Is stealing PC's toys taboo?

[Minicol]

It's always seemed to me that stealing PCs toys is fair game. Just don't do it so often that it gets annoying - just like you don't have your players face the same encounters every tmie. It would get boring.

I agree with you, and I went a lot further the path : I turned it anto an adventure hook. I once ran a waterdhavian adventure where the PCs pissed off a big gun mage mightily, but failed to discover who it was.

So for the next session, after the PCS had fnished the main adventure, I made them have a few rolls, and "sorry guys, items X and Y of your loot have disappeared". A few nonconsequential items at first.

They rolled eyes but did nothing. I expected them to try to follow the culprit, but they did not. So I increased the stakes in the next sessions. Oooh, your mighty watzatwas is gone too... It took something like 5 sessions to rouse them and get them to start consider the threat seriously.

Finally, they managed to tail the team of monsters responsible for the thefts directly into the wizards tower ... and then they chickened out when they learned who their foe was. So they never recovered their loot, but they were a lot more cautious the next times around, and took precautions that foiled the thief team.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

Your DM (Storyteller?) did fine. The other player was a whiny git. I'm surprised no one has said "kick him to the curb" yet.

 

[Maldor]

Sorry, I did mean Exalted 2e. (I do realize this is a d20 primarily forum).

Just a little more background on the story here...

Yeah, Solar Exalted are supposed to kick butt and chew bubblegum, etc. when they are in Creation, or when they are old. This particular solar was in Yu Shan (heaven) and he has a reputation for being very unforgiving to gods.

This is why he was a little fish. Back in creation, yeah, he is the big man.

it sound to me like the guy was roleplaying the character he talks big even when he can't back it up i know more then one guy like this in real life is it so odd that someone who use to be powerful and respected now like to put on a show of bravado.


i had a bad experance with items being stolen i was a high level evil mage got DM whim knowkout and robbed for some reason i could not scry any of the items or the sprites that took them so i spent three day burning the forest. the DM's rep is usally the one that suffers most this sounds like a bad DM move like he got upset at that player and decided to metagame his downfall.

P.S. yes DM can metagame and usally do more then players

 

[delericho]

In general, it is a vastly better idea to not give out the stuff, rather than to give it out and then later take it away. This applies equally to mundane gear vs. rust monsters, magical gear vs. thugs, and experience points vs. level drain.

Additionally,

Basically, the idea was to show the player that his character was not invincible, and that he'd better be careful when walking around like a big man when he's really just a little fish.

DMs doing this "to teach the players a lesson" is bad form. It's basically just a hose job, intended to hurt the player, regardless of whether it makes sense for the character to be in that position.

That said,

A different player got all pissy about the DM stealing a player's weapon. Like... superpissy. I mean, I think I would have been a little bit irritated if it happened to me, but he went on a tirade about it being a bad precedent for like 15 minutes.

The player over-reacted. Sometimes, bad things do happen to PCs. Equipment does get lost or damaged, levels do get drained, and characters do die, and can't always come back. If this has never happened before, then the player is right that it sets a precedent... but it's a good one, not a bad one.

Were I the DM (Storyteller) in this case , I would flat out tell the player, "Sometimes things like this might happen to characters, including yours. If you don't like it, the door is over there."

 

[Bagpuss]

Fair game, but it's normally good form to give them some sort of chance to get them back, in the not too distant future.

Still seems odd for an Exalted game, I thought the point of Exalted were that you were pretty big fish from the start.

 

[Imaro]

Sorry, I did mean Exalted 2e. (I do realize this is a d20 primarily forum).

Just a little more background on the story here...

Yeah, Solar Exalted are supposed to kick butt and chew bubblegum, etc. when they are in Creation, or when they are old. This particular solar was in Yu Shan (heaven) and he has a reputation for being very unforgiving to gods.

This is why he was a little fish. Back in creation, yeah, he is the big man.

Secondly, in Exalted, artifacts are something that require attunement. That means that only the character that's attuned to it can use it, and he can track it down no matter what. The end result of this scenario will be him asking the other PCs to help him go on the witch hunt someone mentioned.

He did sink character background point into it. Taking it away permanently would not be cool.


Personally, I don't think he did anything wrong. It's just that one of the players (not even involved) got rather animatedly upset about this situation. I was curious as to other people's experiences

Emphasis mine. Unless this is a house rule...that's not how artifacts work. First you loose your attunement to the item if it's not handled on a daily basis. Secondly, anyone with enough motes of essence to spend can attune the item to themselves. Finally, even being attuned doesn't let you know where the artifact is at all times.

Again the fact that the player spent character points on the artifact makes it a tricky question. The other player could be worried something like this might happen to him and was trying to argue against it period in the game...*shrug* without knowing more about the players I can't really say if he was right or wrong.

IMHO the fact that character points were spent on it does make it seem a little heavy handed as far as a plot device, and as far as teaching the player a lesson...well wouldn't a sound thrashing and a little embarassment have driven the point home without taking the character's artifact?

 

[Thurbane]

Not that I'm familiar with Exalted specifically, but...

...it would seem odd that a group of people who go around beating up people (or monsters) and taking their stuff for a living (i.e. adventurers) would get all hissy if someone did the same to them.

 

[Arashi Ravenblade]

You know I started D&D with 2e around 10th grade (1998-1999), something like that. I started Roleplaying with BESM Sailor Moon (Is actually just remembered that this last summer, I thought it was DBZ around 1997).
Anyway in that short amount of time I have noticed a "sissy Syndrome" among players.
It seems to be people just want to beat the bad guy and never and I mean never have anything bad happen to their characters. I was playing with one guy where the same things happened. I took his stuff instead of having the bad guy kill him. He got mad. I said fine. If you get your stuff back and we re-start and this time he tries to kill you. That stopped the conversation real quick. However, it seems that even in gmaing we really are in a society of instant gratification and consequence-free thinking are common.

I just tell my players too bad.

 

[werk]

Its only bad if you have prissy babies for players.

Seconded, only babies cry like babies. When life gives you lemons, stfu and eat your lemons.


The only thing I would question is the plausibility of the theft and the didactic approach of the lesson being taught. This exact scenario could be done really well with everyone walking away with a relieved chuckle and a lot to think about, or it could be ham-handed and ruin the group due to obvious abuse of power...

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

No, not at all. It's all made up -- the DM 'gave' it to him in the first place. It's not like it's a real object and that once it's gone there can never be another like it.

This is either a spoiled player, or a DM trust issue. If the player thinks he's being singled out for the beat-down, then the player and the DM need to talk outside the game about the issue and come to some sort of understanding. The 'stuff' is a symptom of the player thinking the DM is out to get him or something. IMO, a good game requires and ebb and flow of characters' fortunes, and I've little patience for players that can't handle a little setback without pitching a hissy-fit, especially if its been demonstrated time and again that in the long term things tend to work out.

If he's just upset because he's going to be a little less uber while the arc plays out over a session or two, tough. Tell him to suck it up or leave. And hopefully the other players will tell him the same thing.