually owns the ship, thinks about this when the PCs are received at port.

I felt bad afterwards because I failed at improvising and I also failed to communicate to the player that these kinds of actions have consequences. The other players were also startled and didn't really know how their characters should react.

Am I too squeamish to be a GM? How do you usually react to a PC doing something terrible and how do you usually prepare for it?

Welcome to table top Role Playing, the place where murderhobos congregate. In my games I have witnessed necrophilia, countless cold blooded murders, torture, mass murders, bombing of innocents, lot's of collateral damage, robberies, theft, assaults, fraud and more, did I mention murders? Lot of them. And I'm not talking about the bad guys but the PC's who do those things.

Yuki Akuma
2016-07-27, 09:38 PM
I never said it was only the good gods. It's all the gods...

Wow that sounds like a profoundly un-fun setting.

Darth Ultron
2016-07-27, 09:53 PM
Wow that sounds like a profoundly un-fun setting.

Well, it's only ''un fun'' if as a player you lie about your character or are just crazy. If you make a chaotic good bard and then suddenly go murderhobo, for example.

Though it does keep the crazy players out of my game too. They will whine that they can't act all crazy and ruin the game for everyone...but they will do so from their home.

erikun
2016-07-27, 10:05 PM
This sounds like a confusion of expectations.

Some games (and some players) treat the game in a standard black-and-white situation. People working for the badguys are evil, people working for the goodguys are good. You always kill evil, because otherwise it backstabs you or returns stronger and planning for you. (No, being a rower in the hull of a boat doesn't make a difference.) Part of this mindset can be trying to emulate a particular genre, or it could be bad experiences in the past with evil minions, or it could just be laziness. In this case, the player should obviously kill off the evil minion as soon as they have the information, because otherwise the minion would escape to kill off the PC's crew or steal their valuables.

Some games (and players) treat the game as if it were in a more realistic setting. Characters have motivations, and outside the exceptionally crazy or strangely devoted ones, most are not going to be following "Evil" over their own self-interests. NPCs might be attacking the players out of desperation or employment, having no interest in doing so past the initial conflict. Some, like the rower, might just be employed for travel and unrelated to any sort of plots or schemes the Evil characters are involved in. In these cases, it's generally assumed that the players would treat captured NPCs much like they would neutral, or at least disliked, NPCs. The PCs wouldn't torture or murder them and more than they would a shopkeeper (which isn't saying much, I admit).

The problem is when there is a conflict between the two. One player tries to treat a prisoner as a reasonable hireling, only to have their throat cut and valuables stolen by morning. One player treats minions as evil followers of the badguy, and watches their morality drop as they chop off the heads of survivors after battle. It's mostly a conflict of perception. It might not necessarily be a conflict that the player is interested in resolving - your player might enjoy just dealing with opponents terminally and not want to change - but the reason the player is not shocked while you are is likely a different perspective on how the game runs.


If you want to avoid the conflict in the future, I might recommend putting some method in place to deal with captured/surrendered enemy NPCs. Just bring it up at the next session, or the next time a NPC survives and the party needs to deal with it. Typically, I would think that removing all their weapons, bound hands, and agreement to not cause trouble should suffice. As noted, most NPCs aren't going to have a vendetta against the PCs over the situation, and would probably be fine with being hired by the PCs and/or local town as an alternative - be sure to mention this point to the players, so they know. Also, you'd want to exercise this situation on attacks against the PCs or innocent towns. NPC villains would kidnap people or steal valuables, not murder villagers and burn down homes. If the PCs' hireling gets defeated and captured by the villains, have them just ransom the hireling back to the PCs' village or get information from the hireling and dump them in a nearby town. If the players can see that villains won't immediately murder everything in front of them, there is a bit less stress over killing the villains before the same can be done back to them.

At least, that is my view on the situation.



There's slavery, the death penalty and torture in the world so that pirate was in pretty deep trouble anyway, the merchant's were going to kill him but I was prepared for that
I suppose I'm a bit confused, then. The players knew the prisoner was going to be killed. The prisoner likely knew it too, and would likely be desperate. Why are you surprised that the player decided to just kill the prisoner right there, rather than risking a desperate enemy captive on board who would do anything to get away? I mean, there's not even the chance of being dumped onto a deserted island to survive there.

The only reasonable options I see there are to lash the prisoner's arms and legs to the mast to ensure they have absolutely no chance to escape, risk having them get out and steal a boat/food/valuables, or kill them yourself. If anything important was happening then I certainly would not have many qualms about a dead prisoner now rather than a week from now in port. This situation is beginning to sound a lot like the "evil minion might escape" scenario I discussed above, and while I might have qualms about a player killing the minion to avoid a backstab, I can't exactly fault them for deciding to do so.

I would also note that giving the players an obviously evil prisoner is just awkward - especially if the party needs to be somewhere else RIGHT NOW and doesn't have time to transport the prisoner back to town. The players are basically left with the choice of killing the prisoner (good for stopping an evil person, but bad for killing an unarmed prisoner) or awkwardly dragging them along and putting the prisoner in situations where they could escape and treaten the party. It's frequently not a pleasant choice for anyone at the table, although it is sometimes not avoidable.


And as someone else said, simply narrate the killing rather than needing to roll. Unless you want to illustrate the suffering the captive is going through after each strike ("His jaw is limb as he begs again for you to stop...") there isn't much point in making the player roll each strike. They want to kill the guy, nobody can or will stop them, so just make a quick explanation of the results.

RickAllison
2016-07-27, 10:13 PM
Well, it's only ''un fun'' if as a player you lie about your character or are just crazy. If you make a chaotic good bard and then suddenly go murderhobo, for example.

Though it does keep the crazy players out of my game too. They will whine that they can't act all crazy and ruin the game for everyone...but they will do so from their home.

Okay, so I'm confused. Is it that the players get the SmiteHammer if they act contrary to the gods (so everyone who isn't TN gets killed because for very god that hates a given course of action, another loves it)? Or is it because they are acting contrary to what's on their character sheet (which is entirely meta and should have absolutely nothing to do with the game itself? Either way, it seems like a flawed concept.

Liquor Box
2016-07-27, 11:09 PM
This sounds pretty awful.

Thirded

Your powers come and go at the GM's whim on the basis of whether he shares your view as to what is "good" and what is not.

If the player who defined the character as "good" then it is for him to define what "good" means to that character. Punishing someone for apparently acting inconsistently with their alignment should only been done light-handedly and when it is very clear the act was counter to the alignment (which it is not, in my opinion, in this case).

Otherwise, the consequences PCs shoudl face for their actions should be guided by what consequences are likely in the world they inhabit. Those consequences might be blind to good or evil, or follow a different view as to what is good and what is evil than the GM and player.

Liquor Box
2016-07-27, 11:10 PM
I would deal with PCs killing in cold blood on the basis that actions have consequences.

Murdering a low-grade pirate on the high seas in the immediate aftermath of being attacked by said pirates is an action that would generally have zero consequences. I mean I could plot something up but the chances are nobody cares.

If they cut down a merchant in the middle of Greyhawk city for haggling too hard over a suit of armour or something, you bet there will be serious and immediate consequences. They'll be lucky to be able to surrender safely and the murderer(s) will probably be tried and executed.

In other words, I'll try to base consequences in what I think would reasonably happen rather than what I think should happen. That said, if they want to go around torturing and raping helpless peasantry or something, they can find a different GM. I'm not enabling some weirdo's low-budget Game of Thrones fetish fantasy.

Well put. I agree with this.

Koo Rehtorb
2016-07-28, 12:40 AM
Well, it's only ''un fun'' if as a player you lie about your character or are just crazy. If you make a chaotic good bard and then suddenly go murderhobo, for example.

Though it does keep the crazy players out of my game too. They will whine that they can't act all crazy and ruin the game for everyone...but they will do so from their home.

Have you considered that it may be you who is the crazy player?

Vitruviansquid
2016-07-28, 01:00 AM
If Darth Ultron wanted advice on how to run his setting, I'm sure he'd have made his own thread asking for it.

CharonsHelper
2016-07-28, 07:16 AM
If Darth Ultron wanted advice on how to run his setting, I'm sure he'd have made his own thread asking for it.

Instead he gave very odd advice on this thread, leaving said advice open to critique.

veti
2016-07-28, 08:57 AM
Okay, so I'm confused. Is it that the players get the SmiteHammer if they act contrary to the gods (so everyone who isn't TN gets killed because for very god that hates a given course of action, another loves it)?

I'm not Darth Ultron, but as I read it, you get punished by your own god for acting contrary to their rules. Sounds reasonable.


Your powers come and go at the GM's whim on the basis of whether he shares your view as to what is "good" and what is not.

If the player who defined the character as "good" then it is for him to define what "good" means to that character.

Err... I strongly disagree. It's the gods who define that, that's pretty much what they're for. If the player is defining the character's morality, then not only have you left "absolute morality" dying in a ditch somewhere, you've also reduced the gods to mere vending machines for clerical spells.

PersonMan
2016-07-28, 09:53 AM
I'll go ahead and add something to what I said before:

Definitely talk to the players, as others have said, about your own personal limits. Maybe have one discussion about dealing with a situation that goes too far for someone (you or a player), and a separate one for in-game consequences. Keeping the two clearly defined is a good idea, and can prevent issues regarding "my PC is being punished because the DM didn't like my actions", which is a thought that can cause trouble.



Err... I strongly disagree. It's the gods who define that, that's pretty much what they're for. If the player is defining the character's morality, then not only have you left "absolute morality" dying in a ditch somewhere, you've also reduced the gods to mere vending machines for clerical spells.

If the gods define morality, though, then you either run into an issue where "good" and "evil" have entirely different meanings/connotations in different cultures/religions, or the bizarro world of "no, I believe I'm Evil" being a worldview 1/3 or more of the world's population has.

tsj
2016-07-28, 10:40 AM
My players are definitely also murder hobos. ... great term BTW. .


And I suspect they are all somewhere on the evil scale... needless to say... I rarely see a paladin... If I do I can count on the paladin to plan on being fallen

I would say most are chaotic evil


I have learned to roll with it. .. I must admit that I was surprised at a recent session where I did everything I could to turn up the horror to extreme levels but the players were not as affected as I imagined they would be


Stuff like missing kids turning up as zombies, ghost etc...

Also various undead doing various creepy stuff

Slarg
2016-07-28, 11:35 AM
My players had just been attacked by a pirate galley. Because of a fire, most of the pirate crew died, but one of the rowers survived and was held captive below deck on the PCs ship.
One of my players correctly assumed that they were targeted by the pirates because of an artifact they're carrying around and wanted to interrogate the prisoner. My player got some answers out of him but, being a lowly rower, he didn't know many details that wasn't obvious to the player. The PC pulled out his mace and said "talk or die". After a successful intimidation attempt, the prisoner rolled and told him everything he knew. The PC said "thanks" and said he killed the prisoner in cold blood, without warning. I didn't see it coming at all.

The mood around the table was very disturbed. I was so taken a back by it I skimmed over the reactions from the captain aboard instead of roleplaying him like I usually do. I even completely forgot to address how the merchant navy, who actually owns the ship, thinks about this when the PCs are received at port.

I felt bad afterwards because I failed at improvising and I also failed to communicate to the player that these kinds of actions have consequences. The other players were also startled and didn't really know how their characters should react.

Am I too squeamish to be a GM? How do you usually react to a PC doing something terrible and how do you usually prepare for it?


My PCs do this all the goddamn time. I'm really going to have to think up some sort of karmic punishment for them eventually...

They don't called adventurers "murderhobos" for nothing, I guess.

Typically if my party starts Murderhoboing too much, I try to remember the more heinous crimes they commit while warning them that the Gods have a way of punishing said behavior.

If they don't stop, eventually I just create a high leveled Revenant based on one of their prior victims and send it their way. One of the most memorable games I've had was a lvl 3 average party being chased around by the lvl 12 Revenant of the farmer's daughter. Run or die, bitches.

IntelectPaladin
2016-07-28, 12:08 PM
I've only read the thread title and the first post.
My answer is simple, to the point,
And I'm rather sure that it brings my point across.
In effect: NOPE.
I mean, too squeamish? It's not squeamish to hate the idea of murder, even in this game.
The players are the heroes to be heroic, not murderous.
I mean, when did murder become normal enough to allow for the term "murder-hobo"?
In all honestly, your reaction was normal, and you don't seem like less of a D.M. for it, if that's what your asking.
Also, I hope you don't run into another situation like this one.
While we may play as our characters, it's not our characters making the decisions.
And thank you for reading this, I hope you have a better day!
P.S. Evidently I have to let the public know that I leave hidden messages in every post.

VoxRationis
2016-07-28, 01:24 PM
Unless your setting has specific mercy/hospitality rules relating to prisoners, including dishonorable ones (and generally, things like chivalry and rules of war don't extend to pirates), it's not a particularly out-of-line thing to do. Pirate was an enemy, pirate would continue to be an enemy if allowed, pirate is an enemy. Logically, without cultural context saying differently, there's no reason to waste effort and resources on an enemy just because you failed to kill them in battle.
If word gets around, people aren't likely to surrender to the PCs in the future, but that's not really a big deal anyway. I doubt the party wants to handle the terms of surrender of potentially hundreds of opponents over their careers.

Guancyto
2016-07-28, 02:29 PM
Pirate is entirely at the player's mercy, with no chance of escape no matter how many times he gets hit?

You don't need elaborate description or to roll for attacks/damage. "Okay, you hit him until he dies. Now he's dead and you're bloody." That's all you need. The only reason to go into more detail is if the guy somehow gets a hand free and starts a struggle (like happens in many movies/stories/etc.). Otherwise there's no uncertainty as to the outcome. Giving a lot of detail in a scene that's a forgone conclusion implies you're interested in pursuing the scene (maybe to make the point in-setting that life is nasty, brutish and short?) whereas if you just cut it short it tells your players that you're not into it.

If you wanted to follow up on that encounter you might have an NPC later mention that someone they knew was kidnapped and forced to serve as a rower on a pirate ship (because this, like executing prisoners, is liable to be pretty common in-setting). If the PCs just brush that off then let them (if this guy didn't mention he was kidnapped by pirates as the very first thing he said, he probably wasn't. I know if I were in such an interrogation, even if I had joined a pirate crew with a smile on my face and a song in my heart, "it's not my fault they made me do it I hate them too" would be the first thing I'd go with).

Karmic punishment distributed by all-seeing gods is lame as hell. If your group is a special kind of murderhobo and you want some karma involved, have word get around how ruthless your PCs are. Enemies can do pretty insane things when they're 100% certain they're going to die, like, say, suicide missions to burn enemy ships, or explosively breaking magic items, or refusing to give information when interrogated ("we both know how this works, you're going to kill me anyway") or the old patented fireball-right-at-their-feet-when-surrounded.

Airon
2016-07-28, 02:34 PM
Typically if my party starts Murderhoboing too much, I try to remember the more heinous crimes they commit while warning them that the Gods have a way of punishing said behavior.

If they don't stop, eventually I just create a high leveled Revenant based on one of their prior victims and send it their way. One of the most memorable games I've had was a lvl 3 average party being chased around by the lvl 12 Revenant of the farmer's daughter. Run or die, bitches.


This.

My party shies away from murderhoboing - I try to have a coherent narrative and consequences for actions. The one time one of my players committed a cruel and unwarranted murder I was shocked, the whole table was shocked, but he played it well - he adn the victim were alone, he covered his tracks well. Still, it was out of character and very petty and gratuitous.

Cue the Revenant.
D&D is infamous for the number of undead born of less-than-perfectly peaceful deaths, so let's use a few of them for the intended purpose. I didn't make the revenant stronger than the party, just stronger than the single character - and I had the revenant attack when he was alone. He had to run to the party and then explain what he did once they defeated the undead. It was a great session.

tensai_oni
2016-07-28, 02:43 PM
OP's game isn't DnD. I assume it doesn't have an alignment system either.

The player character's action was not an act of vile evil. We're dealing with a pirate who'd most likely be executed anyway. But it was both ruthless (for obvious reasons) and dishonorable (telling someone to do something or die and then kill him when he did it anyway).

The question is, is the rest of the party okay with this? I mean both ICly and OOCly. Parties can break up if various players (or their characters) have different ideas of what is an acceptable level of pragmatic and morally questionable behavior. For the sake of avoiding that it's important to agree on this level and everyone to follow it. There can be a different level ICly and OOCly. Like, some behavior isn't allowed at all because it makes the players at the table uncomfortable, while some other behavior isn't allowed because it makes the party paladin-equivalent angry: BUT if you can do it when he's not looking and won't find out, then feel free to do so.

Either way it's important to agree on this. Not necessarily set everything in stone from the beginning, because you can't predict everything as it happens. But when the players do something and you or someone else would rather they didn't? Make it known, and then stick to it.

Slarg
2016-07-28, 02:49 PM
This.

My party shies away from murderhoboing - I try to have a coherent narrative and consequences for actions. The one time one of my players committed a cruel and unwarranted murder I was shocked, the whole table was shocked, but he played it well - he adn the victim were alone, he covered his tracks well. Still, it was out of character and very petty and gratuitous.

Cue the Revenant.
D&D is infamous for the number of undead born of less-than-perfectly peaceful deaths, so let's use a few of them for the intended purpose. I didn't make the revenant stronger than the party, just stronger than the single character - and I had the revenant attack when he was alone. He had to run to the party and then explain what he did once they defeated the undead. It was a great session.

I had to make it TKO worthy simply because of the crime in question; I will remind you that it was a farmer's daughter and leave it at that. First, and last, time I ever allowed that, even without going into detail.

PersonMan
2016-07-28, 02:50 PM
Typically if my party starts Murderhoboing too much, I try to remember the more heinous crimes they commit while warning them that the Gods have a way of punishing said behavior.

If they don't stop, eventually I just create a high leveled Revenant based on one of their prior victims and send it their way. One of the most memorable games I've had was a lvl 3 average party being chased around by the lvl 12 Revenant of the farmer's daughter. Run or die, bitches.

I guess there aren't many villains in these settings, then, since the Gods just delete them for their crimes?

Slarg
2016-07-28, 02:55 PM
I guess there aren't many villains in these settings, then, since the Gods just delete them for their crimes?

Nah, the Gods don't delete them outright; that's what the party of adventurers is for. :P

Liquor Box
2016-07-28, 04:15 PM
Err... I strongly disagree. It's the gods who define that, that's pretty much what they're for. If the player is defining the character's morality, then not only have you left "absolute morality" dying in a ditch somewhere, you've also reduced the gods to mere vending machines for clerical spells.

I'm not sure why you say that it's the gods that define morality. I don't read that as being part of the RAW. In 3.5 RAW you can have a different alignment (so consistently act differently from a alignment perspective) to the alignment of your patron deity, even if a cleric. I can understand a god withholding spells for persons who grossly violate the god's values - but even then the values are less likely to be alignment based and more likely to be something else - perhaps the god of knowledge might withhold spell from a character who burns a library, even if the god is good and the library contains only evil texts or vice versa.

As I said in the part of my post that your did not quote, I do think it is reasonable to have alignment (and I suppose diety) consequences for frequent or particularly gross violations of the alignment system, but this should be treated lighthandedly with caution. Perusal of some threads (example linked below) on this board makes it abundantly clear that intelligent people can have completely opposing views as to what constitutes a "good" action in a certain set of circumstances - such that each believes the other action is evil.

In my opinion a good player/PC should not be penalised on an alignment basis for taking an action he genuinely considers to be
the 'good' course of action (perhaps the only 'good' course of action open to him), just because the GM is of a different opinion.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?494445-What-would-you-do-if-you-were-the-paladin-What-would-you-do-if-you-were-the-GM

Darth Ultron
2016-07-28, 04:51 PM
Okay, so I'm confused. Is it that the players get the SmiteHammer if they act contrary to the gods (so everyone who isn't TN gets killed because for very god that hates a given course of action, another loves it)? Or is it because they are acting contrary to what's on their character sheet (which is entirely meta and should have absolutely nothing to do with the game itself? Either way, it seems like a flawed concept.

Both? The whole point is more to follow a god that agrees with you. You can't just say a character is lawful good, especially to get a mechanical exploit, and then act in any insane way you want. But, if you do want to play a crazy character, there are gods that will welcome the character. And the idea is your god protects you.

And I'm not sure why you think ''acting contrary to what's on their character sheet'' is not wrong. If a player makes character A, and then acts like character Z, that is wrong.



If the player who defined the character as "good" then it is for him to define what "good" means to that character. Punishing someone for apparently acting inconsistently with their alignment should only been done light-handedly and when it is very clear the act was counter to the alignment (which it is not, in my opinion, in this case).

That is not how alignment, or even just basic good and evil works. A person can't just say ''I'm good'' and then ''do whatever they want''.



Otherwise, the consequences PCs shoudl face for their actions should be guided by what consequences are likely in the world they inhabit. Those consequences might be blind to good or evil, or follow a different view as to what is good and what is evil than the GM and player.

Again, good and evil are universal. People can't just say things.


Have you considered that it may be you who is the crazy player?

I'm not a player, I'm the DM.



In my opinion a good player/PC should not be penalised on an alignment basis for taking an action he genuinely considers to be
the 'good' course of action (perhaps the only 'good' course of action open to him), just because the GM is of a different opinion.



I would note that it is only the good/evil, alignment, god thing that gets people so upset. After all everyone is just fine with secular 'setting consequences''. Like when the city of Waterhaven has a law that murder is illegal. You would never say ''my PC can slaughter NPC all day long and not consider it murder so he never gets arrested by the guards''. It really sounds dumb to say ''slaughtering innocent people is not murder'' because i say so......yet this will be done with alignments.

Slarg
2016-07-28, 05:09 PM
That is not how alignment, or even just basic good and evil works. A person can't just say ''I'm good'' and then ''do whatever they want''.





Well technically you can, as that's how you get a Knight Templar villain :P

veti
2016-07-28, 05:21 PM
I'm not sure why you say that it's the gods that define morality.

They define morality for their followers. If they say "the blood of an enemy must be allowed to flow freely", then if you kill a dragon and collect some of its blood in a bottle for alchemical purposes, you're doing something wrong. Most people probably wouldn't consider "collecting blood" to be the most morally significant part of that process, but it just so happens that for you it's a big deal because your god says so.

That's what gods do.


I don't read that as being part of the RAW.

In the first place, who's talking about RAW? We don't even know what game system we're discussing, much less what edition. And even if we were clearly discussing D&D 3.5, any given GM and campaign has its own setting and house rules. Without knowing something about the context of the game and the specific group that plays it, it's simply unreasonable to call some specific aspect of them "unreasonable".

Guancyto
2016-07-28, 05:39 PM
So, just out of curiosity, under this horrifying tyranny of divine busybodies, what happens to people who don't follow any god? Are they considered followers of Our Lord DM and smote at random?

What happens to people who have this indifferent transactional hodge-podge of faiths where they pray to different gods for different things (like most people do in a polytheistic religion)? The Hearth/Family goddess might be good at taking care of homes, but she probably isn't any good if you need inspiration for caravan insurance reform policy (you'd want the civilization goddess).

Darth Ultron
2016-07-28, 06:06 PM
So, just out of curiosity, under this horrifying tyranny of divine busybodies, what happens to people who don't follow any god? Are they considered followers of Our Lord DM and smote at random?

What happens to people who have this indifferent transactional hodge-podge of faiths where they pray to different gods for different things (like most people do in a polytheistic religion)? The Hearth/Family goddess might be good at taking care of homes, but she probably isn't any good if you need inspiration for caravan insurance reform policy (you'd want the civilization goddess).

Even if someone chooses not to follow a god in name, they still follow a god in spirit so that god would be the one that acts. Though a 'random' god might act too, as might a god who had a follower be a victim.

Nothing is wrong with offering prayers to lots of gods for lots of things, but most only have one patron that they follow the most. And that is the god that matters.

Guancyto
2016-07-28, 06:39 PM
...so, if I'm getting this right.

Someone who doesn't care about any god, or who cares about a whole bunch of gods, gets a god that matches up with their ethos.

...who then smites them if they don't act in accordance with their god's ethos?

...I'm usually not big on the old "let's dogpile on a guy who is Clearly Playing It Wrong" but, uh, do your players seem neurotic, withdrawn, lacking in initiative, or just generally exhibit behaviors commonly associated with those lab tests where they give rats electric shocks at random?

Liquor Box
2016-07-28, 06:48 PM
That is not how alignment, or even just basic good and evil works. A person can't just say ''I'm good'' and then ''do whatever they want''.
Again, good and evil are universal. People can't just say things.

I'm not suggesting that they can do whatever they want and define it as good for themselves. What I am suggesting is that there are plenty of instances where reasonable people differ in what they consider to be a 'good' response in particular circumstances, and there should not be mechanical consequence (like an alighnment shift) for a player disagreeing with a DM in those circumstances. To avoid this requires a light handed approach to mechanically punishing immorality.

This thread is an example - there are multiple different opinions whether the player acted appropriately (within the bounds of his good alignment, if that was his alignment), slightly inappropriately (moderately outside the bounds of his good alignment), or heinously. In my view it would be wrong to punish the player mechanically (by denying spells or forcing an alignment shift) where the evilness of his actions can be reasonably interpreted in so many different ways.

If he had broken into an orphanage and raped and killed all the children without just cause, then my view is that it may be justifiable to say "that's an evil act, your alignement has shifted (if previously good) and good deities require some repentance before they will accept your patronage".


I would note that it is only the good/evil, alignment, god thing that gets people so upset. After all everyone is just fine with secular 'setting consequences''. Like when the city of Waterhaven has a law that murder is illegal. You would never say ''my PC can slaughter NPC all day long and not consider it murder so he never gets arrested by the guards''. It really sounds dumb to say ''slaughtering innocent people is not murder'' because i say so......yet this will be done with alignments.

I agree. There is nothing wrong with secular setting consequences where those consequences are a reasonable response to the matter at hand - steal go to jail, slaughter NPC's all day and be attacked by the guards. However, there is a problem where setting consequences are manufactured simply to teach the players that their actions are immoral - for example some vengeful spirit chases the person who killed the prisoner, but oddly, no vengeful spirit had been pursuing the presumably murderous pirates. It's a game, not a lesson in the DM's views on morality.

Liquor Box
2016-07-28, 06:57 PM
They define morality for their followers. If they say "the blood of an enemy must be allowed to flow freely", then if you kill a dragon and collect some of its blood in a bottle for alchemical purposes, you're doing something wrong. Most people probably wouldn't consider "collecting blood" to be the most morally significant part of that process, but it just so happens that for you it's a big deal because your god says so.

That's what gods do.

It may be what some gods do. As I understand it there are gods in real world mythology and in rpg canon who do not concern themselves with morality - like the example I gave the god of knowledge who values both evil and good knowledge.

In the context of this thread, it is not clear whether the character was religious or what god he worshipped. I suppose it would be open for GM of that game to decide that the player's god had a strict moral code, and that the players actions where so far outside that code that his deity turns his back. But if so, I hope the deity explicitly has a moral code beyond the norm (like paladins do), because I think it would be going to far for a generic "good" deity to turn from this PC.


In the first place, who's talking about RAW? We don't even know what game system we're discussing, much less what edition. And even if we were clearly discussing D&D 3.5, any given GM and campaign has its own setting and house rules. Without knowing something about the context of the game and the specific group that plays it, it's simply unreasonable to call some specific aspect of them "unreasonable".

Fair point. As I noted above, it is open to the GM to say that the god the PC worshipped had unusually high standards (and maybe that is the norm in the particular game system. But, if so, I think good GMing would lead the GM to have pointed that out before the game.

Gray Mage
2016-07-28, 07:07 PM
Just wanted to chime in a bit. You listed Conan as part of the tone of the game, and this was something that Conan would do, so maybe your player didn't expect to upset you.

Pugwampy
2016-07-28, 07:17 PM
If they don't stop, eventually I just create a high leveled Revenant based on one of their prior victims and send it their way. One of the most memorable games I've had was a lvl 3 average party being chased around by the lvl 12 Revenant of the farmer's daughter. Run or die, bitches.

Oooh revenant revenge . I must remember this .

My players do the murder hobo thing once in a blue moon when they drink too much and well try their luck on some evil venture then they fail usually resulting them in killing people to have no witnesses .

To me a players being evil just gets them digging deeper and deeper into this pit .

Darth Ultron
2016-07-28, 07:27 PM
...so, if I'm getting this right.

Someone who doesn't care about any god, or who cares about a whole bunch of gods, gets a god that matches up with their ethos.

...who then smites them if they don't act in accordance with their god's ethos?



Yes? But you might want to note the character is also ''not acting in accordance with their own ethos'' too. If you say you are X, you must be X.


I'm not suggesting that they can do whatever they want and define it as good for themselves. What I am suggesting is that there are plenty of instances where reasonable people differ in what they consider to be a 'good' response in particular circumstances, and there should not be mechanical consequence (like an alighnment shift) for a player disagreeing with a DM in those circumstances. To avoid this requires a light handed approach to mechanically punishing immorality.
.

I disagree. For me it works more like this: I'm the DM and I decide everything. If you as a player don't like that, feel free to leave.

Liquor Box
2016-07-28, 07:44 PM
I disagree. For me it works more like this: I'm the DM and I decide everything. If you as a player don't like that, feel free to leave.

Yes, I got that vibe from you.

But this is a thread where we a poster has asked for advice on the best way to DM. Hence the discussion on what's is best practice.

Darth Ultron
2016-07-28, 08:00 PM
Yes, I got that vibe from you.

But this is a thread where we a poster has asked for advice on the best way to DM. Hence the discussion on what's is best practice.

My answer: have active gods/cosmic alignment.

Though...for really bad players....I roll out the crazy:

So player crazy has his character randomly kill npcs. Only to find out later the npc is alive and well. The player gets mad. The character kills the npc again..and again and again. Often a player gets so mad they have no ''player agency'' to kill npcs, they leave the house screaming and never return.

The immortal npc can also work. The player gets all crazy and it like ''I kills the npc, damage 100!'', and the DM just calmly says ''your attack does not hurt Jobob the corn farmer at all.''

And slapstick comedy is just the icing on the cake. Player ''I charge at Jobob---" DM -"Jobob bends over to tie his shoe and your character misses him, flies over him and lands in a wagon full of manure!"

Vitruviansquid
2016-07-28, 08:01 PM
I think the advice is pretty sound.

I, for one, want the GM to act as the sole author of the setting. It's a "too many cooks ruin the broth" sort of thing. My job as a player is to explore the GM's setting and the underlying assumptions it holds, not to dictate it to the GM. And I don't want the GM to allow other players to dictate the setting to him either.

If I was in a game where the GM told me or has shown me through previous gameplay that I should expect nasty consequences for acting out of line with the gods, then it's perfectly fair if something nasty happens to me when I act out of line with the gods. In fact, I would be disappointed if my mace didn't explode.

So I guess the lesson here for the OP is to take a more active role in managing players' expectations and in defining the logic of the setting.

Guancyto
2016-07-28, 08:05 PM
Yes? But you might want to note the character is also ''not acting in accordance with their own ethos'' too. If you say you are X, you must be X.
People are complex. They do foolish, desperate things. They make excuses for their behavior and decide that things are okay when they're the ones doing them, or decide that they have a strong moral code except when it's really important. Illmater might be entirely against killing in cold blood... but you put a peace-loving man alone in a room with the guy who murdered his wife and there's probably going to be blood. And then what? He'll fall? Is literally everyone in your setting (even the atheists) a paladin?

People hate paladins because of how inflexible they are. There is no "Pelor says you had your reasons," unless of course the constant smiting is completely arbitrary and decided by you based on what you do or don't like, and-

I disagree. For me it works more like this: I'm the DM and I decide everything. If you as a player don't like that, feel free to leave.
Oh I guess that's exactly what it is.


Yes, I got that vibe from you.
But this is a thread where we a poster has asked for advice on the best way to DM. Hence the discussion on what's is best practice.
Yeah. Look, if it's your own game and it works fine for your players (I am consistently surprised by how many RPers seem okay with being constantly tyrannized if only it means they'll have a game; there really is no accounting for taste) then I'm not going to beat down your door and tell you you're doing it wrong. But you are giving this as advice to other people. If your solution to poor automobile mileage is setting your car on fire, well, it's your own car, but telling other people this is an effective and workable solution is a whole lot less fine. Enough DMs are already tinpot dictators without more encouragement to go full Retail Manager Napoleon on the players.

Re: Vitruvian, if he clearly advertises to potential carpoolers that his car will be on fire for the entire duration of the trip, the fact that they're still carpooling with him despite the third-degree burns is clearly their own doing, yes. Since he is the car owner he has the right to insist that the car remain on fire and say people are welcome to find other transportation if they dislike smoke, suffocation and immunity to being caught by ninjas. Yes, if he has established that the car is on fire and will remain so and you get into the car and expect anything other than burns, more fool you!

But if he then goes on a public forum to say, "really what solved my mileage problem is setting my car on fire, RED WUNS GO FASTA," the response is predictably and justifiably going to be "wait, wtf, this man is a maniac and no one should listen to him for the following reasons."

ClintACK
2016-07-28, 08:16 PM
If the gods define morality, though, then you either run into an issue where "good" and "evil" have entirely different meanings/connotations in different cultures/religions, or the bizarro world of "no, I believe I'm Evil" being a worldview 1/3 or more of the world's population has.

But each god defines morality *differently*.

Eldath might say violence is never okay, while Kord would be disappointed if you backed down from bullies and Tyr would expect you to fight injustice. Helm might be upset if you got drunk -- while Olidammara would be upset if you didn't.

And so on...

The Orc follower of Gruumsh who is pillaging a halfling village and taking slave doesn't believe that he's evil -- he believes that he's dutifully serving his tribe and his race.

Malifice
2016-07-28, 10:08 PM
It's a pulpy, low magic bronze age setting. I cited Casablanca, Indiana Jones, Conan, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, China Town and Zorro as inspiration for examples of tone and I could definitely see this action taking place in these worlds. China Town ended with a girl being killed by her rapist and losing her only child, but it was these kinds of things that Jake wanted to stop. Pulpy heroes are still heroes.

There's slavery, the death penalty and torture in the world so that pirate was in pretty deep trouble anyway, the merchant's were going to kill him but I was prepared for that, I just wasn't prepared for the PCs lashing out in anger. I was thinking it would turn out like "Yep, now that you're in port, you're assured that pirate is going to get a close shave" but instead it was "Oh, ok. Well, he's in chains, roll to hit him. Ok, you hit him, he survived, but ... oh, again? Ok, he's hurt real bad and unconscious. Again? Ok..." until he was eventually dead. He even asked me if there was blood on his chest and hands that he had to wash off.
I described in great detail how an axe absolutely split open the head of the pirate captain in the previous battle, but now I was stumped. I think I'll just have to get used to this though and practice improvisation some more. :smallsmile:

You made him roll an attack? In future, dont. I mean the guy is chains. Just say:

'OK... you smash him over the head with your steel mace, again and again and again, to the gasps of horror from the crew. He begs you to stop, pleading for his life, but barely has time to scream out the name of a loved one (maybe his child, maybe a lover, you can't tell) as your merciless and brutal attack brings him down and silences him forever. Even then you dont stop, hammering the mans skull into a pulp. Blood washes over the deck of the ship. You stand there wth a look of cold rage and fury on your blood splattered face. The crew (and your companions) look at you in a mix of horror and fear, obviously deeply disturbed by what you've done'

(At this point, in any game featuring alignments, I would almost certainly have no hesitation requesting the PCs character sheet, rubbing out any 'G' and replacing said 'G' with an 'E' before handing the sheet back, awarding a dark side point etc)

Out of curiosity, the man was a prisoner. What lawful authority does this PC have to execute the Ship Captains prisoners? The Ships Captain might be able to order a prisoners execution, but a PC passenger certainly can't. Without any lawful authority to execute this man, he's just committed murder, and should be placed in chains himself (which may be for the best in any event, because he's obviously a psychopath).

OTOH, if the PC did have some kind of lawful authority to kill this man, I highly doubt it could be lawfully carried out by simply bludgeoning him to death on the deck of the ship without trial. At a minimum I would anticipate a serious loss of crew at the next port. More than a few crewmen wouldnt work under a violent psychopath I reckon.

Guancyto
2016-07-28, 10:46 PM
All right. So. What both Ultron and Malifice are advising is not GMing. It is babysitting. The one is authoritarian babysitting, "I'm in charge, what I say goes, you'll go to your room if you don't eat your supper" and the other is the more sophisticated babysitting by crass emotional manipulation, "I'm your mother and you're working me to the bone and oh you'll be the death of me and do you want that on your conscience" but both are fundamentally the art of keeping a bunch of children busy and entertained with a world of imagination where they can occasionally murder things.

Now, babysitting is an ancient and honorable profession. If your players are lacking in maturity such that what you're doing is essentially babysitting with dice, then by all means do that. (That's got nothing to do with their physical age, either, I've met both 70-year-old man-children and 12-year-olds with enough maturity to put 90% of the world's population to shame). A lot of GMs are really just babysitting with dice, oftentimes with people who have no power in their real lives so when they're told they can do anything in the world of imagination their first urge is to start killing and pooping on everything. And that's fine, BUT.

The OP's group does not seem to be that. At all. It really sounded like it was a group of adults playing roles (you know, what the hobby is in theory about). Trying to babysit actual adults does nothing but make absolutely everyone frustrated and angry. So, unfortunately, the most boring advice is also the best: it's an OOC issue (as Gray Mage mentioned, pretty much nobody in Conan would have a problem with executing a pirate), resolve it in OOC. Talk with the player in question, be open about how uncomfortable the scene made you felt, and together try to figure out a solution that works for everyone. If he's a fine fellow who got carried away (which seems likely) and you two have a talk about it, it probably won't happen again, and even if it does he'll probably be happy with a jump-cut to afterwards. Or letting people who aren't PCs handle it (In-setting, handing a captured pirate off for execution is morally no better than killing them yourself, but OOC it's far, far more comfortable for all parties).

It's not nearly as punchy or exciting as "he tries to murder the guy but he trips and he falls into a cart of manure!" but it is more likely to, you know, not treat a man like he's frigging seven.

Max_Killjoy
2016-07-28, 11:27 PM
All right. So. What both Ultron and Malifice are advising is not GMing. It is babysitting. The one is authoritarian babysitting, "I'm in charge, what I say goes, you'll go to your room if you don't eat your supper" and the other is the more sophisticated babysitting by crass emotional manipulation, "I'm your mother and you're working me to the bone and oh you'll be the death of me and do you want that on your conscience" but both are fundamentally the art of keeping a bunch of children busy and entertained with a world of imagination where they can occasionally murder things.

Now, babysitting is an ancient and honorable profession. If your players are lacking in maturity such that what you're doing is essentially babysitting with dice, then by all means do that. (That's got nothing to do with their physical age, either, I've met both 70-year-old man-children and 12-year-olds with enough maturity to put 90% of the world's population to shame). A lot of GMs are really just babysitting with dice, oftentimes with people who have no power in their real lives so when they're told they can do anything in the world of imagination their first urge is to start killing and pooping on everything. And that's fine, BUT.

The OP's group does not seem to be that. At all. It really sounded like it was a group of adults playing roles (you know, what the hobby is in theory about). Trying to babysit actual adults does nothing but make absolutely everyone frustrated and angry. So, unfortunately, the most boring advice is also the best: it's an OOC issue (as Gray Mage mentioned, pretty much nobody in Conan would have a problem with executing a pirate), resolve it in OOC. Talk with the player in question, be open about how uncomfortable the scene made you felt, and together try to figure out a solution that works for everyone. If he's a fine fellow who got carried away (which seems likely) and you two have a talk about it, it probably won't happen again, and even if it does he'll probably be happy with a jump-cut to afterwards. Or letting people who aren't PCs handle it (In-setting, handing a captured pirate off for execution is morally no better than killing them yourself, but OOC it's far, far more comfortable for all parties).

It's not nearly as punchy or exciting as "he tries to murder the guy but he trips and he falls into a cart of manure!" but it is more likely to, you know, not treat a man like he's frigging seven.


Well said.

Max_Killjoy
2016-07-28, 11:28 PM
My answer: have active gods/cosmic alignment.

Though...for really bad players....I roll out the crazy:

So player crazy has his character randomly kill npcs. Only to find out later the npc is alive and well. The player gets mad. The character kills the npc again..and again and again. Often a player gets so mad they have no ''player agency'' to kill npcs, they leave the house screaming and never return.

The immortal npc can also work. The player gets all crazy and it like ''I kills the npc, damage 100!'', and the DM just calmly says ''your attack does not hurt Jobob the corn farmer at all.''

And slapstick comedy is just the icing on the cake. Player ''I charge at Jobob---" DM -"Jobob bends over to tie his shoe and your character misses him, flies over him and lands in a wagon full of manure!"



And you consider this "good" GMing?




I'm not a player, I'm the DM.




I disagree. For me it works more like this: I'm the DM and I decide everything. If you as a player don't like that, feel free to leave.



...

Ah. I guess that answers that.


Personally, I prefer making sure that all the players, GM and others, come to some sort of understanding regarding what this setting and campaign is supposed to be. And to have non-game-destroying, cause-and-effect, in-setting consequences that flow the the PCs actions, rather than some combination of bald fiat and immersion-shattering slapstick. "Cosmic justice" from the GM or directly from the in-setting gods is ham-handed and transparent.


Random murders don't result in the foot from Monty Python stepping on the characters... rather, those victims have friends and family who seek the local lord's justice and/or call a vendetta... or the PCs earning a bad reputation where no one will do business with them unless threatened, inns "have no rooms", no one will hire them, the nobility or other social elite snubs them, etc. Other adventurers seek to bring them to justice, as they're considered evil marauders and thus far game. They become literal old-meaning "outlaws", outcasts without the protection of the law.


.

Malifice
2016-07-29, 01:26 AM
All right. So. What both Ultron and Malifice are advising is not GMing. It is babysitting. The one is authoritarian babysitting, "I'm in charge, what I say goes, you'll go to your room if you don't eat your supper" and the other is the more sophisticated babysitting by crass emotional manipulation, "I'm your mother and you're working me to the bone and oh you'll be the death of me and do you want that on your conscience" but both are fundamentally the art of keeping a bunch of children busy and entertained with a world of imagination where they can occasionally murder things.

What total and utter codswallop. All I'm doing is advocating actions having consequences.

If your player wants his PC to murder someone in cold blood, in full view of other people, that's going to have consequences. Its the same if he instead shows mercy, and releases that person (however the consequences are different). Or if the PC makes any other decision.

I use the word murder here, as I highly doubt the PCs killing of this man was lawful.

I mean come on. A thief or pirate tries to steal from a PC at knife point. The PC is victorious, and the thief surrenders. The PC ties him up, threatens him with violence until he wets himself, and then despite telling him everything he knows and begging for his life, the PC brutally (and publicly) smashes the mans head in with a hammer.

Unless the PC had some kind of lawful right to kill this man, he'd be arrested for murder in virtually every society I can think of. The Ships captain may have the authority to mete out justice and hang the man (or keelhaul him) - usually after a trial, and only while at sea. In Viking/ Saxon times, the man would be brought before the Jarl who would mete out punishment (after a trial). And so forth.

Putting the question of the legality of the action to one side, there is also the wanton and horrific brutality of it. The man posed no threat. He was restrained and terrified (suecessful intimidation roll) and begging for his life. The PC then proceeded to smash his brains out after getting everything out of him he knew. In a gruesome and public manner. I dont know about you, but If I witnessed someone do that in real life, I'd be in no doubt as to the mental state, ethical code or 'alignment' of the person. I'd certatinly be terrified of them from that point onwards, and wouldnt want to willingly hang around with them any more for any reason. If I saw a character do it in a move, it screams out 'evil villian' and not 'heroic good guy'. You couldnt be sympathetic to such a character at the very least.

Maybe acts of brutality like bashing a cowering terified prisoners skull in with a hammer is an accepted practice among the people observing the act (i.e. they're a bunch of evil monsters), and breaks no laws, and the PC is portaying an evil monster who can butcher a man like this with no emotion. In which case, have at it.

The only OOC discussion I'll have with the player is to remind him of this fact (his actions will have consequences) and give him the opportunity to maybe choose a different path. Some players come from games where Murderhobism is the norm, and never have to actually consider that actions have consequences, and wanton brutality is the default position for conveniently dealing with problems.

I'll only invervene and limit player agency on a more serious level if the action is going to be disruptive to the group (murdering a fellow PC while he sleeps, and the rest of the player havent bought into PvP as part of the social contract of the group).

Guancyto
2016-07-29, 02:32 AM
Oh yeah, I remember you.

Do you just... never play anything but modern-era social games? (It's okay if the answer is yes.) Setting aside that these are adventurers whose job it is to arm themselves to the teeth and storm into people's homes to kill them for their stuff (literally their entire profession is legally murder), premodern people didn't exactly have the Geneva Conventions or the ideas of human rights that we currently enjoy. The Law was something that applied to your own people, for the order and protection of your own people; most of the time enemies just straight-up didn't have rights. In the Iron Age (once again, Conan as an inspiration, so it's the right era) selling prisoners into slavery to be worked to death or used for sex was Tuesday because, hey, what else are you going to do with prisoners of war? If you want to transplant 21st-century values wholesale to a group of professional killers on the run from pirates in an era where laws were about who had the walls and weapons and enemies are always fair game, you're going to come to the conclusion that absolutely everyone is an evil monster. Let's just go get a search warrant for the dragon's lair, I'm sure there's some tax evasion going on there.

Also, you're making a much longer and larger narrative than the OP gave for the sole reason of making things worse (in a scene he already doesn't want to detail). From the OP's description it's quick and relatively bloodless, which to be honest is usually the best a pirate in that pirate's situation can hope for. Executing a prisoner is ghastly, but it's melodramatic as hell to say "I'd immediately take their character sheet and change their alignment and make everyone refuse to associate with them!" I like heroes and consequences as much as the next guy, but if the execution is a forgone conclusion (OP suggests it was) what exactly differentiates a mace to the head from a rope around the neck, besides the clothes the executioner is wearing and the amount of paperwork involved?

Frankly, the bigger concern is executing the prisoner without the consent of the captain or the owner of the ship, undermining their authority. The Captain's word is Law while at sea; that would be important if the Captain's the sort to take offense.

Malifice
2016-07-29, 03:25 AM
Do you just... never play anything but modern-era social games? (It's okay if the answer is yes.) Setting aside that these are adventurers whose job it is to arm themselves to the teeth and storm into people's homes to kill them for their stuff

No it's not. In this particular case, it was a PC on board a ship in a campaign where (to use the OPs own words):

'It's a pulpy, low magic bronze age setting. I cited Casablanca, Indiana Jones, Conan, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, China Town and Zorro'

I dont recall the Grey Mouser, Zorro, Fafhrd, Indiana Jones or Rick Blaine interrogating a captive and then bashing the helpless mans head in with a hammer. Maybe I need to read those books and watch those movies again.

Conan maybe.


premodern people didn't exactly have the Geneva Conventions or the ideas of human rights that we currently enjoy.

I wasnt citing the Geneva convention. I was citing Saxon and Viking Era laws.

In what historical era can a hobo (i.e. someone totally outside of the social caste of the relevant society) bash a mans head in with a hammer - in public - and get away with it? In what society can a Serf decide 'screw the Lord who is keeping this man alive for some reason, im gonna bash his brains out myself' and nothing come of it?


The Law was something that applied to your own people, for the order and protection of your own people; most of the time enemies just straight-up didn't have rights. In the Iron Age (once again, Conan as an inspiration, so it's the right era) selling prisoners into slavery to be worked to death or used for sex was Tuesday because, hey, what else are you going to do with prisoners of war?

Exactly. This person wasn't the PCs to lawfully kill. He was the prisoner of the ships captain who was presumably being taken back as a prisoner for some reason (interrogation, wergild, prisoner exchange, trial whatever). He was his property, and his responsibility, not this PCs.

You reckon in Antiquity any Roman/ Persian/ Celt/ Grecian citizen or soldier could just waltz into a Roman/ Persian/ Celtic/ Greek camp and butcher a POW cause he felt like it? You honestly think a Housecarl or Auxilliary could just decide ' Hey screw it - Im going to interrogate those prisoners my Jarl/ Imperceptor/ Lord has locked up myself, and bash their skulls in when Im done' and suffer no ramifications for his actions?

They've broken the law. As hobos, masterless vagabonds, wanderers or people of low social caste, this is a very bad thing to do.


From the OP's description it's quick and relatively bloodless, which to be honest is usually the best a pirate in that pirate's situation can hope for.

It most certainly was not quick and bloodless! The PC in question intimidated this poor helpless man into into telling him everything he knew by waving a hammer in his face and (presumably) threatening to kill him, and then after he told him everything he knew and begged for mercy, the PC proceeded to bash his skull in with said hammer anyway (which was resolved via actual combat rounds of several seconds in duration) in what was expressly described in the OP and the thread title as 'in cold blood'. The man was facing the death penalty in any event. Only a cold evil bastard does this.


Executing a prisoner is ghastly, but it's melodramatic as hell to say "I'd immediately take their character sheet and change their alignment and make everyone refuse to associate with them!"

Im not 'making' anyone do anything of the sort. If the PC displays brutality and violence, people come to expect that from him. Thats the consequences of his actions.

And as for alignment, if the PC wants to go around killing people in cold blood, he's evil. You might want to argue that because a lot of people were killing people in cold blood that this makes the act 'less evil' but I disagree. It just means that there were more evil people back then.

Its doubly important in this case as the DM has specifically stated he was trying to run a game with a pulp hero vibe. Pulp heroes generally dont bash in helpless peoples heads with hammers.


Frankly, the bigger concern is executing the prisoner without the consent of the captain or the owner of the ship, undermining their authority. The Captain's word is Law while at sea; that would be important if the Captain's the sort to take offense.

Now you seem to be agreeing with me.

The Captain has taken the effort to take this man prisoner for some reason (so he could face trial, or he was under orders to return prisoners to his own superiors for questioning, he wasnt allowed to kill him himself, or whatever). This PC has unilaterally given two fingers to that idea, and interrogated and then murdered this prisoner the Captain was keeping alive for some reason. The PC had no lawful authority to do either to this prisoner. He's broken the law.

Im sure when the Captain goes looking for the prisoner that he's been keeping alive, and finds out this PC has smashed his head in before he could get him back to shore, he's going to be might pissed off to say the least, and may bring the PC up to face charges (such as disobeying a lawful order, undermining the ships authority, or even murder) that themselves carry the death penalty.

Like seriously. Imagine the Captain was nothing more than a 'lawless' Pirate himself, who was taking this prisoner back to his home port and the Pirates superiors (for reason X) rather than kill him outright, and one of his crew decided - screw the captain, Im gonna bash the mans skull in with a hammer myself.

What happens to the man who did it? And has he broken 'the law'? And if so, what punishment should he face (bearing in mind the decision on how to punish this PC is within the context of people who yuo seem to think bashing a prisoners head in with a hammer to be not brutal).

Something like:

The Captain sneers: 'It seems I can no longer deliver the prisoner back to port seeing as you undermined my authority and took the law into your own hands. Accordingly it is fitting that you take his place in the gallows yourself when we return.' He turns to his crew - 'And let that be a lesson to the rest of you.. my word is is law!'

Guancyto
2016-07-29, 03:32 AM
...yes. If the Captain takes offense, the PC might be in trouble. Everything else is just you making a lot of unfounded assumptions.

Well, except the alignment change. Since we seem to be operating under the assumption that it's a D&D alignment that you'd turn the PC from G to E with, I have bad news for you. Like, really bad news for you. I'll let an honorable Mr. Gygax explain (http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.com/2013/06/on-alignment-by-gygax.html):

a paladin can freely dispatch prisoners of Evil alignment that have surrendered and renounced that alignment in favor of Lawful Good. They are then sent on to their reward before they can backslide.

An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is by no means anything but Lawful and Good. Prisoners guilty of murder or similar capital crimes can be executed without violating any precept of the alignment. Hanging is likely the usual method of such execution, although it might be beheading, strangulation, etc. A paladin is likely a figure that would be considered a fair judge of criminal conduct.
So according to the dude who wrote it, not only is executing the pirate Lawful Good (piracy is a capital offense basically everywhere), but also well within a Paladin's ethos. (In fact, so is executing people who have redeemed themselves from evil, for having redeemed themselves from evil. Now by any moral system I've ever come across, that means Capital G-Good is not lower-case-g-good, or anything close to it.)

Pugwampy
2016-07-29, 03:34 AM
My house rule regarding XP is impress DM or kill something . I think bashing a prisoner on the head would count for double XP .
Of course I suppose I would probably have to dish out evil alignment points too .

Cannot deny the problem solving nature of violence . Owning your own prisoner is usually a problem unless you think you can claim a bounty .

I usually dont surrender but sometimes its interesting to see how PC,s react. Last prisoner,s fate was rolled for 3 ways . kill , release or enslave . They gained a nice slave / butler .

Malifice
2016-07-29, 03:48 AM
...yes. If the Captain takes offense, the PC might be in trouble.

Which is another way of saying 'If the PC broke the law, he's in trouble'.

This Captain was keeping him alive and in the brig for a reason; not just for a laugh. If the Captain wanted the man dead, he woulda tossed him overboard already, and not bothered locking him below.

Either a vagabond PC or a member of crew has decided 'screw you' and bashed his head in with a club.

If the PC was himself the Captain, and he was under orders to do what he did then fine. In that case it was lawful, But like I said in my post, I highly doubt it was.


Well, except the alignment change. Since we seem to be operating under the assumption that it's a D&D alignment that you'd turn the PC from G to E with, I have bad news for you. Like, really bad news for you. I'll let an honorable Mr. Gygax explain (http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.com/2013/06/on-alignment-by-gygax.html):

Why should I take a statement from Gary Gygax as meaning anything with respect to whats good or evil in the OPs game? If Gary was DMing, or was some kind of arbiter on ethics and morality then fine, but he's not.


So according to the dude who wrote it, not only is executing the pirate Lawful Good (piracy is a capital offense basically everywhere),

What relevance is this to anything? They could have been playing Palladium or a million different systems with a million different alignments in play (or none at all).

Im not talking about what Gary thought was evil in my example. Im talking about what I would view as evil. Im the DM in my hypothetical and Im the one that is changing the alignment remember. If I (the DM) say its evil, its evil.

Herobizkit
2016-07-29, 05:47 AM
This is coming dangerously close to a Paladin alignment thread.

Short version - whether or not someone thinks the Act of crushing a man to death is evil, it's how things were done in the Bronze Age. Hanging is the normal way of dealing with Pirates; that kind of death can take several moments while everyone watches.

Consequences? The executioner gets a rep for being an executioner. How that helps or hinders his position as a crew member (and a party member!) should be up to each individual.

I don't know how much source material went into this article but it's a nice ballpark of Pirates and Piracy:
http://pirates.hegewisch.net/punish.html

hamishspence
2016-07-29, 06:34 AM
Why should I take a statement from Gary Gygax as meaning anything with respect to whats good or evil in the OPs game? If Gary was DMing, or was some kind of arbiter on ethics and morality then fine, but he's not.

it's also been argued in the past that Gygax was joking about "redeem, then kill so they don't backslide"

Under which editions of D&D was it evil to kill prisoners? (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?135945-Under-which-editions-of-D-amp-D-was-it-evil-to-kill-prisoners&p=7553795&highlight=Gygax#post7553795)

Malifice
2016-07-29, 09:40 AM
it's also been argued in the past that Gygax was joking about "redeem, then kill so they don't backslide"

Under which editions of D&D was it evil to kill prisoners? (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?135945-Under-which-editions-of-D-amp-D-was-it-evil-to-kill-prisoners&p=7553795&highlight=Gygax#post7553795)

Even if he wasnt, arguments can be made for Gygaxs own subjective morality coming into play here (colored by his own religious views; or at least his interpretation of them).

Either way, they certainly dont match my views of good and evil. If I was walking to the shops, and on the way witnessed someone bashing in someones head with a hammer while they begged for mercy, I'd say without any reservation whatsoever - 'evil'. It a character in a movie was portrayed doing the same thing (bashing in someones head in cold blood), I'd say the exact same thing. If a character did this in my game, I (as DM) would have little hesitation in (awarding a dark side point/ moving them a step on the alignment track/ changing their alignment/ stipping them of divine powers) or whatever mechanical consequences flow from doing something 'evil' and would also invoke other in game consequences.

Ive found the best way to stob murderhobism is to reward acts of kindness and mercy and compassion with the same (stories of the PCs mercy and heroism travels far, and they get the same in kind) and to reward brutality in kind (when captured, a NPC steps forward and proclaims he's the brother of someone the PCs offed and demands them be killed).

In my experience, murderhobism comes from 3 main areas. 1) Immature gamers with poor social skills who think murder is funny, 2) A combinationof convenience and the real life difficulty of showing empathy towards a fictional character or person in the same manner you would show empathy towards a real person, and 3) 'Gotcha' DMs who reward mercy with the NPC coming back to kill the PCs later on, or who insisit on always taking advantage of kind and merciful PCs by putting them in prisoner dillemas or alignment dillemas all the time.

Reward your PCs for being heroic and good for gods sake. Punish them for being evil monsters. Assuming there are actual Gods out there in the worlds these people inhabit, and concepts like Karma and the like are real forces, it shouldnt be hard to do. Dragonlance in particular follows the theme that evil turns in on itself. As do a great many other games and fantasy stories (including LoTR).

Stamp down on this as soon as it happens. Or dont. Its your game.

Pugwampy
2016-07-29, 10:25 AM
Stamp down on this as soon as it happens. Or dont. Its your game.

Well long term consequences aside a once in a blue moon session where PC,s go off the deep end and kill village people can be most exciting .

They got the "old man" speech from me about acting like this and literally ending the campaign due to the fact that evil is just plain not fun when the good folk , temples and taverns are all against you .

They can do as they like but i have made sure they know not to touch village people that i have invested my emotions into . That can frigging hurt a DM

Guancyto
2016-07-29, 11:26 AM
Stamp down on this as soon as it happens. Or dont. Its your game.
Babysitting. Sorry, but it's true. That's not "actions have consequences" in the sense that they inhabit a living world and people react to things they do, that's "Suzie stole some cookies so everyone's zoo trip is canceled. CONSEQUENCES, CHILDREN, TERRIBLE CONSEQUENCES." That's not "there is a realistic result to these actions," that's "EVERY PIECE OF THE UNIVERSE MUST BE BENT TOWARD PUNISHING THEM FOR DOING SOMETHING I DON'T LIKE."

Which, you know, is fine if that's what you have to do. If your players are such that you do have to train them like dogs or errant children then do that. People on this forum are pretty high-minded sometimes and try to encourage peaceful, mature solutions and sometimes that's the wrong call because it depends on the players having the emotional wherewithal to come together and solve their problems. D&D is pretty good to people who don't; the sort of people who would turn a freeform RP into a screaming match, the sort of people who have a forcefield during Cowboys and Indians, they actually do pretty okay in D&D.

Now me, I don't want to play with those people, and as a GM it's important to be aware that if you treat all players like man-children, the adults will probably leave and you'll get stuck with a flock of children just like you thought you would, but it's a way you can go. And it's fairly important to recognize if you are playing with those people so you can react accordingly.

icefractal
2016-07-29, 12:59 PM
Yes? But you might want to note the character is also ''not acting in accordance with their own ethos'' too. If you say you are X, you must be X. Not quite - they're not acting in accordance with what you have decided their ethos to be. There are a lot more ideas about morality than the nine D&D alignments, and it's not like gods are pure unbiased avatars of their alignment either. For example, Pelor considers undead to be a huge problem, worse than other equally dangerous/malevolent things. That's not a property of Lawful Good, it's a property of Pelor in particular. But if you declare LG = Pelor, then everyone gets forced to that quirk.

I actually think strict gods who force you to their own code of behavior if you want to follow them is an interesting setting element. I think it'd be cool if followers of the god of knowledge can never destroy a piece of writing, for instance. But with that setup, it really has to be something the players choose, not that's forced on them.

Also, I think I was doing that setting, I'd get rid of non-god alignments entirely. You're not "LG", you're "a follower of Pelor". Non-followers may be treated with suspicion, because there's no metaphysical way to tell which ones are nice people who just didn't quite match any god's ethos, and which are total *******s trying to hide that fact. And yeah, you could totally have people rebelling against the tyranny of the gods.

RickAllison
2016-07-29, 01:02 PM
Whenever I hear of Malifice's outlook on alignment and the divine retribution way of karma, it makes me want to play in a campaign of his. Not because I enjoy the restrictions it puts on Roleplaying or how it breaks versimilitude because there should not be any evil humanoids in society as they would be cosmically crushed, but because such a setting seems like the perfect one for a campaign where a bunch of Good paragons of freedom (Bards, Ancients Paladins, Sorcerers, etc.) rebel against the tyrannical gods.

These arrogant deities who would dare to trample of the free will of mortals are violating the ability for mortals to decide how to act and thus where they truly belong. An Evil person who does Good only for fear of the retribution rather than a will to live righteously does not belong with the people who choose to be Good. If there is no freedom to be Evil due to consequences, there cannot exist freedom to be Good. Thus, an epic quest to bring back choice and freedom to the world seems like a wonderful plot hook.

Segev
2016-07-29, 01:44 PM
I think - though I could be wrong - people are reading too much of Darth Ultron's posts into Malfice's. If I'm reading Malfice correctly, he's not saying, "I will punish the players for playing a way I don't like." He's saying, "NPCs who know the players killed somebody will react accordingly."

Note that, if it's socially acceptable and/or the PCs' execution of somebody is understandable, NPCs will react as if it was okay. Reactions may even vary: some NPCs will be horrified by the death no matter how justified; others will shrug, while others still might laugh at how his brains splattered everywhere or at his expression as the mace came in swinging.

If the PCs develop a reputation for killing anybody who crosses them, people will be afraid to cross them. Or will confront them and demand they behave differently, making their power to enforce this clear.

Again, I think that's what Malfice is saying.

Darth Ultron's the one advocating the very world/setting/karma turning against PCs for behaving "crazy" (where "crazy" is according Darth Ultron's definition).

Guancyto
2016-07-29, 02:25 PM
If that were all he were saying, it would merit a Captain Obvious sticker big enough to wrap around the Chrysler Building. Holy crap, guys, people react to stuff you've done?

What I'm concerned with is the "stamp it out as soon as it happens, come down on it with the full force of everything you have IC" part. The two's perspectives are essentially the same; Ultron just doesn't have the subtlety or eloquence to dress it up and make it sound more reasonable. The difference between "your god makes everything bad happen to you because you did something I dislike" and "everything bad happens to you because you did something I dislike" is window dressing.

RickAllison
2016-07-29, 02:36 PM
If that were all he were saying, it would merit a Captain Obvious sticker big enough to wrap around the Chrysler Building. Holy crap, guys, people react to stuff you've done?

What I'm concerned with is the "stamp it out as soon as it happens, come down on it with the full force of everything you have IC" part. The two's perspectives are essentially the same; Ultron just doesn't have the subtlety or eloquence to dress it up and make it sound more reasonable. The difference between "your god makes everything bad happen to you because you did something I dislike" and "everything bad happens to you because you did something I dislike" is window dressing.

Indeed. When I referred to retribution in my posts, I made reference to karma, the way the universe is supposed to subtly reward good behavior and punish bad behavior even when it doesn't make sense. Warping the universe so the exact NPC who would want the PCs dead just happened to be there (never mind how he knows, especially in this situation). Giving them a reputation already among people who shouldn't even know who they are.

It is divine retribution just as Darth Ultron, just more subtle. DU does it by bolts from the blue, whereas Malifice's creates an inter planar conspiracy. Same cause, same effect, just different means.

Segev
2016-07-29, 02:53 PM
You say it merits a "captain obvious" sticker, but...honestly? I can see somebody not realizing it without it being pointed out. It's very easy to forget that rumors happen behind the scenes. That word spreads without the PCs having to actively try to spread it. To get caught up in the mentality of computer games which are limited in their ability to have a reputation metric (and thus often either have omniscient NPCs who see your "karma meter" no matter whether they should know of your deeds or not, or idiot NPCs who forget your crimes and your good deeds, no matter how they witnessed them, after you leave their line of sight).

So reminding that it's a thing, and giving advice how to do it, seems useful, to me.

DRD1812
2016-07-29, 03:42 PM
I was recently the murderous player in this situation. It was a viking game. This witch in service to the death goddess Hel was raising bodies and trapping warrior spirits on a desolate island. We found her, fought her, tied her up, and then pumped her for all the information she was worth. Afterwards I said, "I put a boot to her chest and kick her into the sea." It says Neutral on my character sheet, and I didn't want a death witch coming back to curse me. So in character (read: in my head) it made plenty of sense.

What made it weird, however, was that the party bard dove in and saved her. He thought I was being a cold-blooded murderer. I thought he was playing a shining armor style hero in the wrong setting. The poor GM was just baffled that he had to now invent a viking trial encounter to deal with the fallout.

It's all down to expectations. I recommend talking about the degree of violence and grim-dark you want to deal with during Session Zero.

Max_Killjoy
2016-07-29, 04:22 PM
I was recently the murderous player in this situation. It was a viking game. This witch in service to the death goddess Hel was raising bodies and trapping warrior spirits on a desolate island. We found her, fought her, tied her up, and then pumped her for all the information she was worth. Afterwards I said, "I put a boot to her chest and kick her into the sea." It says Neutral on my character sheet, and I didn't want a death witch coming back to curse me. So in character (read: in my head) it made plenty of sense.

What made it weird, however, was that the party bard dove in and saved her. He thought I was being a cold-blooded murderer. I thought he was playing a shining armor style hero in the wrong setting. The poor GM was just baffled that he had to now invent a viking trial encounter to deal with the fallout.

It's all down to expectations. I recommend talking about the degree of violence and grim-dark you want to deal with during Session Zero.


In a quasi-historical "Viking" setting, killing that sort of enemy would have been absolutely expected.

DRD1812
2016-07-29, 04:56 PM
In a quasi-historical "Viking" setting, killing that sort of enemy would have been absolutely expected.

Thanks for the vote of confidence! This is the kind of group that has trouble playing with questionable morals. For example, when we had the follow-up trial, the priest of Odin suggested we drown her in a sacrificial manner to ensure good weather in our next voyage. That was voted down as unsavory.

Darth Ultron
2016-07-29, 05:13 PM
All right. So. What both Ultron and Malifice are advising is not GMing. It is babysitting.

So this is where I make the person attack back and say ''Guancyto's way is 9inset something insulting here) right?


Babysitting. Sorry, but it's true. That's not "actions have consequences" in the sense that they inhabit a living world and people react to things they do, that's "Suzie stole some cookies so everyone's zoo trip is canceled. CONSEQUENCES, CHILDREN, TERRIBLE CONSEQUENCES." That's not "there is a realistic result to these actions," that's "EVERY PIECE OF THE UNIVERSE MUST BE BENT TOWARD PUNISHING THEM FOR DOING SOMETHING I DON'T LIKE."

A god being piety and cruel and punishing people is very real. Your gods sit around and do nothing..mine are turning people into pillars of salt every other day.


Not quite - they're not acting in accordance with what you have decided their ethos to be. There are a lot more ideas about morality than the nine D&D alignments, and it's not like gods are pure unbiased avatars of their alignment either. For example, Pelor considers undead to be a huge problem, worse than other equally dangerous/malevolent things. That's not a property of Lawful Good, it's a property of Pelor in particular. But if you declare LG = Pelor, then everyone gets forced to that quirk.

Yes, the Dm gets to decide such things in any normal game.


Ultron just doesn't have the subtlety or eloquence to dress it up and make it sound more reasonable. The difference between "your god makes everything bad happen to you because you did something I dislike" and "everything bad happens to you because you did something I dislike" is window dressing.

I do not believe in subtlety. When a player does something like ''my good character slaughters the helpless prisoners'' I think it is a waste of time to have the DM say ''NPC Bob is sad and says you should not have done that.''

If it matters, I like a much more....active game.



Now me, I don't want to play with those people, and as a GM it's important to be aware that if you treat all players like man-children, the adults will probably leave and you'll get stuck with a flock of children just like you thought you would, but it's a way you can go. And it's fairly important to recognize if you are playing with those people so you can react accordingly.

All most all man childs and immature people can't see what they are doing wrong. It's part of being immature: they only care about themselves.

Very few mature people want to have a murderhobo character, murderhoboism is something that only effects the immature.

PersonMan
2016-07-29, 05:17 PM
I think the advice is pretty sound.

I, for one, want the GM to act as the sole author of the setting. It's a "too many cooks ruin the broth" sort of thing. My job as a player is to explore the GM's setting and the underlying assumptions it holds, not to dictate it to the GM. And I don't want the GM to allow other players to dictate the setting to him either.

If I was in a game where the GM told me or has shown me through previous gameplay that I should expect nasty consequences for acting out of line with the gods, then it's perfectly fair if something nasty happens to me when I act out of line with the gods. In fact, I would be disappointed if my mace didn't explode.

So I guess the lesson here for the OP is to take a more active role in managing players' expectations and in defining the logic of the setting.

As long as the logic of the setting doesn't have weird holes that aren't explained (and "hmm that is interesting maybe you can find out" isn't an explanation - making it a plot point is one thing, but using it to cover your rear when not doing your work is another).



But each god defines morality *differently*.

Eldath might say violence is never okay, while Kord would be disappointed if you backed down from bullies and Tyr would expect you to fight injustice. Helm might be upset if you got drunk -- while Olidammara would be upset if you didn't.

And so on...

The Orc follower of Gruumsh who is pillaging a halfling village and taking slave doesn't believe that he's evil -- he believes that he's dutifully serving his tribe and his race.

So everyone is doing evil all the time, more or less. So...how do people survive?

Gruumsh flips a table because you just helped an elf and smites you. Does Corellon protect you because you were helping an elf? Do you just get screwed over if you piss off a god without helping another enough to be worth protecting?


What total and utter codswallop. All I'm doing is advocating actions having consequences.

I guess someone else was writing this, then?


'OK... you smash him over the head with your steel mace, again and again and again, to the gasps of horror from the crew. He begs you to stop, pleading for his life, but barely has time to scream out the name of a loved one (maybe his child, maybe a lover, you can't tell) as your merciless and brutal attack brings him down and silences him forever. Even then you dont stop, hammering the mans skull into a pulp. Blood washes over the deck of the ship. You stand there wth a look of cold rage and fury on your blood splattered face. The crew (and your companions) look at you in a mix of horror and fear, obviously deeply disturbed by what you've done'

Because that isn't 'your actions have consequences'. This is the equivalent of saying

"Ok, you want to bake a pie? No, you don't just bake a pie, you spend days working on the most grand of pies the world has ever seen. You don't eat or sleep until your pie is finished, and when it's done you present it to the world and they stare in awe. A passing noble demands you become his personal chef, but you don't hear him, too consumed in the preparation of your pie. Each slice is a masterpiece, the smell of it instantly converts a nearby Blackguard back to the cause of Good, and Asmodeus himself sheds a tear".

You take one action, and then decide that, whatever the player wanted, their character instead does something so much more extreme it's a completely different action. Or is 'quick kill' the same thing as 'rage-filled smashing of body into a pulp' really the same thing to you?

Darth Ultron
2016-07-29, 05:27 PM
So everyone is doing evil all the time, more or less. So...how do people survive?

Gruumsh flips a table because you just helped an elf and smites you. Does Corellon protect you because you were helping an elf? Do you just get screwed over if you piss off a god without helping another enough to be worth protecting?

The problem here is you are going to much by reality. And reality says ''evil is bad and wrong'', so people who are evil will say they are not evil. That is reality.

In any place other then reality the orc will say he is evil and being evil will not be wrong.

If your role playing a evil orc the right way, you won't be helping elves. Unless you have a jerk DM that is having a Very Special Game where he is trying to teach you his one sided view on everything.

PersonMan
2016-07-29, 05:37 PM
The problem here is you are going to much by reality. And reality says ''evil is bad and wrong'', so people who are evil will say they are not evil. That is reality.

In any place other then reality the orc will say he is evil and being evil will not be wrong.

If your role playing a evil orc the right way, you won't be helping elves. Unless you have a jerk DM that is having a Very Special Game where he is trying to teach you his one sided view on everything.

Ok.

I already addressed this in my previous post as one of the outcomes of something like this.

ClintACK
2016-07-29, 05:38 PM
So everyone is doing evil all the time, more or less. So...how do people survive?

Gruumsh flips a table because you just helped an elf and smites you. Does Corellon protect you because you were helping an elf? Do you just get screwed over if you piss off a god without helping another enough to be worth protecting?

I was assuming that your actions would be judged by the god you've pledged yourself to. (Mostly because the OP of this idea was talking about staying true to who you said you were...) Perhaps there were bad old days like you describe, and the gods have all agreed to claim jurisdiction only over their own worshippers.

Now I'm imagining an Orc somewhere desperate to become a follower of Tyr... and Gruumsh, unable to smite the foul race-traitor directly because of the Great Pact, sends his faithful to hunt the wretch down. (And... we've got a Paladin's backstory...)

I wonder what the rules are for changing deities -- is it sufficient to pray once to a new god?

Now I'm imagining someone who has just, in a fit of drunken rage, done something unforgivable in his chosen faith. Knowing his god's righteous smiting is on the way, he quickly calls out the name of a new god who would be more forgiving... But, oops, what a poor choice of god! Now he's stuck serving the Lord of the Drunken Stupor -- and he'd better do it convincingly. One moment of sobriety and he'll become subject to his old god's justice.

Guancyto
2016-07-29, 05:58 PM
So this is where I make the person attack back and say ''Guancyto's way is 9inset something insulting here) right?
lol. Hey, let's be real here. In a world with no babysitters, I'd probably have gone insane long ago (bloody ankle-biters). It's a vital role, it's just really really important to identify that babysitting is what's going on so nobody mistakes it for anything other than babysitting.


Yes, the Dm gets to decide such things in any normal game.
The, uh, the problem is this: literally every human being old enough to have an ethos acts outside their ethos. Constantly. It might be as small as "I should be watching my weight but doughnuts are so delicious so they don't count" or as big as "I don't believe in killing our citizens without due process of law unless he was, like, really a jerk or something" but everyone, everyone, EVERYONE does it. Show me a man that claims to have never been a hypocrite and I'll either show you a liar or someone with no principles whatsoever (or both, really).

So... setting aside that you're putting a straightjacket around everyone's character so the freedom-loving elf will get smote by Corellon for, I dunno, peacefully trading with an orc even if he doesn't care about Corellon, assuming there are enough gods that everyone can get their own personal ethos... getting smote for acting outside your ethos is not just a consequence of being a capricious murderhobo, but basically a side effect of being a fully realized charact-

The problem here is you are going to much by reality.
Oh. Well, you know what? Fair enough. Carry on.

Cluedrew
2016-07-29, 06:34 PM
You know, while all this moral conversation is interesting I don't think it is the main point.

The main point is: What sort of game do you want to play? Doesn't matter if it is realistic or not, if the morals are carefully thought through or not, if you are playing heroes or villains. What sort of game do you want to play? And do the other people at the table want to play that sort of game?

If not, it is time to have a talk about it.

RickAllison
2016-07-29, 06:52 PM
I was assuming that your actions would be judged by the god you've pledged yourself to. (Mostly because the OP of this idea was talking about staying true to who you said you were...) Perhaps there were bad old days like you describe, and the gods have all agreed to claim jurisdiction only over their own worshippers.

Now I'm imagining an Orc somewhere desperate to become a follower of Tyr... and Gruumsh, unable to smite the foul race-traitor directly because of the Great Pact, sends his faithful to hunt the wretch down. (And... we've got a Paladin's backstory...)

I wonder what the rules are for changing deities -- is it sufficient to pray once to a new god?

Now I'm imagining someone who has just, in a fit of drunken rage, done something unforgivable in his chosen faith. Knowing his god's righteous smiting is on the way, he quickly calls out the name of a new god who would be more forgiving... But, oops, what a poor choice of god! Now he's stuck serving the Lord of the Drunken Stupor -- and he'd better do it convincingly. One moment of sobriety and he'll become subject to his old god's justice.

See, I have no problem with committing to a god having consequences. You get a deity looking out for you, he will punish you if you break his precepts. Where it doesn't make sense is someone who doesn't devote himself to a god. Apparently, he is ascribed a god according to his ethos, but there is a problem with that: if he was willing to do something, it may be signaling a change in ethos, which would mean the former god shouldn't be able to smite him anymore.

For anyone who doesn't choose a god, the whole system is either rigged (aka the DM just decided when he wants to kill the PC), or falls apart.

Plus, it doesn't really make much sense for those people. They are being held to oaths they never swore, ideals they never upheld. That's a problem with the setting. The solution would be daily problem that requires divine intervention to prevent. I'm almost thinking a Dark Souls-style setting, where those not protected by the gods start to become Hollow. Of course, then you have to make rules for that system because that seems like the exact thing players like to explore in a setting.

I think I have some homebrewing to do...

icefractal
2016-07-29, 06:58 PM
Yes, the Dm gets to decide such things in any normal game.Um, no ... no they don't. :smallconfused: The DM gets to decide who the gods are, but in a "normal" game, the PCs are:
1) Not required to follow a god.
2) Not required to be a devout follower if they do follow one.

And unless they're a Cleric or other divine-powered class, nothing bad happens to them for doing so. Your setup amounts to "all PCs must follow one of these dozen (or however many gods you have) codes of behavior." And that's not the typical thing at all.

The DM, in a traditional RPG, controls the entire world. Demanding control of the one thing they don't have - what the PCs choose to think/do - strikes me as greedy.

Tanuki Tales
2016-07-29, 07:28 PM
It always turns my stomach when people treat alignment as prescriptive rather than descriptive.

Your actions define your alignment, not the other way around. Not even Outsiders are beholden to the reverse.

RickAllison
2016-07-29, 07:54 PM
It always turns my stomach when people treat alignment as prescriptive rather than descriptive.

Your actions define your alignment, not the other way around. Not even Outsiders are beholden to the reverse.

As I understand it, Outsiders are weird in that regard. Supposedly a devil who stops being LE becomes something else. They are so intrinsically linked to being that alignment that they become something else entirely if they change alignment. Of course, I haven't done that much research into it...

Tanuki Tales
2016-07-29, 07:59 PM
As I understand it, Outsiders are weird in that regard. Supposedly a devil who stops being LE becomes something else. They are so intrinsically linked to being that alignment that they become something else entirely if they change alignment. Of course, I haven't done that much research into it...

It depends on the setting and the Edition in question. There is, after all a succubus Paladin in planescape.

RickAllison
2016-07-29, 08:22 PM
It depends on the setting and the Edition in question. There is, after all a succubus Paladin in planescape.

Aren't succubi in a weird place anyway? Like they aren't a devil or a demon, they interact with the Ethereal Plane, it is just like they don't have a place they really belong. Are they even outsiders? It just fiends?

In any case, nothing I've read has been very clear what exactly the outsiders become if they aren't of their regular alignment. Maybe the changes are subtle!

Darth Ultron
2016-07-29, 09:23 PM
So... setting aside that you're putting a straightjacket around everyone's character so

Well, the player can just pick the right god for the character.


Um, no ... no they don't. :smallconfused: The DM gets to decide who the gods are, but in a "normal" game, the PCs are:
1) Not required to follow a god.
2) Not required to be a devout follower if they do follow one.

The DM can still decide everything.




And unless they're a Cleric or other divine-powered class, nothing bad happens to them for doing so. Your setup amounts to "all PCs must follow one of these dozen (or however many gods you have) codes of behavior." And that's not the typical thing at all.

The DM, in a traditional RPG, controls the entire world. Demanding control of the one thing they don't have - what the PCs choose to think/do - strikes me as greedy.



The DM is the one that decides if anything bad happens.


It always turns my stomach when people treat alignment as prescriptive rather than descriptive.

Your actions define your alignment, not the other way around. Not even Outsiders are beholden to the reverse.

Except your way is just anyone can just do whatever they want and nothing matters.

JNAProductions
2016-07-29, 09:32 PM
Well, the player can just pick the right god for the character.

The DM can still decide everything.

The DM is the one that decides if anything bad happens.

Except your way is just anyone can just do whatever they want and nothing matters.

So what if a character has an arc? You know, changes over time?

That second response doesn't even make much sense.

So you advocate divine punishment on characters who don't parley with the divine at all? That's just plain cruel. Gods have way more on their plate than smiting random people who don't have much to do with them.

And no, you still have consequences. It's just that the consequences MAKE SENSE and come naturally. It's not "You didn't do what I like, so a god smites you," it's "You murdered three townsfolk, now the rest have banded together to kick you out or kill you in retaliation and for self-defense."

Tanuki Tales
2016-07-29, 09:36 PM
Except your way is just anyone can just do whatever they want and nothing matters.

Is it Fall yet? Didn't know we were putting the strawmen up in the fields this early.

RickAllison
2016-07-29, 10:22 PM
Is it Fall yet? Didn't know we were putting the strawmen up in the fields this early.

It's never too early for straw men! They are great for starting summer bonfires, distractions for the regenerative and degenerative, and starting up arguments on whether farming practices of yesteryear are superior!

Flaming, trolling, and edition wars, for those who don't get my awful jokes.

Honest Tiefling
2016-07-29, 10:51 PM
Oh my god, this is a golden oppurtunity! Think of the campaign, where a group of (possibly divine blooded) mortals take on the petty cruel gods who go as far as to punish people who have not sworn allegiance to them. They carve a bloody path through cowardly priests who pray to a god in the hopes that they can protect them from another. They must decide what to do with the followers of the supposed 'good' gods, who still punish heretics on a whim...But might be doing some good with the powers the corrupt gods have given them.

*Cues Ghost Love Score* I think I might have to run this campaign...

As for the actual topic...I don't really know the source material, but I greatly suspect anything that was drawn by Frank Franzetta was not Lawful good by any stretch of the term. What matters is that you, as the DM is comfortable with the situation. Talk to the player about the tone of the game and work out a comprimise. It doesn't matter if it was appropiate for Pliny the Pirate or whatever, comfort comes first and you are clearly uncomfortable.

hamishspence
2016-07-30, 03:58 AM
As I understand it, Outsiders are weird in that regard. Supposedly a devil who stops being LE becomes something else. They are so intrinsically linked to being that alignment that they become something else entirely if they change alignment. Of course, I haven't done that much research into it...


It depends on the setting and the Edition in question.

I think 5E is the first edition to go with this - other editions allow for alignment change without type change - there can be Evil celestials and Good fiends - though some fallen celestials eventually transform into fiends, it's not compulsory.

Tanuki Tales
2016-07-30, 05:51 AM
I think 5E is the first edition to go with this - other editions allow for alignment change without type change - there can be Evil celestials and Good fiends - though some fallen celestials eventually transform into fiends, it's not compulsory.

They're Native, not Extraplanar, but Raskshasa become Coatl and vice a versa if they change alignment in Eberron, so it's pre-Next in one setting.

CharonsHelper
2016-07-30, 07:07 AM
And no, you still have consequences. It's just that the consequences MAKE SENSE and come naturally. It's not "You didn't do what I like, so a god smites you," it's "You murdered three townsfolk, now the rest have banded together to kick you out or kill you in retaliation and for self-defense."

I actually prefer the idea that they hire a group of slightly higher level adventurers to go get justice upon you.

Max_Killjoy
2016-07-30, 08:27 AM
Except your way is just anyone can just do whatever they want and nothing matters.


So in all those games systems without alignment and in any D&D game where the DM house-rules to ignore alignment, no one roleplays their character or in any way self-limits their actions, and there are no in-setting consequences at all, and NPCs ignore past player actions, and there's no cause and effect at all?

hamishspence
2016-07-30, 09:57 AM
They're Native, not Extraplanar, but Raskshasa become Coatl and vice a versa if they change alignment in Eberron

That's unusual- I've never read that before - what book's that in?

Darth Ultron
2016-07-30, 11:28 AM
So in all those games systems without alignment and in any D&D game where the DM house-rules to ignore alignment, no one roleplays their character or in any way self-limits their actions, and there are no in-setting consequences at all, and NPCs ignore past player actions, and there's no cause and effect at all?

Ok, so in a game with no rules like alignment a player can just do anything they want? Ok, they sound like great games for players that want to be jerks. And i'm sure the bad players flok to that type of game as they can be ''crazy stupid evil'', but not call it that, of course.

Now sure people like games with no 'cosmic good and bad' as that is like ''real life''...as far as we know. And in real life anyone can say anything is anything..again as far as we know for sure.

Tanuki Tales
2016-07-30, 11:37 AM
That's unusual- I've never read that before - what book's that in?

It's not from one of the books; Keith mentioned in a Q&A/blog post about how a Rakshasa that ceased being evil would change into something that reflected its opposite ideology, which of course would be a Coatl.

I do believe it got brought up in the Eberron QA thread; I'll see if I can find more.

Cluedrew
2016-07-30, 11:48 AM
Yes, the Dm gets to decide such things in any normal game.But what is a normal game?

If the statistical average of things you can say about a game creates the normal game, then it is entirely possible no normal game has ever been played. If we allow variance how much? If we decide the type of game most frequently played is normal, then that makes even the second most common type of game an oddity.

And even if we have decided what method to use, what does that actually work out to? We would need massive polls of different role-playing demographics, ways to turn all the answers into numbers and then extract a usable definitions from the statistical analysis on that data.

... So I guess I'm saying is that the idea of a normal game is not one we can precisely define. But what I meant to say was the original line: What you mean by normal game?

RickAllison
2016-07-30, 12:03 PM
Ok, so in a game with no rules like alignment a player can just do anything they want? Ok, they sound like great games for players that want to be jerks. And i'm sure the bad players flok to that type of game as they can be ''crazy stupid evil'', but not call it that, of course.

Now sure people like games with no 'cosmic good and bad' as that is like ''real life''...as far as we know. And in real life anyone can say anything is anything..again as far as we know for sure.

He was being sarcastic, and he asked it in a question form so your reverse question is one great fallacy as it depends on an assertion that was not made. His not-so-hidden meaning was that in games that lack alignment systems, people still play good and heroic characters. This is because there are many plays (and quite possibly the majority) who are mature and are quite capable of not being a murderhobo without the threat of divine retribution on their heads. Of course, those same people who respect RP enough to not be murderhobos are the same people who would be turned away by the divine retribution. How are they to make a compelling, interesting character with development if trying to make any changes results in being struck by lightning?

Basically, creating an environment that drives away the RP-heavy players will result in a disproportionate amount of players who don't care about that. So ironically, the exact behavior instituted to dissuade murderhobos is the same behavior that leaves them as the players remaining.

Max_Killjoy
2016-07-30, 12:22 PM
He was being sarcastic, and he asked it in a question form so your reverse question is one great fallacy as it depends on an assertion that was not made. His not-so-hidden meaning was that in games that lack alignment systems, people still play good and heroic characters. This is because there are many plays (and quite possibly the majority) who are mature and are quite capable of not being a murderhobo without the threat of divine retribution on their heads. Of course, those same people who respect RP enough to not be murderhobos are the same people who would be turned away by the divine retribution. How are they to make a compelling, interesting character with development if trying to make any changes results in being struck by lightning?

Basically, creating an environment that drives away the RP-heavy players will result in a disproportionate amount of players who don't care about that. So ironically, the exact behavior instituted to dissuade murderhobos is the same behavior that leaves them as the players remaining.

That's pretty much it, yes.


It was a rhetorical question.

The point is that in games run without alignment, and without cosmic jerkasses enforcing "karma", players still roleplay their characters, and limit the actions of those characters on their own without fear of the cosmic foot stomping down. NPCs don't ignore past PC actions, there is cause and effect, and in-setting consequences still occur.

The GM doesn't have to shatter the fourth wall and bring in silliness like NPCs that can't be killed, slapstick "divine justice", and so on -- the players don't immediately resort of the slaughter of the innocents, and those who do face the natural in-setting consequences of doing so.

Darth Ultron
2016-07-30, 03:21 PM
But what is a normal game?

Oh, don't be silly, you know what a normal game is.




... So I guess I'm saying is that the idea of a normal game is not one we can precisely define. But what I meant to say was the original line: What you mean by normal game?

Except that is the whole basic problem with your whole out look: nothing is anything. You want everything to be nothing, it just ''is''. It's a very bland way to look at things, but it is not very honest. And you will ''suddenly'' take a side as soon as you have too.



The GM doesn't have to shatter the fourth wall and bring in silliness like NPCs that can't be killed, slapstick "divine justice", and so on -- the players don't immediately resort of the slaughter of the innocents, and those who do face the natural in-setting consequences of doing so.

Again I'd point out that many posters have no problem with say the cops coming after a character that did a crime. But if it's a god, somehow it is wrong. Care to explain that?

Kid Jake
2016-07-30, 04:37 PM
Again I'd point out that many posters have no problem with say the cops coming after a character that did a crime. But if it's a god, somehow it is wrong. Care to explain that?

If you honestly can't tell the difference I'd have to seriously question the point of anyone continuing this conversation.

RickAllison
2016-07-30, 04:40 PM
Oh, don't be silly, you know what a normal game is.

A game in which the GM controls the world, while players control the PCs. An abnormal game is one where the DM is controlling the PCs through things like thunderbolts from heaven.




Again I'd point out that many posters have no problem with say the cops coming after a character that did a crime. But if it's a god, somehow it is wrong. Care to explain that?

Because players can interact with the cops. They can cover up or falsify evidence, coerce or bribe witnesses, play cat-and-mouse to evade capture, and even fight if need be. Sending the cops after them gives an opportunity for RP, whereas smiling them from heaven not only lacks that element, it actually diminishes it because it discourages players from organically interacting with the world.

Basically, it is wrong because cops (presumably acting IC rather than with omnisicient knowledge) allow for new opportunities at RP whereas your methods inhibit the same.

Tanuki Tales
2016-07-30, 04:58 PM
If you honestly can't tell the difference I'd have to seriously question the point of anyone continuing this conversation.

The only question is if he actually believes what he says. Gygaxian grognards who practice what main stream enthusiasts would consider cartoonist behavior do exist.

Vitruviansquid
2016-07-30, 05:15 PM
If the GM wanted to punish you, whichever instrument they choose will end up punishing you, whether they choose cops or gods or wild dogs.

Guancyto
2016-07-30, 05:15 PM
Ye Olde Tale of Jedipotter taught me several things:

1. There are absolutely people who really do believe these things
2. If you argued with them from now until judgment day, you'd never convince them of anything, because
3. They are very happy with the way they're doing things; why wouldn't they be? They have all the power, and the sort of players who are willing to submit to that kind of treatment are generally bad enough to justify all their notions of why they should have all the power
4. They don't actually care if they attract bad players because punishing bad players is even more of a power-trip than overseeing good ones

It's like convincing a pundit their political views are wrong. Why should they even entertain any notion of that, when their views put food on their table, when their views give them power, completely independent of whether their views are right or wrong?

Alberic Strein
2016-07-30, 05:20 PM
An abnormal game is one where the DM is controlling the PCs through things like thunderbolts from heaven.
Even in a normal game, sometimes, sometimes you just want your PCs to go down the damn road already...

But yeah, most of the time that's bad form. A bit like a DM going "your character would never think that."

That's usually the right moment to ponder leaving this particular DM.

Vitruviansquid
2016-07-30, 05:25 PM
Ye Olde Tale of Jedipotter taught me several things:

1. There are absolutely people who really do believe these things
2. If you argued with them from now until judgment day, you'd never convince them of anything, because
3. They are very happy with the way they're doing things; why wouldn't they be? They have all the power, and the sort of players who are willing to submit to that kind of treatment are generally bad enough to justify all their notions of why they should have all the power
4. They don't actually care if they attract bad players because punishing bad players is even more of a power-trip than overseeing good ones

It's like convincing a pundit their political views are wrong. Why should they even entertain any notion of that, when their views put food on their table, when their views give them power, completely independent of whether their views are right or wrong?

Or there are different groups that you haven't seen the likes of out there, where they have different dynamics that make sense when you stop assuming the worst of the people involved?

RickAllison
2016-07-30, 05:31 PM
Even in a normal game, sometimes, sometimes you just want your PCs to go down the damn road already...

But yeah, most of the time that's bad form. A bit like a DM going "your character would never think that."

That's usually the right moment to ponder leaving this particular DM.

Oh I get that. In my Star Wars game, the players were wasting time discussing League of Legends. My response:

"Before your very eyes, you see the ceiling of your freighter turn from metal to stone. The stone is shaking! You start seeing rocks fall..."

Tanuki Tales
2016-07-30, 05:38 PM
Or there are different groups that you haven't seen the likes of out there, where they have different dynamics that make sense when you stop assuming the worst of the people involved?

No.

I think we can objectively say, from a stand point of human psychology, that Darth cultivates an abusive relationship with his players.

Guancyto
2016-07-30, 06:08 PM
Or there are different groups that you haven't seen the likes of out there, where they have different dynamics that make sense when you stop assuming the worst of the people involved?It makes perfect sense. In fact what you just quoted is arguing exactly that: it makes perfect sense, and it's more or less futile to try and convince Ultron his way is wrong because his way is working very well for him.

Why would he change anything? He's getting everything he wants.

oxybe
2016-07-30, 07:20 PM
ignoring the pages of "not directly addressing the OP's issue and instead debating GM styles"

If something occurred and it doesn't jive with your expectations...

Talk to the group. Explain to them the kind of world you're running, the genres you're emulating and style of game you want to run and how you initially expected them to be acting in it and how this action seemed to run against this for you. Be open and listen to their reasoning and adjudicate from there.

Regardless of what we say here, the only group that really matters to you is yours. Talk to your players, listen to them and make the decisions that you find would make for the best game possible at your table.

Max_Killjoy
2016-07-30, 07:36 PM
Again I'd point out that many posters have no problem with say the cops coming after a character that did a crime. But if it's a god, somehow it is wrong. Care to explain that?



Because a game or story in which the gods just keep showing up to "make things right" (in their view, at least) makes the player characters meaningless, and/or a very short game or story.

Because no one likes meddling gods... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_ex_machina#Criticism
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_ex_machina#Criticism)
.

Cluedrew
2016-07-30, 07:37 PM
Oh, don't be silly, you know what a normal game is.Thank you for that vote of confidence. And I do have an approximate idea of what a normal game is, but I couldn't define it precisely. However I will now try to do so anyways.

I was tempted to try and do so for every aspect of the game, but that... is a bad idea (there are only so many hours in the day) so I'm going to limit myself to the parts that are being discussed.

Normal Divinity: In most games the gods either do not exist or are withdrawn from the world, generally acting only through characters with abilities that are fueled by divine power. In other words they are usually a flavourful power source. There will be churches dedicated to them, but they will be usually either in the style of withdrawn monasteries or the preaching of good morals. The occasional evil cult will attempt to end the world. At high power levels gods become characters, acting as the leaders of otherworldly beings.

Normal Morals: Most people will play a character with a loosely defined set of morals. Perhaps defined in accordance to an archetype or inspirational character, but usually tinted by there own morals. There is one major exception and that is they will almost never have any qualms about killing any character or entity that is defined solely/entirely by its combat stats.

Normal Setting Creation: Usually the GM will pitch a setting (possibly with a few broad player requests). The players will then start defining there characters in this world, often filling in blanks around their characters as they do so. Once the game starts most setting creation will come from the GM, sometimes from there own ideas, but other times in response to player requests.

What does everybody think? Sound normal enough?


Except that is the whole basic problem with your whole out look: nothing is anything. You want everything to be nothing, it just ''is''. It's a very bland way to look at things, but it is not very honest. And you will ''suddenly'' take a side as soon as you have too.You are correct in the fourth sentence, although not for the reasons I believe you think you are. My "nothing is anything" view... OK first off that is just me trying to avoid inaccurate labels. I don't always succeed, but either way it leaves me with a lot less labels to use.

Also do I want it this way? Not really, but I didn't get a lot of say in creating the universe, so I just have to deal with it. Not that I don't enjoy discovering the occasional hidden truth, but just as often you get this complex mess where a single word was before. If anything it is so brutally honest as to be unusable in day to day life. Which is why I might seem to suddenly take a side, because there is the theoretical idea I like to examine, then there is the closest real solution to that we can use practically. So of course, when I have to take a side, I will not side with the theoretical idea that does not exist, as much as I wish I could.

And plus when we get to subjective matters, my personal preference may vary from the best practical solution as well because of illogical reasons that exist despite making no sense. And to complicate this I am explaining all this not with the perfect theory but the best "practical" explanation I could put together.

Max_Killjoy
2016-07-30, 07:51 PM
Thank you for that vote of confidence. And I do have an approximate idea of what a normal game is, but I couldn't define it precisely. However I will now try to do so anyways.

I was tempted to try and do so for every aspect of the game, but that... is a bad idea (there are only so many hours in the day) so I'm going to limit myself to the parts that are being discussed.

Normal Divinity: In most games the gods either do not exist or are withdrawn from the world, generally acting only through characters with abilities that are fueled by divine power. In other words they are usually a flavourful power source. There will be churches dedicated to them, but they will be usually either in the style of withdrawn monasteries or the preaching of good morals. The occasional evil cult will attempt to end the world. At high power levels gods become characters, acting as the leaders of otherworldly beings.

Normal Morals: Most people will play a character with a loosely defined set of morals. Perhaps defined in accordance to an archetype or inspirational character, but usually tinted by there own morals. There is one major exception and that is they will almost never have any qualms about killing any character or entity that is defined solely/entirely by its combat stats.

Normal Setting Creation: Usually the GM will pitch a setting (possibly with a few broad player requests). The players will then start defining there characters in this world, often filling in blanks around their characters as they do so. Once the game starts most setting creation will come from the GM, sometimes from there own ideas, but other times in response to player requests.

What does everybody think? Sound normal enough?

You are correct in the fourth sentence, although not for the reasons I believe you think you are. My "nothing is anything" view... OK first off that is just me trying to avoid inaccurate labels. I don't always succeed, but either way it leaves me with a lot less labels to use.

Also do I want it this way? Not really, but I didn't get a lot of say in creating the universe, so I just have to deal with it. Not that I don't enjoy discovering the occasional hidden truth, but just as often you get this complex mess where a single word was before. If anything it is so brutally honest as to be unusable in day to day life. Which is why I might seem to suddenly take a side, because there is the theoretical idea I like to examine, then there is the closest real solution to that we can use practically. So of course, when I have to take a side, I will not side with the theoretical idea that does not exist, as much as I wish I could.

And plus when we get to subjective matters, my personal preference may vary from the best practical solution as well because of illogical reasons that exist despite making no sense. And to complicate this I am explaining all this not with the perfect theory but the best "practical" explanation I could put together.


That sounds fairly normal -- certainly far more normal than the characters being ants beneath the feet of vindictive, jealous, petty gods.

RickAllison
2016-07-30, 08:27 PM
That sounds fairly normal -- certainly far more normal than the characters being ants beneath the feet of vindictive, jealous, petty gods.

But seriously, doesn't a high-level, high-magic game where the PCs have to take down those petty gods seem like an awesome idea? Plane-hopping, normal gameplay-breaking, CaW throw-downs with the divines that power the setting! That sounds like so much fun!

Max_Killjoy
2016-07-30, 08:34 PM
But seriously, doesn't a high-level, high-magic game where the PCs have to take down those petty gods seem like an awesome idea? Plane-hopping, normal gameplay-breaking, CaW throw-downs with the divines that power the setting! That sounds like so much fun!


It could be a lot of fun, if they GM didn't just "they're gods, what they say goes... and you fall in manure".

Darth Ultron
2016-07-30, 08:38 PM
If you honestly can't tell the difference I'd have to seriously question the point of anyone continuing this conversation.

How is it not different? Are you 'stuck' on the instant smite as if that is the only thing a god can do? Do you not think other consequences are bad? Are you just suck on the power level of ''god=all powerful'' but ''cop=easy to deal with''? Like any NPC cop will be Rosco P, Coltrain and you can just say ''look behind you'' and he will and you can run away?



Because a game or story in which the gods just keep showing up to "make things right" (in their view, at least) makes the player characters meaningless, and/or a very short game or story.


.

So how are 'cops' or other enforces of the law different? They will keep showing up to ruin the PC's day too?


A game in which the GM controls the world, while players control the PCs. An abnormal game is one where the DM is controlling the PCs through things like thunderbolts from heaven.

A consequence is a consequence even if you don't like it.



Basically, it is wrong because cops (presumably acting IC rather than with omnisicient knowledge) allow for new opportunities at RP whereas your methods inhibit the same.

So, your saying cops are different as the PC can get away with what they are doing, as the cops won't be anything more then a distraction. That is picking something to your advantage, and that is wrong.


No.

I think we can objectively say, from a stand point of human psychology, that Darth cultivates an abusive relationship with his players.

Yea, you do something bad and negative too.

Max_Killjoy
2016-07-30, 08:52 PM
So how are 'cops' or other enforces of the law different? They will keep showing up to ruin the PC's day too?




...

Really? You need to ask that?

Well, for starters, "the cops" aren't thinly veiled ultrapotent enforcers of your "bad player, bad player, you get punished now" view of game-mastering -- might as well have the giant foot from Monty Python step on them for "getting out of line".


For most of us, the job of the GM is not to "punish" the players for "doing wrong", it's to breathe life into the rest of the setting and characters that the players don't control, and to have it react in a cause-and-effect, coherent, and consistent manner to the player characters words and deeds. If the PCs do something that other people in that world object to, then the other people around them object.


And really, if there are gods for all alignments (an entirely different can of worms that we'll leave aside), then why doesn't any situation that would cause one of the gods to react, cause the "opposite" god to react in an equal and opposite manner, so that they cancel out?

If there are only "good" gods and they act to enforce "cosmic justice", then why are the PCs even necessary? Why haven't the gods smote all the villains and monsters of the world already?

Tanuki Tales
2016-07-30, 08:55 PM
Yea, you do something bad and negative too.

I honestly have not a whit of an idea what you're trying to convey here. :smallconfused:

Honest Tiefling
2016-07-30, 08:55 PM
Cops also have limits on their juridistriction. You can't have cops randomly showing up and declaring a PC to be under their purview, unlike what the gods can apparently do to those they feel like is one of their followers.

Darth Ultron
2016-07-30, 09:12 PM
None of your examples are normal, they are just ''you want to be right''.

[QUOTE=Cluedrew;21054668]
Normal Divinity: In most games the gods either do not exist or are withdrawn from the world, generally acting only through characters with abilities that are fueled by divine power. In other words they are usually a flavourful power source. There will be churches dedicated to them, but they will be usually either in the style of withdrawn monasteries or the preaching of good morals. The occasional evil cult will attempt to end the world. At high power levels gods become characters, acting as the leaders of otherworldly beings.


Ok, gods do exist in plenty of games, such as D&D, Pathfinder, Marvel Super Heroes and Conan. In the vast majority of fantasy games, gods do exist. So that is your first falsehood. And plenty of games have active gods that are not withdrawn, like the above examples. So second falsehood. And churches will be withdrawn? Well, again not true of a lot of fantasy games, but we can even add in a lot of historic games here. So three.




Normal Morals: Most people will play a character with a loosely defined set of morals. Perhaps defined in accordance to an archetype or inspirational character, but usually tinted by there own morals. There is one major exception and that is they will almost never have any qualms about killing any character or entity that is defined solely/entirely by its combat stats.

Most people will play loose morals? Again not true. Just as you like loose morals does not mean everyone does. And plenty of players don't like the ''kill kill kill'' video game play. So, two more falsehoods.



Normal Setting Creation: Usually the GM will pitch a setting (possibly with a few broad player requests). The players will then start defining there characters in this world, often filling in blanks around their characters as they do so. Once the game starts most setting creation will come from the GM, sometimes from there own ideas, but other times in response to player requests.

Well, hey, that sounds good to me. Normal.

Max_Killjoy
2016-07-30, 09:16 PM
Oddly enough, I just the following written on another gaming forum, and thought it was relevant:



Every role playing book ever written, with few exceptions, call the person who creates the campaign either a "Dungeon Master" (DM) or a "Game Master" (GM). The "Dungeon Master's Guide" then describes your role as the person who creates the campaign, runs the session, plays all the non-player characters (NPCs), acts as rules referee, and generally what he says is law.

While all this is true, there is an unfortunate tendency of some DMs to take the word "master" to heart, and believe that is their role to dominate the players, decide what will happen in the adventure, and make sure nothing happens that he doesn't want to have happen. This is especially true with novice DMs, who haven't yet learned what a DM is supposed to do, and what he isn't supposed to do. And when you play with a DM like that, players get frustrated with all the limitations imposed on them, and tbey quickly lose desire to play in that campaign. Some call this "railroading." It's the feeling you get that what you decide to do doesn't really matter, the adventure is going to play out the same no matter what, and the DM is going to make sure of that.

So, I would like people to see it from the opposite direction, the DM is not a "master" he is a "servant." Imagine yourself as an innkeeper at your typical inn in a D&D world. The players come in, so you jump out and make sure they get the best table you can find for them. You quickly take their orders for food and drinks, and you constantly check in with them to make sure that their glasses are full and they are satisfied with their meals. You make sure there is good music to entertain them. You hire serving girls who are friendly and eager to please their guests. You make sure the rooms are warm and have comfortable beds. You make sure their horses are watered and fed. You are at their beck and call from the time they enter the inn until the time they walk out the door, and there's not a moment of rest for you, for they may even need something in the middle of the night and it is your job to get out of bed and get if for them.

That's what it is to be a good DM. It's not about you, it's not about your power, it's not about getting your way, and it's not about having monsters that can defeat the players. Your job is to serve, and serve with a smile, and during combat, it is your job to lose, and lose gracefully. It's about making sure your players are having fun, from the time they sit down at the table until the time they go home.

Honest Tiefling
2016-07-30, 09:24 PM
While all this is true, there is an unfortunate tendency of some DMs to take the word "master" to heart, and believe that is their role to dominate the players, decide what will happen in the adventure, and make sure nothing happens that he doesn't want to have happen.

Great. Now I have the image of a Sheep in Wolf's Clothing in bondage gear trying to chase people down while wielding a whip.

Other then odd imagery, I think...I have to disagree with this post. The viewpoint of a master is wrong, but so is that of a servant. The DM isn't there to control everyone's actions and to bring downt he LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAW when they feel fit. But their role is not to smile and bend over backwards for the players either.

Which leads us to the OP. He seems to be a great sport in trying to accomodate his player after a communication snafu about the tone, but I still think he nees to put his foot down and insist on not doing that if he is uncomfortable. Especially with an issue like discomfort about cold-blooded murder! The Dungeon Master needs to be able to set down a few firm rules, so much so that I think the innkeeper analogy is misleading. There needs to be comprimise both ways, because you're all (presumably) friends. No one needs to be completely at the mercy of the other.

Cluedrew
2016-07-30, 09:33 PM
So how are 'cops' or other enforces of the law different? They will keep showing up to ruin the PC's day too?I think it is about a response that you can do something about. So a player being wanted by the police adds a problem to the game, possibly even becoming THE problem for a while. But it is a problem the players can respond to and recover from (they might not, but the possibility is there). On the other hand being turned into a pillar of salt is just a game over. Yes the gods might use a more refined approach, but instant death is the implication and most of your examples have been of that sort.

Also what are your thoughts on my "normal game"? Oh I see have you replied to it.


None of your examples are normal, they are just ''you want to be right''.Not true, I don't actually like how "the normal game" handles gods or morals. I am neutral on the setting creation point, although it should be noted that my recent campaigns have seen the players create the setting in session 1.


Ok, gods do exist in plenty of games, such as D&D, Pathfinder, Marvel Super Heroes and Conan. In the vast majority of fantasy games, gods do exist. So that is your first falsehood. And plenty of games have active gods that are not withdrawn, like the above examples. So second falsehood. And churches will be withdrawn? Well, again not true of a lot of fantasy games, but we can even add in a lot of historic games here. So three.Right, well these things are not untrue/falsehoods, but they are generalisations. And so there are plenty of variations from that theme. I myself have played in games where these things completely break down, and the points you mention are common breaking points from the "norm". This is the whole "does a normal game exist" thing, because if you average out enough parts of the games, you will find that not a single one matches the average in every rare. Plus you get issues like, what is the average setting?


Most people will play loose morals? Again not true. Just as you like loose morals does not mean everyone does. And plenty of players don't like the ''kill kill kill'' video game play. So, two more falsehoods....OK about half the stories you recount about your players it involve them going crazy like this. And again I don't like this mode of play.


Well, hey, that sounds good to me. Normal.Hey, glad we could agree on something.

I would also comment on GM/player roles, but I have already been working on this post for a while, maybe next time. ... Or maybe a new thread. I'm sure you could make a whole thread out of that.

Max_Killjoy
2016-07-30, 09:36 PM
Great. Now I have the image of a Sheep in Wolf's Clothing in bondage gear trying to chase people down while wielding a whip.

Other then odd imagery, I think...I have to disagree with this post. The viewpoint of a master is wrong, but so is that of a servant. The DM isn't there to control everyone's actions and to bring downt he LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAW when they feel fit. But their role is not to smile and bend over backwards for the players either.

Which leads us to the OP. He seems to be a great sport in trying to accomodate his player after a communication snafu about the tone, but I still think he nees to put his foot down and insist on not doing that if he is uncomfortable. Especially with an issue like discomfort about cold-blooded murder! The Dungeon Master needs to be able to set down a few firm rules, so much so that I think the innkeeper analogy is misleading. There needs to be comprimise both ways, because you're all (presumably) friends. No one needs to be completely at the mercy of the other.


I don't think either extreme is correct, and that the GM needs to have fun and is in fact one of the players too.

(Although an innkeeper does get to set rules on what's acceptable behavior in their establishment.)

The point was to establish that there is an entire spectrum of GMing styles and philosophies, by showing the far end of it from "my game, my word is law, the gods are my sockpuppets" style.

Tanuki Tales
2016-07-30, 09:47 PM
Which leads us to the OP. He seems to be a great sport in trying to accomodate his player after a communication snafu about the tone, but I still think he nees to put his foot down and insist on not doing that if he is uncomfortable. Especially with an issue like discomfort about cold-blooded murder! The Dungeon Master needs to be able to set down a few firm rules, so much so that I think the innkeeper analogy is misleading. There needs to be comprimise both ways, because you're all (presumably) friends. No one needs to be completely at the mercy of the other.

Except he admits Conan was one of the inspirations for his setting and it was a pirate, who the Captain of the ship was already planning to execute. So no murder took place, as a murder is an unlawful killing and pirates had very little legal protection, by and large (which has been outlined in this thread). If anything, the character is facing charges of insubordination, potentially mutiny on the far end.

Heck, he said Indiana Jones was also an inspiration and Indy killed plenty of "bad people". Maybe not prisoners, but he did kill people in cold blood.

goto124
2016-07-30, 10:16 PM
The word 'murder' is often used to mean 'wrongful killing' with no relevance to the law. Something pedantry.

Honest Tiefling
2016-07-30, 10:31 PM
Except he admits Conan was one of the inspirations for his setting and it was a pirate, who the Captain of the ship was already planning to execute.

I got no idea where the breakdown happened, maybe the OP meant some of the lighter stories? The movies? I dunno. But the point is, these things happen and that such a thing happened, not the why of it.


The word 'murder' is often used to mean 'wrongful killing' with no relevance to the law. Something pedantry.

Well, yes. In many eras, such a thing would not be illegal. I meant murder to cover the implemenation of the mace, not if it was illegal. I don't think the player (or character, in some regards. He might not be aware of what a rower is or how they were likely recruited...), but I think a discussion is in order, regardless.

SirBellias
2016-07-30, 10:59 PM
What does everybody think? Sound normal enough?



This qualifies as normal for myself and every other DM I've ever seen run a game. Sometimes a less active role is taken in dictating the setting, but other than that, it's fair.

I would like to say that for me, the DM is to act like a player in the game, rather than a master or servant. They shouldn't need to have higher priority opinions than the other players, or lower priority opinions. Their preferences matter just as much as the other players, no more, no less.

I do believe that the OPs main question has been answered enough times for them to get the idea, but I'll repeat what was said before: you were uncomfortable with what the fellow player did. Tell them that, and that you weren't expecting it, and talk with the group about reasonable expectations.

Assuming everyone is a reasonable person doesn't seem to work in our mediums of discussion, but I've found it to work much better in reality than online.

Kid Jake
2016-07-30, 11:03 PM
How is it not different? Are you 'stuck' on the instant smite as if that is the only thing a god can do? Do you not think other consequences are bad? Are you just suck on the power level of ''god=all powerful'' but ''cop=easy to deal with''? Like any NPC cop will be Rosco P, Coltrain and you can just say ''look behind you'' and he will and you can run away?




So how are 'cops' or other enforces of the law different? They will keep showing up to ruin the PC's day too?

.

Let me test something right quick.

A PC jumps out of a window, which of these is the logical, organic choice? Which of these is the petty, ridiculous choice?

The PC falls to his death, because he jumped out the widow like an idiot.

Or!

The God of Windows smites him off the face of the Earth for desecrating his most holy of symbols?

The PC dies either way. But one of them is because of the player's choices, the other is because of a lazy DM on a power trip. Can you tell which is which? Because if your post history is any indication I'm going to bet that the answer might just surprise you.

Also, I must ask for other posters to use spoilers if they know the answer. No helping him please, you'll skew the experiment.

Guancyto
2016-07-31, 12:13 AM
Most people will play loose morals? Again not true. Just as you like loose morals does not mean everyone does. And plenty of players don't like the ''kill kill kill'' video game play. So, two more falsehoods.
Loosely defined morals. As in, "most people don't have Paladin Oaths, and probably don't have a strict itemized list of things that are Super Bad Times, but still have notions of what they consider right and wrong." You know, like most people.

"Loose morals" means they're having a bunch of sex, son. :smalltongue:

Honest Tiefling
2016-07-31, 12:31 AM
"Loose morals" means they're having a bunch of sex, son. :smalltongue:

I think it still applies. I mean, who hasn't had a party with the guy who wants to bang everything in sight? And in a strange way, also applies to the topic at hand. OP, if you are still here, I would ah, definitely address the banging of wenches and how far that should go given your source material. While you're discussing one topic, why not kill two birds with one stone?

RickAllison
2016-07-31, 12:35 AM
I think it still applies. I mean, who hasn't had a party with the guy who wants to bang everything in sight? And in a strange way, also applies to the topic at hand. OP, if you are still here, I would ah, definitely address the banging of wenches and how far that should go given your source material. While you're discussing one topic, why not kill two birds with one stone?

"Roll Persuasion"
"Nat 20"
"You take her upstairs and fade to black."

Tanuki Tales
2016-07-31, 12:37 AM
I think it still applies. I mean, who hasn't had a party with the guy who wants to bang everything in sight?

5 bucks that someone "Lawful Good" in Darth's game would get smote for sleeping around, since being sexually promiscuous is being non-monogamous and is a "chaotic action". :smallwink:

Jormengand
2016-07-31, 01:28 AM
5 bucks that someone "Lawful Good" in Darth's game would get smote for sleeping around, since being sexually promiscuous is being non-monogamous and is a "chaotic action". :smallwink:

This reminds me: there's actually a paladin in the BoEF who was statted out just so that she could have a lesbian one night stand with a bard. :smalltongue:

Honest Tiefling
2016-07-31, 01:30 AM
This reminds me: there's actually a paladin in the BoEF who was statted out just so that she could have a lesbian one night stand with a bard. :smalltongue:

Given their respective charisma scores, which one did the convincing?

(And given that book, please tell me they were races that SHOULD be compatible.)

Jormengand
2016-07-31, 01:35 AM
Given their respective charisma scores, which one did the convincing?

(And given that book, please tell me they were races that SHOULD be compatible.)

The Paladin started the flirting, the bard asked the paladin to buy her a drink, which she did before suggesting they should bang. Both are humans. The paladin's charisma is higher by 1 point, 17 to the bard's 16.

EDIT: Incidentally, I know this is at least partly my fault, but I think we're slightly drifting away from the topic...

EDIT EDIT: Also, cleared up some ambiguous wording.

goto124
2016-07-31, 01:40 AM
Given their respective charisma scores, which one did the convincing?

The paladin needed statting out, so she was an NPC. I place my bets on the bard, who's likely a PC.

EDIT: Er... did I win or lose the bet?

ClintACK
2016-07-31, 04:35 AM
But seriously, doesn't a high-level, high-magic game where the PCs have to take down those petty gods seem like an awesome idea? Plane-hopping, normal gameplay-breaking, CaW throw-downs with the divines that power the setting! That sounds like so much fun!

It's the Raistlin Majere game... only that didn't turn out so well for him.

Darth Ultron
2016-07-31, 10:29 AM
The PC dies either way. But one of them is because of the player's choices, the other is because of a lazy DM on a power trip. Can you tell which is which? Because if your post history is any indication I'm going to bet that the answer might just surprise you.



How do you not see both as players choice?

Player has the PC jump out of a window and die: You are all like ''player choice''

Player has the PC desecrating a most holy of symbols: and your like ''no player choice''.


5 bucks that someone "Lawful Good" in Darth's game would get smote for sleeping around, since being sexually promiscuous is being non-monogamous and is a "chaotic action". :smallwink:

The god of good said ''go forth and multiply'' so it is all good.

awa
2016-07-31, 10:58 AM
Ok, gods do exist in plenty of games, such as D&D, Pathfinder, Marvel Super Heroes and Conan. In the vast majority of fantasy games, gods do exist. So that is your first falsehood. And plenty of games have active gods that are not withdrawn, like the above examples. So second falsehood. And churches will be withdrawn? Well, again not true of a lot of fantasy games, but we can even add in a lot of historic games here. So three.


.

at least 2 of your examples are bad examples possible 3 i don't know much about pathfinder
The only gods we know for sure exist in Conan are relatively weak easily defeat able and very localized
none of which could instantly smite someone as you have described. Several of them are killed almost off hand by a single adventurer with no magic gear and most are depicted as weaker then a powerful wizard who are also much weaker then d&d wizards.

Marvel gods are much the same way they are fairly "puny gods" so to speak, they have more in common with a high level mortals with a long life span then the kind of of omniscient smiting machine you describe. On top of that those arnt standard settings. In most games Conan "gods" would just be called demons, superhero settings are super weird but their gods are still not very god like either.

I don't know about pathfinder but i have not read any instances of instant karma as you describe so its probably three out of three.

Kid Jake
2016-07-31, 11:37 AM
How do you not see both as players choice?

Player has the PC jump out of a window and die: You are all like ''player choice''

Player has the PC desecrating a most holy of symbols: and your like ''no player choice''.


Thank you for confirming my hypothesis: You're just not worth the headache of responding to.

Max_Killjoy
2016-07-31, 11:48 AM
Can anyone think of a good story that involved much if any "instant karma" and "godly smiting"?

Tanuki Tales
2016-07-31, 12:01 PM
Marvel gods are much the same way they are fairly "puny gods" so to speak, they have more in common with a high level mortals with a long life span then the kind of of omniscient smiting machine you describe. On top of that those arnt standard settings. In most games Conan "gods" would just be called demons, superhero settings are super weird but their gods are still not very god like

Splitting hairs, but even the weaker pantheon heads are capable of destroying galaxies as collateral damage, while big dogs like Odin are universal.

ClintACK
2016-07-31, 12:01 PM
Can anyone think of a good story that involved much if any "instant karma" and "godly smiting"?

Any game of Paranoia.

CharonsHelper
2016-07-31, 12:07 PM
Can anyone think of a good story that involved much if any "instant karma" and "godly smiting"?

Not where those being smote are major characters. (I can think of a few that involve minor characters being smote - but those were not for general sins, but for things done directly against that deity.)

awa
2016-07-31, 01:58 PM
Splitting hairs, but even the weaker pantheon heads are capable of destroying galaxies as collateral damage, while big dogs like Odin are universal.

inconsistently at best, sometimes their that strong and sometimes their not, superhero stories tend not to have very good consistency when it comes to how strong things are but even they still don't have the instant karma auto smite omniscience that were arguing against.

Even then were still only talking about the very strongest gods most of them are just strong superheros/ villains sometimes weaker then the human built robot or guy soaked in radiation. In a marvel universe rpg god would just be another character class alongside guy in power armor and man with great steroids

Tanuki Tales
2016-07-31, 02:05 PM
inconsistently at best, sometimes their that strong and sometimes their not, superhero stories tend not to have very good consistency when it comes to how strong things are

Eh, only if a writer is not a familiar with the body of the work or heavy plot induced stupidity is at play.


but even they still don't have the instant karma auto smite omniscience that were arguing against.

They have the capability, just not the drive. Since, you know, other gods tend to not like you meddling in the affairs of mortals and why would you, they're just lowly monkey men. Didn't you know there's booze to drink, giants to fight and god butchers coming for our skins!


Even then were still only talking about the very strongest gods most of them are just strong superheros/ villains sometimes weaker then the human built robot or guy soaked in radiation.

You apparently have never read any of the stories where Thor stopped playing nice. Like when he completely humbled Tony in New Orleans, after Civil War, with basically two hits. :smallwink:


In a marvel universe rpg god would just be another character class alongside guy in power armor and man with great steroids

Now this I agree with, which is why I labeled this as "splitting hairs".

Jormengand
2016-07-31, 02:34 PM
Y'know, I now have an idea for a dystopian setting in which everyone is assigned an alignment during a coming-of-age ceremony by cosmic forces (failure to observe the ceremony is punishable by being smitten by the gods), and then has to follow that alignment, even if their own personal alignment is different, or ends up getting smitten by the gods. This would explain why there are so few evil people, by and large, because many of them were really good people and assigned as evil by the gods, so they died rather than commit atrocities. Each alignment has their own society, because they have to - the rigid obey-or-die structure that Lawful Evil societies have to have (which mirrors the behaviour of the gods) would never mesh with the semi-organised evil of Neutral Evil or the strongly rehabilitationist Lawful Neutral legal system, let alone the anarchist benevolence of Chaotic Good: each alignment must play to its stereotypes or be punished. This is the kind of person you are, and you're not allowed to fight it.

awa
2016-07-31, 02:50 PM
I think that would take some real work to make that a fun game. Unless of course the pcs were not beholden to the system then you might be able to do something with it.

Of course if i were doing it i would also make certain that the "good" gods had a very poor grasp of what good actually is i'm thinking those arrogant self righteous jerk paladins who think every problem is morally black and white and the most complicated political, social or economic problems can be solved in under a minute by smiting someone then walking a way.

RickAllison
2016-07-31, 02:58 PM
I think that would take some real work to make that a fun game. Unless of course the pcs were not beholden to the system then you might be able to do something with it.

Of course if i were doing it i would also make certain that the "good" gods had a very poor grasp of what good actually is i'm thinking those arrogant self righteous jerk paladins who think every problem is morally black and white and the most complicated political, social or economic problems can be solved in under a minute by smiting someone then walking a way.

Of course the party members are out of the system, they are... Divergent.

I couldn't help myself, that is what it basically sounds like if that world put little bombs in people!

Alternatively, maybe there are ways to escape the omniscience of the gods.

Jormengand
2016-07-31, 03:00 PM
I'm thinking, maybe if you're a neutral good assigned-chaotic-evil character, you can go around brutally murdering tyrants because that fits both your conscience (providing freedom from suffering) and your deity (if you stab the guy to death, and then keep hacking up the corpse, you're putting on a big show of being evil without actually further harming anyone.

Trying to explore and find the limits, especially if the smiting isn't always fatal if you go just over the edge, could be an interesting game.

EDIT: Divergent is less what I'm thinking of, because if you're not divergent, you're assigned, in secret, to the correct one of the factions for your personality anyway, and you can also choose which one to go to.

CharonsHelper
2016-07-31, 04:44 PM
Y'know, I now have an idea for a dystopian setting in which everyone is assigned an alignment during a coming-of-age ceremony by cosmic forces (failure to observe the ceremony is punishable by being smitten by the gods), and then has to follow that alignment, even if their own personal alignment is different, or ends up getting smitten by the gods. This would explain why there are so few evil people, by and large, because many of them were really good people and assigned as evil by the gods, so they died rather than commit atrocities. Each alignment has their own society, because they have to - the rigid obey-or-die structure that Lawful Evil societies have to have (which mirrors the behaviour of the gods) would never mesh with the semi-organised evil of Neutral Evil or the strongly rehabilitationist Lawful Neutral legal system, let alone the anarchist benevolence of Chaotic Good: each alignment must play to its stereotypes or be punished. This is the kind of person you are, and you're not allowed to fight it.

That sounds like a fantasy version (vs dystopian future) of Divergent.

nrg89
2016-07-31, 05:00 PM
Thank you for all the help I got!

So here's what I think I'll do:

The KOBOLD Guide to Worldbuilding says that a good world for gaming is a crate of dynamites. This player killed my prisoner and pissed off my merchants (since I skimmed over the captain's response I decided that he was scared of the PC, it would be mixed messages if I would go "oh, yeah, captain's pissed" after the whole affair, but the players haven't heard what the owners of the ship thinks) so he set off one dynamite now and he'll see what it did. I will add that another player, a thief, used his slight of hand to steal valuables from the cargo hold. The merchants are really angry now.

We have a new player coming over and he's meeting the old group by the waterfront downing some beer. I told him that when his character meets the group he's already heard the rumors that there's a loose cannon sorcerer here in port who casually bashes people's heads in even though he said he wouldn't. I did this to create a little bit of tension, I hope it works out.
The system is Savage Worlds and there's a hindrance called Bloodthirsty which gives the character a penalty on charisma checks if someone hears the players bloody exploits. I decided that in port he has this penalty and the group will have trouble getting information in the waterfront for the time being (giving them the penalty throughout town is a bit too harsh, I think) and if they want another boat the other captains will have heard of how they took advantage of the captain's hospitaloty and want a sign of trust before they'll take them anywhere (opportunity for sidequest!) because they risk their lives by allowing a known thief and a known murderer aboard and something happens.

I hate micromagaging, but I'll talk about what my view of heroics is. I'll tell them that this is a dangerous world but nice guys don't necessarily finish last. Friends are a good resource to have, if you make enough of them you'll be in a good spot. I'll make them give examples of what they think something hero would do and what a hero would never do. Maybe this brief discussion can create some mindfulness and won't sound preachy.

What do you think?

Jormengand
2016-07-31, 05:24 PM
That sounds like a fantasy version (vs dystopian future) of Divergent.

I explained in the post just above that why it wasn't.



@nrg: The solution you've come up with is probably fine, but you should probably ask whether the players want to play a game like that, or what sort of game they would like to play. Sometimes it's fun just to go about killing people with impunity. You should check whether your players will be annoyed that everyone's suddenly on about them killing some random pirate who may or may not have been going to die anyway. It doesn't have to be a problem if they don't want it to be, after all.

RickAllison
2016-07-31, 05:27 PM
Thank you for all the help I got!

So here's what I think I'll do:

The KOBOLD Guide to Worldbuilding says that a good world for gaming is a crate of dynamites. This player killed my prisoner and pissed off my merchants (since I skimmed over the captain's response I decided that he was scared of the PC, it would be mixed messages if I would go "oh, yeah, captain's pissed" after the whole affair, but the players haven't heard what the owners of the ship thinks) so he set off one dynamite now and he'll see what it did. I will add that another player, a thief, used his slight of hand to steal valuables from the cargo hold. The merchants are really angry now.

We have a new player coming over and he's meeting the old group by the waterfront downing some beer. I told him that when his character meets the group he's already heard the rumors that there's a loose cannon sorcerer here in port who casually bashes people's heads in even though he said he wouldn't. I did this to create a little bit of tension, I hope it works out.
The system is Savage Worlds and there's a hindrance called Bloodthirsty which gives the character a penalty on charisma checks if someone hears the players bloody exploits. I decided that in port he has this penalty and the group will have trouble getting information in the waterfront for the time being (giving them the penalty throughout town is a bit too harsh, I think) and if they want another boat the other captains will have heard of how they took advantage of the captain's hospitaloty and want a sign of trust before they'll take them anywhere (opportunity for sidequest!) because they risk their lives by allowing a known thief and a known murderer aboard and something happens.

I hate micromagaging, but I'll talk about what my view of heroics is. I'll tell them that this is a dangerous world but nice guys don't necessarily finish last. Friends are a good resource to have, if you make enough of them you'll be in a good spot. I'll make them give examples of what they think something hero would do and what a hero would never do. Maybe this brief discussion can create some mindfulness and won't sound preachy.

What do you think?

A penalty in the local area due to mistrust sounds like s perfect penalty. Other than the thief, it seemed like more of an issue of how he was killed rather than the fact he was killed. While the gossip mill likely won't last too long (ooooo, a pirate was killed, they will forgot about it completely in a week or two) and so the fame shouldn't last, their record with the captain and the factions involved will be longer...

It is like someone being accused in a high-profile case. It might flavor perceptions of the person for a while, even if found innocent, but people forget with time. However a wronged party could have the incident continue as a black mark for years to come.

Cluedrew
2016-07-31, 05:29 PM
Can anyone think of a good story that involved much if any "instant karma" and "godly smiting"?It is not quite instant and it is usually more "forced rehabilitation", but a lot of dystopian stories have these elements. 1984 is one of the biggest dystopian stories out there and it has a good deal of both.


Friends are a good resource to have,Swords break, influence wanes and money runs out. A friend is with you until the end.

Darth Ultron
2016-07-31, 10:50 PM
at least 2 of your examples are bad examples possible 3 i don't know much about pathfinder


Note my examples are just ''gods do exist in many games'' , I'm not doing what everyone else around here does: I'm not saying ''every game has gods that are like the ones in my game''. He was the one saying ''in most games gods don't exist'', and that is false: gods exist in plenty of games.


Thank you for confirming my hypothesis: You're just not worth the headache of responding to.

Ok

ImNotTrevor
2016-07-31, 11:42 PM
Note my examples are just ''gods do exist in many games'' , I'm not doing what everyone else around here does: I'm not saying ''every game has gods that are like the ones in my game''. He was the one saying ''in most games gods don't exist'', and that is false: gods exist in plenty of games.


I'm gonna hate myself for engaging here, but that's not his assertion. His assertion was:
"In most games the gods either do not exist or are withdrawn from the world."

This would be like if I said most Badoofles are Red or Green, and you told me that I was wrong because there are Badoofles that are Blue, Yellow, and Green.

Not only are you not disproving a point he actually made, but you're actually proving his point with your not-particularly-well-thought-out point, since most Gods are relatively inactive in games with them, and a significant number don't bother with Gods at all. Namely:
Apocalypse World
Shadowrun
Stars Without Number
Traveler
FATE (not built-in to the system, anyways)
Mutants and Masterminds (again, not built-in)
Star Wars Systems (any)

The list goes on.

And, to point out some further fallacious reasoning:
"He was the one saying 'in most games gods don't exist', and that is false: gods exist in plenty of games."
That logic doesn't actually hold up.

There are people born without arms. But even if you list 1000 people born without arms, it doesn't disprove the statement "Most people are born with two arms."

Same logic.

Cluedrew
2016-08-01, 07:00 AM
He was the one saying ''in most games gods don't exist'', and that is false: gods exist in plenty of games.As the "he" in question I would like to confirm:
I'm gonna hate myself for engaging here, but that's not his assertion. His assertion was:
"In most games the gods either do not exist or are withdrawn from the world."I also explained what I meant by withdrawn. And yes variations from the norm do exist: The majority of people have an above average number of legs.

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-01, 07:10 AM
It is not quite instant and it is usually more "forced rehabilitation", but a lot of dystopian stories have these elements. 1984 is one of the biggest dystopian stories out there and it has a good deal of both.


I was being literal -- I meant stuff like "accidentally snap a holy symbol in half, get struck by lightning" or "lawful character does something (that the GM deems) chaotic, immediately auto-fails and falls into manure wagon instead".

IShouldntBehere
2016-08-01, 07:23 AM
Can anyone think of a good story that involved much if any "instant karma" and "godly smiting"?

Yes. However most cannot be discussed within the bounds of the forum rules. Suffice to say the idea that god(s) sometimes act rather swiftly and harshly when someone offends them in a certain way or at a certain time is well established in our cultural consciousness.

Certainly depending on the setting if one decides to walk to up to the temple of "Broxis, God of the Bros" and decide to moon it while decrying the virtues of his mother and challenging his sexual identity he might very well deign to strike from the heavens and deprive you of all your gains.

That said in such a universe the nature of active & vindictive gods would probably be well known. Warranting at least a "As you begin to unbuckle your pants, you are reminded that Broxis takes his reputation and temples very seriously and many a childhood story was told to you of those that lost all their hugeness to his wrath. Never again to be swole, never again to feel the pump" when a player declares their action to moon said temple.

Knaight
2016-08-01, 09:52 AM
Not only are you not disproving a point he actually made, but you're actually proving his point with your not-particularly-well-thought-out point, since most Gods are relatively inactive in games with them, and a significant number don't bother with Gods at all. Namely:
Apocalypse World
Shadowrun
Stars Without Number
Traveler
FATE (not built-in to the system, anyways)
Mutants and Masterminds (again, not built-in)
Star Wars Systems (any)

The list goes on.

There's a bit of definitional confusion around the term "games" here. It could mean RPG systems, such as the above list. It could also mean something more along the lines of "campaigns" or even "instances of a group gathering to play and then playing". If it means systems, then the standard game idea gets blown to heck in a few ways - largely absent gods can be assumed, but the rest of the list falls apart a bit just because it's D&D centered. If it means something more along the lines of "campaigns", then D&D and Pathfinder representing some huge portion of games played makes it fit much better.

ImNotTrevor
2016-08-01, 10:40 AM
There's a bit of definitional confusion around the term "games" here. It could mean RPG systems, such as the above list. It could also mean something more along the lines of "campaigns" or even "instances of a group gathering to play and then playing". If it means systems, then the standard game idea gets blown to heck in a few ways - largely absent gods can be assumed, but the rest of the list falls apart a bit just because it's D&D centered. If it means something more along the lines of "campaigns", then D&D and Pathfinder representing some huge portion of games played makes it fit much better.

I am aware of the many possible definitions of Game in this context.

However:

Since he listed Systems as his examples of "games that have Gods" and not individual campaigns or settings, it is safe to assume that I am correct in mirroring his usage of games = systems.

Granted, the approach you take has better legs to stand on, but the Inactive/distant gods factor prevents it from being an argument-wrecker. It literally only works if Quertus was only including games/campaigns without any gods at all.

Tanuki Tales
2016-08-01, 11:32 AM
I was being literal -- I meant stuff like "accidentally snap a holy symbol in half, get struck by lightning" or "lawful character does something (that the GM deems) chaotic, immediately auto-fails and falls into manure wagon instead".

Discworld gods can be those kind of petty blighters, but they can also make Zeus look like an intelligent, wise authority figure.

awa
2016-08-01, 12:09 PM
disc world gods might like to smite but there still largely absent they are not usually major players in the books. With them you only need to watch out for a small number of smite worthy activities like saying you don't believe in them.

Rather then them being active players in the world.

Most setting do one of two things gods are largely absent at most empowering champions to act for them, or gods are relatively weak and brings in questions of what is a god for example DC ares is a god but Mxyzptlk or superman isn't despite the fact that depending on the writer the god is the weak one.

TheYell
2016-08-02, 12:31 PM
Can anyone think of a good story that involved much if any "instant karma" and "godly smiting"?

Odyssey. Ulysses blinds the son of Poseidon who was gonna eat him and his crew, and gets divine retribution for it. Generally regarded as a good read.

If you think there is no black or white only shades of gray, then you won't find Darth Ultron sane, much less agreeable.

If there is a black and white, then a DM has to take it into consideration when ordering the game universe.

And I think we're forbidden to argue about whether real life is black and white or shades of gray.

You could create a game universe either way.

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-02, 12:33 PM
Odyssey. Ulysses blinds the son of Poseidon who was gonna eat him and his crew, and gets divine retribution for it. Generally regarded as a good read.


Even then, it's not as if Poseidon just shows up and smites him, bang, story over.

Cazero
2016-08-02, 01:13 PM
In that specific tale it would be less karma and more petty revenge as Ulysses wasn't exactly in the position of doing nothing to the cyclop and live.
In any case, the ancient greek gods aren't that good to begin with and can't seriously be used as a baseline for objective morality.

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-02, 01:21 PM
In that specific tale it would be less karma and more petty revenge as Ulysses wasn't exactly in the position of doing nothing to the cyclop and live.
In any case, the ancient greek gods aren't that good to begin with and can't seriously be used as a baseline for objective morality.


This is also true.

Kid Jake
2016-08-02, 01:35 PM
It was also presented as another obstacle to be overcome; not Homer writing out Odysseus for handling the Cyclops 'wrong'.

TheYell
2016-08-02, 01:52 PM
so.... "weapon blows up for 50 points of damage" is obscene babysitting, but "God blows you to shipwreck in Libya" is an interesting plot twist?

Kid Jake
2016-08-02, 02:09 PM
....yes. It opens up new challenges, new avenues of adventure and gives you something to do besides sit around going "Remember that time my character died with no warning, input from me or possible means of avoidance? Good times, good times."

For that matter I'd say dying in a storm would be a vast improvement, because at least getting dashed on the rocks and drowning is a direct result of you failing to both control your ship or swim to safety; no matter how stacked the deck may be against you, you at least had a chance.

TheYell
2016-08-02, 02:29 PM
That makes sense.

veti
2016-08-02, 09:36 PM
Can anyone think of a good story that involved much if any "instant karma" and "godly smiting"?

Well, off the top of my head, I can think of:

Samson: falls for a prostitute, gets his hair cut, promptly loses his strength and gets captured by his enemies.

Lord of the Rings: Boromir falls for the ring's temptation, and within a handful of pages is having his liver used as a pincushion for Orc arrows. See also Isildur.

Loki: for engineering the death of Baldur, is bound with the entrails of his own son (nice touch there) and has venom dripped on his head until doomsday.

Arachne: turned into a spider for the crime of beating Athena in a weaving contest. See also: Actaeon, Prometheus, and many other examples from the same mythos.

Raiders of the Lost Ark: climactic scene.

Elder Scrolls: when the Tribunal betrayed Azura, she took it out on their entire race, turning them from Chimer to Dunmer at a stroke.

If you really want to get into it, see also this TVTropes link (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/KarmicDeath).

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-02, 10:13 PM
Well, off the top of my head, I can think of:

Samson: falls for a prostitute, gets his hair cut, promptly loses his strength and gets captured by his enemies.

Lord of the Rings: Boromir falls for the ring's temptation, and within a handful of pages is having his liver used as a pincushion for Orc arrows. See also Isildur.

Loki: for engineering the death of Baldur, is bound with the entrails of his own son (nice touch there) and has venom dripped on his head until doomsday.

Arachne: turned into a spider for the crime of beating Athena in a weaving contest. See also: Actaeon, Prometheus, and many other examples from the same mythos.

Raiders of the Lost Ark: climactic scene.

Elder Scrolls: when the Tribunal betrayed Azura, she took it out on their entire race, turning them from Chimer to Dunmer at a stroke.

If you really want to get into it, see also this TVTropes link (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/KarmicDeath).


Most of those don't fit the "instant" part, and some also involve jerkass "gods" that kinda make the other part of the point -- that this sort of behavior casts serious doubts on the idea that this has anything to do with justice or objective morality, rather than just someone or something really powerful getting ticked of for really petty reasons.

The context was literally a god smiting or ruining the life of someone because that person violated their "alignment", or for accidentally breaking a holy symbol, or...

awa
2016-08-02, 10:27 PM
i agree not only are most of them not instant some don't fit at all Samson lost his power becuase not cutting his hair was a condition of his power. Borimir was not smote by god he got in a fight he couldn't win. the thing with Athena doesn't work really either becuase athena wasn't some god on high she was an active participant in person and at least in some versions was insulted to her face by the foolish mortal.

Lokie super doesn't work becuase a it wasn't instant he needed to be hunted down and b as a god himself it doesn't count as smiting

Don't know about the elder scroll thing

But here's the reason you are really really wrong these aren't settings where a god is super smite happy they are specific individual smites that do not represent a pattern within that universe. For this to actually be a heavy god interaction setting most or possible every transgression within that setting must be punished instantly. So just being able to find a single smite within a work does not matter unless their are either no other sinners in the setting or it is surrounded by every other sinner getting what for as well.

And even if you did find a setting where all of those requirements were met it still does not change the original claim that smite land is an exception not the norm.

veti
2016-08-03, 01:31 AM
i agree not only are most of them not instant some don't fit at all Samson lost his power becuase not cutting his hair was a condition of his power.

And "obeying your god's basic teachings" may be a condition of "not getting smote". What's the big difference there?


the thing with Athena doesn't work really either becuase athena wasn't some god on high she was an active participant in person and at least in some versions was insulted to her face by the foolish mortal.

If you take divinity seriously, you can make a case that your god is always an active participant anywhere you're present. After all, they automatically sense any action that offends them ("affects their portfolio", in the bizarrely financial language of the SRD), and can then extend their senses to investigate more thoroughly. Why wouldn't they intervene?


But here's the reason you are really really wrong these aren't settings where a god is super smite happy they are specific individual smites that do not represent a pattern within that universe.

In the first place, why does that make me wrong? Max asked for examples of good stories that featured insta-divine-smiting, that's all. There was no mention of it being a prevalent, consistent thing.

In the second place - ah shucks, I can't argue that within forum rules. But for the record, I disagree with the whole statement.


And even if you did find a setting where all of those requirements were met it still does not change the original claim that smite land is an exception not the norm.

[citation needed], on both counts. That is to say, first, I don't recall anyone making that argument at all; and even if they had, I don't recall seeing anything that looks like evidence for it.

PersonMan
2016-08-03, 02:06 AM
Side comment: Even if something works for a story, it may not be enjoyable to play. A good story can be a horrible game - so something working well as a story isn't necessarily proof it'd work well in-game.

Alberic Strein
2016-08-03, 06:30 AM
And the reverse is also true. If I put in a book "...when suddenly a group of pretty boys comes from a store and start walking and laughing towards the tavern." in the middle of an argument among heroes, stopping said argument and sending them towards the tavern where the plot was waiting, I would get freaking crucified for bad writing.

In a game, it just works.

But that's also what makes in character campaign journals difficult to write, you go from one medium to another and have to keep the funny parts even though what worked around a table doesn't on paper.

Fun times.

Darth Ultron
2016-08-03, 06:24 PM
....yes. It opens up new challenges, new avenues of adventure and gives you something to do besides sit around going "Remember that time my character died with no warning, input from me or possible means of avoidance? Good times, good times."


Well, you make it sound like it is:

Player-"My character walks down the street-"
DM-"BOOM! Haha! Your character dies!"

And it is not.

And the ''new challenges'' is just silly. A lot of things can happen that won't offer ''new challenges'', they will just happen. Unless your playing a in a style equal to a cartoon, like ''the arrow flies right at your character and i rolled a 20...but, um, it bounces off the air and lands on the ground."

RickAllison
2016-08-03, 08:56 PM
Well, you make it sound like it is:

Player-"My character walks down the street-"
DM-"BOOM! Haha! Your character dies!"

And it is not.

And the ''new challenges'' is just silly. A lot of things can happen that won't offer ''new challenges'', they will just happen. Unless your playing a in a style equal to a cartoon, like ''the arrow flies right at your character and i rolled a 20...but, um, it bounces off the air and lands on the ground."

If an arrow flies at your character, there are ways to challenge and interact with that both before and after it is loosed. Armor choices that increase the chance to deflect it, damage resistance that mitigates the damage when hit, taking cover to inflict penalties, all are options of how to prepare ahead of time. Additionally, a flying arrow is unlikely to insta-gib a PC (indeed, one that did is liable to be treated in the same way as a lightning strike from heaven. Even the Slaying Longbow of the Solar in D&D 5e, an angel that is all but a god itself, has both a maximum HP to take effect and offers a saving throw), giving the PC the chance to interact by reacting in the above ways, killing the attacker, or healing.

So we run back into the same point, the flying arrows (unless treated as you are the gods' smiting) still provide interaction opportunities both before and after.

nrg89
2016-08-14, 02:01 AM
So this is what happened.

The PCs had taken valuable things from the cargo hold and killed a prisoner on the captain's watch. The merchants who owned the ship were very angry.

The PCs saw that the townspeople were turning away from the market and went to another area. The PCs were curious and followed suit. There they saw the captain in a mock trial for stealing and murder, who pleaded for his life. He was then sentenced to death. The merchants said that the cargo was really valuable to them and gave a description of the PCs. The players looked nervous and said their characters backed away very slowly.

I followed this scene up with the Thieves Guild offering protection and a way out of town if the PCs would just do a job for them. The PCs accepted. Their job was to steal something from a rich banker and the same player who'd kill the prisoner on the ship said "why don't we just kill him?".
The other players said "because that's the lack of foresight that brought us into this mess in the first place!".

They liked the adventure and felt like they'd had an effect on the world. Thanks for all your help in this thread!

RickAllison
2016-08-14, 10:49 AM
So this is what happened.

The PCs had taken valuable things from the cargo hold and killed a prisoner on the captain's watch. The merchants who owned the ship were very angry.

The PCs saw that the townspeople were turning away from the market and went to another area. The PCs were curious and followed suit. There they saw the captain in a mock trial for stealing and murder, who pleaded for his life. He was then sentenced to death. The merchants said that the cargo was really valuable to them and gave a description of the PCs. The players looked nervous and said their characters backed away very slowly.

I followed this scene up with the Thieves Guild offering protection and a way out of town if the PCs would just do a job for them. The PCs accepted. Their job was to steal something from a rich banker and the same player who'd kill the prisoner on the ship said "why don't we just kill him?".
The other players said "because that's the lack of foresight that brought us into this mess in the first place!".

They liked the adventure and felt like they'd had an effect on the world. Thanks for all your help in this thread!

Sounds like it went perfectly! Consequences for doing dump stuff that actually lead into the next adventure :smallbiggrin:

TheYell
2016-08-14, 05:11 PM
Good going. I can't believe he was hired to do a burglary and asked why it wasn't a hit job. Glad he was squelched.