negative consequences - need advice

I had a really weird session tonight, and I made a mistake as a DM that I'd like to correct. Maybe you guys can give me some advice.

The situation is like so: The players are a group of three level 7 characters, but only two were on this particular trip. They were passing through a hamlet when they were stopped short by a crowd of anxious and excited people out in front of the local tavern. Various members of the crowd filled the players in, and explained that a small group of ruffians had killed a local militia-man, and had taken the tavern keeper, his wife, and several other women hostage. No one was quite sure how many bad guys there were, or exactly how many hostages, or what they wanted, or anything.

Without a second thought, the players just walked right in the door. I guess that's reasonable - they were just being bold and wanted to know what was up, and no one outside really knew. They are confronted by the lead thug, standing behind the bar and holding a knife to a woman's throat, and two of his buddies, armed and standing in other parts of the common room. The lead thug immediately starts shouting for them to get out. Player A is in a wierd mood - she says something along the lines of just wanting to get a beer. Lead Thug keeps screaming at her to get out, with increasing urgency, and Player A keeps saying nonsensical things back. It becomes clear to me as a DM that the player either doesn't realize, or is ignoring the fact, that this guy is taking this pretty seriously, even if the players are not, and is quite possibly going to kill this girl. It's clear that Player A has not even considered stepping back and seeing if there's a more cautious way to approach this situation. I try a few more times as Lead Thug to get her to back off, she keeps pushing his buttons, and Lead Thug snaps and cuts the girl's throat, lunging around the bar to attack the players, calling his buddies into action.

Player A dashes across the room, taking attacks of opportunity, in an attempt to lay a healing spell on the girl. Now here's were I screwed up: I wussed out and let the quick heal save the girl. The players quickly dispatch the remaining thugs, and all ends smoothly and happily. I'm really annoyed at myself for this, because I've totally blown an opportunity to teach the players that thoughtless action on their part can have a negative impact on the world around them, and I have in fact reinforced the opposite notion, that they can do whatever random things they please, and they can probably fix it whenever they screw up.

So I've got several problems. I haven't been intending to run the kind of game where Player A's actions should be met with no consequence, so clearly there's been some miscommunication between us about the tone and basic world assumptions of our game. I need to figure out what I've been doing that's laid the groundwork for the player's attitude, and I need to figure out how to correct it. I would love ideas from you guys about scenarios I can use to teach them a few hard lessons about the consequences of their actions.

Thanks very much for any thoughtful advice.

You saved your campaign for the players who weren't acting like idiots. There's nothing wrong with that.

Next time "Player A" does something like that, though, I might have the thug (or whatever) attack HER. After all, she's obviously a dangerous lunatic.

On second thought, before you do that, you might ask Player A what she thought she was doing. If she has justification for her actions - and it's all reasonable and logical - then she doesn't deserve to be punished.

It sounds to me that Player A was taking the Mel Gibson "Lethal Weapon" approach of playing a bit crazy and attempting a 'bluff' in order to confuse Thug Leader.

If this was a 'random encounter' then

I would have done a bluff check and if it failed cut the girl and let her die;( slowly - still a chance to stablisie somewhere

if it succeeded I'd have let the heroics start with Thug Leader attacker Player A and a fight ensuing (during which girl could either cower or flee)

Ask the player and see...

Player A - Not Unreasonable?

I am with Tonguez on this one. When I read your description, the same thought went through my head: a Bluff attempt to confuse and disturb the Leader. But the only person who can really tell you the reason is Player A and you should speak to her before forming judgements of the wisdom of her character's actions.

Note also that she was very concerned to save the girl, being prepared to take AoO's in order to help her. Incidentally, the Leader's action was a Coup de Grace, and if you'd wanted to, you could have resolved it that way.

At the last though, ask yourself: are you just a little sore that the player acted in a way you didn't think was appropriate, or didn't really allow for? It's very easy as DM to work out the 'right answer' to the situations you create (and boy, do I know that as a DM myself!), and feel cheated if the players do something quite different.

But I reiterate, you really need to speak with the player in private, to get this resolved.

The girl probably should have died, since the attack on her was essentially a coup de grace. It was your mistake here, and you shouldn't punish the player for it. The player got away with doing something stupid, and that happens once in a while. I'd just explain your mistake to the PC, and note that you will be using the coup de grace rule properly in the future, so doing what he/she just did may not work on another occasion.

Other than that, drop the matter and game on!

Let's not forget PAIN. Likely the woman who had her throat cut is NOT going to be very happy with the PCs for their actions. She was nearly killed (due to PC stupidity) and experienced a rather large amount of pain in the process. NEVER underestimate pain. True enough that we as players and DMs never take it into account, but it should be first and foremost in the minds of NPCs.

Unlikely that she would 'appreciate' what the PCs did. She'd probably be very angry and upset. The rest of the villagers wouldn't be happy either.

Then consider whether they're the type of people who would appreciate some random j/a killing some local thugs when the situation could have been resolved peacefully.

Chimera said:

Let's not forget PAIN. Likely the woman who had her throat cut is NOT going to be very happy with the PCs for their actions. She was nearly killed (due to PC stupidity) and experienced a rather large amount of pain in the process. NEVER underestimate pain. True enough that we as players and DMs never take it into account, but it should be first and foremost in the minds of NPCs.

Unlikely that she would 'appreciate' what the PCs did. She'd probably be very angry and upset. The rest of the villagers wouldn't be happy either.

Then consider whether they're the type of people who would appreciate some random j/a killing some local thugs when the situation could have been resolved peacefully.

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I agree completely with this assessment and I think that Chimera's suggestion is the way to salvage some good from this situation.

You might want to have the "girl" be in shock, though. Some sort of walking nightmare where she sees the knife sliding across her throat over and over in slow motion, manifesting itself in her being nearly comatose for long periods and snapping out of it only to scream at the top of her lungs for a time, then slipping again into her lethargy. Maybe allow her brief periods where she can describe this horror to them in detail so they know just how traumatic it is to her. Perhaps she can only vocalize it in moments when she finally passes out in an exhaustive sleep where she still is plagued by the visions.

Naturally her family, and the town at large, is going to be irate at the irresponsible way the adventurers handled the incident. Granted they will begrudgingly concede that no one is dead, but the living reminder of her death has place this "girl" in a far worse place. The town folks are unlikely to do anything to the adventurers but any requests of theirs should be denied with a "Haven't you done enough already?" attittude.

Throw in an NPC bard in the town who is now composing a story or song that will highlight the blunder of the adventurers! Nothing says "Your reputation is trashed" like someone singing the details and claiming to be heading to the fair at the capitol with his ditty, quite sure he'll now win the contest of the kingdom! Be sure someone else has already gotten their names, and that the bard asks them later, to be positive that he spells their names correctly. Let the adventurers know that their tale will be told throughout the region!

Perhaps you can even create some way for them to atone for their rash behavior, escorting the "girl" to the next major town where she can get some higher religious/healing treatment to set her right. Make it touch and go so they will not have any idea if the treatment will actually help. The trip should include her continual lapses and her screaming fits will surely attract an unusually high number of monsters.

Drive the point home with less than optimistic descriptions and let that come through in your own demeanor while explaining things. Sell them on it or they won't really learn the lesson you wish to teach.

Just two cents...

As always,
Mark

www.CreativeMountainGames.com

I will chime in with the others - as I was reading your description, the first thought in my mind was "Lethal Weapon". My first guess was that the player felt the scene was designed to run like an action movie, where the hero's charisma is what saves the day.

That being said, let me be a rules-lawyer for a moment...

By your description,"Lead Thug snaps and cuts the girl's throat, lunging around the bar to attack the players, calling his buddies into action."

Based upon that description, the healing spell should very likely work, by the rules.

There seem to be two possibilities -

1) Lead Thug takes an attack on the hostage, does enough damage to down her, then takes a move towards the party and a free action to call out to his buddies. In this scenario, Lead Thug probably does not actually do enough damage to bring the woman to -10 hit points. So, a cure the next round will likely save her.

2) Lead Thug takes a Coup de Grace action on the hostage (this means an automatic critical hit, more likely to yield enough damage to bring the hostage below -10 hit points, and a saving throw to avoid death even if the hostage survives the damage). But Coup de Grace is a full round action. The PCs would see it happening, and would get a round of action before the thug would get to move and call for his buddies. If the party was within about 30 feet, they might even get to make a move and attack the thug. If they down him before the round is up, they might save the girl.

What you describe Sounds more like scenario 1 than scenario 2. By the rules, you did the right thing. And being consistent with the rules is a good thing. In either case, the way you set it up, the PCs have a decent chance to save the hostage by violence.

Now, I stop rules lawyering...

Just because it was set up so that the party could save the woman by violence, that doesn't mean they should do it that way. Using violence in a tense situation you don't understand is unwise, to say the least. There are any number of possible repercussions...

As others have suggeested, the woman may well be horribly upset that the party risked her life that way. The townsfolk may agree with her.

A better story - The Thugs may have friends. Perahps they'd be content if the thugs had lived. However, with them "dispatched" the friends may want to take revenge - on the woman, the townsfolk (for letting the party intervene) and/or the party. Have the Thug's friends specifically tell the party, "If you had just let them talk Joe down, it'd have been okay. But you just had to kill him. You brought this upon yourself!"

Or, re-write the Lead Thug's story slightly. While people thought he had killed the militiaman, he was innnocent. He was trapped in a bad situation, scared out of his wits, and just wanted to get out alive, and chose a wrong way to do it. Now the real murderer is found, and either friends of the Lead Thug and/or the Law are after the characters for the now obviously wrongful death of the thug. Mark's suggestion of a bard siging songs of what the party did works very nicely with this last one, I think

2) Lead Thug takes a Coup de Grace action on the hostage (this means an automatic critical hit, more likely to yield enough damage to bring the hostage below -10 hit points, and a saving throw to avoid death even if the hostage survives the damage). But Coup de Grace is a full round action. The PCs would see it happening, and would get a round of action before the thug would get to move and call for his buddies. If the party was within about 30 feet, they might even get to make a move and attack the thug. If they down him before the round is up, they might save the girl.
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Well. Not sure about this full round action... I think it is a FULL ATTACK action... gotta check.

If you want inspiration: The Old Ones story hour had a similar situation. Three girls as hostages. Two were killed by CDG, one made the Fort save (yeah I know).

As for your players... Lucky this time. Just make sure they don't think they get away like this everytime. Most players who are used to raises don't take death serious enough anymore.

Had a similar situation once when the characters simply torched the building (fireballs inside to make sure the guy don't get away... they had been hunting him for some time) then they wanted to raise the innocents. Well ... rolled on a homemade table and several of them didn't want to come back.

I was quite surprised at their approach ... lawful good paladin and stuff

Darklone said:

Well. Not sure about this full round action... I think it is a FULL ATTACK action... gotta check.

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I am sure. I checked the PHB (pg 133) before I wrote. It says:

"Coup de Grace: As a full-round action, you can use a melee weapon to deliver a coup de grace to a helplesss foe...."

Table 8-4 on PHB page 128 also lists Coup de Grace as a Full Round action.