DM Advice: handling 'he can't talk to me like that' ~cuts NPC throat~ players.

[Mallus]

Sure it is a balanced encounter, for the heroes. If you want to be a villain, don't expect fairness.

I don't see certain choices as shutting the campaign down

Care to wriggle out of this one, you wascally wabbit?

If you want DM controlled characters to be the heroes, go write a novel.

Don't encourage him.

 

[Storm Raven]

I'm with Mallus here, you are making an extremely common misreading of the EL system. An EL 9 encounter is *not* designed to be a "balanced" encounter for a lvl 9 party. It was, deliberately, designed to be a walk-over encounter for the lvl 9 party (the idea was 4 EL=party level encounters=1 adventuring day). Complain about counter-intuitive design if you wish, and you won't be alone in that; but for any reasonable definition of balanced, a 5th lvl party vs a 9th lvl party is, obviously, not balanced.

And? And EL 9 encounter is perfectly appropriate for a band of 9th level characters. Nothing in the CR/EL guidelines says that it is exclusively the province of the PCs to face such encounters. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid didn't get to face guys they could defeat when the railroads decided to hire Pinkerton agents to hunt them down.

 

[Storm Raven]

Care to wriggle out of this one, you wascally wabbit?

Does a campaign have to be fair in order to continue?

 

[Mallus]

Well, the PCs always have the choice not to become notorious murdering cutthroats.

Ahh..."do it my way, or else"... the very paragon of choices.

If I were writing the story, then the PCs wouldn't become brigands to begin with.

And the word 'balanced' would mean something other than what it actually means.

 

[Mallus]

Does a campaign have to be fair in order to continue?

Absolutely. Is this a trick question?

 

[Storm Raven]

Ahh..."do it my way, or else"... the very paragon of choices.

If you decide to become evil, and the world doesn't react to your choice, have to actually made a choice? It seems that you think that alignment choice should be a consequenceless issue. I think you are wrong. The PCs have all kinds of choices, and some of them result in less appetizing consequences than others. Some choices will probably get them killed. That doesn't mean they aren't choices. It just means some choices are not as wise as others.

 

[Storm Raven]

Absolutely. Is this a trick question?

Well, no. You are just fundamentally wrong.

And I think we have different ideas about what is fair. In one campaign I recall, two different parites started the exact same way. The first thing they (1st level characters) ran across was a sleeping ogre. One party left the ogre alone, and went on to do other things. The other woke him up and tried to kill him. They were all killed. They were shocked when no one rode to their rescue, and no magical method of overcoming the ogre materialized. Their deaths, however, were an entirely normal response to their choice.

Killing the Arbiter is simply waking the ogre up. Don't be surprised if the ogre then kills you.

 

[Kraydak]

Well, the PCs always have the choice not to become notorious murdering cutthroats. Then the world reacts to them differently. I'm not writing the story here, I'm just having the campaign world in which the PCs live react to them in a manner that reflects their own choices. If choices don't have consequences (good or bad), then they aren't really choices now are they?

P.S. If I were writing the story, then the PCs wouldn't become brigands to begin with.

Funny how, if the PCs act as heroes, the world doesn't spontaneously generate NPC heroes powerful enough/pro-active enough to solve its problems, but if the PCs decide to be mean, it generates far more powerful, extremely pro-active heroes. The obvious, self-sacrificingly heroic act in such a world is to go on a helpless widow and orphan slaughtering spree.

IOW, please don't pretend that you are suggesting that the world react in a simulationist aspect towards the PCSs, when you are obviously suggesting that the DM take out his frustrations on the players.

In this case (and, frankly, for most such cases, which pop up every few months on the boards), it is very possible to read the story as the DM wanted to apply *very* restrictive rules for PC actions, but extremely lenient rules for NPC actions. The DM then gets frustrated/angered when the PCs treat the NPCs according to their actions, as opposed to the alignment the DM has written down on his character sheets.

 

[roguerouge]

If I'm the DM, here's what I do. Get the PCs to contact the mother again, via their Speak with Dead spell or other divinations. Go with Vincent being an evil, evil bastard. The child is extremely important. The King *must* know the truth about this child! For some reason that any DM worth his salt can sort out...

Unfortunately, the King has just declared the PCs outlaws, and all his men are gunning for them. Except for the other Arbiter, but he can't help them directly without risking the same fate.

Instant awesome.

...The atonement is doing whatever the frack is necessary to protect the child and see to it that he does not fall into the wrong hands. This *must* cost the PCs everything. They should lose all their non-portable wealth. Their families are thrown in prison and killed. Anyone who helps them is an outlaw. Their old friends turn on them. And most importantly NONE OF THE MAGIC SHOPS WILL SELL TO THEM! ZOMGWTFBBQ!

Now THAT's a helpful hint.

 

[Storm Raven]

Funny how, if the PCs act as heroes, the world doesn't spontaneously generate NPC heroes powerful enough/pro-active enough to solve its problems, but if the PCs decide to be mean, it generates far more powerful, extremely pro-active heroes.

That's a flawed assumption on your part. No one said there weren't other heroes in the world. They are just usually busy dealing with other problems. if the PCs become a problem, then they will probably draw the attention of one of these groups. If they go about killing agents of the government, then the government will probably hire one of these groups to deal with them.

IOW, please don't pretend that you are suggesting that the world react in a simulationist aspect towards the PCSs, when you are obviously suggesting that the DM take out his frustrations on the players.

Except, of course, you are simply wrong. The campaign world should appear to have a life seperate from the PCs. And that includes having competing groups of heroes. Who are normally potential allies, or mentors, or simply nonhostle rivals. But who will turn against the PCs if they become what the other heroes normally fight against.