Dealing with logical but gamebreaking requests

[Rel]

good story. The only way I could be happy doing that as a player is in a campaign wrap-up... "OK, we defeated the BBEG and averted the Apocalypse, now what are you doing to do?" (well, after the obligatory joke from somebody about, "I'm going to Disney World") I could then see one person saying, "I'm going to sell cure light wounds potions in Waterdeep, using the profits to purchase a nice villa in town, settle down, get married and have a few kids..."

Not to derail the thread but I could easily see such a model in a city based campaign. I ran an Eberron campaign set primarily in Sharn several years ago. None of the players started a business selling spells, but I wouldn't have minded if they did. After all, they'd need a place to operate from, costing them rent, in addition to a variety of other taxes and fees imposed by the city. Then there would be the issue of competing directly with the Dragonmarked House that focused on healing, not to mention whether any of the criminal organizations around might try shaking the PCs down for protection money. I think the idea might spawn a ton of adventuring ideas.

As it happened, even though none of the PCs started a business like that, one of them DID start a gang. The Halfling Rogue/Cleric showed some mercy and kindness on a Kobold in one of their early adventures. Later using that Kobold and some of its cohorts as an information source and then ultimately using them to paint propaganda graffiti around town to slander a faction that opposed the PCs. The player absolutely loved that part of the campaign.

I guess this actually does tie back into the theme of the thread if the question were, "Can I allow a 5th level character to have access to an army of a dozen or more Kobolds without unbalancing the game?" My answer is sure you can, provided that you come up with sensible limitations on what such a gang can accomplish, which make sense in the context of the situation.

 

[Havrik Stoneskimmer]

Thanks to everyone who commented. There are a lot of great ideas here!

I think in retrospect the problem was that I didn't really anticipate them asking for something like this and I was caught off guard without a clear idea of what rituals might be available.

In hindsight, I should have let them cast "Detect Object" and reading the ritual description I don't think it would have given them much information that they couldn't get in other ways. Actual scrying and divination is pretty high-level in D&D 4e and pretty much out of range of heroic tier characters.

Just to clarify my setting, I'm starting with the default Nentir Vale setting. The university is one of the most acclaimed in the Nentir Vale region. In this setting, there was once a great empire (like the Roman Empire) which fell about 100 years ago, and the current age is essentially a Dark Age. So my take on this is that once upon a time there were incredibly powerful wizards and magic (in my mind, this was when the famous AD&D wizards lived) and there are relics of such magic lingering around today but now there are very few if any who can harness such power. So in the natural world, I don't think even a great university of sages and scholars would be able to perform rituals over say level 10.

One of my players said afterwards that he felt a little bit railroaded because he felt that clairvoyance spells would logically be available (even though in 4e I'm not sure that's a reasonable assumption). I guess that goes to show that railroading is more about perception that actual game design, because I really didn't have any set chain of events that I wanted to happen; I was really just improvising off of what actions the players took to solve the mystery. In fact I went to particular length to design a situation rather than a story. It's just that I was caught unprepared on this issue that made me discourage them from getting the NPCs to figure it out for them. My fault, sure. Although sometimes it seems like players and DMs may have different perspectives on what the PCs ought to be capable of doing and what resources they have available, leading players to feel constrained and grumpy even when given a logical in-game reason why something isn't available to them.

It's funny, isn't it? Nobody likes an Elminster that fights off the BBEG while the PCs stand on the sidelines and watched, but when an Elminster appears in the story, the players are not unlikely to ask him to help them fight the BBEG!

 

[RedTonic]

Speaking of "starting an item shop, adventures result," there's a cute indie game called Reccettear: An Item Shop's Tale which is ripe with hilarious ideas to be plucked if a campaign ever did take the shopkeeper turn. (The game is also addictive...)

 

[Kzach]

The rules can be anchor if you let them.

I seriously believe that EVERY RPG book ever written should always be pre-faced with Gary Gygax's forward as he wrote in... err... I think it was the 1e PHB. I'd have to dig around and can't be bothered but I'm sure someone else here can fill in that gap.

Anyway, point is, is that the rules should never, ever, limit the imagination, creativity and fun at the table.

 

[Havrik Stoneskimmer]

As a fairly strategic player, I always tend to look for this kind of stuff. And it's always disappointing to me if the GM just falls back on, "No they don't have any scrying magic they can use because otherwise there wouldn't be an adventure for you guys." I carry that attitude with me into the role of GM.

I agree, and I always want to reward players who are engaging with the narrative world and looking for solutions outside of just what's written on their character sheet. But I had to smile, because the conversation you posted would probably irritate me as a DM. I hate when players pick logical holes in my scenarios! Either it makes me look like I haven't thought things through (which is probably correct most of the time), or it makes my NPCs look like chumps, which rather undermines the atmosphere I'm trying to create.

I guess I am still learning at how to best use my limited time to prep a situation that is flexible enough to allow PCs to fully engage it with all the resources the narrative world offers them.

 

[S'mon]

T
One of my players said afterwards that he felt a little bit railroaded because he felt that clairvoyance spells would logically be available (even though in 4e I'm not sure that's a reasonable assumption). I guess that goes to show that railroading is more about perception that actual game design...

Hmm. So the player thinks he's still playing 3e? That's a ridiculous assumption for 4e, especially in the default campaign world. I think your general limiting NPCs to Heroic Tier rituals is exactly right - there may be rare, semi-legendary Paragon NPCs, but they should be special individuals placed with great care by you. Eg IMC major cities may have 8th-10th level ritualists, but there are only maybe half a dozen known individuals of Paragon ability across an empire of 20 million.

 

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

Interesting - I'm sure there is more to the story than you are telling us... however, even in a large city, there are going to be a limited amount of people that can even purchase a single potion of cure light wounds.

We (the rest of the group) have speculated that this was simply a straw that broke the camel's back moment. Though he didn't run 3.5 again, he did play in the game for a couple of years after this moment.

Plus, there will also be people who follow other deities in the city that might not like the competition and/or the deity ("Hey, why is Chuck the Cleric of Deity X selling cure light wounds potions for 100gp each? I follow Deity Y and I'm going to sell my potions for 90gp each and give away a free potion with every 10 purchased." Then, the follower of Deity Z says it is immoral to make a profit off of healing others, so she will require only a service for her church in exchange for a potion and she undercuts both the PC and the NPC cleric of Deity Y)

Not to mention a visit from the town guard a few weeks into the potion sale, "Last night, we had a group of evil blood cultists raid a merchant's guild meeting, killing several wealthy merchants and their guards and making off with thousands in platinum and gold... one of the surviving guards said that even when they attacked the cultists, they would drink a potion and heal right up on the spot. We found a dozen of these potion vials with the markings of your deity on them. We're going to have to question you about supplying the evil cult with their healing abilities.")

Oh, absolutely there were a thousand ways to put an end to this. In this case, his extreme technical proficiency in the game rules hindered his imagination.

His technical expertise was astounding though. Truly remarkable.

 

[S'mon]

If my players were at say the Blue Light Wizards' Academy in Endhome, I'd tell them that the Master of the Academy Stylus Kant can perform (eg) all PHB Arcane rituals to Level 9, his casting level. If they had the full resources of the Overkingdom, the Overking's greatest Magus Lady Krysteel can do rituals up to Level 17, her level, although she's a noble & you better be nice to her. If they were at one of the Great Universities at Imarr, the imperial capital, well most of the professors have no magical ability, but rituals up to around 6th level would be available, maybe 10th if the University pulled in all their Clerical & Wizardly contacts.

And I'd be pretty pissed off if a player demanded some 24th level ritual and told me I was railroading him when I said no.

 

[Rel]

I agree, and I always want to reward players who are engaging with the narrative world and looking for solutions outside of just what's written on their character sheet. But I had to smile, because the conversation you posted would probably irritate me as a DM. I hate when players pick logical holes in my scenarios! Either it makes me look like I haven't thought things through (which is probably correct most of the time), or it makes my NPCs look like chumps, which rather undermines the atmosphere I'm trying to create.

I guess I am still learning at how to best use my limited time to prep a situation that is flexible enough to allow PCs to fully engage it with all the resources the narrative world offers them.

I feel your pain. The simple fact is this: Unless you are a genius and your players are morons then it's nearly certain that the group of them is smarter than the one of you. They're going to ask questions that you're not ready to answer. Since this fact is so central to the gaming experience then I tend to embrace it rather than fight it.

The way to do this in my opinion is to ask yourself any questions that seem obvious and try to address those things. If possible, present it to another person, apart from your players, who might be able to look at it from another angle (my wife is amazing at this). After that you just gotta roll with the punches and hope that your general setting knowledge and a good poker face can get you through the inevitable rough spots.

For example, if caught flat footed when they ask about scrying rituals, you could have said, "Of course we tried that! And it killed the professor who did the ritual! We're dealing with some VERY dangerous people here, which is why they must be stopped!" I might, on my good days, be fast enough to come up with that one on the fly without it sounding like BS.

This leads me to mention one of my favorite GM resources, too often underutilized, which can help you out of these jams: The bathroom.

When in doubt, go to the bathroom. If you drink as much soda as I do during a game session then you probably need to go to the bathroom anyway. When the players put you on the spot, go to the bathroom where those expectant faces aren't staring at you, making creative thought all but impossible. Come up with the best answer you can in a minute and then go back to the game table and run with it.

Eventually you'll either get better at thinking on your feet or your players will stage an intervention and give you the name of a good urologist.

 

[S'mon]

We (the rest of the group) have speculated that this was simply a straw that broke the camel's back moment. Though he didn't run 3.5 again, he did play in the game for a couple of years after this moment.



Oh, absolutely there were a thousand ways to put an end to this. In this case, his extreme technical proficiency in the game rules hindered his imagination.

His technical expertise was astounding though. Truly remarkable.

His extreme 3e technical proficiency did not extend to noticing that a scroll of clw is 25gp/pop, with a 12.5gp production cost; that a clw potion is 50gp and 50 clws on a wand are 750gp, and therefore nobody would ever pay 100gp for a single casting?