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

[GoodKingJayIII]

Good heroes aren't necessarily entitled to fairness either. If the 4th level PCs decide to trek up the mountain to face the dragon with the legendary reputation, and find a CR 21 monster up there, they may not survive the experience. Choice requires that some options have negative consequences, otherwise you are just engaged in a secret railroad.

Now you're sort of getting into the topic of world building and adventure creation, which is different than what I was talking about.

As a DM, I'm interested in giving my players as much choice as possible. I provide that choice by presenting hooks, letting the players go where they please, and filling in the blanks. If my PCs somehow got the impression that going after the great wyrm of Black Mountain was a good idea, then I share the blame as much as they do.

Killing the king's man is pretty much the equivalent of taking on the legendary dragon.

Imagine if the king sends 2, 4, heck even 8 of these Arbitors after the PCs. Now imagine that the PCs defeated them. What then? The king looks weak, having lost some of his most powerful and influential men to a trio of mercenaries. How will the people look to his rulership then. Put yourself in the NPC's shoes for a second; he has to be careful of these three PCs, lest he look like a total weakling and get usurped or beheaded by rioting peasants. He has to be careful the way he responds as well, you know.

I'm not saying there can't be consequences. But those consequences should not be "You have not played the game I wanted you to play, therefore you will now fight an encounter 10 levels above you. Have fun."

 

[billd91]

Only if the DM has decided to end the campaign.

How is this not non-sequitor?

Technically, killing the king's man may be equivalent to taking on the legendary dragon depending on the king's resources and whether or not he feels he can suffer the attack on his authority.
In other words, you may get different responses depending on whether you killed some who respresents the authority of the Roman Emperor or the constitutional monarch of Norway.

 

[Mallus]

How is this not non-sequitor?

Err, easily?

The DM determines the level of response for the killing of the King's Man. He can use the incident as a jumping-off point for future plot lines. Or he could go the CR21 route and decide to bring overwhelming force against the PC's and end the campaign. Why do consider that to be a non-sequitor?

In other words, you may get different responses depending on whether you killed some who represents the authority of the Roman Emperor or the constitutional monarch of Norway.

The relative power of the King is irrelevant. He's just a plot device. The only thing that matters is the DM's willingness to continue the current narrative. Everything else can be written around.

 

[Elf Witch]

Talk about extremes being discussed here.

It seems either NPCs should be played as helpful and polite all the time to PCs and if they don't then they are jerks . Or if one NPCs is a jerk then that means all the DMs NPCs are jerks.

I wanted to take this from a role playing aspect so from here on everything I say is based on that. Beer and pretzels are games is different and a lot of this is not an issue in those kind of games.

In a RP game you try and play your PC with some kind of consistency so if you are a paladin you try and play a paladin all the time not a blackguard when it is convient. Part of RP a paladin is trying to stick to your code. You try and give your character motivations on why they do things.

NPCs should be played the same way they have motivations that make them behave in a certain way. For example in my game a high level cleric of St Cutbert does not like non humans. He is curt with them which some could take as rudness. Now according to some people here I should not play him that way once my non human PCs get a certain level because that would make him a jerk and the PCs should be able to kill for being that way with no consquences.

The world should be filed just like ours with all kinds of people some helpful, some indifferent and some are just jerks. How you respond to them is called role playing. Now if you are playing a paladin and some NPCs is rude to you calls you a name if you play your paaldin as lawful good I doubt you will pull your weapon and slay him. You might grab him and tell him off, you might backhand and tell him to shut his face or just might prove that you are better than him and ignore him.

The CE wizard might handle it differently he might do something nasty to the NPC. Both are valid role playing choices.

Actions in role playing games have consquences which is what makes the game fun because you influence the world by your actions.

Now the by standers watching the paladin handle the man who insulted him by using no violence might find the town opening up to him and trusting him.

The wizard may find himself on the wrong side of the law or have the entire town quivering at his feet.

I think the issues comes up when in a RP game DMs play all the NPCs the same. I hate playing in a game where every NPC I meet hates me and his rude and unhelpful. It frustrates me because it does not make any sense. When a DM does this I can see why the players just want to kill and maim every NPC they meet.

There should be a reason why NPCs treat the PCs as they do. In my game my PCs are committed to helping others so they have a repuation of being good people. In the one town they were in the NPCs bent over backwards to treat them good. They gave then free room and food. They even lied to protect these PCs.

They are treated like this because of the way the players play their PCs. They are polite, they help with asking to be paid and they don't advantage of the people they are helping.

But in the bigger city where they are not known the spellscale and drow have met with some bigotry. They have been refused service at some taverns. "We don't want that kind here"

There is a reason for the ingame bigotry all the players knew it when some of them made non human characters as a matter of fact that was part of the motivation for them.

Now how they handle this bigtory will decide what happens next with it. So far the non humans have stoically accepted it. The humans in the party are the ones getting upset and telling people off. If things go as hoped this band of heroes will save the day in a big way as they get higher level and I doubt people will be refusing them service then.

All the interactions are based on character motivations not because I am being a jerk to my players.

The other issue is how players play their PC if they play them as special snowflakes who think that because they are PCs they are special and can treat the NPCs badly without amy consquences the game suffers. The DM plays the NPCs motivations as becoming more hostile based on the PCs actions and the PCs get more and more violent with the NPCs.

As a player you have to ask yourself would you character kill a man just because he looked at me funny and I can get away with it because he is only a NPC.

If you want to play a character who gets that kind of rep that is cool after awhile no NPC will look at you funny but on the other hand no NPC is going to be really helpful either. it is a trade off. You can't expect to play a PC like that and still have an easy time getting help from NPCs.

If you are role playing you should not bring metagaming nased on levels into the game. Sure at 15 level you can take on all the city guard and maybe wipe out the King but what possible role playing motive would you have for doing so. Why would you choose to derail the game that way.

You also have to look at what a defination of hero is. Just because you go and slay the trolls that have been attacking caverns does not make you a hero. If you do it and are paid handsomley for the task and then come back to town and take what you want and mistreat the townfolk they won't look at you as a hero they will look at you an necessary evil and be thankful when you leave and hope that they don't need you again.

If you expect your PC to be treated with repect then you need to behave in a way to get it. The same goes for NPCs as well.

That cleric of St Cuthbert I mentioned from my game was like an older brother to the cleric in my game. It is being role played out how much respect the cleric has lost ofr this NPC. It has caused some painful conversations between the two.

As for the argument that if you have evil PCs having good NPCs go after them is not being fair. I have to say bull. Part of being evil means the good guys come after you. The same way the evil guys go after good PCs.

It should be done fairly though. The encounter should be the right level of the PCs party. The same as you would do if your PCs were good going after evil.

 

[jeffh]

[long post]

Foreword: I am not strict with alignments. As I see alignments they are more or less 'goals'. A small act of evil doesn't make someone evil. However I think my PCs are killing without fear of consequences, and still putting on the facsade that they are a GOOD party (namely because their class requires it). I want them to either drop the facsade or repent, but I'm having trouble thinking of how to do it in my situation.


Situation

I am currently playing a long standing campaign with 3 friends. Together they are a Paladin, Cleric, and Fighter/hexblade/sorcerer. They have moved their way up in the ranks of the local army starting as pleb novices all the way to kingdom heroes. Their history however is sordid.

Before they became heroes they were on a mission to a Northern Island with 3 other NPCs guards. One in particular was gruff and just didn't like them. Because of this conflict the sorcerer would taunt him with dancing lights in their room. This of course set off a fight between the two groups which started off non-leathal (NPCs). But the PCs thinking "I'd rather die than lose a fist fight" pulled out weapons and started swinging. The NPCs then pull out their weapons and they fight back with lethal force and lose. It resulted in the death of the NPCs all except one, before it was stopped.

The remaining NPC didn't like the PCs but he decided to keep his mouth shut about the PCs killing the other fellow soilders.

And they weren't all (possibly including the NPC) court-martialed and executed because...?

 

[doghead]

general - murderous PC's

I think a few posters here need to step back and cool down. Neither side is going to convince the other. Both sides have presented their positions and now are just going back and forth over the same ground. Let it go.

doghead
aka thotd

 

[moritheil]

Make sure you play up the consequences of their action. If they are just killing people for being rude, or busting out weapons and lethal magic in bar brawls then the law is gonna get on their ass eventually. It can be hard to successfully adventure when you get a bad reputation and can't sell off loot, hire guides and other hirelings, are wanted by the law wherever you go, and have the family/friends/associates of people you've killed trying to kill you all the time.

Seconded.

 

[moritheil]

Err, easily?

The DM determines the level of response for the killing of the King's Man. He can use the incident as a jumping-off point for future plot lines. Or he could go the CR21 route and decide to bring overwhelming force against the PC's and end the campaign. Why do consider that to be a non-sequitor?


The relative power of the King is irrelevant. He's just a plot device. The only thing that matters is the DM's willingness to continue the current narrative. Everything else can be written around.

Your fundamental assumption here seems to be that this is explicitly run as a game for the benefit of the players, rather than a simulation of a world, and that preserving this game is the highest priority. That is, you are assuming that metagame concerns can and should override all others.

Now, within those assumptions you are correct. But I know of many DMs who would rather keep their world consistent even if it meant letting the campaign end. There is also the (equally metagame) idea that they need to show willingness to have consequences for the PCs in one game so that others do not devolve into an orgy of wanton killing and destruction.

So in short, not everyone is going in with the assumption that preserving the game is the highest priority.

 

[Herobizkit]

The players were told by a dead woman that the Arbiter was not to have her child. The Arbiter commanded the PC's to hand the child over to him. The PC's tried to reason with the Arbiter, and failed. This left three choices: Fight, Flee, or Surrender. The PCs chose to Fight, and won. They burned the body to conceal their "crime", and next encounter, much higher NPC soldiers appear to defeat the PCs.

I have a number of questions about this scenario.

* How (and how quickly) did the King's Men find out about Vincent's death?
* How (and how quickly) were they able to successfully ID and track the PCs?
* Are the local laws just, or is there a veneer of law to a corrupt government? I am of the opnion that any totalitarian-type government is open to corruption by definition; a system of Law that restricts the basic rights of its people "because we say so" is Lawful, but definitely NOT Good.

Given the above, I would think that the clever PCs COULD have fought to subdue, but they would have ended up in the same boat, and so they preferred to do what they felt had to be done until more information could have been uncovered. Clever-er PC's may also have demanded that they hold the child until such a time as that non-magical proof of the Arbiter's fatherhood could be produced - magic can be flawed, and since the PC's already knew the answer, the burden of proof would have fallen on the Arbiter. At worst, the PC's would have been carted into court and an investigation be launched into the reasoning behind the wife's desire to prevent the Arbiter from claiming the child.

But that's not how it went down.

And so, my question is this: Where are the high-powered "Evil" people the players can go to for assistance?

 

[hamishspence]

Rebels?

Maybe there is a CN/CG Rebellion that the players could get in contact with. Or they could start their own.