D&D General Fighting Law and Order

[pemerton]

It's not unilateral. When I invite people to my game I let them know what type of campaign I run which includes no evil characters. So people know my choice before even a session 0 starts.

If you want to run an evil character find a different DM. But yes, as with all rulings in D&D the DM has final say whether something is evil. Whether I'm DMing or playing. It's not like it's ever been controversial.

It's worked pretty well for me for going on half a century now.

You seem to have misunderstood me.

As I understand it, you are the sole arbiter of whether or not a PC is evil.

This is not the same as agreeing to play (say) D&D rather than M&M. You are not the sole arbiter of what counts as D&D or as M&M.

 

[Faolyn]

OK? I'm simply making what I take to be an obvious point, that putting limits on how players can play their PCs is not the same thing as letting them choose to play their PCs however they like.

The game's rules do that as well. Because we don't let players play their PCs however they like. There are rules about what actions they can and can't take--including, in earlier editions, what actions they could and couldn't take to maintain their alignment. Actually, those rules kind of still exist, it's just that nobody (including the game itself) cares about them in the current edition.

I think it's obvious that consensual limits are different from unilaterally-imposed limits.

Who adjudicates that a character is evil. The player? The table? I got the impression it was you, the GM.

I would imagine the player's actions would show that. Sure, the GM is deciding "killing innocent people is evil for no reason other than for fun/XP" but they're not deciding that arbitrarily.

 

[pemerton]

I would imagine the player's actions would show that. Sure, the GM is deciding "killing innocent people is evil for no reason other than for fun/XP" but they're not deciding that arbitrarily.

I didn't say they were deciding it arbitrarily. But I did infer, from posts upthread, that they were deciding it unilaterally.

The fact that the GM thinks a character is too evil to go on (under a "no evil" rules) doesn't mean that other participants would agree, or are even likely to agree, given the notoriously wide variation in moral opinions found among the people who play RPGs.

 

[Oofta]

You seem to have misunderstood me.

As I understand it, you are the sole arbiter of whether or not a PC is evil.

This is not the same as agreeing to play (say) D&D rather than M&M. You are not the sole arbiter of what counts as D&D or as M&M.

We discuss this in a session 0. If anyone has an issue with a ruling I make in game we'll discuss it briefly in case I made an obvious mistake. Want to discuss it further? We'll talk after the game. But I still make the final call.

So? If it doesn't work for you so be it. I may not be the DM for you. It works for me, my players and every game of D&D I've ever played. As far as I can see, it works for millions of people.

 

[bloodtide]

Forgetting all the other stuff for a moment.

You say they could have chosen to escape quietly but didn't. Can you elaborate?

They did EVERYTHING else voluntarily (surrendered, stayed in jail, made the deal with the stranger...) what happened BETWEEN them accepting the deal to escape and then instead of going quietly - alerting all the guards and fighting their way out?

After the mysterious guy left, a guard with the key showed up and let them out and took them over to the room with all their equipment and stuff. This is where they did there typical endless talk of what to do....and the warlock character killed the 'key guard' to "cover their tracks". The game notes had that traitor guard lead them out.

Then they just ran up the stairs, killing guards and folks while "looking for the exit".

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

My anecdotal experience differs re the last bit - our gangs of murderhoboes often have depth, attachments, and well-developed personalities, thank you very much.

Lol. I get you, though there's probably some degree of difference in how we see that. But yes, characters in all but the most basic of games definitely will accumulate some personality.

Now them's fightin' words.

Murderhoboes can - and I speak from experience here - require every bit as much technique and fancy GM practices to run as non-murderhoboes. It's just that the techniques and practices might not be the same.

Oh, I think that 'unsophisticated' is probably too loaded a term, but I do mean that the techniques which evolved in the early days of D&D, and are exemplified by a lot of material like the 1e DMG, tend to produce these characters that are not highly connected to anything. In terms of giving characters tactically and operationally challenging scenarios, which I assume you mean by 'techniques' isn't particularly easier than for any other character, but I think constructing a milieu and providing ways for players to establish that connectivity and depth of character that makes 'murder hobo' just not a thing is a whole other dimension beyond challenging the player's skill.

I'm sure you could, but that's kinda not the point. The point is that no matter what type of game you've put together, in the name of player agency my take is that you then want to some extent get out of the way and let the players do with it what they will; and if that means they end up playing in a style you didn't expect then so be it - just keep on truckin' and see where the road leads to. The key thing is that it remains entertaining, for both you and the players.

Charcater turnover is your friend in these cases, as IME players will often come back with something quite different than what they just played, simply for variety. So, if you've got a gang of murderhoboes in a somewhat lethal campaign, sooner or later their lineup will turn over and maybe some different character types will arise. Or the opposite might happen; they might turn over from heroes to slayers, you never know.

Well, my point is, the sorts of things that you present to your PCs, how the environment is depicted, the generation of connectedness with the other inhabitants of their world, etc. is what makes the characters seem 'real' and give the players reasons and 'hooks' upon which to hang realistic behavior. When you are playing a game where the PCs arrive from nowhere at the gates to The Keep on The Borderlands, and their only cognizable goals are getting loot and XP, and they don't even have any defined bond with each other, let alone anyone in the Keep, you will probably get behavior that is at least somewhat 'murder hobo'. It will vary, and often it will be focused entirely on the denizens of the Caves of Chaos. But you are likely to hear things like "How can we take over this keep?" or "why don't we just rob the shrine, the priest already got all our gold!" I mean, why not? Sure, PCs have an alignment, but I think that's been largely dealt with, its basically just something written on the sheet.

Now, if the PCs COME FROM the keep, if one of the character's fathers in a watch leader, if one used to be the banker until the merchant he invested all his money in went broke because the goblins at the caves robbed him, if one of them has a crush on the priest, now its a bit of a different game! Especially if the fourth character has a crush on the 3rd character and is jealous of the priest! Maybe he takes a big risk in the kobold cave to impress her, and gets killed. Maybe his brother is a thief who now demands weregild! Obviously I am not drawing any conclusions on what sorts of things in this vein people are doing in their campaigns, but when @bloodtide and @Flamestrike insist that so many players/characters are footless scum, I have to HIGHLY SUSPECT that they're NOT doing those sorts of things.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Not sure if you're replying in jest but I rather suspect the post you were replying to wasn't intended to be taken entirely seriously.

Edit to add...or maybe it was; hard to tell having now read some subsequent posts. Ah, well...

I more than half suspect neither of the two, Bloodtide nor Flamestrike is meant to be taken seriously AT ALL, lol. I mean, its all the rage these days, provoking people. So, yeah, not everything I say to them is all that serious. That being said, their stated views on GMing seem pretty idiotic to me, to be perfectly honest (and blunt).

 

[Vaalingrade]

I can't see this ever happing in my world. There is no way I could be "forced" to go to a place by a "friend" for lunch.



Do what I want. I don't play the same game of life you do, by choice.

I know it's a meme, but...

We live in a society.

 

[bloodtide]

Good rules provide guidance. E.g., Dungeon World's Principles expressly forbid much of what was done here. The relevant ones are:

1. Address the characters, not the players: "teaching lessons" to the players means you're addressing players, not characters. Bad player behavior is certainly an issue, but it's one that should be addressed separately.

This makes no sense to me. The GM should address the fictional characters? This seems to be as effective as talking to a wall.

1. Embrace the fantastic: Obviously, this should adapt to context (e.g. Apocalypse World uses "Barf forth apocalyptica"), but the core idea remains. Fill the world with magic, with mysticism and mystery. "Just die as outlaws 'cause there's no other solution" isn't fantastical.

High magic, high fantasy is my type of world.

1. Make a move that follows: Mentioned in prior threads, moves must follow fiction. Much of the setup here (like the mysterious stranger breaking them free but...not actually getting them out) did not do that.

Yea, not my plan. I would have just teleported them out, for example.

1. Be a fan of the characters: This is the big one. Nothing about this reflected being a fan of the characters. Much the opposite, in fact--the characters were seen as being a problem to be fixed. It was punitive, and explicitly so to "teach a lesson" to the players.

Again, be a fan of a fictional character? This makes no sense.

1. Begin and end with the fiction: Anything you do should be tying back into the fictional state of play, advancing the story to something new and dramatic (which does not mean happy.) That, pretty obviously, didn't happen here, indeed the fiction by all accounts was left very muddled.

Well, check.

 

[Mort]

This makes no sense to me. The GM should address the fictional characters? This seems to be as effective as talking to a wall.

It's an immersion tool. Instead of saying "Bob, how do you deal with the guard?" Or even "Bob, how does Brax the Mighty deal with the guard?" You ask Bob "Brax, how do you deal with the guard?" Keeping the play focused on the character instead of the player.

Again, be a fan of a fictional character? This makes no sense.

It means a couple of things, with the understanding that Dungeon World is EXPRESSLY PC centric:

Think of the players’ characters as protagonists in a story you might see on TV. Cheer for their victories and lament their defeats. You’re not here to push them in any particular direction, merely to participate in fiction that features them and their action.

And it means putting the characters first, before the story and world. It means letting the players do awesome things to that world, instead of being limited by what you think should be possible.