D&D 5E Drop your weapons situation

[Enkhidu]

You're right that it's about trust, but there's no real equivalence to that situation. The DM will never take the fates of a group of NPCs as seriously as the players will take their own characters, and they know that. They're not going to look at a bunch of prisoners under their care as personifications of the DM, and let that guide their thinking in regard to care or lack of care, nor will they see it as setting any precedent for their own care in a similar situation...

Personal experience tells me that "never" is too strong a term - I've seen the scenario play out more or less exactly the same way I described it more than once, with a GM having NPCs engage in surrender/parley first as a way to massage expectations. Certainly, players understand that PCs are more dear than NPCs, but the idea is to use the scenario to 1) gauge existing player expectations (do the PCs engage in surrender scenarios at all? if so, how?) and 2) set up later instances with the positions reversed.

But frankly, I don't think it matters about the specifics on HOW a DM gains player trust - that the trust exists at all is most important.

 

[Ancalagon]

Thanks, guys! Reading and thinking about your advice, something clicked in my head and I now I know how I'm gonna try to pull this one. Game starts in a couple of hours so I'll be back to tell you how it went.

So... how was it?

 

[peponf]

¡Holy f%$&/, _I forgot! Sorry, it's Christmas time and days pass too quick. Finally I realized that the best way to pull this off was to use role playing instead of rule playing (BADABOOM!). One of my PJs was responsible for the death of a kinda Harpist society member that exists in my game world game named the Jacks, so there were his friends looking for the murderer. The force was, in fact, really weak: Four minions and an arcane trickster who was the leader: A force so small they could have wiped out without effort, but I showed the PJ the red hood that was the signature of the dead guy and I told him to stop running and take responsibility for his actions. The rest of the group was unaware of this because it's backstory, so it was a tense situation with everyone grabbing their weapons not knowing what was happening. The arcane trickster said "Sure, you could kill all five of us, but you'll be running from my guild for the rest of your days, are you sure you want that?". Finally, they surrendered and a pretty cool judgment was made where everybody talked about the moral consecuences of killing a good thief in the name of an evil authority. I know some would say D&D it's not meant for this kind of stories, but guys, IT WAS AWESOME.

 

[5ekyu]

¡Holy f%$&/, _I forgot! Sorry, it's Christmas time and days pass too quick. Finally I realized that the best way to pull this off was to use role playing instead of rule playing (BADABOOM!). One of my PJs was responsible for the death of a kinda Harpist society member that exists in my game world game named the Jacks, so there were his friends looking for the murderer. The force was, in fact, really weak: Four minions and an arcane trickster who was the leader: A force so small they could have wiped out without effort, but I showed the PJ the red hood that was the signature of the dead guy and I told him to stop running and take responsibility for his actions. The rest of the group was unaware of this because it's backstory, so it was a tense situation with everyone grabbing their weapons not knowing what was happening. The arcane trickster said "Sure, you could kill all five of us, but you'll be running from my guild for the rest of your days, are you sure you want that?". Finally, they surrendered and a pretty cool judgment was made where everybody talked about the moral consecuences of killing a good thief in the name of an evil authority. I know some would say D&D it's not meant for this kind of stories, but guys, IT WAS AWESOME.

VERY well done. As you say, roleplay thru the conflict - and in a way that did not bypass any mechanics, that called back to pc backstory and where the threat was not of a squash but of long term consequences with no sign of obvious death on either side.

 

[Ancalagon]

¡Holy f%$&/, _I forgot! Sorry, it's Christmas time and days pass too quick. Finally I realized that the best way to pull this off was to use role playing instead of rule playing (BADABOOM!). One of my PJs was responsible for the death of a kinda Harpist society member that exists in my game world game named the Jacks, so there were his friends looking for the murderer. The force was, in fact, really weak: Four minions and an arcane trickster who was the leader: A force so small they could have wiped out without effort, but I showed the PJ the red hood that was the signature of the dead guy and I told him to stop running and take responsibility for his actions. The rest of the group was unaware of this because it's backstory, so it was a tense situation with everyone grabbing their weapons not knowing what was happening. The arcane trickster said "Sure, you could kill all five of us, but you'll be running from my guild for the rest of your days, are you sure you want that?". Finally, they surrendered and a pretty cool judgment was made where everybody talked about the moral consecuences of killing a good thief in the name of an evil authority. I know some would say D&D it's not meant for this kind of stories, but guys, IT WAS AWESOME.

I like this - the players *could* have surrendered, or fought, but it was a real choice. Well done.