When modern ethics collide with medieval ethics

[prosfilaes]

I think those are all player entitlement issues.

I've seen it too. Player X decides he doesn't want to 'bend the knee', 'surrender his weapon', whatever - is really a personal challenge to the GM.

Why? If I wouldn't kneel to a king, why should my character, Badass McAsskicker, kneel? It's not really one of my issues, but I can sympathize with people who want to play characters who come to chew bubblegum and kick ass, and didn't put gum on their equipment list.

At a certain point, I can see this as being a sign of a GM entitlement issue. If the GM is pushing the players around using the king as proxy, then that's a problem. A mutual understanding of where the PCs fit in the social order is important, and I think it's as important the GM be flexible as the players.

 

[S'mon]

People tend to have image in their head how their characters are like, and they sort of want normal npc:s in game react similar way. Somehow I don't feel guards would ask arms off similar ways from dangerous looking heroes than some peasant lads having some knifes on them.
.

Yeah. As GM, my NPC guards tend to be very polite and respectful to heavily armed adventurers! A good policeman knows how to defuse a potentially dangerous situation with violent thugs.

For policeman, read guard.
For violent thugs, read PCs.

So, my guards will often apologise: "I'm sorry sir, you'll need to give up your weapons if you want to see the king. We'll take good care of them."

Conversely, high level PCs who are well trusted may well be allowed to carry weapons in the king's court, if similar status NPCs like generals & champions do so. And a Dark Ages/early medieval type ethos where everyone carries weapons all the time is usually easier to GM and for players to acclimatise to, rather than a Tokugawa Shogunate or Tudor dynasty type setting with strong central authority & mores.

eg have central authority be weak,vulnerable, but worth preserving, so that the alternative to the King is a bunch of demon-summoning clerics, and only the PCs can stop them.

 

[pemerton]

They don't have to have a character who agrees that this is how things should be, but they shouldn't challenge and tell the DM no you are wrong

<snip>

It is the same in a game setting the DM sets up how things work and the players make character who choose how to react to that setting. If your character does not agree on how something should be then he needs to decide how he is going to play it.

<snip>

In game there are consequences to a PCs actions both good and bad that is part of playing the game. The game may revolve around the PCs but they should get special status just because they are PCs.

If the GM builds certain sorts of moral evaluations into the gameworld - such as that extrajudicial killing is in some circumstances morally permissible - and then has players who arc up against that, I think the GM has run into a problem that was entirely forseeable. If the GM isn't prepared to feel this stuff out gently and see how it plays, and instead wants simply to run roughshod over the moral sensibilities of other participants in the game, then I don't have much sympathy if conflicts at the table are the consequence.

If a player agrees from the start to play in a DM setting as it is described then they should make an effort to play in that setting. There is a big difference between having a character who sees the world as wrong and sets out to change it and one who refuses to even acknowledge this is how things work in the game.

Lets take the issue of slavery there is no reason why a player can't be one of the people who want to stop the practice but it is how you go about doing it in the setting. If you just go around killing slave owners and freeing salves without any kind of reasonable plan then you should expect bad things to happen to your PC.

In this sort of game, if I started a series of violent attacks upon the slave owners, and the GM started hosing my PC as a consequence, I would be irritiated to say the least. (There are framing issues here, like compromise among players in the interests of party play and the like. I'm assuming that that sort of stuff is under control). I expect a GM to accomodate my conception of my PC and his/her exploits, and as a GM I do the same for my players. Doubly so when it comes to the moral and evaluative dimension.

To take a real world example you may feel that paying taxes is wrong that the federal government has no constitutional right to take those taxes. Now you can do several things you can try and change the law. You can refuse to pay your taxes. You can cheat and try and keep as much of your taxes from the government as possible. The last two can carry some heavy duty consequences. Maybe going to jail is something you are willing to do for your beliefs. But to expect the federal government not to punish you just because you don't like a law is just silly.

I don't really feel the force of this analogy. The GM is nothing like the national government of the US or any other state. Even if I don't like the norms that the government institutionalises by way of law, I will be obliged to comply by the apparatus of enforcement and administration that the government has established. At least in a country like the US, for most people their lives are intimately enmeshed in that apparatus.

Whereas the GM is just another person sitting at the table. If I object to the norms she is trying to operationalise in the game, I can say so. And not unreasonably - I'm here to play a game. Why should I have to subordinate my moral sense to hers in order to do that?

The OP suggests that the world was described, and as far as I know agreed upon by the players involved. You're suggesting the GM just stated how the world worked without player interjection.

No. I'm suggesting that, in the course of play, it has turned out that some (one?) player(s) don't like the moral situation the GM has set up in her world.

I cannot tell you how much I disagree with this. As a DM I make a world and I decide how things work in the that world. I can and do accept suggestions from the players but in the end as DM I have finally authority on how the laws, customs and NPCs work.

Players who agree to play in the DMs game should at least be willing to accept that this how things work.

We all agreed to play in this campaign and the DM has not once done anything different than what she said she was going to do from the start of the campaign.

At the start of the game the DM gave handouts on how things worked.

<snip>

Everyone agreed to this at the table. Now when it came up at the table it was obvious some didn't agree.

This isn't an issue of GM authority in the abstract. Nor is it, as far as I can see, about the fact that the players promised to play in the game that the GM pitched to them. As you yourself say, in the course of play it has turned out that some players don't like at least some part of that game. And not, as far as I can tell, for some frivolous reason, but for some sort of at least moderately deep evaluative reason.

Any sort of promise to enjoy the GM's game strikes me as largely non-binding, given that we're talking about a leisure activity. And doubly so when it turns out that the player can't keep the promise because of a sincere moral viewpoint.

There is a big difference between characters disagreeing and players disagreeing with the DM. It is one thing for Airn to say to Tristran I think what you did was cold blooded murder. I don't know if I can respect you your god or your king. It is another for Sean to say to Linda ,Mark broke his alignment and he needs to be penalized. And then when Linda pulls out the hand out and shows Sean the part about evil clerics and Knights of the Rose and he still says well I don't agree.

Sure there's a difference. But any game which includes alignment mechanics is asking for this problem to arise (it's why I think alignment mechanics are, in general, unnecessary and a recipe for conflict among participants in the game). I mean, Linda is saying that she and Mark know better than Sean what is good or bad. And Sean, not unreasonably, doesn't agree. Telling Sean that he promised to obey Linda on this point two or ten or twenty weeks ago is neither here nor there - he promised to let her GM the game, but not to be an authoritative determiner of right and wrong (it's not even clear that such a promise would make sense).

the DM has never once dictated how we should play our characters.

Unless I'm misundertanding, though, the GM is setting parameters on how you may play your PC if you want to be counted as good. Which seems to be the issue.

What gets me pissy is players who are told these are the social mores of the area and they choose not to follow them but then get angry with the DM when the DM has the NPCs react to it. It is like they expect special treatment based solely on their PC status.

It seems to me that they want the play of the game to reflect, at least in part or to some extent, their own moral conception of their PCs' actions and circumstances. It strikes me as a concern not about the status of their PCs, but about their status as participants in the game.

Apparently the campaign was going before the nature of the problem reared it's head.

Yes. But that the problem might arise strikes me as highly predictable. And a GM who assumes that the problem can be resolved by pointing out to the players that they agreed to play in the game strikes me as not really understanding the core of the problem - which is that you can invite someone to entertain the idea that what they think is wrong is really right, but in the end it is hard to make them stomach it.

I think there is a fairly obvious path to a possible solution - stop making the controversial stuff the focus of play, and to the extent that the players bring it up themselves, let them sort it out while remaining neutral as GM and doing your best to steer play towards other matters. Whereas rubbing one or more players' noses in the fact that they don't like the moral set up strikes me as just a recipe for more conflict.

 

[pemerton]

I had players who didn't want to give up their weapons before entering a village, attacked the constables who attempted to confiscate their weapons, then had a mob form after they killed the village constables, chase off the adventuring party out of the village, and then get mad at me that the adventure went nowhere.

I've had more than one encounter where the adventurers mouth off to every baron, duke, prince, or whatever person of authority as if they have absolute rights and freedom of speech.

I have seen this too and it always shocks me that the player act surprised when it bites them in the butt.

<snip>

In one game we had asked for an audience with the king we were told that we couldn't bring weapons in. All our research and gather info had told us that the King was viewed as an honest man who cared deeply about his people.

Some of the party refused to give up their weapons it was a disaster. They refused to let us in with weapons, we were not known and some of us were not even the same race. Then the barbarian raged and tried to force his way in. Which of course was met with resistance. The upshot was we had one dead barbarian and the some of the rest of the party on trail for trying to assassinate the King because they pulled weapons. The ones of us who had surrendered our weapons and didn't participate were arrested then escorted out of the kingdom with a death sentence on our heads if we ever came back.

The thing that I found ludicrous was the angry emails directed at the DM for allowing this to happen.

How often are these sorts of things happening in yours (and others') games?

If this sort of thing happened in my game I would regard it as a disaster.

 

[S'mon]

In this sort of game, if I started a series of violent attacks upon the slave owners, and the GM started hosing my PC as a consequence, I would be irritiated to say the least...
...I expect a GM to accomodate my conception of my PC and his/her exploits.

Yeah, as GM (or player) I find this sort of play style pretty insufferable.

1. GM creates setting, explains setting norms to players.
2. Players create PCs who function within the setting.
3. Profit.

That's my preferred approach, IME it's what works best.

1. GM creates setting, explains setting norms to players.
2. Players create PCs without regard to the setting.
3. Loss.

IMO the problem there lies with the players, not the GM. And worst of all are players who tell the GM "You're doing it wrong" when the GM is running the setting explained to the players in #1, which the players didn't even bother to read/listen to because they were so wrapped up in creating their special-snowflake PCs.

If you want to play John Brown in an AD 1850 USA setting, sure, go for it - but don't be surprised if you die. If you want to play Spartacus in a 50 BC Rome settting, sure, go for it - but don't be surprised if you die. And don't blame the GM.

The only case it'd be fair to blame the GM would be bait & switch - the GM appeared to agree that your free-the-slaves PCs would have some kind of Narrativist/Dramatic plot immunity, then you all got butchered by the guards in session 1. Maybe there was a legitimate clash of expectations. But that's a million miles from blaming the GM for not creating the setting you wanted, when the setting was already explained to you but you didn't bother to listen.

 

[pemerton]

We all agreed we wanted to play in game that was more than just dungeon crawls and looting for the sake of looting. We wanted a meaty campaign with an epic feel.

I have to say that this attitude of never killing prisoners makes absolutely no sense from a tactical point of view.

Maybe different people have different conceptions of what makes for a meaty campaign with an epic feel.

One thing I've found over the years is that if every decision comes back to tactical expediency, then that will tend to undermine the epic feel, and push towards some sort of "shades of grey"/gritty/special ops vibe instead.

Another thing I've found is that the best way to avoid every decision coming back to tactical expediency is for the GM to create a "space" in which non-expedient decisions do not end up biting the players. For example, let players extract promises of repetance from prisoners and then have prisoners keep those promises.

Whereas I find that strong use of mechanical alignment tends to undercut epic feel, in part by shifting the focus away from the players' choices and decisions and back onto the GM's own evaluative judgements.

 

[S'mon]

There are some players out there who really feel that they have the right to make the DM present the world they want ,it is like they view the DM as some kind of servant.

Some see the GM as a akin to a servant or a computer game program, there to service the player's desires without regard to their own preference.
Others like pemerton see the GM as another player at the table, with no more authority over the game than any other player. There are Indie games designed around the latter approach which seem to work fine, but neither approach is suitable for D&D or any traditional RPG.

 

[S'mon]

Whereas I find that strong use of mechanical alignment tends to undercut epic feel, in part by shifting the focus away from the players' choices and decisions and back onto the GM's own evaluative judgements.

I agree; I find that 4e Alignment seems to work a lot better than 1e-3e.

The first rule of 4e Alignment: we don't talk about Alignment.

Conversely, 1e AD&D Alignment has worked fine for me in picaresque Wilderlands and Yggsburgh campaigns. Being Good is a mechanical advantage - you can be a Paladin or a Ranger, notably superior to the unrestricted Fighter. But if you act non-LG or non-G you can lose your special powers. As GM I don't act like a jerk, and none of the Good-aligned PCs have had any trouble.

 

[pemerton]

Yeah, as GM (or player) I find this sort of play style pretty insufferable.

<snip>

IMO the problem there lies with the players, not the GM.

<snip>

The only case it'd be fair to blame the GM would be bait & switch - the GM appeared to agree that your free-the-slaves PCs would have some kind of Narrativist/Dramatic plot immunity, then you all got butchered by the guards in session 1. Maybe there was a legitimate clash of expectations. But that's a million miles from blaming the GM for not creating the setting you wanted, when the setting was already explained to you but you didn't bother to listen.

Of course things work best when, as per your preferred approach, everyone is in agreement.

But the question is - what happens when agreement breaks down? And what can be done, both in campaign set up and in the course of play, to help maximise the likelihood of enduring agreement, and minimise the likelihood of agreement breaking down.

In my experience, at least, aggressive deployment of mechanical alignment is basically the opposite of a sound approach in these situations.

And it need have nothing to do with bait-and-switch. Not everyone really appreciates what they're getting into. Suppose we sit down to watch a movie. You suggest Hardboiled. I ask what it is. You explain that it's an ultra-violent action thriller with a strong thematic focus on loyalty and duty. I say, OK. Then we start watching, and I find that the ultraviolence is more than I can take. Am I obliged to sit mutely for the next two hours and suck it up? Or can I ask you to turn it off? And what difference does it make if we up the time to 4 hours a week/fortnight for some indefinite number of weeks?

If you want to play John Brown in an AD 1850 USA setting, sure, go for it - but don't be surprised if you die. If you want to play Spartacus in a 50 BC Rome settting, sure, go for it - but don't be surprised if you die. And don't blame the GM.

Why wouldn't I blame the GM? The GM decides what the NPCs do, after all. They have no independent life.

The question is, is this bad GMing? That depends a lot on the point of the game, and mutual understandings about such things. If I'm playing John Brown in the USA 1850 setting, and the very first NPC I meet and speak to turns out to be a proto-Klansman who rounds up all his friends to ambush and kill me, I'm going to be a bit pissed off. If I get at least to make it to Harpers Ferry, that's a different thing altogether.

Furthermore, your example doesn't require me, as the player of John Brown, to agree that slavery is morally permissible. At least as you've presented it, you're just describing the setting. You're not evaluating it, and imposing that evaluation upon me as a player. Whereas, as best I understand it, in the campaign described by the OP, at least one player is objecting to the claim that a person (maybe more than one person - a king and a cleric) is simultaneously good and tolerant/supportive of extrajudicial killing. I don't think that's an unreasonable objection to put forward. One way for the GM to respond is just to keep running the setting, but (i) refrain from expressing any evaluation of it, and (ii) not rub the dissenting player's nose in it. A GM who insists on sticking to the evaluation, and/or on rubbing the dissenting player's nose in the situation, is in my view simply asking for further conflict.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Yeah, as GM (or player) I find this sort of play style pretty insufferable.

1. GM creates setting, explains setting norms to players.
2. Players create PCs who function within the setting.
3. Profit.

That's my preferred approach, IME it's what works best.

1. GM creates setting, explains setting norms to players.
2. Players create PCs without regard to the setting.
3. Loss.

IMO the problem there lies with the players, not the GM. And worst of all are players who tell the GM "You're doing it wrong" when the GM is running the setting explained to the players in #1, which the players didn't even bother to read/listen to because they were so wrapped up in creating their special-snowflake PCs.

If you want to play John Brown in an AD 1850 USA setting, sure, go for it - but don't be surprised if you die. If you want to play Spartacus in a 50 BC Rome settting, sure, go for it - but don't be surprised if you die. And don't blame the GM.

The only case it'd be fair to blame the GM would be bait & switch - the GM appeared to agree that your free-the-slaves PCs would have some kind of Narrativist/Dramatic plot immunity, then you all got butchered by the guards in session 1. Maybe there was a legitimate clash of expectations. But that's a million miles from blaming the GM for not creating the setting you wanted, when the setting was already explained to you but you didn't bother to listen.

I agree with this a lot.