D&D General Fighting Law and Order

[pemerton]

Welp. There's one DM that will never, ever ask someone to cover their game for them again...

More seriously, nothing in this thread has changed my mind as expressed in my first post in it: I find it utterly baffling that anyone would treat what @bloodtide is describing as reasonable, let alone serious, RPGing. To me it seems obviously dysfunctional and frankly toxic. Why would any players be interested in putting up with it?

 

[Flamestrike]

@AbdulAlhazred didn't assert that [your decisions are] illogical or immersion-breaking.

You literally just said:

@AbdulAlhazred is denying that [your decisions] have any grounding that justifies them as being "logical" or "verisimilitudinous".

So he either did or he didnt.

Which is it?

Also:

He just asserted that there are (in practical terms if not literally) infinitely many other options, not all of which involve "punishing" the players, that are equally logical and verisimilitudinous. Hence the decisions that you've been making for 40 years are not grounded in logical and verisimilitude.

I'm not sending people after them to 'punish the players'. Quit making that accusation. The NPCs and authorities in game are making informed and logical decisions in response to the PCs actions, subject to their power, authority and alignment.

No-one is really going to care if you murder a LG Priest of Illmater or even a small child in Mulmaster (unless the child is the child of someone important). If you were to kill a member of the Church of Bane, a Nobleman, the Brotherhoood of the Cloak, or similar, expect repercussions.

Assume you're a LE NPC and wealthy (10,000 lying around, or able to be quickly liquidated) and some adventurers brutally murder your little brother (whom you love very deeply) over some copper.

Do you just let that slide, or pay the Mages of the Brotherhood for their magical services in tracking down the killer, pay one of the many hired killers of Mulmaster to track the PCs down and kill them, or post a bounty and let other adventuring groups track down the PCs and take them out?

 

[pemerton]

You literally just said:

Yes. You seem to be treating lacks a grounding in logic or versimilitude as entailing is illogical or immersion breaking.

But that is a mistake.

Suppose, in the course of GMing a session of D&D, I describe a room to the players. I don't mention its flooring, because I haven't thought about it. A player asks whether the floor is timber, or flagged, or tiled, or . . .

Now, in the fiction there is an answer to that question. The floor must be something-or-other. So, as GM, I have to make something up. It may well be that neither logic nor verisimilitude dictate an answer. That doesn't mean that when I make up an answer, that answer will be illogical or immersion-breaking.

 

[Flamestrike]

Yes. You seem to be treating lacks a grounding in logic or versimilitude as entailing is illogical or immersion breaking.

But that is a mistake.

What?

Illogical is literally defined as lacking a grounding in logic.

Suppose, in the course of GMing a session of D&D, I describe a room to the players. I don't mention its flooring, because I haven't thought about it. A player asks whether the floor is timber, or flagged, or tiled, or . . .

Now, in the fiction there is an answer to that question. The floor must be something-or-other. So, as GM, I have to make something up. It may well be that neither logic nor verisimilitude dictate an answer. That doesn't mean that when I make up an answer, that answer will be illogical or immersion-breaking.

I dont have the personal connections, alignment and resources of literally every NPC on the planet mapped out do I?

Like I have repeatedly said, I make the decisions on what the NPC connected to the victim does based on likely resources, alignment, connections, motivation (and 'you killed my daughter' is a pretty strong motivation) etc.

Mafia dudes. Lords, High Priests, connected people etc tend to have personal connections, a vested interest in dealing with troublemakers, murders and law breakers, resources... or all of the above.

There is a distinction here between flat out murder-hobism (the PCs suddenly and for nothing more than a trivial reason murder a Tavern keeper, and burn down the tavern) and the PCs killing (say) a NPC for genuine in game logical reasons (he's a BBEG, he's attacked them, they're a bunch of hired killers and he was the target in question etc).

Both of those things are likely to have in game real world consequences, but only the former is an example of Players being douchebags.

And I dont brook players being douchebags at my table. They get a stern warning and a 'No' the first time, plus a statement of what I expect from them, and then (if that doesnt work) get publicly tracked down and hung (or similar) to remove that PC from the game (and a pointing to the nearest door for the player in question, to remove the player from the game) if they do it again.

 

[Flamestrike]

What I'm getting at here, is I am genuinely blown away by the amount of people claiming to be DMs and just letting that kind of thing (murder-hobism, argumentative players etc) and genuinely asking the question of 'how do I stop that sort of thing'.

If you (and your players) are down with that kind of play, then fine. But the OP in question is 'how to deal with it when you're not OK with it' and the answer is pretty darn simple.

Have a word with the player. Be stern if you have to. If he sooks it up, or tries it again, kill off his PC (in a logical manner in game) and boot him from the group.

Your remaining players know you're not messing around.

I assure you that works every time.

 

[pemerton]

What?

Illogical is literally defined as lacking a grounding in logic.

Normally I would understand it as meaning contrary to logic.

For instance, it is not contrary to logic - and hence not illogical - to prefer black to brown shoes; but to the best of my knowledge there is no way for any such preference to be grounded in logic. From the perspective of logic, preference as to shoe colour are arbitrary.

I dont have the personal connections, alignment and resources of literally every NPC on the planet mapped out do I?

Like I have repeatedly said, I make the decisions on what the NPC connected to the victim does based on likely resources, alignment, connections, motivation (and 'you killed my daughter' is a pretty strong motivation) etc.

Mafia dudes. Lords, High Priests, connected people etc tend to have personal connections, a vested interest in dealing with troublemakers, murders and law breakers, resources... or all of the above.

And @AbdulAlhazred's point, with which I agree, is that these people have all sorts of reasons, too, for not dealing with such troublemakers and the like (as is exemplified every day in the real world).

And given that (i) all of these various reasons are not, and could not, possibly all be written down and cognised by a GM, and (ii) even if they were, there is no algorithm to integrate them all and produce a mandated outcome, therefore (iii) a GM just makes stuff up that strikes them as not contradicting the most obvious in-fiction considerations.

 

[pemerton]

What I'm getting at here, is I am genuinely blown away by the amount of people claiming to be DMs and just letting that kind of thing (murder-hobism, argumentative players etc) and genuinely asking the question of 'how do I stop that sort of thing'.

What I'm getting at is that I am absolutely baffled that anyone requires "this sort of thing" as something that arises and needs to be dealt with.

My inference is that either you play with very immature or dysfunctional people, or that your game has features to it that prompts immature or dysfunctional behaviour. In the case of the OP, it seems obvious that the second of these things was what happened.

 

[Flamestrike]

What I'm getting at is that I am absolutely baffled that anyone requires "this sort of thing" as something that arises and needs to be dealt with.

You're arguing that murder-hobo players looking to kill NPCs for trivial reasons is 'uncommon'?

Dude, I've met hundreds of them in my lifetime, and I'd be shocked to meet someone who has never met one of these guys on an at least semi regular basis.

 

[Zubatcarteira]

I shall keep an eye on r/rpghorrorstories for the player's side of things and will post it here if I see it, stay tuned.

 

[Oofta]

What I'm getting at here, is I am genuinely blown away by the amount of people claiming to be DMs and just letting that kind of thing (murder-hobism, argumentative players etc) and genuinely asking the question of 'how do I stop that sort of thing'.

If you (and your players) are down with that kind of play, then fine. But the OP in question is 'how to deal with it when you're not OK with it' and the answer is pretty darn simple.

Have a word with the player. Be stern if you have to. If he sooks it up, or tries it again, kill off his PC (in a logical manner in game) and boot him from the group.

Your remaining players know you're not messing around.

I assure you that works every time.

Yes, but apparently just talking to people about expectations and what your expectations are is a bad thing. It's better to have a confusing plot that makes sense to none of the players, have them end the session confused and frustrated.

We all set some expectations for the tables we play at. If we're playing a PC we decide to stop going to the sessions. If I'm the DM I'll chat with the people directly and openly. But bad behavior gets you booted from the table, evil PCs will not be played. In some cases the group discusses issues when the problem player isn't there and mutually come to agreement that something has to change and we have a chat with that person.

I've been in all those situations. What I will never do is us in game scenarios to try to railroad them into playing the way I want them to play. It's not that players don't understand the concept of the multiverse. They may even be okay with it if you discuss it with them as one possible solution to a session you DMed went somewhere you can't accept you didn't put the brakes on at the time to stop it. We all make mistakes. But doing something like a multiverse version of PCs to come in to "fix" the railroad without explanation? All it does is lead to frustrated players and possible dissolution of the group.

Just as bad is the advice to "just let the players run whatever they want and it will work itself out". I don't want to play, much less run, a game with evil PCs. It might work for some people but it's not for me. As long as the person organizing the game (almost always the DM) is clear on what they want and what their limits are, I see no issue with establishing what is and is not allowed. It's no different from deciding that we're playing D&D and not BitD or discussing house rules.