When modern ethics collide with medieval ethics

[Andor]

Okay, guy/girl doesn't matter...this really still strikes me as "I'm right and they're wrong!"...It'd been said over and over again in RPGs, "you're playing it wrong" generally isn't a good way to go about things.

I still stand by my statement that I see a lot of "I" this and that. You seem very centered on the idea that someone has to be wrong in this situation and that that justifies being mad at the players for the actions of their characters.

There is no requirement for a player or their character to back up your every move. If they don't like the way you are playing both in and out of character, perhaps instead of looking for your own personal army on the internet to white-knight you, you should talk it over calmly with them instead of just insisting you were right and they were wrong.

Unless you have reason to think she's lying (and if so I can't imagine why you'ld bother addressing the incident in the first place) you seem to be ignoring that the GM backed her and called the other player out.

Playing in character is one thing, but when your GM tells you that your characters attitude is highly atypical for the setting the correct response is not "No, GM, you're wrong." it is "Ok. So what would the common mindset be, and what might have happened to my character to make her feel so differently?"

The modern attitude towards police has almost nothing in common with common historical attitude towards city guards for a lot of reasons. If a socially powerful PC bolts during a confrontation with one, that does not indicate a proper respect for authority, it probably means he get the crap beaten out of him by some guards in his youth, or has some secret he is hiding.

In fact OP, that might be your best tact to take. Try to work out some backstory with the other PC to explain his weird attitude. And if that doesn't work just make up your own and tell it to the bard as a cover story for his mental deficiancies.

 

[Elf Witch]

Okay, guy/girl doesn't matter...this really still strikes me as "I'm right and they're wrong!"...It'd been said over and over again in RPGs, "you're playing it wrong" generally isn't a good way to go about things.

I still stand by my statement that I see a lot of "I" this and that. You seem very centered on the idea that someone has to be wrong in this situation and that that justifies being mad at the players for the actions of their characters.



There is no requirement for a player or their character to back up your every move. If they don't like the way you are playing both in and out of character, perhaps instead of looking for your own personal army on the internet to white-knight you, you should talk it over calmly with them instead of just insisting you were right and they were wrong.

This was a player vs player thing not a character vs character with the two of them calling me a bad player and telling the DM that they didn't know if they could continue playing in the campaign if I was going to continue playing this character because I played her so recklessly without any concern for the party.

Their whole point was I used magic against what they thought was city guards which in most games can be very bad. They had forgotten the whole part where commoners don't treat nobility or mages with such open contempt and disrespect. They were not playing their characters they were metagaming. They assumed that I had no in game reason other then to just act recklessly at the table. They also felt that I was calling attention to us when they wanted to keep a low profile.


After walking away and leaving me to my fate they had the nerve to whine to the DM that were not sure they could trust me to watch their backs.

And I am not looking for my own personal army to white knight me on the internet. The only person's opinion that matters to me on this is my DMs and she and I have talked at length over this as a matter of fact I think she is going to do something she rarely does and come on to EnWorld and post.


I started this topic because I thought the whole subject was an interesting one for both DMs and players .

As a player and a DM I have seen this issue before and wanted to discuss the entire issue not just what happened Sunday. I had not planned to go into further detail until you basically seemed to feel the need to call me out it.

 

[Rogue Agent]

I argued back that it made perfect role playing sense that my character would not...

This, AFAICT, is the point where you're running into problems: You've got PCs having legitimate, in-character disputes about the right course of action and the right set of ethics... And then, suddenly, it's about whether or not you were acting in character or not.

Skip that step. Keep the conflict in character: Your character's friends felt he put them in danger and decided to run off instead of backing him up. That's what the argument is about (or, at least, what it should be about); not whether or not your actions were "perfect role playing" or not.

I don't know where that unnecessary leap from IC to OOC is coming from. In your narrative, you were the one to make it. If that's the case, cut it out. If it's not, do your best to push the discussion back IC instead of having it turn into a meaningless argument about who's "roleplaying better".

 

[Broken Druid]

There problem I see here is a lot of "I" in these statements. Being able to seperate yourself from your character when actions that adversely affect your character arise is important. In my opinion the biggest problem I see here is that YOU were personally upset when their characters reacted equally in character to yours, but did not fall in line with your ideas.

Your character acted in character(in your opinion), their characters reacted in character(in their opinion) and part of that reaction was not approving of your in-character actions. You then became upset that they disagreed with you, which is fine IN CHARACTER, but from reading this it feels like you became upset with the PLAYERS as a fellow player.

So yes, while the setting may be whatever, I think the issue here is that players(yourself and them) are not separating themselves from their characters while role-playing.

<sigh> Your attention, please. This is the DM speaking.

Yes, the issue IS players not being able to separate themselves from their characters. But, here is the twist on that. Although I have, time and again, harped on the difference of the gameworld mindset, I have one player who consistently refuses to play to that mindset, insisting on a modern ethics-based epistemology. And the third player is a "do as I say, not as I do" style player. In other words, he gets very upset when another player does or says something HE considers as possibly causing either inner-party conflict, or potentially causing the party problems. (He, on the other hand, can do or say anything he sees as being in character, regardless of the consequences, and that is okay.)

The one watchman acted and spoke in a way that would be very out of character for the City Watch, especially since the Elf Witch's character had cast a spell in their sight, and was wearing a medallion with her Guild's emblem (a guild that is rather feared by the city's underbelly and lesser authorities). As usual, Elf Witch was the only one to pick up on the clue, and follow up on it. The other two decided that she was indulging in theatrics and, in disgust, walked off. One of them even had the gall to make the parting remark of, "She does this all the time." (Side note: The character had been travelling with the party all of about four weeks, and this was actually the second time they all were interacting with local authorities. The other time, Elf Witch's character was polite to the mayor, local church prelate and Watch Captain.)

BTW, the explanation I got for their behavior was that the party was supposed to be trying to keep a low profile, and hide their presence while in town, to avoid their enemies. Although how you can hide a heavily shadow-tattooed dwarf and a furred, winged 6'+ humanoid is a bit beyond me. As for enemies, I had already told them that their one enemy had been exiled, and the other one seemed to have also quit the city.

There are two core problems. One problem is that no one seems to be able to accurately remember background and past events. Elf Witch takes notes at the table, and regularly reviews them. The other two don't, and then resent the fact that Elf Witch does remember things when they don't.

The other problem I have is the refusal to live in the world I have created. It seems that I rarely have two sessions go by where there is not an argument about what is and isn't acceptable alignment behavior, and past incidents are brought up time and time again as examples, even when I have ruled them as correct. For example, I have emphasized that, when it comes to sapient creatures, there is no hard, fast alignment. Yet time and again, one or the other of my male players make assumptions based on metagame knowledge gleaned from the Monster Manual or past experience (and I'm not talking PC experience, either.) And then they are unpleasantly surprised when their assumptions bite them in the ass, and once more the arguments start.

 

[Elf Witch]

This, AFAICT, is the point where you're running into problems: You've got PCs having legitimate, in-character disputes about the right course of action and the right set of ethics... And then, suddenly, it's about whether or not you were acting in character or not.

Skip that step. Keep the conflict in character: Your character's friends felt he put them in danger and decided to run off instead of backing him up. That's what the argument is about (or, at least, what it should be about); not whether or not your actions were "perfect role playing" or not.

I don't know where that unnecessary leap from IC to OOC is coming from. In your narrative, you were the one to make it. If that's the case, cut it out. If it's not, do your best to push the discussion back IC instead of having it turn into a meaningless argument about who's "roleplaying better".

If it had been in character then I would not have be having any issue with this. When they first left I was like okay and continued on with the scene I thought well we will have words about what was going on when we got back together. That didn't happen we never got the chance to it.

I live with the DM and though I was not trying to eavesdrop I could not help but hear her part of the conversation where she went round and round trying to explain how the guards behavior was a clue. How in three years of playing the real city guard have never used anything but polite voices when dealing with the party when they had a mage or a cleric with them.

Instead of them being willing to just move on and admit that there was a miscommunication and that they didn't pick up on the DMs clues they are still insisting that I should never have cast those spells because what if I had been wrong.

Right now they are really don't want to move on its is like they want the DM to say yes you are right Carol was in the wrong for casting those spells.

I don't really want to talk about this anymore.

I started this thread to talk about the wider subject of dealing with modern ethics in a fantasy setting.

 

[Broken Druid]

[MENTION=9037]Elf Witch[/MENTION]

I'm really glad you brought this topic up. I'm going to be running a campaign set in 12th Century England during the Anarchy. The environment will be like what you've described about the campaign you're playing in. It's highlighted for me that I definitely need to take into consideration how the players are going to respond to the environment, definitely need to talk about the environment before the game (a little more in-depth than "this is a medieval world with everything that goes with that"), and definitely do my best to gently keep highlighting the environment to the players throughout the game (to avoid the problems your DM and you have run into). I may also downplay certain aspects in the spirit of keeping the game running smoothly.

So, a timely and interesting thread. Thank You.

My suggestion is to write out a summary of how law works, how the social classes are structured and how they interact, what the commonly-held view is of magic-users, clerics and adventurers.

 

[Broken Druid]

It seems this thread has gotten off-topic, and it is such an interesting one, I would like to see itget back on track.

I have to assume that this problem is not unique to my game. Since it continually rears its ugly head time and again I have decided to type up and distribute a handout, which I intend to review at the beginning of every session until all my players get it right. Topics I will cover in the handout will include structure of law, societal caste roles and interaction, and commomplace moral and ethical structures. Also intend to define the alignment structure of the world. Wish I had thought to do this in the beginning.

Anyone have any other advice?

 

[Elf Witch]

For the game I run I wrote up how everything works. From how the world views wizards to how the law works.

I am running a campaign with a lot of dragons in it and a dragon war I made the decision that since dragons are sapient they choose their own alignment the same as everyone else. As the party has found out meeting a gold dragon may not be a good thing.

One of the big core issues in my game is the lack of divine magic the gods are not able to make contact with their churches. Because of this you can evil priests running around in Heirneous temple.

As for the law it is administered by the priests of St Cuthbert and because of that it is ruled with a fierce by the letter of the law without the compassion of good being involved wrong doers get punished regardless of the circumstances of why they did the crime. I often remind my players of this.

It is one of the harder things for some of them to wrap their minds around that you would punish a woman by cutting off her hand because she stole food to feed her hungry children.


I am lucky that my players in my game are more laid back then the players in the game I play in.

They accept my rulings and I work with each of them on how their alignment works in the setting. I have a player playing a paladin and we have worked closely on making his oaths.

I am working on a write up on each of the alignments work in my game.

 

[gamerprinter]

I am running a campaign with a lot of dragons in it and a dragon war I made the decision that since dragons are sapient they choose their own alignment the same as everyone else. As the party has found out meeting a gold dragon may not be a good thing.

Long time ago, I ran a game where dragons are born 'gray', no color nor metal, once they reach adolescense, they choose an alignment and then begin to acquire the appropriate color or metal that they'll have as an adult dragon. Not quite the same tact as you chose, but similar.

 

[Elf Witch]

Long time ago, I ran a game where dragons are born 'gray', no color nor metal, once they reach adolescense, they choose an alignment and then begin to acquire the appropriate color or metal that they'll have as an adult dragon. Not quite the same tact as you chose, but similar.

I like this idea and am going to steal it for a future campaign.

I wanted a game where the players would not be going look a goblin kill it or look a bronze dragon he is going to be friendly.

As they have found out the local goblin tribe lives in peace with their human neighbors and the dwarves hate all outsiders but especially gnomes who they enslave. And kobolds are allies with the dwarves and help them in matters of traps for their caverns,