Consequences of Heroic Action

[Janx]

the "off topic" forum had a thread about whether Lincoln had a long term plan for freeing the slaves. It got shutdown. But it got me thinking about whether PCs/players have a plan for when they do heroic actions, like freeing all the slaves/overthrowing the BBEG.

if your players are like me and my friends, when the DM presents you a big problem, we just go at it. Take out the villain, free the slaves.

The ramifiications of newly freed people on the economic and social situation are far from our minds.

We sure as heck aren't thinking on how the newly freed peoples are to govern themselves now that the entire chain of governance has been torn down.

Maybe the DMs I play with (or myself), simply tend to gloss over that and determine that the newly freed people pick themselves up (as the PCs would) and form a more perfect union with a minimal of fuss unless it would be a new interesting plot point.

Are there DMs who decide to get grim and gritty and make the situation worse for the people, thus "punishing" the players for confronting evil?

I could see doing that now and then, as a change of pace, but it definitely discourages heroic behavior. It strikes too close to home, that you can't take out the evil head of a nation and everything is better in short order. That defeats escapism gaming, for sure.

Anyway, without citing historically charged examples, what does everyone else think?

Do you factor in serious negative consequences when the heroes do something heroic? Or do you make it resolve to "happy" ending most of the time?

 

[Reynard]

See "The Guardians of the Flame" novel series for a good take on this, plus building a community in a D&D setting.

 

[Nagol]

In my current campaign, the PCs found a xenophobic dwarven city cut off from the surface and ruled by the insane remnant of the nobility.

Over the past ten levels or so, the group's actions brought the society to the edge of instability and beyond. The city is now in shambles with a popular uprising and society disintegrating into small bands of trying to eke out survival amidst the chaos.

At this point, it is unlikely the city will survive though if the group acts quickly, many individuals may be saved. The group's attention is focused elsewhere at the moment and I doubt they'll get back to the city in the near term.

 

[Diamond Cross]

The consequences of all "heroic" action is that there will always be somebody who disagrees with it and will always attempt to discredit and deconstruct it.

For example, if the players freed some slaves.

"Well, where did they get the authority to do that? What gives them the right to just carte blanch make that kind of decisions that the slaves hadn't committed some sort of crime which landed them in their confinement? Maybe the slaves were undergoing a better form of reeducation to become better citizens and the heroes interrupted that process without any real authority to do so.

And since they didn't have any real authority, that makes them criminals."


That kind of thing. There are plenty of real world examples of this. Abraham Lincoln is one of the finest examples of people trying to deconstruct his actions of his Presidency. Usually, those that do are on the losing side of the American Civil War.

Essentially, one man's hero is another man's villain.

 

[Plane Sailing]

It depends a lot upon the level of trust between DM and players, and bear in mind that the responses DMs give will colour the PCs future actions.

If the DM wants to run a heroic campaign but heroic actions end up penalised, then the players will learn and behave in a rational way in most cases. Just like dungeons with random traps in every corridor inculcates a wary, trapfinding approach to all dungeons eventually.

Personally, I think long term ramifications of heroic activity can be fun and interesting when used judiciously and occasionally. If it turns up as a counterpoint to the norm, then it is good (unless everyone agreed to a bleak campaign anyway, but you've got to have a pretty special group of players who'll keep playing the heroes even when it always goes bad in the end).

That's my opinion.

Cheers!

 

[Twichyboy]

Well, there is no reason for the action to be all bad or all good, the way i'd handle this situation of freeing the slaves is, yeah these former slaves have no jobs now, but they did save people, and I'm sure more then half those slaves are overjoyed at not being slaves with this and are not going to demand the players have a plan for them after they were freed, thus in the former slaves eyes they're heroes

My point is every action is going to have consequences, and they're not going to be all bad or all good,

for example my players have recently overthrown a racially repressive kingdom and established a free republic, this action has forced the emperor, the only man with an army left capable of defending their small kingdom against the armies of evil into isolation, putting their new republic in grave danger, however since this new Republic promises equality for all races, the elves to the north have eagerly allied with them, and many refugees flock to them adding bulk to their armies.

 

[Wik]

Dude, play Dark Sun. The campaign BEGINS with the freeing of slaves... and then deals with the ramifications of this act for the rest of the campaign.

Do we open up society to preservers? Now, how do we deal with that?

What are the problems of an emerging democratic society? Hey, when we kill the Dragon, what happens? Shouldn't creating more rainstorms in a desert be a good idea - why are they all these terrible Tyr-Storms?

The whole setting is one where heroic actions have unfortunate ramifications. And personally, I think it's a great way to run a campaign - nothing is ever just black and white.

 

[kitsune9]

Hi Janx, interesting topic!

Actually, I only focus on such consequences as part of the continuation of the module in order for it to reach its successful conclusion, but I won't really create a "bite the players' butt later" situation for doing good. Now, I'm definitely for creating such situations when PCs do things that are stupid, selfish, or evil.

For example, if the PC's just overtook a prison converted into slave pens and the place is in the middle of wilderness, part of the completing the module is getting the escaped slaves back to civilization, not just killing or destroying the force behind the slavery to begin with.

If the players do that, I wouldn't punish them by them later finding out that they just escorted a demon-possessed serial killer who was part of the slaves they just freed to city filled with honest cityfolk.

Also, I wouldn't have the PC's worry too much about what really happens to the slaves' lives after they get to civilization and anything such as that.

 

[Janx]

After defeating the BBEG, if the PCs seem to want to get into "nation building" then raising issues over these changes is kind of the challenge of the whole nation building. Basically, its fodder for adventures (Look what SG-1 did with the Jaffa after defeating the bad guys).

But if the PCs clear out the BBEG, approve one of the locals as good chap to listen to, then let the NPCs slowly build into success and not make a big deal about it.

this is another situation, where the GM has total control over what happens next. There's no tables to roll on for this stuff. The DM either wants to make a big deal over the complications, or he glosses them over (or some other outcome).

 

[Dice4Hire]

Overall, I am in the camp that actions should have consequences, but I try hard not to bore the players to death with those consequences.

You just freed 100 slaves, and we can assume they do ok in life and are happy, or we can micromanage their lives for the next ten sessions.

I know which I would prefer.

I prefer to play out the consequences for players screwing up. Tends to lead to more adventures, in my experience.