D&D 5E Drop your weapons situation

[5ekyu]

That being said, the Basic Rules lay it out pretty well in the Adventuring section:
(Paraphrased)
1. DM describes situation.
2. Players say what they want to do.
3. DM describes resolution.

Now, the DM can treat everything like a battle scene, and it drives me nuts when it happens. Because: miniatures aren't necessary for walking around non-combat scenes, I don't want to make a "check" for everything, and hit points are awkward. I have definitely held an opponent at arrow/sword point in the past, just to get drawn into a long combat scene because: hit points.

To me reciting the basic player-GM dynamic as far as resolution doesn't do a thing here.

The GM can decide that one swing of my character's non-magical axe produces butterflies, another heals the target and an third damage the target and another throws fireballs and all that fits within that same set of three stages you just described.

The Gm can decide my character running across the street caused a world to die one time, causes women in a stream nearby to get preganant in another, gets me across the street quickly another time and even wipes out all elves in the multiverse in another... all still within that same three stages.

So, the fact that the rules "lay it out pretty well" says nothing about whether or not any of this was their intent or whether or not any of this is something expected.

Similarly, the decision to bypass essentially the character build and specifically the character defenses in order to get the resoution the Gm wants to happen is not "helped" by citing that broad description.

To me, unless we have had a strong clear up-front description of such additional "skip mechanics" cases (likely with equally clear ways we can use them as players) and acceptance of them, this big of a breach of the expected playstyle and mechanics of how things work in the game is a huge breach of trust between Gm and players IMO in most if not all cases.

if this were done to force a "obey or die" takeover of player control, i would choose "die" and then vote with feet.

trying to promote or prop this kind of thing up by citing the basic sequence of play and the general GM does anything they want falls way short of the mark for me.

The players are participants in the game, not playthings for a Gm to slap his giant GM three-step in the PHB cahones across our faces whenever they think it would be real cool to do so.

When we started playing in DND 5e, we took on a broad set of expectations and mechanics - an agreement between players and GM. Ther sure might be a lot of house rules and rulings and, yes, there is a broadly stated Gm option for stepping outside the rules but for a Gm to do so to setup a "die or give up" situation with new "NPC spring on you mechanics" is way outside of that agreement in spirit if not in fact.

In the case where there was not "some semblance of this approach of out-of-combat-bypass-all-damage-direct-to-dead was not agreed to explicitly before the game" i would urge all the other players to choose death as well resulting in all characters dead issue for the GM to deal with. I would also likely have another campaign ready and inviting players up within a week.

 

[peponf]

Thanks, guys! Reading and thinking about your advice, something clicked in my head and I now I know how I'm gonna try to pull this one. Game starts in a couple of hours so I'll be back to tell you how it went.

 

[Oofta]

The flip side of "because: players" is "because: DMs." The DM can have the most dramatic, awesome scene planned out and need a little rule zero to make it happen, but the players don't know that. All they see is, "there's a knife to our buddy's throat, and he'll die if we don't act."

In my scenario there was no pre-planned scene, it was simply an NPC assassin with a nasty dagger doing the logical thing. One of the PCs was incapacitated so the assassin was just trying to escape by threatening to kill/disintegrate the incapacitated PC if the other PCs didn't back off. They attacked anyway, the assassin's readied action went off and the target PC had to make some saving throws (he was lucky and survived).

I was perfectly OK with the result. The funny thing was that the player of the incapacitated PC jokingly blamed me for trying to kill his character, even though it was the other players who decided to attack knowing the outcome. Some players make the assumption that the game is set up so they can always win.

The moral of the story is that you can never assume the players will do what you think is the logical thing. I've had players say their character would rather die than go to prison, refuse to surrender and so on.

Personally I can see the logic. I don't know how many times my wife and I will be watching some TV show and yell at the stupid cop who drops their gun in a hostage situation because now the bad guy has 2 hostages, not just one. So I'm not saying I would purposely set up this type of scenario, you should never assume players will have their PCs follow your script.

 

[TallIan]

Is this the character's story or your story? It sounds like you are writing a novel and the players are just along for the ride.

I have to agree with this. If the party has no option but to surrender, you're narrating your own story, not facilitating a game for the players.

Surrender is always an option for the PC's - just one they will never go for unless it's their own plan. I don't say this to be mean but any time the PC's of a choice of do this or die your DMing is looking bad. If your low level PC's have chosen to charge the evil kings royal castle head on, then by all means bludgeon away - they have CHOSEN to ignore other options. But if your story requires them to be ambushed and taken prisoner, you are being far too linear in your planning.

I would really consider why you want this "drop your weapons" scene and look at other ways of achieving it. If you just want face time with the BBEG, then have a cinematic meeting at the tavern or something similar.

This is a good video of why "drop your weapons" is a bad idea for a game.

EDIT: posted the wrong video, Post 41 by Ancalagon has the video I actually wanted.

 

[Charlaquin]

To me reciting the basic player-GM dynamic as far as resolution doesn't do a thing here.

The GM can decide that one swing of my character's non-magical axe produces butterflies, another heals the target and an third damage the target and another throws fireballs and all that fits within that same set of three stages you just described.

The Gm can decide my character running across the street caused a world to die one time, causes women in a stream nearby to get preganant in another, gets me across the street quickly another time and even wipes out all elves in the multiverse in another... all still within that same three stages.

So, the fact that the rules "lay it out pretty well" says nothing about whether or not any of this was their intent or whether or not any of this is something expected.

Similarly, the decision to bypass essentially the character build and specifically the character defenses in order to get the resoution the Gm wants to happen is not "helped" by citing that broad description.

To me, unless we have had a strong clear up-front description of such additional "skip mechanics" cases (likely with equally clear ways we can use them as players) and acceptance of them, this big of a breach of the expected playstyle and mechanics of how things work in the game is a huge breach of trust between Gm and players IMO in most if not all cases.

if this were done to force a "obey or die" takeover of player control, i would choose "die" and then vote with feet.

trying to promote or prop this kind of thing up by citing the basic sequence of play and the general GM does anything they want falls way short of the mark for me.

The players are participants in the game, not playthings for a Gm to slap his giant GM three-step in the PHB cahones across our faces whenever they think it would be real cool to do so.

When we started playing in DND 5e, we took on a broad set of expectations and mechanics - an agreement between players and GM. Ther sure might be a lot of house rules and rulings and, yes, there is a broadly stated Gm option for stepping outside the rules but for a Gm to do so to setup a "die or give up" situation with new "NPC spring on you mechanics" is way outside of that agreement in spirit if not in fact.

In the case where there was not "some semblance of this approach of out-of-combat-bypass-all-damage-direct-to-dead was not agreed to explicitly before the game" i would urge all the other players to choose death as well resulting in all characters dead issue for the GM to deal with. I would also likely have another campaign ready and inviting players up within a week.

I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but it seems like your trust in DMs is very fragile. You seem very eager to walk out on DMs who make adjudications based on their own judgment rather than by a system of hard rules, and you equate reasonable rulings like “HP represents a character’s ability to reduce the severity of attacks in combat, so creatures that unable to defend thrmdelves and are not in combat don’t interact with HP” to complete non-sequiturs like running across the street resulting in the extinction of elves.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t approve of putting players in surrender or die scenarios, and I don’t think “they have you surrounded” is an appropriate justification for bypassing HP. But your reaction here seems to come from a place of wanting the DM to function solely as executor of the rules.

 

[5ekyu]

I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but it seems like your trust in DMs is very fragile. You seem very eager to walk out on DMs who make adjudications based on their own judgment rather than by a system of hard rules, and you equate reasonable rulings like “HP represents a character’s ability to reduce the severity of attacks in combat, so creatures that unable to defend thrmdelves and are not in combat don’t interact with HP” to complete non-sequiturs like running across the street resulting in the extinction of elves.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t approve of putting players in surrender or die scenarios, and I don’t think “they have you surrounded” is an appropriate justification for bypassing HP. But your reaction here seems to come from a place of wanting the DM to function solely as executor of the rules.

Really?

Did you get that from this paragraph?

"To me, unless we have had a strong clear up-front description of such additional "skip mechanics" cases (likely with equally clear ways we can use them as players) and acceptance of them, this big of a breach of the expected playstyle and mechanics of how things work in the game is a huge breach of trust between Gm and players IMO in most if not all cases."

Let me be very clear and i say this as someone who has GMed for four decades and who has spent well over 90% of his ttrpg time in the GM seat...

What i believe is that the GM is a player in the game just as much as the ones running PCs are and all the power he has in the game comes from the permissions of those players. That power comes with a trust and an agreement on how he will use it and how things will be done.

At the point when, without warning and without prior agreement, the GM chooses to throw away those agreements on "how things work" and especially in this case for something as dramatic as literally "choose to obey the npc or die" (literally choosing between loss of control or death of character) by bypassing all the rules that give the characters survival... That GM has broken his promise, violated that trust.

Had the notion of "in this case and that case HP are waived" been agreed to by the players, thats an entirely different animal. Had we agreed to use a damage save system or other less ablative system, different animal.

I know for some here it seems there is a perspective that a GM is owed something more by the players because he works so hard etc... But to me he is under just as much if not more of an obligation to stick to the agreed elements of play, not less.

That is not saying that in creating the world, or the parts of it he creates (often my players create chunks - either directly or indirectly) he cannot alter system rules or have NPCs items or effects that work differently than RAW.) I actually care little for RAW beyond where it serves my play.

But when it comes to a thing as significant as survival-or-control forfeiture, the GM who springs something new as far as major honking mechanics bypass has violated the trust he was given.

The players gave you control over so much and you all agreed to a lot of things, it just seems wrong to unilaterally change that on the fly to surprise them with a loss of control or a die as their two options.







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[Henry]

I’ve tried the “take prisoner” option, and i’ve Had other DMs try it. I’ve never seen it work as intended in 35 years. The closest time i’ve Ever seen was when the entire group was taken prisoner, with ONE player’s PC passing EVERY sleep poison save, and escaping with 2 hit points left, then going to round up reinforcements. It was pretty epic, and we talked about it for years, but I never tried it again, because it’s too much risk of a failed campaign and hurt feelings, for too little reward.

 

[ArchfiendBobbie]

I’ve tried the “take prisoner” option, and i’ve Had other DMs try it. I’ve never seen it work as intended in 35 years. The closest time i’ve Ever seen was when the entire group was taken prisoner, with ONE player’s PC passing EVERY sleep poison save, and escaping with 2 hit points left, then going to round up reinforcements. It was pretty epic, and we talked about it for years, but I never tried it again, because it’s too much risk of a failed campaign and hurt feelings, for too little reward.

I have a similar experience with DnD. It never works as planned, and often never works at all. Proved a great way to kill off unimportant NPCs or cause a TPK, but taking hostage pretty much required going far outside the rules.

I have had it work in other games, but those other games have far greater flexibility as far as nonlethal combat.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I’ve tried the “take prisoner” option, and i’ve Had other DMs try it. I’ve never seen it work as intended in 35 years. The closest time i’ve Ever seen was when the entire group was taken prisoner, with ONE player’s PC passing EVERY sleep poison save, and escaping with 2 hit points left, then going to round up reinforcements. It was pretty epic, and we talked about it for years, but I never tried it again, because it’s too much risk of a failed campaign and hurt feelings, for too little reward.

I had it work before -- the party was captured by Orcs. Of course, the circumstances were well set up prior. The orcs in my game were known to take prisoners and generally treat them wellish -- no torture or maiming or death games. The party had captured an orc earlier, and his behavior as a captive went a long way towards establishing how the orc culture treated captives. For instance, he was incensed that they insisted he relinquish his weapons because he was a warrior and had given his surrender honorably, and so expected to be allowed to keep is honor (weapons) so long as he behaved himself appropriately. He also cooperated with information, as that was what was due to an opponent that captured him.

So, later in the session, when the party was deep in Orc held territory (they were seeking an audience with the Orc warlord to gain access to a ruin in orc territory) and a large orc warparty crested a nearby hill, the party sought parlay and offered honorable surrender to be escorted to meet the warlord. They were shocked when the leader of the warparty told them the warlord expected them, and accepted their surrender. When the party arrived at the warcamp, they found out that their rivals and bitter enemies were also seeking to enter the same ruins and had already made their way into the graces of the orc warlord and tried to convince the warlord that the party was dangerous and not to be trusted and should be put to death on sight. Of course, this merely interested the warlord and he decided to welcome in the party for a few games of competition to see which group he gave leave to enter the ruins. Long story short, the rival group cheated and was caught, which caused the orc warlord to fly into a rage at the subversion of his honorable games. The party was both feasted and allowed entry to the ruins and then safe passage from Orc lands.

So, yeah, it works if you set it up well in advance, and then provide a pathway that the party wants to take that goes through surrender. Surrender without having to disarm is best, because people play D&D to be heroes, not helpless.

As a side note, in my current game the party has been tranported to a strange and unexplored land and it in the process of exploring their surroundings and coming acroos the 'locals' -- goblins and kobolds so far. They have taken a few prisoners, but has been frustrated from talking to them due to a lack of a shared language (still low level). So, they've killed all of their captives so far. That's fine, but they've also exterminated a few camps of 'locals', so they're starting to earn a reputation amongst the 'locals' as bloodthirsty people without mercy. This may come back to bite them in the ass if they ever end up trying to surrender in a bad situation. Offering mercy can earn it.

 

[TallIan]

I had it work before -- the party was captured by Orcs. Of course, the circumstances were well set up prior. The orcs in my game were known to take prisoners and generally treat them wellish -- no torture or maiming or death games. The party had captured an orc earlier, and his behavior as a captive went a long way towards establishing how the orc culture treated captives. For instance, he was incensed that they insisted he relinquish his weapons because he was a warrior and had given his surrender honorably, and so expected to be allowed to keep is honor (weapons) so long as he behaved himself appropriately. He also cooperated with information, as that was what was due to an opponent that captured him.

So, later in the session, when the party was deep in Orc held territory (they were seeking an audience with the Orc warlord to gain access to a ruin in orc territory) and a large orc warparty crested a nearby hill, the party sought parlay and offered honorable surrender to be escorted to meet the warlord. They were shocked when the leader of the warparty told them the warlord expected them, and accepted their surrender. When the party arrived at the warcamp, they found out that their rivals and bitter enemies were also seeking to enter the same ruins and had already made their way into the graces of the orc warlord and tried to convince the warlord that the party was dangerous and not to be trusted and should be put to death on sight. Of course, this merely interested the warlord and he decided to welcome in the party for a few games of competition to see which group he gave leave to enter the ruins. Long story short, the rival group cheated and was caught, which caused the orc warlord to fly into a rage at the subversion of his honorable games. The party was both feasted and allowed entry to the ruins and then safe passage from Orc lands.

So, yeah, it works if you set it up well in advance, and then provide a pathway that the party wants to take that goes through surrender. Surrender without having to disarm is best, because people play D&D to be heroes, not helpless.

As a side note, in my current game the party has been tranported to a strange and unexplored land and it in the process of exploring their surroundings and coming acroos the 'locals' -- goblins and kobolds so far. They have taken a few prisoners, but has been frustrated from talking to them due to a lack of a shared language (still low level). So, they've killed all of their captives so far. That's fine, but they've also exterminated a few camps of 'locals', so they're starting to earn a reputation amongst the 'locals' as bloodthirsty people without mercy. This may come back to bite them in the ass if they ever end up trying to surrender in a bad situation. Offering mercy can earn it.

Crucially, they had the option of fleeing the warband, at least that is how I read this, and trying a different approach. (Go directly to the ruin for examle) They weren't in a "Lay down your weapons or die" situation.

I have seen players deliberately get captured as part of their plan. I've never seen them willingly surrender because that was the only way to stay alive.

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