Irritation at my group

[Wippit Guud]

Game list night, the party I'm in found 5 magic books... 4 that were cursed and one that was real. The 4 books were in a hard-to-get-to spot, and the real book was in a secret compartment underneath that.

Someone fell for reading the first book, fulfilling the traps purpose. Then someone else picked up the exact same book to see if she could read it.

After that, we looked at the real book and figured out what it was. Then someone opened the second cursed book and fell for it. By now, we knew the 4 first books were cursed. So, the party decides to sell them, as that sort of trap may be of use to a wizard or something. The person we were selling to asked what they do.

Well, the party didn't know what the other two did so... they opened the books. If a Remember right.

Fighter and Cleric dropped to 1 Cha (first book)
Cleric dropped to 1 Wis (ouch)
Druid dropped to 1 Int
The Rogue didn't want to open the last book, so the fighter did, and lost 4 levels.

The only problem I have with the party in total is that the DM should've TPKed out party long ago (the rest from stupid mistakes like that, and my bard cause with a 7 Str and an 8 Dex, he'd die pretty quick without everyone else)


EDIT: Oh, I need a point to relating that - some people just won't get it, no matter what. (well, that and venting over my party)

 

[ForceUser]

Sometimes players have a hard time dealing with the fact that they can't do whatever they want without consequences. They forget that they are not adventuring in a vacuum, and that their actions can be noticed by NPCs, who might react in reasonable ways that they're not expecting. Calling the city guard is a common enough reaction, as is screaming. In a magical medieval society, adventurers are noted when they breeze into town, dripping as they are in obvious wealth and magic. Word gets around quickly - cities in a magical medieval society have had adventurers cause trouble before and have ways of dealing with them if they get out of hand. These are things to keep in mind as your players romp through your world without regard for others.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

In pretty much any standard D&D milieu, most any man that's more than a dirt farmer will have a weapon on his hip-- and as long as it stays on his hip, there's no problem; it's expected. Heavy armor-- hell, any armor-- in any lawful (as in, under the rule of law) town is going to be frowned on in public, and is not going to be common.

Walking into any business in dirty heavy armor, unless it's a place that provides baths and/or laundry, is going to raise suspicions as well as lead to social disapproval-- you're acting like a freak. Drawing a weapon in town for anything other than a legally sanctioned duel is a criminal act and should be punished-- unless the party is capable of killing the whole town guard. Then, depending on the setting and the local power structure, they either take over and run the joint or the King sends in the army.

I can understand a little confusion about heavy armor, but expecting to get away with drawing weapons and threatening people? I'm sorry, but your player is a dolt.

I do have one character that always wears his armor in town-- he has the Endurance feat and he sleeps in it. He also wears a heavy iron mask at all times-- he only takes it off to eat or bathe, and when he bathes, he pays the bathhouse attendants to go find something else to do.

This character was treated like a freak, as he should have been. Only his polite, controlled demeanor and massive Intimidate score gathered him any respect, and until he took part in saving the town from goblins, was shunned, overcharged, and whispered about. And this is exactly the sort of reaction I expected.

 

[Pielorinho]

I can think of two ways of handling this:

More Information. When the player says he opens the first door, you say, "Uh, you *do* realize that you're a heavily armed, stinking-of-blood man trespassing in a place of business, don't you? You may not get a good reaction from anyone in the room." In other words, make sure the player is aware of the social ramifications of his actions.

Less Information. The girl screams, the player turns to you and asks why she screams. You respond, "Give me a sense motive check, modified by Intelligence." It's an easy check, and if he makes it, you say, "You'd guess she's screaming because a blood-spattered heavily armed man is standing at the foot of her bed and she's terrified." If he doesn't make it, you say, "You have no idea why she's screaming."

You can use both techniques, of course. The first one is particularly good to use with someone who isn't proficient at imagining himself as a different person in a different society; the second is particularly good to use with a belligerent player who's likely to argue with you about the world.

In any case, while the NPC's reaction was great, I think it's not a good idea to tell the players what the NPCs' motivations are mid-game. Once you do that, the players can argue with you on the motives. If, however, you make them guess at the motives, they'll have a very hard time arguing with you .

Daniel

 

[Arnwyn]

But, just to get your opinion, do you think the brothel girl screaming was an appropriate response? Would it have been an appropriate response if you'd heard several minutes ago that the bouncers had trouble with armed men? And, do you think I'm over-reacting?

Of course the girl screaming was an appropriate response. It's my personal opinion that the player was completely out to lunch if he thought otherwise. (And based on your note about his attitude, I'm sure he is out to lunch.)

I'm not sure if you're overreacting. I, personally, have no problem when a player "takes it up with me when things don't go well" - I don't mind a brief explanation about the hows and whys of a particular situation. However, *2 hours* (as you noted in your original post regarding a previous "discussion") is ridiculous, and I would have told him to shut his pie-hole long before then...

 

[ThoughtBubble]

Hope you guys don't mind me responding to everything at once.

Mark: We havn't had so much description of general life. A lot of their recent travelling stuff got glossed over, so we didn't hit towns there. And aside from where they are, they've spent time in only one other real town. There they were the local law enforcement, sort of, they were occuping a town that had allready been cowed. Of course, with an exception or two, most townsfolk avoided them there too. It's not so much his character's actions that bother me. I thought that those were hilariously in line with a burly fighter type. It's just a cross between this player's "That's not the way this should happen" arguement with me, and walking into a random room, and expecting to find answers in it that annoy me. He does both often, and gets very irritated when neither work.

apocalypstick: They havn't really been to a tightly guarded place, and they do have military rank, so in places where it matters (here it doesn't) they actually have rights to be carrying weapons. It's simply that most people don't apprecieate fully armed and armored people on their property.

Celtavian: Thanks for the support, and I see that we're on similar mindsets about armor. I'm about to start dropping fatigue penalties on him for sleeping in it.

TalonComics: I love prestidgitation. It even makes your food taste better.

Kyramus: Thanks for the support!

Numion: Thanks for the support as well. And I think I will cut this sort of thing short in the future. Half the time I can't tell if he's actually trying to argue or just make a bad joke anyway.

Drawmack: That sounds like a good way of doing things.

IndyPendant: Actually, the players high tailed it out of town after beating up a few bouncers. They're hiding in the woods now. And there is some harrassment going on (I'll detail that later). The thing is that there aren't really any bands of adventurers in this world. They're the remains of a military company. Most of the people they've been fighting this far into the game are parts of various orginizations (they've done little investigation, so they don't know much about it). They've never seen an adventuring band before, and they've only heard a few stories about them.

Majoru: Like I said to Indy, there aren't really adventurers in this world. They're in the military, so at least within the empire's bounds, they've got a decent amount of discretion in what they can carry. However, they havn't run into many armed people. NPC's typically treat them warily, but politely. It's not gritty and realistic, but it's definately not your typical adventurer's paradise. Heck, most of the gods in the game were formerly human, and there's a small list of known monster types that all the players have access to. However, I don't give them crap for having their weapons, that's a bit much for the campaign. I do however, like them to be willing to accept consiquences. And my NPC's have a liking for personal space.

Yeah, common sense does tend to wildly vary from group to group. My group had something similar with walkign into an ambush, causing one player death. Of course, it couldn't have been a bad tactical decision (fighting in the middle of the room, separated, no support from the healers for most of the fight, bad lighting conditions), but was instead me throwing too much at them. Strangely, the person who died knew he was making a poor tactical decision, and was fine with the consiquences. Whoops. Ranting again. Anyway, if you'd like to hear more, I can tell you, just in case I am an unreasonable DM.

Wippit: Those are some nasty books. I hope you can manage to get your stats back. And I hope the real book was worth it. And feel free to vent here.

ForceUser: You pinned a lot of it. Mostly the players ignore the townsfolk unless they're looking for something. And so, the NPC's mostly ignore the players. That is definately a fault on my part.

Wow. More came up as I was writing. I'll respond later, but I'm allready late for work. Thanks everyone for the responses.

 

[Umbran]

Okay, this looks like a communication problem to me. And that's a two way street.

Was the girl screaming reasonable? Yes. If an armed person walks in where armaments are inappropriate, strong reactions will occur.

However - how often have you, as DM, made it clear that arms and armor weren't appropriate street clothes? If they were really that odd, then wouldn't the party have been getting odd looks from the town watch and storekeepers and people on the street as they walked through town? Wouldn't this subject have come up three or four sessions ago? The players take their cues on what the game-world society thinks from the DM. If the DM is not consistent, the players may not come up with the same assumptions as the DM.

So, it wasn't so hot for the player to argue with you over it. However, if you weren't being clear and consistent about how off it is to tote around armor and weapons, then that's not so hot either.

 

[BelXiror]

You have to be consider, as well, how long these people have been wearing armor as a daily thing.

If they've been been busy adventuring and stuff, they may get to the point that they almost forget they're wearing armor. They may also have been around armoured people so much that they wonder what the problem is.

I have a lvl 15 rogue in a campaign, and it's been longer than I can remember since he's hit a decent town, let alone a city. A guard could probably pull him up and ask him what the go was, and unless the guard specifically told him that his armour/arms was a problems, he just wouldn't consider it.

Then again, when your in the Demonweb, taking your armour/arms off is a BAD idea

Not to mention, this room WAS near the Harlotry, right? A place soldiers might frequent? In such a case, armour/arms might not be so rare there. After all, soldiers might not actually have much to wear except there armour/arms, and they may just feel naked/odd without them.

 

[takyris]

Me: Okay, you reach town. What are you going to do?

Them: We're gonna go hunt around for information.

Me: Okay, and what are you wearing (prepares to mock party)

Half-dragon Sorcerer: One Alter Self later, I look completely human and am wearing well-maintained and moderately expensive city clothes.

Ranger/Rogue: Ring of the Chameleon, and I'm wearing well-maintained and moderately expensive city clothes, and my weapons look like tiny golden charms at my waist.

Bard: One Change Self later, and I'm wearing pre-defined Cool City Dude Outfit Alpha-Three.

Paladin: Glamoured Armor to simple tabard, clean. I keep my sword, since, after all, it IS my holy symbol.

Me: Dang. You guys are good.

 

[der_kluge]

I usually try to prevent these very situations by cautioning the PC beforehand. Something like "Are you sure you want to do that?" It helps them visualize the situation a little better.