D&D General Fighting Law and Order

[Oofta]

I know there's probably people reading this that really are repulsed by the set up in the original post, and feel this is 'bad player syndrome'. And I feel it a good time to reiterate some great wisdom I heard from Matt Colville before: There are no bad players. There are just players who would rather play a different style and would be a perfect fit at a different table. Same with DMs.

I agree which is why I let people know my style when I have an opening. I'm okay not being the right DM for everyone, but people should know what they're signing up for.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

This is a problem as old as the game: How does a DM get the players to stop just outright slaying all NPCs, but more specifically the "good guys". Assuming that the PCs are at least sort of good, or at least want open access to good/neutral civilization.

Persuade them to be enthusiastic about the campaign premise before the campaign begins. Don't try to get them on board after things are already going wrong.

This is not a problem in my Hard Fun Old School Unfair Unbalance style games. So here is what happened over the weekend:

<snip>

After the slaughter fest, the PCs flee the city and go to hide in some caves. And this ends the adventure for the night. Of course, next game brings up the problem: what will the city do about the most vile and evil mass murderers in all of history.

IMO? This is 100% a "time to sit down with the players and figure out how the hell this went so wrong." Because this sort of thing pretty much guarantees that there was a miscommunication or misunderstanding between you and them.

Sure you could just ignore it. But most DMs like to have a bit more 'reality based games' where consequences matter.

I'm not really sure why you phrase it this way. This isn't about consequences anymore. It's about "the players did something that breaks with the spirit of the campaign, in a way that has shocked and concerned the regular DM" as you say below. That, alone, should tell you that something didn't work out right between you and them.

I sent the game notes to the games DM, and he was a bit shocked the players did the murderfest. There is a chance, he said, he might need me to cover the game next week. So that puts it back to me of what might happen. My reaction would be the super harsh way...killing the characters. And maybe reseting the game with some time travel or something like that.

Unfortunately, "the super harsh way" might work...or it might end up hardening the players' hearts, making them even more committed to their murderhobo ways, just making sure they never get caught. Or, worse, they might simply riot and wait for their usual DM to return, at which point they can badmouth you and persuade them that none of this should have happened. Which, I dunno, maybe you're okay with that, maybe you aren't, but "the super harsh way" certainly has the potential to backfire spectacularly.

But this leaves the issue of talking to the players. I'm not really a fan of talking. They think they did nothing wrong by slaughtering so many NPCs, but then still "get" that they had to flee the city as they are now mass murderers. I know from many past "talks" that nothing much will come from such a talk. I'm sure the players will say "anything in the game that gets in my characters way will be slaughtered!!!!!!", as that is exactly what they did.

But....here I am. Asking for maybe another view point? Is there anything new to say on this topic? I guess someone might say that a game must have a session zero where the DM very slowly and carefully tells the players the way good, evil, slaughter and common sense work in the game. Though in this case it's not "my" game. Still the players "get" that it was wrong to slaughter all the guards......but that did NOTHING to stop them.

So, anyone?

Being perfectly honest, "I'm not really a fan of talking" sounds to me like there is no solution to this problem. You don't want to talk to them, you don't believe that if you do talk to them that you'll get anywhere, and you believe that they have accepted something which, to you, is an inherent contradiction in terms (they have accepted that what they did was wrong, while still believing they should do a thing they consider to be wrong.) Any non-talking solution involves punitive action, which the players are very likely to interpret as "that jerk DM getting mad at us," rather than "well, well, well, if it isn't the consequences of my own actions," or at the very least, "ah, we got caught, time to double down and get better at not getting caught."

But, if you're still looking for a solution, I recommend asking each of the individual players privately, "What did you think of this session? How would you do it differently, if you think anything should have changed? Do you think it's normal or appropriate to kill city guards just doing their jobs?" I would also recommend talking more closely with their normal DM and asking why he is surprised by their behavior--perhaps there's a nugget of information you don't know. E.g. (and I know this might not apply, just bear with me) maybe this DM only uses a battle map when combat is essentially inevitable, so the players went murderhobo because they saw a map and assumed "oh, we're screwed either way, better get this over with." (That actually happened to someone on this forum, a while back, so it's not unprecedented.)

Once you've gotten feedback from the individual players, review it, see if there's anything you could have done differently. Even if nothing you did seems wrong, approach the group as a whole with an open mind. If the players agree that killing the guards is genuinely wrong, work with them--few people ever do something they genuinely consider wrong simply because they can. Coming to the discussion having already decided that everyone deserves to be punished is counter-productive and likely to just make the situation worse.

 

[Olrox17]

Since this isn’t the OP’s game, I would advise the OP to ask the game’s DM for very detailed advice on what to do.
If the game’s DM was unable to provide any kind of direction, or if his advice was something like “just kill them lol”, I’d excuse myself from the substitute DM position.

 

[Andvari]

Townsfolk will obviously flee and immediately call for help upon seeing the PCs, but could there be a revenge incentive for them to uncover who set them up without having them to return to that town? That might be a way for the adventure to continue, even if they have to deal with occasional bounty hunters.

 

[Andvari]

I don't remember where I saw it (maybe it was here on ENWorld?) but someone had come up with an interesting solution for the "murderhobo" characters: Invincible NPCs.

In a nutshell, if the party isn't "supposed" to kill certain NPCs--whether for story reasons, ethical reasons, or whatever--they can't kill them. They can attack them all they want, and hit them, slap them around, do damage, whatever, but the NPCs never drop to zero hit points. Eventually the party will exhaust themselves and either surrender, be subdued/captured, or flee.

I've never tried it, and I'm not sure I'd like it. It seems like it would be unsatisfying for the players. But on the other hand, it could keep them out of trouble by protecting them from themselves. And besides: do you even want the killing of innocent NPCs to be satisfying? For certain situations, maybe this would be worth a shot.

That's how CRPGs do it as they don't have a DM and want to prevent the game reaching a state where it cannot be completed.

 

[Lanefan]

If I were the returning DM, I’d honestly play the previous session off as a dream one of the PCs had and I’d restart where I’d previously left off.

Hopefully, that one session is enough to show them the errors of that approach.

And if, when the scenario gets replayed, they double down on their previous methods - what then?

I mean, if I'm a player there - assuming my character has the same memories of this "dream" as do I the player - I already know what's going to work to get me freed and when the best time will be to do it; only this time I'm planning ahead so as to even more efficiently take down the guards.

Then going forward, I’d avoid having plots that the players have to follow.

Either that, or for those key bits they really do have to follow*, don't give them any escape hatches. Here, I think a better option would have been to capture them, have the shadowy figure give them the mission, then gas them all to sleep and have them awaken the next morning in a safe leafy glade ten miles out of town. From there, they're on their own and can approach the mission - or not - as they like.

* - having one of these lead-'em-by-the-nose bits happen infrequently is, IMO, fair game; but always err on the side of caution as it's something that can very easily be overdone.

 

[Lanefan]

That's how CRPGs do it as they don't have a DM and want to prevent the game reaching a state where it cannot be completed.

Fortunately, these aren't CRPGs we're talking about.

First off, it's rare there's a hard-coded "completion point" in a TTRPG. I mean, even if the campaign is a single adventure path there's nothing stopping continuation of play after that AP is done, should the table so desire. The game is never over unless the GM bails out.

Further, unless a TPK occurs it's (extremely close to) impossible to reach a state where an ongoing game cannot continue.

Impossible to complete a specific mission or adventure? Sure. Happens all the time But there's (extremely close to) always something else they can do instead, and the game continues when they go and do it. The corner case exception would be a situation where the PCs are trapped somewhere and don't have - or have lost, destroyed, broken, or killed - their only means of escape.

 

[Andvari]

Fortunately, these aren't CRPGs we're talking about.

Yeah, I really wouldn't recommend doing it in an RPG unless you want players to feel like they're in a computer game.

 

[Digdude]

As a Dm its ok to say "Time Out" at the moment your PCs are about to do something that crosses the line. Explain to the players that their future actions are going to have negative consequences on their future play. Give them opportunity to think about it as a group, before it happens. If there are all like "hell yeah we are killin guards" then let it roll and either give them what they want or find another group if it upsets, you. If a fight accidentally breaks out, bring up to subdual rules several times and make clear that they dont have to kill they can just knock out.

 

[BookTenTiger]

That and, in the future, don't put this group in a situation where they're in conflict with the "good guys," as they'll clearly mow through them as readily as anything else. That is, unless the group WANTS a morally ambiguous everyone's after them plotline (and the group is cool with not being heroes).

I think this is the key. D&D gives the players a bunch of tools to solve problems, but the majority of them are combat-based. So when players look down at their character sheet to see the tools available, they see great swords and fireballs.

I had a DM once who set an adventure in an underground city full of fascist law enforcers, spies, etc. Basically if our characters were discovered they'd be attacked by a death squad we got to witness in our first session in this city. An NPC gave us masks that copied the identities (as in Disguise Self) of a freshly-killed corpse.

She was then surprised when we just started killing people and stealing their faces. She thought there would be a lot more moral debate. But to us, she had pretty clearly set up a scenario in which using other tools would put us in conflict with an actual death squad. It made more sense to use the Murder Masks.