Adventuring and Collateral Damage

[Numion]

Hi, just musing here about the nature of D&D..

Most of my experience with D&D is about foolhardy adventurers that go on adventures for the personal gain in power and wealth. Adventurers also seem to enjoy the thrill of combat; kicking ass seems to be a value in itself. The premise for most adventures is that some evil has risen / has been recently noticed / bad stuff happens, and evil has to be vanquished. In essence, to do good.

In this sense the goals of the adventure (vanquish evil / save the commoners or natural order of things) and adventuring (gaining personal power and wealth, kicking ass) are somewhat divergent. Kicking evil behind seems to be the common factor.

Due to the divergent goals of the adventure and the ones executing the adventure, there's also divergence in the results. Most of the time it's minor - if the adventurers aren't complete dicks, the net effect of pursuing personal power and kicking ass will result in completion of the adventure with minimal negative consequences. In short, good has been done, whatever the motives were.

Sometimes the nature of the adventure and adventurers clash more. For example, we were playing Banewarrens (spoilers will follow) where the premise is to enter a long-sealed warehouse (dungeon, really) of evil magical items that somebody had opened, find out whats the deal, and seal it again. Now, that was the adventures idea. We went in as neutral aligned adventurers, into a warehouse full of magic items - hmm .. we started to crack open the storerooms, bagged the items as we went, and later sold them to highest bidder. We did 'complete' adventure. The evil people who opened the Banewarrens were killed, and the place was sealed again. However, a large portion of the Banes were now outside of the secure storage We even forgot to put one really bad item* we couldn't even sell back inside before sealing the place. We secretly threw it in the Ptolus river gorge. Problem solved - but that was just us being dicks, and not wanting to lose face in front of the people that hired us for the job.

Well, never send a goat to watch cabbage patch (or hows that in english).

Also, there's been some instances where a place X has been run over by evil humanoids, and we're tasked in exterminating them so the rightful owners can return. In executing the adventure the PCs have without second thought looted the original inhabitants' (who hired them for the task, no less) remaining valuables. If questioned on this, sometimes we've returned some of the stuff, and sometimes made excuses and kept the stuff. While I consider the Banewarrens stuff (selling evil items) as neutral, this is a bit more iffy. Not outright evil, since without the adventurers the valuables would've been gone forever anyway.

It's collateral damage, when the motivation is to loot and gain power. Then there's the stuff that's evil. Once the PCs wnated to sell a Deck of Many Things. I was the DM, and decided to make it a bit more difficult, and decided the buyer wanted proof it really was a Deck of Many Things. So the PCs fetch a beggar, invite the buyer (a Red Wizard of Thay) to watch, and promise the beggar 50 gp if he announces he's taking three cards and takes them - without telling the beggar of the life threatening nature of the Deck. The beggar lost his most prized possession, gained a powerful enemy from the abyss and gained a lot of money (which he was allowed to keep, surprisingly - I guess outright robbery is morally out, while acquiring unattended items is not ).

Eventually the ex-hobo, now one of the richest men in town, was so thankful to the PCs he held a big party in honor of the PCs. Later he went missing as one pissed off demon acquired his due**. Collateral damage for pocketing 200k for the Deck.

Do you have any examples of stories where the 'just doing the adventuring stuff' without much thought leads into a somewhat compromised result for the adventure? Or do you play more of a do-gooder adventurers? Do I have a too bleak view of adventurers .. I do find China Mievilles characterization of adventurers the best one yet

Share your stories or opinions!


* Don't bring an active undead generator to your townhouse. It's a mess.
** The PCs had taken a liking to the ex-hobo, and investigated his disappearance, finally bringing him back from the abyss, vanquishing a Demon Lord of one layer in the process.

 

[MarauderX]

My entire campaign evolves around collateral damage. If the PCs do things, good or bad and whether they know it or not, things happen. Sometimes they see the effects immediately, other times not for another 10 sessions. I feel the need for players to worry about their reputations and success to be integral to not just adventuring, but Questing.

 

[Baron Opal]

Well, never send a goat to watch cabbage patch.

"You don't send the fox to watch the hen house."

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

Well, never send a goat to watch cabbage patch (or hows that in english).

"Never let the Fox guard the henhouse" is probably the closest English version.

Anyway I know how you feel, at one point in time during a game I was player in we actually called our party Collateral Damage, and it wasn't a joke. I swear that campaign saw more destruction of innocent property and lives than you'd believe. At one point the Dwarf PC redirected a river and flash-flooded a town after he found out the local tavern had stored all their dwarf spirits improperly and ruined it.

 

[Numion]

My entire campaign evolves around collateral damage. If the PCs do things, good or bad and whether they know it or not, things happen. Sometimes they see the effects immediately, other times not for another 10 sessions. I feel the need for players to worry about their reputations and success to be integral to not just adventuring, but Questing.

My DMing style is usually more episodic in nature. Usually only minor things come back from the past, unless it's something obvious, like PCs forgetting to destroy a Lich's phylactery. Sometimes I do it only for flavor:

Once I made an adventure where the PCs are asked by a distressed mother to find his son, who had sneaked out to go on an adventure. After some investigating they find out that the son had bought a treasure map from a local career thief, Rupert, and hadn't been seen since. He had sold several maps to different people, and all had disappeared on the quest.

The maps were generated by a Black Dragon, and they directed people to his ambush zone, where it killed and looted the would be adventurers. Groups Lawful Good cleric deems that Rupert is in on the deal, but lets him of with a warning "To not commit any crimes." On second thought he slaps a Mark of Justice on Rupert - which is activated if he commits any crimes.

In subsequent sessions around the city I would usually make them notice Rupert on the stockades being punished, or being otherwise in difficult situations, because he was now the "worst thief ever" since the curse of the Mark had been activated, and he couldn't thief successfully no more . In the end Rupert was killed during his cursed thievery.

That's one kind of collateral I guess, even though Rupert brought it on himself. However, a Mark of Justice on a career criminal is pretty much terminal. I don't know if the players ever realized that they played a part on his demise, it was just a little bit of flavor.

 

[Clavis]

Most PCs in my campaign worlds have tended to be pretty amoral, and I generally don't enforce a morality on them. I seldom have ever tried to motivate them with quests on the side of Good. The PCs' patrons aren't the type that care if the PCs make a little profit for themselves, or use whatever means are necessary to get themselves out of tight spots. The PCs tend to find themselves stealing for the Thieves Guild, obtaining body parts for Necromancers, assassinating public figures (who were bad people anyway), participating in the magical black-market, etc. They'll get involved with whatever pays well, except for the slave trade. In my campaign world, goblins and hobgoblins can be sold as slaves. On a recent raid on a lair of runaway goblin slaves who had broken into the vaults of a Gnomish banker, they tortured (you don't want to know how) some goblins to get them to reveal the location of the stolen treasure. The PCs refused to sell the goblins back into slavery, because "the slave trade is dirty". Killing and torturing the goblins was apparently OK, however.

The same PCs have recently gotten an entire village destroyed. 3 of the party were members of a Wizard's household, but fled when the Wizard was assassinated. In my Campaign, Wizards are organized into various magical orders that collectively have a legal monopoly on magic. The Wizards run an Arcane Inquisition that hunts down and kills any rogue arcane spellcasters, and punishes those who harm Wizards or defy the will of the magical orders. The Arcane Inquisition caught up with the fleeing PCs, and tried to arrest them for "interrogation". At the same time the civil authorities from the regional capital were trying to apprehend a criminal, and a dispute over legal jurisdiction broke out. After the Arcane Inquisitor callously killed a village boy just to demonstrate his willingness to use force, an all-out melee broke out. Among other things (such as using the chaos as cover to assassinate the corrupt village alderman, as they had been hired to do), the PCs killed the Arcane Inquisitor and fled.

They've learned that the village (which ignorantly regarded the PCs as heroes) has just been burned to the ground by summoned fire elementals. The Wizards decided to demonstrate the price of defiance.

Yes, I run the kind of campaign that gets the televangelists all worked up.

 

[Eidalac]

Once, I had a group of PCs who wound up fighting a villain inside a large city. Naturally, the city guards, especially since these were Epic level PCs and this was a setting in which magic (of all kinds) is banned as a general threat to life not exploding.

So, just after the PCs finish off the villain, the bulk of the guards show up to arrest them. One of our 'heroes' decides these 1st level warriors are a serious threat, so kills about 30 of them (His AC and DR were so high that they could only damage him by rolling double 20's to get a critical hit while using Aid Other actions).

Eventually, the PCs leave town, feeling good about having 'saved the day'.

I should also mention that the town was the capital of the dominate empire in the world.

A few days latter, the PCs discover that the empire, along with many other nations allied with it, has, basically, declared war on the PCs. This was the first 'public' display of the true power of the PCs (which is also why the villain setup the fight to happen as it did), so this is a natural consequence of killing a bunch of guards in the capital, following a magical duel through the streets and sky that dwarfed any legend known to the people of the world.

The game ended at this point, as the players all decided I was just out to punish them for being too powerful.

 

[Kmart Kommando]

No matter what they say, most people like killing things and taking their stuff. Unless they are seriously into role-playing, the majority of us are disconnected from the morality of the characters' world. (blame action movies if you'd like ) Players see opposition, and start Jonesing for an initiative roll. Who can blame them, if they haven't already been through their 3 to 4 EL-appropriate encounters for the day?

 

[Numion]

No matter what they say, most people like killing things and taking their stuff. Unless they are seriously into role-playing, the majority of us are disconnected from the morality of the characters' world. (blame action movies if you'd like ) Players see opposition, and start Jonesing for an initiative roll. Who can blame them, if they haven't already been through their 3 to 4 EL-appropriate encounters for the day?

Yeah. The first AD&D campaign I played, we approached everything as if it was a dungeon. When we got into a village, we'd start going through it door by door.

 

[Kmart Kommando]

Yeah. The first AD&D campaign I played, we approached everything as if it was a dungeon. When we got into a village, we'd start going through it door by door.

I had my IH group running through an adventure I made up (borrowed, mostly) about a town charmed by a newcomer who tried to open a portal to the outer realms. I had a barn with an open door, and the group tried to make up stuff based on real world barns I had never heard of just to try to not go through the front (and only) door. Half of their opposition was lvl 1 commoners with improvised weapons, and they were scared of being ambushed or hit by a trap on the front door of a barn. They're still stuck in perpetual dungeon crawl mode, but I'm trying to break them out of it.

Iron heroes doesn't use alignments, which I like a lot, but the group just pounced on the charmed townsfolk like a bunch of rabid wolverines. They saved the town, but killed half of them in the process. Then they asked for better gear when they leveled up from 2 to 3.