Advice: Consequences for a player's mistakes

[Trihelios]

I've had a player in my game make a series of mistakes with potentially dire consequences. I'm looking for some advice on making some reasonable and realistic reactions, without being too harsh on a player who means well but says and does the wrong things.

For some background information. The players are in a country where magic is regarded as witchcraft and treated with fear and suspicion, though it is not actively outlawed. Duels have been outlawed, but it's public knowledge that people have ignored this law and continue to secretly fight duels over minor matters of honour.

Mistake 1:

The PC, a fighter peasant hero, receives a letter praising him for his great deeds and asking for help. Other than a meeting place it's vague on the details but the PC decides to meet the writer and see if he can help.

The man who sent the letter was a smuggler, who has done so well on the black market that he has set himself up as a wealthy businessman and respected member of society. He's fallen in love with a noblewoman, the daughter of the local ruling lord, and been having a secret relationship with her.

When the family found out, they've disapproved and the woman's brother has challenged the smuggler to a duel. The smuggler knows he can't win against this experienced duellist and so has concocted a plan. He has convinced a mage to polymorph the PC into an exact likeness of the smuggler so that he can take his place in the duel. The PC agrees to this plan.

All goes well at first. The disguise is fine, the PC convinces everyone he is the smuggler and wins the duel without killing the nobleman.

However later on, he uses his contact with the smuggler to organise a night time secret meeting with the noblewoman in order to ask a favour of her. He wants her to use her family connections to get him an audience with the king. The meeting goes badly though, and in frustration the PC brags that he was the one who fought her brother and admits how the ruse was done with 'witchcraft'.

She runs off, frightened and confused.

Mistake 2:

The next day, the PC has finally managed to get his meeting with the king. He pledges his sword to the king's service in defending the kingdom from the invasion they've just learned about (it's been kept a secret for as long as possible to avoid panic, but the PCs have some connections to people in the know).

The PC is sent to the front lines and placed with a squad guarding a section of the city-wall during a siege. The enemy uses magic to mind-control some of his squadmates into trying to dismantle the fortifications. The PC rather than trying to restrain or knock out these squadmates kills some and throws the others over the wall into the enemy ranks.

That's where we've ended the session, he's just killed the last possessed squadmate. Now I've got a week to figure out the potential consequences.

Any advice?

 

[roguerouge]

Is this a one-PC campaign? If not, listen to the complaints of the other players and choose the best one to use against them.

 

[Trihelios]

No there's two other players.

(They just weren't involved in either situation. The duel was his own personal spotlight time and during the siege one is at the hospital taking care of the wounded and the other is with the archers on a different part of the wall).

Both of the other players agree that he's screwed up rather badly. It was one of the other players asking me later "So what's going to happen to him after those mistakes" that motivated me to ask for advice.

 

[Janx]

Just as politicians make mistakes and fall or suceed despite their public failings, the answer is up to you.

You can make these failures have consequences, and probably get the PC jailed or killed which will completely turn the direction of the campaign.

Or you can make it such that there is not a siginificant impact. The smuggler might come back to hurt the PC, no big deal, that's like any adventure.

The PC killed all the possessed soldiers, it's his story versus theirs.

 

[Henrix]

The PC killed all the possessed soldiers, it's his story versus theirs.

You mean, his story, that cannot be corroborated, versus that of all the other people seeing him on top of the wall killing his men and throwing them over the parapet?
'They were possessed, I tell you! Possessed!'

The tricky part is to make something fun out of it.

A trial could be a little fun.
'What did the accused tell you, Mylady?'
'He said he murdered my brother with witchcraft!'
'Did he perchance say that your brother was "possessed'?'

But having him locked up in a cell doesn't sound like much fun. And it splits the party and makes play difficult.

Having him being haunted (in his dreams, perhaps) by the men he killed could be more fun.

A martial court could be faster, or his commander could just throw him out into some sort of suicide mission.

Remember that hurting a PC physically just makes the player slightly irritated.
You can hurt him by reducing his social standing - everyone mocks him, won't serve him, trust him, etc.
Or you can take away his stuff. Few things makes players as mad as taking away what they have looted from others.

 

[Dausuul]

No there's two other players.

(They just weren't involved in either situation. The duel was his own personal spotlight time and during the siege one is at the hospital taking care of the wounded and the other is with the archers on a different part of the wall).

Both of the other players agree that he's screwed up rather badly. It was one of the other players asking me later "So what's going to happen to him after those mistakes" that motivated me to ask for advice.

I suggest having some enterprising villain collect evidence from both and blackmail him.

 

[delericho]

However later on, he uses his contact with the smuggler to organise a night time secret meeting with the noblewoman in order to ask a favour of her. He wants her to use her family connections to get him an audience with the king. The meeting goes badly though, and in frustration the PC brags that he was the one who fought her brother and admits how the ruse was done with 'witchcraft'.

What's the PC's Charisma? Any ranks in Diplomacy that we should know about?

If the PC has a high Charisma, or ranks in Diplomacy, I would have the NPC(s) involved interpret what he has said in the best possible light. Perhaps she assumes he was joking. Perhaps she decides it doesn't really matter. Perhaps the noble, on hearing this, has a good laugh about it - maybe he secretly felt his son could do with taking down a peg or two.

If the PC has a low Charisma and no ranks in Diplomacy, then he's in for trouble. In which case...

Also, what is the character of the noblewoman? Is she the sort to store up this secret for later blackmail uses, is she the sort to make things up at whim (and so the sort not to be believed), or is she the sort to immediately tell her father and have the PC executed?

If the noblewoman is the type to store up blackmail opportunities, then I recommend waiting until the time when it is least convenient for the PC, and then have her insist he perform some service for her, or she'll reveal this little secret.

If the noblewoman is the sort not to be believed, I would recommend having her brother get wind of this, and plot an elaborate revenge. Even if he doesn't believe her, he can be assumed to be looking for some way to salve his wounded pride. I would suggest having him and his friends jump the PC, have a witch curse him to lower his Strength (or edition-suitable effect), and then semi-secretly duel him... resulting in the humiliation of the PC.

If the noblewoman is the sort to immediately tell her father and be believed, then you have a tricky situation to deal with. Logically, that may mean a death sentence for the PC. I would recommend going with another option, if possible. (One possible 'out' you might consider: have the noble decide to defer the trial until after the invasion, have the PC win great renown during the conflict, and have the noble decide to therefore give him a slap on the wrist and a pardon.)

(Since you say the player is basically well-meaning, I would be inclined to be lenient. I don't advocate letting him just get away without punishment, though. In any event, though, you should probably do whatever makes for the most interesting game.)

The enemy uses magic to mind-control some of his squadmates into trying to dismantle the fortifications. The PC rather than trying to restrain or knock out these squadmates kills some and throws the others over the wall into the enemy ranks.

Oops.

Have the PC's superiors 'reward' him with a near-suicidal mission to take out those enemy magic users. That way, they get a nice, exciting adventure out of it.

Also, you'll probably want to avoid putting this PC in charge of any more NPC squads, but that might not be a bad thing - it gives the PC freedom to act without having to look out for the health of much-lower-level NPCs.

Finally, you'll want to reflect the impact of this on the morale of the troops. If using a Skill Challenge-like system to determine the outcome of the siege, I would count this as a Failure towards the total allowed. If tracking Victory Points (or similar), I would apply a penalty. Or you could just handwave it.

 

[aboyd]

My players did something similar. They committed treason, killing lots of guards and trying to overthrow the leader of a town. In ye olden days, the penalty for treason was often being ransomed back to those who sent the agent in the first place. Then the ransom money could be used to compensate or rebuild or whatever. In the case of my players, they killed about 30 guards, and the ransom is 150,000 gold -- enough to buy Raise Dead spells for every guard.

I wonder if you might do something similar. The player's character is put on trial and then quested to undo the damage he inflicted. Maybe he must raise the funds to resurrect the fallen. Or maybe he must go on a quest to recover a Staff of Life, which will fix the whole mess. Or maybe he must meet with the widows of every man he killed, and each widow gives him a task to make things right (compensation, a Raise Dead spell, taking a child under his wing and training him in a fashion similar to a cohort arrangement, and so on).

 

[roguerouge]

Oh, I don't know... a prison break episode might be a nice change of pace. There's actually a one of those in Dungeon magazine, although you're breaking in. There's a book on crime and punishment too with good ideas.

 

[maddman75]

I look at situations like that as an excuse to introduce more conflict and make things interesting.

The natural result of #1 is that the noblewoman breaks off the affair with the smuggler, since he lied and used witchcraft and didn't do his own fighting. The smuggler is furious with the PC, and starts a vendetta against him. Maybe hires an assassin or polymorphs himself into the PC to challenge the best swordsman in the city to a duel! Now the PC has to fight or look like a coward.

In the military, that's a cold, hard thing to do but it isn't completely out of line, especially in a culture that fears witchcraft. I'd have them troops keep a bit of distance from him. He'll do what it takes to win, but he's not above throwing his own men off a wall.