D&D General Fighting Law and Order

[UngainlyTitan]

I don't think so. I don't see why they would think that....and if you do, I'd guess there is a chance they would too.

My intent is first of all to run a fun game, for everyone. And with my crystal ball I know these players will make the worst bumbling fugitives from the law characters. It's already bad enough that they are clueless, but worse as they won't even try. They see the game as a "silly life is like a sports star demi god" for their characters. I'm a Hard Fun Dark Gritty DM that sees the game as "life is war or harsh reality and characters are nobody". So, for example, as they are "hiding in the wild" when they KNOW they are being hunted they will leave a huge trail, make tons of noise and light a huge camp fire at night that can be seen for miles. And I know I could not even explain this to them as if I was to say "the bounty hunters saw your fire" they would just give me blank looks like "what?".

So I know the "on the run from the law" sub plot won't be all that much fun. Af show theter some more slaughter where they kill more good folk, they will be caught. Not so much fun of a game.

So I will:
1) show them better made characters more along the lines of what they want the character to do, not just pick from the five super powerful internet popular types.

2)Give them the tools and make a couple of real life skills to "hide on the run" if that is what they want to do.

3)Give them the tools to "put things right" if that is what they want.

I would say, fist off explain what kind of game you run and how it plays out and find out if they want to continue., because it sounds to me there is a huge gulf between their expectation and what you plan to deliver.

 

[pemerton]

All you classic/trad GMs are all on about the authenticity of the living world and verisimilitude and variations on the theme of games that focus the development of the world on the PCs as unrealistic and whatever. This is what reality is like. Sometimes someone murders a bunch of people and walks away! Sometimes (and in a fairly chaotic low tech fantasy world filled with evil bad guys, bandits, orc tribes, wars, etc. this all seems pretty likely) authorities just don't have a lot of power. Sometimes they don't feel like doing something. Sometimes other authorities take advantage, etc. etc. etc. All this is stuff that happens in the REAL world, so why is it implausible in the fantasy world? I mean, sure maybe there ARE consequences, or at least there certainly are some people that would like there to be. Maybe some time in the future the party fighter will feel a shiv stuck in his kidney while he's drinking at the bar, and a voice will say "remember that guard captain! That was my father! Ain't paybacks a bitch!" Or maybe not.

I think this point about verisimilitude and plausibility is well made.

I wanted to add: as you (AbdulAlhazred) know, I have significant doubts about the capacity of the Gygax-type exploration model of play to be extended into other fictional environments, like towns and cities, where the number of fictional elements and their interactions becomes too intricate for a GM to plausibly "map" the world and write it all up in a key. Still, if one sets aside my doubts and aims at that goal, there are various well-known techniques to support it, one of which is random encounters. (And other RPGs that don't emphasise the exploration model of play also use random encounters/events to support verisimilitude and the "living, breathing" unfolding of the world - eg Torchbearer's camp and town event tables.)

So one could imagine that fugitive PCs perhaps have the chance of an encounter stepped up by 1 pip on the relevant die, to reflect the fact that authorities, bounty hunters, daughters of murdered guard captains, etc are now trying to track them down and hold them to account for their crimes. Whether the encounter table is adjusted to reflect this, or whether some entries on the ordinary table get interpreted and brought into play in light of this adjustment to the encounter chance is a further question of implementation which should be easy enough to resolve.

I just don't see any sense in which preserving the verisimilitude of the setting mandates the sort of "crushed from on high like the bugs they are" approach being advocated by some posters in this thread.

EDITed to add:

Heck, in England as recently as 300 years ago it was incredibly dangerous on the roads, because there were highwaymen everywhere, you think that was because nobody could be bothered to get rid of them, or they weren't actually a problem? No, the government, supposedly this mighty empire, was too weak to police the roads within 50 miles of London. Before modern communications, automobile transport, etc. it was HARD to keep order anywhere. Rome had the same problem 2000 years ago, you could get robbed 50 miles outside the city walls, it happened 100 times a day.

Right. In his famous work Leviathan, Hobbes (as part of his argument about human's propensity to conflict with one another) points out to the reader that of course, when leaving home and travelling, one locks one's doors and arms oneself.

In contemporary Australia we still generally lock our doors, but almost all of the population goes about unarmed.

Projecting contemporary conceptions of what peaceful life is like onto a D&D-type setting is highly un-verisimilitudinous.

Likewise if one considers the inspirational fiction: one of the most famous REH Conan stories, for instance - Queen of the Black Coast - involves Conan boarding a vessel sailing from a port in Argos because he is being pursued by guards after having killed a judge and other guards who had forced him to be a material witness in a trial.

There is no sense in the story that Conan is the villain, and that as a result he will be unable to ever appear in civilised lands again. And in fact, as we all know, he goes on to be a very popular ruler of the most civilised land of all!

 

[Flamestrike]

In the real world, sure. But in a typically-violent D&D setting it would be perhaps a little more common.

It's not more common.

Normal human beings don't go around randomly murdering people, outside of serial killers and the like, who are also generally utterly mentally unwell.

If you're playing some dude who murders other human beings over petty insults or whatnot or trivial matters then:

1) You're almost certainly NOT playing an actual realistic character, and
2) Who in their right mind would want to hang around with you (i.e the other players characters?)

If you were to witness me hack some poor woman to death with a hatchet, over a few copper pieces, would you be comfortable heading out on an expedition in the wilderness with me? Or would you (like any sensible person) be utterly horrified and want nothing to do with me?

I mean come on. Lets talk actual people here.

When it happens in game, it's invariably some pimply faced angsty kid venting and being a jerk. It's almost never a genuine attempt to play an actual character. It's almost always poor form for the other players (unless they're all happening to also be playing serial killers as well for some reason) as it puts them in an ethical bind.

For mine, If I saw someone murderhobo, Im calling the authorities and having nothing more to do with that person.

 

[Flamestrike]

I agree with your position re in-fiction consequences for murder-hoboing, but I strongly disagree with not letting it happen in the first place.

Ive had session zero with that player already and set my campaign expectaions. I've pulled that player up and stopped them once already.

Next move is to have them publicly hung for the benefit of the other players, and then have that sooking little brat booted from my campaign either of his own violation, or from mine.

Either way, it happens no more than once and the standard gets set.

 

[pemerton]

Ive had session zero with that player already and set my campaign expectaions. I've pulled that player up and stopped them once already.

Next move is to have them publicly hung for the benefit of the other players

Is it legal to publicly hang players in your jurisdiction?

 

[Flamestrike]

And so they have chosen... mist.

You're hubristically assuming your PC is the biggest fish in the town, and more powerful NPCs dont exist either for hire, or working for the Mafia already.

Falsely.

Go ahead and piss off the Flaming Fist, or the Zhents in my campaign and see what happens to you. Expect very high level NPCs to come-a-looking for you.

 

[Flamestrike]

Is it legal to publicly hang players in your jurisdiction?

I wish it was sometimes.

 

[pemerton]

Go ahead and piss off the Flaming Fist, or the Zhents in my campaign and see what happens to you. Expect very high level NPCs to come-a-looking for you.

What do you take to be the role of the players, other than to dance to the tune of the GM (as played via the instrument of their very high level NPCs)?

 

[Flamestrike]

Meh. I spent a bunch of time in Nairobi and around some other areas in Kenya. Law enforcement and 'government power' in general is a much different sort of thing than people are used to in modern high income parts of the world.

And people in those countries dont just routinely go around murdering each other over a few dollars, over slight insults or anything else of that nature.

And DnD (Faerun) assumes a world as advanced (more advanced in many ways) as our own. Dimensional travel, Space travel, instantaneous travel (and communication) medical tech far more advanced than ours (limb regeneration, resurrection etc.).

If the 16th level Cleric ruler and High Priest in Beregost cant sort the problem out, he's literally one Sending spell away from contacting someone higher up in the church literally anywhere on the planet and getting the help he needs.

He's got spells. He'll use them in doing his job, just like the PCs use theirs in doing their jobs.

 

[Tutara]

You're hubristically assuming your PC is the biggest fish in the town, and more powerful NPCs dont exist either for hire, or working for the Mafia already.

Falsely.

Go ahead and piss off the Flaming Fist, or the Zhents in my campaign and see what happens to you. Expect very high level NPCs to come-a-looking for you.

I am curious - do these high level NPCs have nothing better to do than chase after low level murderers? And if they do, why do you need PCs when there are so many big fish who could sort out the problems I assume the party is usually hired to deal with?

I am not trying to make some debating point here - I see this advice all the time and I can't work out how it squares with a realistic world. It seems reminiscent of the Elder Scrolls games, with their scaling bandits and super-guards. How do you run a world where the players aren't the movers and shakers and not make them redundant?