D&D 5E Was I in the wrong?

FrogReaver said:

Except the players didn't screw up. The dm did...

Player had no knowledge at the time of the sell that ring and gauntlet was included. Dm even admits it with justifying why the blacksmith didn't mention the ring. In hopes not to draw attention to it. The dm admits it later when he mentions the other players were upset that they didn't know the ring and gauntlet were sold.

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He mentioned the gauntlet appeared to be part of the set. He mentioned they came together. It is reasonable to believe that attentive players pause, review, roll etc. for more knowledge before parting with such items.

The smith asked if "the whole thing" was for sale. That implies plural. It is obvious that more than one item is being sold. As far as I'm considered the player was fair game for a little fleecing whether he was on his phone or not. If you think it's rule breaking for a businessman to seek a bargain PM me. I have something I want to sell you.

My point is that the situation is salvageable without banal methods such as retcon or re-selling at a higher price. They are certainly options. There are however, options that will serve to enrich your story rather than just "settle a dispute".

Out-of-game problems should be handled out-of-game. As a DM, it's very easy and tempting to punish out-of-game behavior with in-game actions. Doing so is almost always a mistake.

The player constantly on his phone is an out-of-game problem. It should be addressed out-of-game. You have to bite the bullet and talk to him one-on-one. Be clear that you think his phone use is disrespectful or lessening the enjoyment of the game, or what have you. You are attempting to avoid that conflict, and are passive-aggressively "punishing" him in-game, hoping that he gets the unstated message.

GSHamster said:

Out-of-game problems should be handled out-of-game. As a DM, it's very easy and tempting to punish out-of-game behavior with in-game actions. Doing so is almost always a mistake.

The player constantly on his phone is an out-of-game problem. It should be addressed out-of-game. You have to bite the bullet and talk to him one-on-one. Be clear that you think his phone use is disrespectful or lessening the enjoyment of the game, or what have you. You are attempting to avoid that conflict, and are passive-aggressively "punishing" him in-game, hoping that he gets the unstated message.

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I disagree. Such behavior can be handled either way, though preferably both. Handling something out of game is easier, faster and you can afford to be a little more blunt. Handling something in-game takes requires more thought, takes longer and requires an elegant solution.

As the most critical example I've experienced, everyone in a half-TPK'd party rallied in my favor and how I handled the encounter, pointing out that an inattentive player caused the TPK. Even this we handled with grace and that player smiled sheepishly while we all shared a good laugh. Our creativity spurned by the impetus of a near party wipe; that night and its' subsequent encounters are fondly mentioned and oft spoke of.

Here's the whole development:

The party owed their city's temple, they had resurrected a party member but the party only had enough money to cover half the cost. The temple then sent the party to a village in order to investigate a nearby dungeon.

*fast-forward through dungeon*

Dungeon Boss' Room
The boss was a powerful ghost controlling a suit of armor. He had a hatred for High-Elves (and saw wood elves as his brethren) and spent the whole fight knocking the ranger (only high elf) out, though the party kept feeding him potions. Before it dies, the boss KOs the Sorcerer and the Ranger. It then dies, dramatically calling out to the Wood Elf (the monk) before the ghost fades and the armor+weapons all fall to the floor.
The two party members still standing (Barbarian and Monk) rejoice. Then they remember that their friends are dying and proceed to help them up.
The ranger and the sorcerer both rush to check on the children (that had been kidnapped by the ghost) but sadly realize that they had taken far too long and they were already dead. Meanwhile, the barbarian and the monk check the loot. I inform them that the sword has several magical runes as well as the ring and the gauntlets, indicating that they might be magical. The ranger and the sorcerer return to the loot and a discussion about the sword takes place. They find a statue with a sword similar to what the boss holds and the sorcerer realizes the legend behind these swords of wounding (he rolled high on a History check). While the ranger and sorcerer talk about the sword next to the statue, the barbarian picks it up. The ghost guardian warns them to release the sword and she comically drops it instantly. The curious ranger tells the barbarian to try picking it up again, she listens to him and does so. The guardian ghost appears and combat takes place.
Once again, the barbarian and the monk are the only ones standing (the sorcerer and ranger were weakened from the previous battle). They destroy the ghost and wake their friends up once again. The sorcerer realizes (rolled high on arcana) that the sword likely has a curse that binds the ghost to it, causing it to attack anyone that holds it. Meanwhile, the barbarian decides and tells me that he's bundling the whole armor set up with rope and will take care of it later since everyone was focused on how to deal with the sword (I make sure to remind him that the gauntlets and the ring are included with the bundle).
The party decides to leave the premises, taking the loot and the dead children. Before they leave, I casually remind them that they barely explored the dungeon (having gone almost straight toward the boss' room). They ignore me and leave (meaning they missed out on several treasures).

*funeral ensues, party is thanked for their work. Fast-forward back to the city.*

City
The party splits up, the Monk and the Barbarian go to the temple to report on their mission. The Ranger goes to sell/appraise items. The Sorcerer was distracted with his phone and absentmindedly said he'd go with the others to the temple when asked.

The Ranger first chooses to go to the magic shop, but the rest of the party remind him that they do not have any money for identification spells. He goes to the blacksmith instead.
At the blacksmith (a half-orc they already know from before) he presents the bundled up armor. The blacksmith studies it, making note that the armor is very damaged (from the battles) and it would lower the price. At the mention of the price being lowered, the ranger asks if he can make a int check to learn how much such an armor would go for, he rolls well. The half-orc notices the magical ring and immediately asks "Are you looking to sell the whole thing?" to which the ranger immediately says yes. The blacksmith offers a price, the ranger isn't too sure since it was lower than expected. The blacksmith argues that with the damage would lower the price and he still needed to make a profit. The ranger still seems to have a hard time agreeing. The blacksmith quickly adds that it's money up-front. The ranger agrees.
The ranger then shows the mithral sword, saying it is from an ancient kingdom. The blacksmith offers a price, but the ranger isn't pleased and the blacksmith does not argue and lets him go.
The ranger asks around for collectors, finds out the half-orc owner of the magic shop (another person they had met before) is a collector as well. He goes to the magic shop and asks for an identification on the cursed set of half-plate armor (they had gotten in a previous mission) and on the sword of wounding. Identification is made and information is provided. The ranger then tries to sell the mithral sword, gets a better price than the blacksmith had offered. Finally he tries to sell the cursed armor, the magic shop owner offers a petty sum, claiming that the work it would take to break the curse would be expensive and laborious. The ranger sells it anyway (completely forgetting that the barbarian wanted to fashion an shoulder guard from the armor once they finally managed to de-curse it).
*during the shopping trip, the monk and barbarian were talking among each other out of character and the sorcerer was on his phone like usual*

The ranger returns to the rest of the party that was waiting by the temple. He gives them the news about finally having money and they ask him about the gauntlets and ring. He seems confused, not realizing a ring was involved in the equation (he either wasn't listening or had forgotten about it). They rush back to the blacksmith. The moment they enter, the barbarian starts calling him a pedophile (it was a running joke since the first time they met the blacksmith they playfully said "I've been searching for you" and the blacksmith scared responded with "She was an adult!") raving about him being a thief. When the ranger calmed her down he explained that the ring had not been for sale (at this point, the ranger still didn't seem to know/remember the gauntlets were magical either...), but the blacksmith explained that he had made sure to ask before if he intended to sell everything, that it wasn't his fault if he was careless. He asks if he could buy the ring back, the blacksmith responds that not for now, because he wanted to get it checked out first to know what it was but that they could talk afterward. They then awkwardly claim that they have a powerful sorcerer that could identify the items for him for a cheap price. The blacksmith thanks them, but refuses as his brother is the owner of the magic shop (I had dropped hints of this being the case since they first met them). They proceed to distract the blacksmith while the ranger goes around and sneaks in through the backdoor. The ranger reaches the armor but seeing as he couldn't take off the ring without time and tools, he left everything there (he still didn't realize the gauntlets were also important). As he leaves, I joke about the door being left open...the ranger gets aggravated and I apologize for the bad joke.

Two of the go back to the temple to talk to the clerics about the cursed sword while two of them stay to keep watch. A female half-orc enters the blacksmith (one that they had seen talking with the magic shop owner before) and then leaves. One stays behind at the blacksmith's place to keep watch and the other follows her. She enters the magic shop and leaves soon after. They watch as the magic shop and the blacksmith close up shot for the day and head back to the inn to meet with the rest.

Session ends with them drinking to both celebrate their accomplishments and drown their sorrows for losing loot.

----

Now, I had no intention of punishing anyone. I did not wish to punish the player on his phone, even if it did annoy me greatly, nor did I want to punish the rest of the party. I, however, feel like the players should be in-charge of what they own and what they are doing and it is not the DM's job to hold their hand. I have a hard enough time making up settings and keeping everything in check, I do not want to handle the player's equipment and so on. I generally trust them to keep track of what they have and we haven't had an issue with it yet.

Could I have warned him about the gauntlets and ring? Yes, but I didn't because again...it is their job to keep track of things. The ranger chose to go alone and sell the gear, he had not properly kept track of things. I felt that I should not have warned him. I also made sure to keep the blacksmith seem very interested in the armor but not as much with the weapon. Should I have told him to make rolls? Possibly, I admit that I maybe should have had him do a roll of some sort, but at the time it did not cross my mind.

My approach to magical items in my campaign is: They are rare and can be identified as magical items by magical runes or an aura about them but to get a feel of its powers you need to either learn through using them or use an identification spell. I always felt that learning their properties with just a short rest is too simple and doesn't really make sense. We've been playing for a long while now with this rule and even so, the spellcasters never pick any identification spells or detect magic or anything that isn't combat related. It's fine, it's their choice...they can get the same results by paying money anyway.

I have talked to the group since and the stance on the situation is as follows:
The barbarian and the monk seem pretty ok with what happened, though of course they are not happy with the situation of not having items and are planning how to get them back.
The ranger only realized the gauntlets were special too as we talked and while he didn't seem to pleased, he let it go and started focusing on the potential of the situation, coming up with ways to get them back as well.
The sorcerer (Mr Cellphone) adopted the same stance he always adopts when things don't go his way "I don't care.", claiming that from now on he won't trust any of my NPCs (implying that I'm trying to screw them over) but that he doesn't care (while clearly being disgruntled). The situation is a little awkward as he also happens to be my best friend, but thankfully outside of this we have been just fine.

I've read all the posts so far and I thank everyone for the feedback, regardless of it being for or against my choices. Thank you very much as both sides have helped me learn more about the situation and how to proceed.

How do I plan to "solve" or rather, develop the situation?
Well, I will mix in a previous plot with this one. Before the whole undead dungeon debacle, the party faced a demon that was plaguing the countryside. Long story short, they killed the demon and the gnoll that worked with it for their more powerful master (an even stronger demon in the abyssal plane). The demon has held a major grudge against the party since then. The armor they recovered is "cursed" in that it is linked to the demon and anyone wearing it receives power but might become possessed by the demon as well. They had also sold the armor to the magic shop owner. The female half-orc that visited both the brothers (their sister) is a warrior that will be wearing the armor without realizing what it is. She'll be possessed and the demon will try to get revenge on the party. Depending on how they solve the situation, the half-orcs might reward the party by giving the items back, possibly with an added bonus.
I feel that this way, the plot will progress and again...depending on how they solve the situation it could lead to them being on friendly or hostile terms with the half-orc brothers.

randrak said:

*snip*

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That sounds great. Good job taking all of the constructive criticism, and the less constructive comments, as a learning experience. I know some people would take some of this as an insult to them.

It seems a bit mean OP, although I quite like the dishonest blacksmith npc actually. Not everybody in the game world should automatically look out for the PCs interests, and not everybody should have a red name over their heads to signify that. Theres the potential for some fun RP there. Also, it'll make the PCs pay attention in future.

randrak said:

...I didn't because again...it is their job to keep track of things.

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Which is exactly why when their opinion of where their gear is (gauntlets and ring still in their possession) and your opinion of where their gear is (gauntlets and ring sold for zero profit) differs, it should be their opinion that takes precedent - yet you went the other way, getting yourself into what you feel to be their job, and appear to have done so for no reason other than to show the player he should have been paying better attention (which even though you say you didn't intend as a punishment, is punishment).

randrak said:

My approach to magical items in my campaign is: They are rare and can be identified as magical items by magical runes or an aura about them but to get a feel of its powers you need to either learn through using them or use an identification spell. I always felt that learning their properties with just a short rest is too simple and doesn't really make sense. We've been playing for a long while now with this rule and even so, the spellcasters never pick any identification spells or detect magic or anything that isn't combat related. It's fine, it's their choice...they can get the same results by paying money anyway.

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It doesn't surprise me that your group seem to not value information finding spells like detect magic and identify, considering that you as a DM appear to choose practices that make the gathering of information difficulty and/or unreliable.

Of course, if your group is okay with the consequences of altering magic item recognition and identification (which, by the way, the short rest identification rule is meant as a representation of the exact "learn through using" process you mention, only handle in a way that says "your character will probably figure it out in an hour or less" rather than "your character has to rely on you as a player to guess the right thing to make it work") that does mitigate part of the fact that this entire situation that happened in your game and resulted in agitated players could have been avoided just by making sense of the rules as they exist, rather than bending the rules to your per-existing definition of what makes sense - or by choosing to work with your players, rather than take the "should have been paying attention" route.

As for the player that has stated they won't trust any NPCs anymore, I expect you'll go a few sessions without incident and then find yourself in another situation where someone (likely you) is frustrated by what is going on at the table - entirely because you had a choice between a helpful reminder, a roll for the character to realize he was doing something undesired, or letting the player feel like you meant to pull one over on him, and you said "Not my job to make sure the player knows what his character is actually doing."

Randak, can I ask how you justify the ranger not knowing he sold the ring and thinking they still had the ring?

Right or wrong, the DM has to know how players will react to something like that. The DM has to know they will feel cheated out of loot, people don't generally blame themselves. Even if they do blame themselves, the situation still has them feeling crappy. So is it worth it? Right or wrong, is that the note you wanted to end the game one? Does it drive the plot forward in an interesting way? If doing it because it is 'right', is that an important enough lesson that it is worth it?

I have had PCs accidentally kill hostages before because they clearly were not paying attention to the scene. They fireballed them, twice. The players hated it, it brought down the tone of the game, but it WAS worth it, as they needed to know that there were consequences for stupid actions, even if those actions were because they were not paying due attention.

I have had PCs forget to bandage the wounds of a dying comrade because they were elated at finally killing their nemesis and getting the loot. Again they clearly were not paying attention, but it was not worth letting a PC die and bringing down the mood.

A DM has to make tough calls like that, about what is worth it and what is not, sometimes we get it wrong.

It does sound like a minor mess-up by the DM on this one, but I think the scenario to steal the stuff back could play out to be quite fun and you should just roll with it. Give them a fair shot to steal it all back and fence it to someone else quickly.