Should this be fixed

[Thagdal]

She is going to adapt the game further and not make the mistake of introducing anything else like this in the game.

Its a shame your GM sees it as thier mistake.

 

[pemerton]

Not at all certain what you are after here.

Clearly, there was a decision to destroy the artifacts.

Perhaps (depending upon how you look at it), there was a decision to betray the party.

But no decision is meaningful without both context and consequence.

If you have two choices and you want to explore the moral implications and how they influence the game world if you know that your PC won't face any consequence to their actions to me seems a cop out.

I agree.

And it isn't wrongbadfun, but it does seem to me rather weak sauce.

I think we are working here with different notions of consequences, and also a different understanding of the relationship between game and metagame.

On consequences - choices can have all sorts of consequences. Material gain and loss are only one of many possible ranges of consequence, and often not the most important. So even within the fiction of the gameworld, consequences can ensue even if treasure is not lost or foregone.

Second, if the GM makes up the treasure that has been lost, from the point of view of the fiction it is still the case that some material benefit has been foregone - because, from the point of view of the fiction, then (everything else being equal) had the PC not destroyed the treasure he would have had both the old loot and the new loot. Whereas now he has only the new loot.

So even from the point of view of material gain and loss, if the GM makes up the treasure there are nevertheless consequences for the choice within the fiction.

Now, let's look at the real world. If the GM does not put in new treasure, then what is achieved by the player who chooses to destroy the necromantic treasure out of principle (who, given what Elf Witch has said upthread, is a hypothetical and not an actual player) is to reduce his/her PC's mechanical capabilities, in order to make a point about value. Whereas had the player been expedient, s/he would have had a more mechanically capable PC. Unless you take the view that playing the game is itself meant to be a lesson in the morality of sacrifice, this doesn't seem to me to send much of a message other than "if you play the game in order to make points about value, you'll run the risk of having a less mechanically capable PC, and therefore (everything else being equal) a less fun time".

When an author writes a story in which the protagonist affirms the valuable choice over the expedient one, s/he does not per se have a harder time writing the story, or receive fewer royalty payments. Likewise for when an author's protagonist affirms expedience over value. There is no good reason I know of why RPGs need to be different in this respect, or will better support value-focused play by being different in this respect.

In fact, my experience is the opposite: if (i) improved mechanical capability produces a more fun game, and (ii) expedient rather than value-focused play is more likely to proudce that capability, then (iii) players will favour expedience over value. And, as well as my own experience, this is also the impression I get from stories of classic D&D play, where mercenaries are treated as expendable and sheep are herded through the Tomb of Horrors to detect all the traps.

(Part of the reason, in my view, for the drift away from XP rules to "level by fiat" in Dragonlance/2nd-ed style play is to try to sever the nexus express in (ii) above. I think the notion that combat and RPing are at odds, which becomes very prominent around the same time, has a similar origin: combat prowess is the element of AD&D play most affected by treasure acquisition, which in turn is best achieved, in typical AD&D play, by expedient conduct. Unfortunately, these changes to AD&D play tend to very strongly empahise GM force over the storyline as an alternative to "dungeon bashing" (the standard description for mercenary/expedient play), which is certainly not a type of RPGing that I find very functional.)

Still reflecting on the metagame: the real consequences for theme and value-focused play are like the consequences for an author. When the PCs in my game decided to tame rather than kill a dire bear who was threatening them, the important consequences were expressed by one of the players: "I feel really good about not having killed that bear". When one player in my game decided to have his PC ruthlessly kill an NPC rescuee (whose status was ambiguous as between companion and prisoner) as the whole party was fleeing a collapsing temple, the important consequences were the looks of shock and surprise on the faces of the other players. That is, the consequences, like the consequences for an author, consist in audience response. The ingame fictional consequences are simply further grist to that mill - they are not ends in themselves.

I don't understand how you can play a game where you want to delve into moral dilemmas without some kind of guideline. If everything is ambiguous then there is no dilemma.

The board rules put limits on examples I can provide in response to this, but I would say that as a general rule this is not true.

Here is a trivial example that I hope does not violate board rules. Yesterday evening, while shopping, my daughter asked me to buy her a type of packaged chees thatshe has seen her friends take to kinder. It is more expensive than the cheese we normally buy. And it has more packaging. But my daughter wants to fit in at kinder.

The actual values I conemplated when deciding whether or not to buy the cheese were (i) the benefits to the family of saving that money for other, more important things, (ii) the environmental implications of using more packaging, and (iii) the pleasure my daughter would get from fitting in better with her friends. A further value I didn't reflect on at the time, but that is obviously relevant to my decision, is that I could have got the cheaper cheese and given the money saved to Oxfam or MSF.

None of those values is clear cut in terms of their relationship to my choice (how much does my choice support or undercut them?), their importance to the choice (individually, and in relation to other competing values, and in relation to other choices I am making and the way those other choices support or undermine various values), their overall place in a good life, etc. Ambiguity abounds. Nevertheless the choice was a real one that had to be made one way or another.

An example from an RPG, that a player of mine actually had to engage in: one PC had decided to join with the "bad guys" (Vecna cultists), help them sacrifice another PC (a sacrifice that the remaining PCs probably lacked the power to stop in any event) and support Vecna in bringing unity and cohesion to a divided country and its preeminent wizards' guild. The third PC had a choice - do I resist, perhaps futilely, or do I follow the lead of the first PC and join with the new order? The values in play, and the consequences of the various options, were ambiguous, but the decision was nevertheless serious and real. As it happened, the PC joined with the new order, received the personal benefits he was hoping for (redemption of his mortgage and a magistracy) and spearheaded a push to end slavery and ethnic purism within the wizards' guild, which had limited but some genuine success.

It seems to me that you are trying to claim that context and consequence -- the things that make decisions meaningful -- are railroading. In fact, from your posts on this thread, I am at a loss how one can have a GM and not be railroading.....it seems as though depriving the players of any decision related to context or consequence is too much of a straight jacket for you.

Decisions about what elements to introduce into a fiction are meaningful, in my view, for the audience of that fiction. (Perhaps we could say that, within the fictional world, they have meaning for its fictional inhabitants. But as this meaning is purely fictional, I'm not all that interested in it.)

And part of how they get that meaning is that the choice to introduce them into the fiction shows us something about what the author thinks is worth saying, or reflecting on. That is, authorial choices bring with them implicit valuations about what is worth authoring.

Some ways of producing fiction are intended to downplay this second aspect of authorship (eg most mainstream TV dramas). But an RPG tends to make this second aspect of authorshp extremely prominent, given that the authoring is taking place in real time in front of the audience.

I have nothing against GM-adjudicated RPGs. I run such a game, and can confidently assert that it is not a railroad. But I have a pretty clear conception of my role - namely, to introduce into play situations that give the players the opportunity to do interesting things with their PCs. What I do not do as a GM is tell my players what sorts of authorship decisions they should make via their PCs. I want to see what they think is worth introducing into the fiction. And I certainly do not want to reduce the pleasure they get from the game as a result of the decisions that they make.

I therefore take care to ensure that the ingame consequences - the fictional consequences - of what the players have their PCs do produce more opportunities for more interesting play. And in 4e, where treasure is basically part of the PC-build mechanics, material gain and loss is pretty orthogonal to that. For me, these days, the emphasis is on the changing relationships between PCs and the world's myth and history (and the various NPCs who represent that myth and history). (In the past I have run more politically-oriented campaigns, but I find that they are less well-suited to play focused on classic fantasy tropes that is intended to progress successfully into epic levels.)

 

[Elf Witch]

So basically your players PCs murdered and betrayed another PC and joined forces with an evil god. One PC even profited from this and in doing so freed some slaves while condemning everyone else to live under the rule of an evil god. There is an old saying that under Mussolini's thumb the trains ran on time.

Is that a fair description of what happened?

I have no issue if my players want to join forces with the bad guys. I will DM that I will even reward them and allow them to benefit from their actions if that is the type of game they want to play. I have run and played in campaigns where evil wins and the PCs are evil.

The thing is what your PCs did was evil there is no way around that. What I guess I object to is trying to say well no murdering a fellow party member and joining forces with an evil god to enslave your fellow man is somehow a not an evil act. Even if some good things come from it.

I think this should be something talked about out of game. Players and DMs deciding what type of campaign they are interested in. For example in my one campaign if your PC becomes evil then it becomes an NPC. This is something everybody decide because they wanted to play in a heroic game where all PCs were had good in their alignment.

I really dislike 4E and the whole wealth level being part of the character build instead of being in the DM hands and allowing the DM to decide what kind of power level game they want to run.

In the its a game and there is no right way or wrong way to play as long as everyone at your table is on the same page and having fun.

 

[Broken Druid]

I have nothing against GM-adjudicated RPGs. I run such a game, and can confidently assert that it is not a railroad. But I have a pretty clear conception of my role - namely, to introduce into play situations that give the players the opportunity to do interesting things with their PCs. What I do not do as a GM is tell my players what sorts of authorship decisions they should make via their PCs. I want to see what they think is worth introducing into the fiction. And I certainly do not want to reduce the pleasure they get from the game as a result of the decisions that they make.

I therefore take care to ensure that the ingame consequences - the fictional consequences - of what the players have their PCs do produce more opportunities for more interesting play. And in 4e, where treasure is basically part of the PC-build mechanics, material gain and loss is pretty orthogonal to that. For me, these days, the emphasis is on the changing relationships between PCs and the world's myth and history (and the various NPCs who represent that myth and history). (In the past I have run more politically-oriented campaigns, but I find that they are less well-suited to play focused on classic fantasy tropes that is intended to progress successfully into epic levels.)

Hi. I am Elfwitch's DM. And I thought I'd just jump in here a minute about the contract between DM and Players, role playing and in-game consequences.

First of all, I will cede that the game is a fictional work in progress and that the players are writing the story. However, they are writing from an outline provided by the DM. They are writing in a world built by the DM.

Good fiction is internally consistent, made that way by following certain rules. And as long as it stays consistent, it makes for an enjoyable experience. Great fiction has a more sweeping scope, embracing the Butterfly Effect. You may only see the initial beating of the wings, with the final effect manifesting much later in the story, but careful perusal always connects the dots.

Our group's contract was for a fully realized world. Life goes on there, even after the PC's have left the building. What they do, or leave undone, can echo down the time line. We choose to write great fiction.

The throwaway NPC helped in Act One Scene Two may show up in Act Four Scene Three to give the party a much-needed assist. Or that same NPC, if mistreated, may cause the party unexpected complications.

However, our one player has slipped out of the "big picture" mindset. His playing style has gone more toward what I refer to as "D&D Lite", or "Beer & Pretzels" gaming. Which is fine, as far as it goes. It is just frustrating at times to the other players, as well as to the DM. "Kill everything and let the Gods sort it out" mentality does not work in a world with long-term consequences, and is hard to compensate for.

 

[pemerton]

So basically your players PCs murdered and betrayed another PC and joined forces with an evil god. One PC even profited from this and in doing so freed some slaves while condemning everyone else to live under the rule of an evil god. There is an old saying that under Mussolini's thumb the trains ran on time.

Is that a fair description of what happened?

Not really, no.

The PC sided with (former) enemies who murdered another PC. (The player of that other PC was happy enough for his PC to be killed - for various reasons to do with scrying mechanics in Rolemaster the PC in question wasn't working out very well, and a new PC was desired.)

A country already riven by conflict was unified, to an extent, under the rule of an ancient and recently freed Archlich (Vecna). (This campaign occured in the early-to-mid-90s, when the main source on Vecna was the 1st ed DMG.)

I won't explore the comparison to 20th century Fascism because of board rules. Given that it was a fantasy game, comparisons to pre-modern political movements are probably more apposite. And because it was a fantasy game, comparisons to other works of fiction are probably more apposite. It's a while since I've seen the movie Hero, but as I remember it, it presents the question of unification versus freedom, in the context of classical China, as a compelling one for a modern audience. Of course, I wouldn't say that my game was in the same league as that movie as a creative work!

Some complexities in fantasy fiction in determining the moral worth of various forms of government are that (i) non-democratic government forms are taken for granted as legitimate and even desirable (see eg The Return of the King), and (ii) the deliberate killing of large numbers of sentient beings on pretty flimsy grounds is taken for granted as legitimate and even desirable (see eg The Return of the King - when Mordor collapses no prisoners are taken!). When Vecna takes over the government of a collapsing kingdom, it's not clear that government is a lot less democratic, nor that the actual death rate goes up.

In part because of these complexities, my game didn't focus on these sorts of issues, so much as on the effects of the change of government on the wizard's guild and the PCs' home city, as I described upthread. As is often the case in fantasy literature, the fate of these more local communities serves as a sort of proxy for the wider moral progress (or decline) of society. (There is also a similarity between these bracketings and the bracketings of larger scale politics in most superhero comices.)

I have no issue if my players want to join forces with the bad guys.

Well, I put "bad guys" in inverted commas. The NPCs in question went from being the PCs' enemies to their allies (if not friends).

The thing is what your PCs did was evil there is no way around that. What I guess I object to is trying to say well no murdering a fellow party member and joining forces with an evil god to enslave your fellow man is somehow a not an evil act. Even if some good things come from it.

Again, board rules put limits on this sort of discussion. But "enslave your fellow man" is your interpolation - I didn't say that, and that is not what happened - and the question of the proper attitude of a politician to violence (and the PCs in this game were, among other things, politicians) is a complicated one. (I'm thinking particularly of Machiavelli's The Prince, Max Weber's Politics as a Vocation, and Michael Walzer's work on "dirty hands".) The game in question explored the question (among other things). In the real world, then, the morality of the use of political violence is something that is interesting and much-discussed (even here in Australia I note that it was a recurring theme in discussions of the Bush presidency, and continues to be discussed in relation to the Obama presidency). I have my own views on the matter, but won't express them here. But I certainly think it's a reasonable topic for investigation via fictional works, be they excellent movies (Hero) or much more pedestrian RPGs (the campaign I've been describing).

 

[pemerton]

I will cede that the game is a fictional work in progress and that the players are writing the story. However, they are writing from an outline provided by the DM. They are writing in a world built by the DM.

I think the only thing I differ from in your post is the second and third sentences of this passage. I prefer a game in which the outline is jointly agreed (although, in practice, the GM is likely to be more proactive in respect of it), and in which the GM provides the backstory but the players provide most of the forward momentum. And as long as the backstory hasn't been revealed in play, I regard it as entirely provisional and malleable.

One consequence of this is that, when I consider how earlier actions may have later consequences, I focus less on the internal logic of the fictional world, and more on the sorts of complications or thematic pressures that reintroduction of the old NPC or relationship or whatever else will have on the current state of play. And because this is highly relevant to the attitudes and interests of the players at the moment, it means that their attitudes and interests have a big influence on how the fiction unfolds, beyond just the actions that their PCs take within the gameworld.

Very simple example: whether or not the NPC they helped or slighted in Act One turns out to secretly be a cultist of Orcus will turn much more on whether or not that would be interesting now we're in Act Three, than on any world or NPC description that I wrote down during some earlier moment of GM prep.

 

[S'mon]

I really dislike 4E and the whole wealth level being part of the character build instead of being in the DM hands and allowing the DM to decide what kind of power level game they want to run.

4e is really not nearly as bad as pemerton would have you believe. All 4e PCs need is an item +1 per 5 levels for their weapons & defenses; everything else is gravy. And that +1 can be provided as an inherent bonus if desired. And PCs can have up to 5 times (extra +1) or 1/5 (one +1 less) standard treasure for their level and it still works fine, so they can certainly pass up on a single large 'drop' without it hurting the game.

 

[eamon]

4e is really not nearly as bad as pemerton would have you believe. All 4e PCs need is an item +1 per 5 levels for their weapons & defenses; everything else is gravy. And that +1 can be provided as an inherent bonus if desired. And PCs can have up to 5 times (extra +1) or 1/5 (one +1 less) standard treasure for their level and it still works fine, so they can certainly pass up on a single large 'drop' without it hurting the game.

Yeah, especially since if you follow the normal guidelines, due to the strongly exponential scaling of wealth by level the current deficit will soon be merely a blip. That's not to say equipment is irrelevant; in particular getting the right vs. wrong equipment really matters. But you're not going to mess that up with just one missed drop, even if it's a large one. And even with "useless" equipment, the game remains playable, just probably slightly more grindy.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Whether or not a player choice will upset the other players is not an ingame matter - it is not an issue about the fiction or the gameworld. It is a metagame matter - an issue that effects the real people actually sitting around the table playing the game.

No. Playing without your pants on upsets the other players. What you do, in game, with your character, in game, upsets the other players through the medium of upsetting their characters.

The WIS check, as a response to this sort of situation, is an attempt to turn what is a metagame matter into an ingame one (by reference to the fiction: namely, the content of a PC's mind).

No. The Wisdom check, as a response to this sort of situation, is an attempt to ensure that the player has the information that the character probably has, when the Game Master is uncertain exactly how much information the character would have, and has therefore allowed a die roll to determine it.



I wonder how it is that you think you know so much about the motives of others here? Despite what they say?

So why make all this crucial information hostage to a die roll?

Like "Roll a Fortitude save", it allows a player to gain some information, without gaining exact information unless the save is made. Make it, and the GM gives you fuller information. Fail it, and the character has some niggling sense that there is something to think about here. In either case, the character may ignore it.

I think we are working here with different notions of consequences, and also a different understanding of the relationship between game and metagame.

On consequences - choices can have all sorts of consequences. Material gain and loss are only one of many possible ranges of consequence, and often not the most important. So even within the fiction of the gameworld, consequences can ensue even if treasure is not lost or foregone.

Um.....how is this different than the way anyone else is using the term here?

Truly, pemerton, do you imagine that, because there is a material consequence for throwing your money away, that there are no other potential consequences for that act, or for other acts? Do you imagine that, because there are other potential consequences, you're going to find your money back in your bank account?

Because, if you do imagine that, please send me a cheque.


RC

 

[pemerton]

No. Playing without your pants on upsets the other players. What you do, in game, with your character, in game, upsets the other players through the medium of upsetting their characters.

I don't think so. It may be that I misread the OP, but it didn't seem to me to be talking about characters being upset. It seemed to talk about players being upset, about the way the game has unfolded.

Perhaps I misunderstood the situation. But why would I be upset if another PC upset my PC, unless what the player of that PC did also upset me?

Another way to come at the same issue - the OP didn't seem to be asking for RP advice (what should I do about my PC being upset)? It seemed to be asking for advice in relation to an issue of group disharmony.

I wonder how it is that you think you know so much about the motives of others here?

I'm not imputing motives. I'm offering my interpretation of certain fairly well-known game mechanical techniques. If I had to suggest a motive, I would opt for the fairly safe "We do it this way because this is the way we've always done it, and the way some reasonably canonical texts suggest to do it." My beef is primarily with those texts, which I think have a tendency to produce problems in play with no countervailing benefits.

how is this different than the way anyone else is using the term here?

Most of the others posters on this thread seem to be focusing on ingame consequences of choices, and primarily material gain and loss at that.

Most are not focusing on thematic consequences within the gameworld - choices made, values affirmed, emotions realised or thwarted - which tend to be the consequences for protagonists on which a lot of fictional works focus. And most are not focusing on the consequences for the players, considered as joint authors and audience, which in my view are the really interesting consequences.

Do you imagine that, because there are other potential consequences, you're going to find your money back in your bank account?

Because, if you do imagine that, please send me a cheque.

Yet the notion that no good deed goes unrewarded is the mainstay of a huge chunk of folk and contemporarary popular fiction, including probably the bulk of American film. Good fiction, or even mediocre fiction, is not generally concerned with affirming the causal patterns of reality. I don't see that it is important for RPGs to be different in this respect.