DM - Adversarial or Permissive?

[billd91]

The DM didn't write the scenario, but that doesn't relieve him from fault for not adequately setting it up or via roleplaying let the player feel like his acts of heroism in the previous scenario were moot.

Or, at least the DM didn't write up the initial hook into that scene. How it played out, particularly the aftermath with the guards coming to visit the PC, that's DM's license. In the AP, unless the PC gets violent, the shopkeeper understands the situation enough to not send the guards. He just bars the PC and his friends from the store unless they manage to get back on his good side.

 

[Loonook]

Or, at least the DM didn't write up the initial hook into that scene. How it played out, particularly the aftermath with the guards coming to visit the PC, that's DM's license. In the AP, unless the PC gets violent, the shopkeeper understands the situation enough to not send the guards. He just bars the PC and his friends from the store unless they manage to get back on his good side.

And the brigand deciding to run is his decision.

Stupid criminals run, because it leads to a chase. A criminal who knows he didn't do anything wrong doesn't run. The player decided his PCs best chances were to run because he felt that was the character's only move. He presented an option that would remove him from the game as close to blindly charging into the mouth of a dragon or urinating on the High Temple of the God of War while all of his holy men and paladins are standing about. Consequences that the player creates through the DM's interpretation is not a fault of the DM, especially when the DM decided to present a possible option.


Could he have spoken to the guards, explained the situation? Could he have gone to the other side of things and started chopping guards? Could he have requested a meeting with the accuser or the father? All sorts of options present, the PC dumbed it out and ran, and the player was presented with the option's outcome.

Slainte,

-Loonook.

 

[Mallus]

I make one veiled reference...

It wasn't veiled -- you linked a picture!

Just being a PC doesn't provide plot immunity.

It's not a question of plot-immunity, it's a question of having the PC's on the same side in a difficult situation. This is usually the norm in a cooperative RPG.

And the DM didn't create the scenario...

So now we've moved on to blame... when are we going to get to acceptance?

Consequences that the player creates through the DM's interpretation is not a fault of the DM, especially when the DM decided to present a possible option.

A PC was falsely accused of rape. After an encounter initiated by an NPC.

His teammates responded by saying, collectively, "You're on your own, chum."

You were saying something about consequences?

Could he have spoken to the guards, explained the situation? Could he have gone to the other side of things and started chopping guards? Could he have requested a meeting with the accuser or the father?

All of these are good options.

If the PCs are working together as a team. Otherwise, you're pitting a single PC against the group for no discernible purpose, while simultaneously telling the accused PC not to take themselves out of the adventure by running away.

 

[Loonook]

It wasn't veiled -- you linked a picture!

You're not getting what I'm talking about but alright.

It's not a question of plot-immunity, it's a question of having the PC's on the same side in a difficult situation. This is usually the norm in a cooperative RPG.

And again completely missing the point... There is no need for the other PCs to help him here!

A PC was falsely accused of rape. After an encounter initiated by an NPC.

His teammates responded by saying, collectively, "You're on your own, chum."

You were saying something about consequences?


All of these are good options.

If the PCs are working together as a team.

The PC was falsely accused and could have settled it in any of the ways I listed. The PCs could have worked as a team in certain ways, but this was no more than a solo rp challenge and done... Or a fight... Or go bug out and completely abandon the party for no forseeable reason and leave the game.

Slainte,

-Loonook.

 

[FickleGM]

I will maintain that, in this instance, the player made a very logical choice for his character.

I will not say anything about railroading.
I will not say anything negative about the other choices he could have made.
I will not say anything about what the smartest choice would have been.

I will, however, say...based on what we know, a character with a brigand background chose to flee the authorities.

Not only was the choice valid, it was very logical.

I already gave a possible example back between posts 61 and 90 of how the DM could have portrayed the situation in a way that would have seemed less threatening to a brigand-esque character.

What I don't know -

* How prevalent is truth-proving magic? Without it, it's word-vs-word and a non-local brigand-esque character might not like those odds.
* How prevalent is corruption amongst the authorities? Even in the average municipality, I would think that a brigand-esque character might assume the worst.
* Has false-accusation ever occurred in the character's background? A stretch, but hey, I havent read the character's background.
* How intelligent is the character? Even if it was the "dumb" choice, do we know that it wasn't made with some regard given to the character's intelligence.

All of this information is known to the DM. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't expect the DM to think of everything. Hell, I've made similar mistakes. I would, however, look back at the event and for every choice the player could have made, aside from the one he did, I can think of multiple ways that I could have better influenced said decision based on what I know about the setting, the scenario and the character. Live and learn. Discuss it with the player. Lessons can be learned without playing the blame game.

Finally, while the above appears to place the blame on the DM, that is only because I feel that the DM has more resources to influence or adapt to the situation. The player, to me, should make sure that his concept can play well with the party. While characters should have flaws, they should be examined and both player and DM should assure that potential "game-breakers" are identified.

 

[catsclaw227]

Stupid criminals run, because it leads to a chase. A criminal who knows he didn't do anything wrong doesn't run. The player decided his PCs best chances were to run because he felt that was the character's only move. He presented an option that would remove him from the game as close to blindly charging into the mouth of a dragon or urinating on the High Temple of the God of War while all of his holy men and paladins are standing about. Consequences that the player creates through the DM's interpretation is not a fault of the DM, especially when the DM decided to present a possible option.

I would posit that in many cases that a D&D game ventures closer to movies than reality. If this is the case for these players, then running is closer to a movie action, since innocent movie heroes run when unjustly accused all the time.

Now, even if the game hews more towards reality, I might agree more with you, but being accused of rape is WAAAY different than being accused of petty thievery or something like that. Add in the fact that one of the DM "options" was to bribe(!) the guards and you could be adding more fuel to an already volatile situation.

 

[Loonook]

I would posit that in many cases that a D&D game ventures closer to movies than reality. If this is the case for these players, then running is closer to a movie action, since innocent movie heroes run when unjustly accused all the time.

Now, even if the game hews more towards reality, I might agree more with you, but being accused of rape is WAAAY different than being accused of petty thievery or something like that. Add in the fact that one of the DM "options" was to bribe(!) the guards and you could be adding more fuel to an already volatile situation.

And the player, through his own choice of actions, did not expend the free action that he could have performed before they got any closer to get into parley, find out what is going on, and prevent a combat.

Again, DM played a weird slate, and Player decided to make his poor PC into a runaway.

Perhaps because everyone claims it is a railroad it is a Runaway Train?

I hope his soul finds its Asylum in another game .

Slainte,

-Loonook.

 

[Elf Witch]

Because his PC is innocent of the crime he's accused of?

Because the other players know this?

Because even though the other players know this, they all decide to proceed as if the accused PC is guilty? Even though, at that point, there's been no corroborating evidence either way.

The accused PC is falsely accused of crime, and then finds the rest of the group siding with the NPCs. I'm not sure how anything he does at this point could be considered "disruptive", once the deck's been stacked against his favor like that.

This set-up could have worked --though I'm not a big fan of the false accusation being of rape-- if it was clear from of the start the PC was innocent. Or if the DM made it clear when the rest of the party was deciding to side with the townsfolk. Or even a few of players stepped up (with a little constructive metagaming) and sided with the falsely-accused PC.

One falsely-accused PC against an accuser, the law, and the rest of his party isn't going to end will.

If it were the entire party trying to prove the PC innocence -- perhaps with the added challenge of not destroying his accuser's life (the smart thing to do would be to make the accuser at least partially sympathetic. The only thing worse than a scenario w/a false accusation of rape is one where the false accuser did for no good reason, or merely for the lulz).

Wait... strike that... if the accused PC was being played as a complete Lothario --ie if it were the player's own agency/chosen characterization that got him into the mess-- then perhaps it might have worked.

But as it stands, the scenario was a series of compounding mistakes.

The other players may know he is innocent but their characters don't and a lot of people hate metagaming which is what it would be if they acted on their player knowledge not their character knowledge.

The OP said that the other players had ties to the town and that if this character ran then they would assume he was guilty because he ran. And that they were not willing to help if he did that.

That is not the same thing as they joined the NPCs side. Remember they don't know if he is innocent or guilty.

 

[pemerton]

Why is it when one player does something that disrupts the game like taking off and fleeing instead of trying to work out the issue of being arrested

Taking off and fleeing is one way of trying to work out the issue of being arrested. Given that the arrest is for a crime that the PC did not commit - and is, therefore, in some sense wrongful - what reason has the PC, or the player, got to think that justice will out in the end?

this is a game and one that you play with other people and sometimes you need to take that into consideration when making character decisions.

Well quite. Whereas, in this situation, it seems that the other players, as opposed to having their PCs back the PC whom they knew to be wrongly accused, decided to hang their fellow PC - and thereby their fellow player - out to dry.

The players want to do something. He wants to do something else, which includes abandoning the party and their ties to the town they're invested in.

Who talked about abandoning the town? Plenty of fugitives flee from the law without abandoning the town. They hide out in the woods. They sneak back in at night. Their friends sneak food and water out to them. Etc.

How is he not being the game-disrupting player, in your mind?

Because he is the one whose PC the GM has had wrongly accused of a crime, and when he responds to that by having his PC try to flee - a fairly common and reasonable response to unjust accusations from unknown authority figures - the other players, as I said, hang him and his PC out to dry.

Because becoming an outlaw is not something that the other players wish to do?

Neither does the player, presumably. But nor does the player wish to have his PC arrested. The situation seems to have been contrived by the GM, and then when the player tries to deal with it, the other players shaft him. What do they think they are adding to the game at that point? What was the GM hoping to achieve?

As I said before, the guy is trying to run Runelords not Cops or the First 48.

The GM serves to create the background, the scenery, the supporting cast, the antagonists

And apparently the plot as well. If Rise of the Runelords only works if one of the players - who is playing a brigand, as apparently okayed by the GM - lets his/her PC be arrested, the GM might at least have the courtesy to explain what is going on, and even to treat the whole thing as a cutaway, rather than presenting it as a genuine situation in which the player has genuine choices to make for his/her PC.

Because his PC is innocent of the crime he's accused of?

Because the other players know this?

Because even though the other players know this, they all decide to proceed as if the accused PC is guilty? Even though, at that point, there's been no corroborating evidence either way.

The accused PC is falsely accused of crime, and then finds the rest of the group siding with the NPCs. I'm not sure how anything he does at this point could be considered "disruptive", once the deck's been stacked against his favor like that.

This is exactly what I was talking about.

 

[pemerton]

And the player, through his own choice of actions, did not expend the free action that he could have performed before they got any closer to get into parley, find out what is going on, and prevent a combat.

How did the player know that talking would prevent combat? Maybe it was the precursor to combat.

And the brigand deciding to run is his decision.

Stupid criminals run, because it leads to a chase. A criminal who knows he didn't do anything wrong doesn't run.

Chases and escapes seem to me to be a legitimate part of fantasy RPGing. Conan does it. Bilbo and the dwarves do it.

Running away when wrongly accused is also a fairly common choice, and not necessarily an unreasonable one, in the real world also.

And any GM who sets up a wrongful arrest scene, and doesn't anticipate the possibility of an escape attempt (and perhaps counteract it by wording up the player) is, in my view, making an error as a GM.