How much backlash is too much?

[prosfilaes]

Yes, they have.

Murder is not a crime against an individual.

It's a crime against the community, and most importantly from the point of view of the state, a crime against the authority of the state, its monopoly on the legitimate use of violence.

Which is why cops treat the murder of a drug dealer with all the seriousness of a cop killing. Powerful, dangerous individuals on the wrong side of the law can do a lot of killing among themselves in some places and the law will leave them alone.

"A state is a human community that successfully claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory."

Like Luxembourg. Open a dungeon beneath Luxembourg with trillions in gold and alien technology, and see how long Luxembourg stays a state. In Luxembourg's case, there are powerful neighbors that could come in and take over, but without that, I don't think it would take that many people armed with alien ray guns and biotechnology fighting over gold to overwhelm the cops of Luxembourg. Enforcing the rules that you leave the citizens alone and we'll leave you alone would go far in enforcing some sense of civil order.

I suspect most cities on the edge of megadungeons would have a goal of staying in existence. This means that you convince the evil adventuring parties that it's not worth their time to mess with the city, and this means letting adventuring parties (who are probably at least 4 levels above the highest-level cop) fight among themselves without interference. You take offense only when you have to.

 

[haakon1]

You take offense only when you have to.

You can run your campaign that way if you like, but I don't think most people are gaming in a failed state setting like Somalia . . . non-failed states don't tolerate public murders in the middle of town.

It's not about alignment or personalities of the individuals, it's about what makes a state a state. A state that tolerates murder is like a landlord who tolerates arson -- he's not in business as such for long.

I think much more common than a campaign world with a failed state is a campaign where the DM hasn't really thought about what his setting is like, or how to roleplay the reactions of the NPC's to the PC's action.

There's two basic ways to DM:

1) Static NPC's who ignore most PC actions and don't think for themselves or act independently. In this approach, the monster stays in Room 14 until the PC's come and kill it. It doesn't matter what happened to their friends in Room 13.

2) Roleplayed NPC's who act like people in their roles. Which means, for example, the monsters in Room 14 might come help when their friends in Room 13 are attacked, or might run away, or set an ambush. Or that a state will crush the enemies of the state to the best of its ability.

I personally think approach #1 is boring as a DM or a player, but I've done it that way in the past, and I'm a player in a campaign that looks a whole lot like #1. It's doable, and it's what some folks WANT out of D&D.

I'm just advocating #2 because I think it's better DMing, and it's the approach the OP was looking for help with.

You don't have to agree with this DMing approach, or with my assumption that the OP wants a setting that's not like a failed state.

 

[haakon1]

Do you really want to risk your life and the lives of your (all-too-few) men to get justice for a crazed stranger who attacked another stranger? Don't forget, if you lose too many resources, the village will fall.

Justice isn't necessarily a consideration here.

Power is the issue.

If you let the PC's get away with murder in broad daylight, they are stronger than the local ruler -- and most likely will come for his head.

It doesn't matter what the ruler's alignment is -- he still has the same problem to deal with, and the answer is to eliminate the threat. There's no alignment that says, "You must tolerate monsters who are a threat to you and your community, because the monsters are PC's."

Whether or not the ruler cares about justice, he still wants this threat to his rule eliminated.

And once you bring expedience into it, and the fact that the PC's are stronger than the locals, it seems to me to pretty obviously add up to: hit the PC's when they are down or not expecting it, and kill them all. Thus poisoning. Or give them a suicide mission and then have bounty hunters/another party -- like the good guy party -- hit them if/when they come out of the dungeon with spells and HP down.

That's for anyone who is a serious "clear and present danger" to the community -- as this party proved itself to be, with both a murder in broad daylight of a community defender (the paladin) and by unleashing the evil gate.

This party has it coming, and I think the DM should give 'em both barrels in the back of the head, preferably while they are asleep.

Playing evil characters with consequences -- which might even be fun for the players, as I'm not saying auto-kill, I'm saying TRY to kill the heck out of them with no punches barred -- seems interesting to me.

Playing a game of "I'm a super villain and there's no superheroes so I can do whatever I want and no one can say 'boo' to me" -- makes me want to barf, or get the stats for this party so I can build an adventure for real heroes to go kill them.

Obviously, others mileage may vary.

Anyhow, I'm repeating myself, so I'll shut up now.

 

[S'mon]

You can run your campaign that way if you like, but I don't think most people are gaming in a failed state setting like Somalia . . . non-failed states don't tolerate public murders in the middle of town.

Not Somalia, but I think a lot of D&D campaigns look a lot like Spaghetti-Western Mexico (Fistful of Dollars et al) - bad-ass PCs duel it out with their rivals while frightened peasants run and hide, any local authority is little better than another gang, any State is absent or weak.

 

[LostSoul]

Justice isn't necessarily a consideration here.

Power is the issue.

If you let the PC's get away with murder in broad daylight, they are stronger than the local ruler -- and most likely will come for his head.

Yeah, I agree with you here.

I think there are better ways of dealing with them than facing them out in the street. Talk to them; tell them that they'll have to pay a large fine; negotiate that into taking care of some other threats you have (whatever monsters are lurking out there) in exchange for clearing up the murder issue; earn the trust of the PCs; when the paladins come, use them to take out the PCs.

You deal with the outlaws, gain points with the paladins, and take out a nearby threat all without risking much.

 

[Squire James]

When you relate with friends and relatives, you still need to have boundaries - lines drawn in the sand they should not cross. If you don't draw the line, sometimes they are going to go where you didn't want them to go. Often they will do so without realizing it. So they need to know there's a line, and where you're drawing it!

Now, consider the line "you will not play an evil D&D character". Are you willing to draw that line? If not, will you draw it elsewhere, like "you will not play an evil D&D character unless he can at least function in a civil society"?

Draw a line at a place you feel it needs to go. You will feel better, and real friends will respect the line.

 

[prosfilaes]

You can run your campaign that way if you like, but I don't think most people are gaming in a failed state setting like Somalia . . . non-failed states don't tolerate public murders in the middle of town.

Hommlett couldn't deal with the Temple of Elemental Evil. Indiana Jones's Egypt didn't do much about the Nazis and Jones having a shootout, or even just the Nazis having troops on their soil at all. The states in settings of adventure stories tend to keep their head down.

If you let the PC's get away with murder in broad daylight, they are stronger than the local ruler -- and most likely will come for his head.

Whether the PCs get away with murder in broad daylight does not change whether or not they are stronger than the local ruler. And "most likely will come for his head" doesn't follow; Chuck Norris could beat up the entire Congress, but that doesn't mean that he's starting a coup. For all the time Al Capone and Whitey Bulger were evading justice, none of them tried to kill the president, or even the mayor.

I believe in consequences, but I don't like using a hammer against PCs. It's moot in this case, but if you're going to run in something where the law is going to fall on your head hard, I think the players deserve warning before they do it, probably before they make characters.

Oh, and try to lead by example, by not having LG paladins commit assault (and one can make the case that the paladin's hands are deadly weapons with smite, so assault with a deadly weapon) in public in the middle of town.

(Seriously; last night, our neutral and good party took out a group of semi-official law-men in the bazaar. If you don't want the PCs to leave town, don't have armed men grab them in town, under the delusion that they'll realize this is just a RP encounter and the PC will handle it peacefully. Or at least explain up front that's an expectation.)

 

[Enkhidu]

...Oh, and try to lead by example, by not having LG paladins commit assault (and one can make the case that the paladin's hands are deadly weapons with smite, so assault with a deadly weapon) in public in the middle of town...

I keep seeing this. If Paladin powers are common knowledge, doesn't it follow that it's also common knowledge that smites only work on things that are Evil, proving that the swordsage is likewise Evil (note the capital E), and tainting other people's future interactions with him?

I think this is one of those times when as a DM you have to realize that your PCs just embraced their role as the bad guys, not just grey-area protagonists. The bad guys just don't get the Robin Hood treatment from people in town. And while Capone might have been a celebrity in prohibition era Chicago, he had plausible deniability on his side - something your PCs just gave up with a very public killing.

 

[haakon1]

Hommlett couldn't deal with the Temple of Elemental Evil.

They did the first time, in the Battle of Emridy Fields. The problem came back, and they dealt with it again -- through the PC's and their little helpers like Elmo, I believe his name was.

Indiana Jones's Egypt didn't do much about the Nazis and Jones having a shootout, or even just the Nazis having troops on their soil at all. The states in settings of adventure stories tend to keep their head down.

What happens in a lost city in the middle of the desert, stays in a lost city in the middle of the desert.

And for what it's worth (not much!) in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom", the British Indian army showed up at the end to shoot the bad guys.

Whether the PCs get away with murder in broad daylight does not change whether or not they are stronger than the local ruler. And "most likely will come for his head" doesn't follow; Chuck Norris could beat up the entire Congress, but that doesn't mean that he's starting a coup.

Chuck Norris isn't a villain, he's a Texas Ranger, on the side of truth, justice, and the American Way.

The PC's here ARE villains.

For all the time Al Capone and Whitey Bulger were evading justice, none of them tried to kill the president, or even the mayor.

They weren't superheroes/supervillains like high level D&D characters.

Pinky and the Brain ALWAYS tried to take over the world.

I believe in consequences, but I don't like using a hammer against PCs. It's moot in this case, but if you're going to run in something where the law is going to fall on your head hard, I think the players deserve warning before they do it, probably before they make characters.

Oh, and try to lead by example, by not having LG paladins commit assault (and one can make the case that the paladin's hands are deadly weapons with smite, so assault with a deadly weapon) in public in the middle of town.

I agree the DM should probably tell them something like "I don't like evil PC's and I won't make evil an easy choice for you" at least a few times.

I also wouldn't have had that paladin scene . . . just a little too scripted with the NPC being able to grab him apparently without any rolling.

(Seriously; last night, our neutral and good party took out a group of semi-official law-men in the bazaar. If you don't want the PCs to leave town, don't have armed men grab them in town, under the delusion that they'll realize this is just a RP encounter and the PC will handle it peacefully. Or at least explain up front that's an expectation.)

Nod. That's a scenario that could easily go wrong.

When rulers in my game want to talk to the PC's, they normally have a single messenger tell them they are wanted at the castle or wherever. I've never seen a party say "no" to a summons like that.

Then again, it's usually not far into my campaigns when the PC's are actually working for the local powers-that-be, at least on some of their missions. After all, who needs help with threats to the community? Community leaders and merchants, mostly.

 

[Saeviomagy]

I keep seeing this. If Paladin powers are common knowledge, doesn't it follow that it's also common knowledge that smites only work on things that are Evil, proving that the swordsage is likewise Evil (note the capital E), and tainting other people's future interactions with him?
.

First up, in 4e that's not the case. Almost every paladin power has no interaction with alignment.

Second up - people don't go around with their class branded on their forehead. From second edition onwards, the paladin of hieroneous could just as easily be a cleric of hieroneous who picked up "weapon proficiency, big sword". And that's IF you succeed on your knowledge:religion check to recognise his holy symbols.

Next - in every edition prior to 4e, 'evil' covers a very wide range of behaviour. If I had a PC who was a paladin, I wouldn't let him get away with "detect evil - smite" and be known as a fine, upstanding individual. I'm not going to let NPCs do it either. And that means people are not going to be ok with the justification "X is a paladin, therefore Y must have been evil, so who cares how he's treated?"

I think that's the key to this whole thing: if you had a PC who pulled the stuff this paladin pulled, would you expect the town to get involved?

I'm not necessarily saying the swordsage is innocent and should get off scott-free. I'm saying that this isn't a clear-cut case of murder. The result is largely going to come down to pre-existing relationships between the town and the two adventuring groups. If the paladin party came to town and built and orphanage, while the PC party came to town and strongarmed people, then I'd expect team PC will get run out on a rail. If both groups are much of a muchness, I would expect an investigation of the matter by the local town authority that decides it's self-defense, some monetary reparations and a general wariness of the townsfolk towards the PCs. If the paladin's behaviour in this situation was indicative of his general demeanour (ie - a pushy jerkwad who jumps to conclusions and turns to violence as his first response) I would expect that the local authority would ask his compatriots to clean up the blood.