Lord or Tyrant?

[Numion]

How could they possible know he was not a vampire just by looking at him and talking to him. As a DM I would have played by NPCs the same way because it makes sense.

Hmm .. the player should remember this explanation if the lords start trouble when they got back:

"You attacked my captain?!"
"Well, you know, we thought he was dominated by a vampire, he was attacking our cleric and all, and surely nobody would be hostile towards a lord without mental compulsion?"

I see a double standard here. The PC is in the wrong since he didn't consider the NPCs motivations for what he did (acting first, asking questions later), right? However, that was also what the NPC was doing: he was attacking without making sure his target was an actual enemy. Is the default that NPCs are right?

I've seen in many threads here at ENWorld where some DMs find PCs who attack first and ask questions later, evil (the usual counter-arguments are similar to the ones you are using here "We thought it was a monster / better to be safe than sorry / etc.."

 

[Kahuna Burger]

But here comes the baron....

Quick note, according to his background he is not a baron. He is the third brother of the current baron, which puts him pretty far down the line of succession unless both his brothers are accident prone and sterile. Depending on the D&D world (many of which, as pointed out by a previous poster place high social emphasis on guilds and merchant houses as well as hereditary royalty) his actual social rank (as opposed to the inflated one he tries to claim through bullying) may be more from his actual accomplishments than his blood.

 

[Fenes]

He is still above the captain in station, and his fame probably far exceeds those of the lords of the keep. His personal power is unquestionably much much greater.

If the captain gets away with his actions, can PCs pull such antics as well, when confronted by NPCs of higher level/standing? Shoot at the Prince of a neighboring country that came to help them because they did not know his colors, tell the royal wizard to sod off, and expect their liege to back them up?

I still don't get why so many think that any militia member would be backed for shooting at their own (and much more powerful) allies, and then not apologising, but putting on some ego-fed powerplay.

 

[Elf Witch]

Hmm .. the player should remember this explanation if the lords start trouble when they got back:

"You attacked my captain?!"
"Well, you know, we thought he was dominated by a vampire, he was attacking our cleric and all, and surely nobody would be hostile towards a lord without mental compulsion?"

I see a double standard here. The PC is in the wrong since he didn't consider the NPCs motivations for what he did (acting first, asking questions later), right? However, that was also what the NPC was doing: he was attacking without making sure his target was an actual enemy. Is the default that NPCs are right?

I've seen in many threads here at ENWorld where some DMs find PCs who attack first and ask questions later, evil (the usual counter-arguments are similar to the ones you are using here "We thought it was a monster / better to be safe than sorry / etc.."

It is not a double standard both the captain of the guard and the wind walking cleric were in the wrong. I think the guard was less in the wrong because he had no way of knowing if A the cleric was a vampire or B if the cleric was being controlled by a vampire. I think where the guard was wrong was not keeping his cool when the second cleric went off on him after telling him to stop firing. Though no one has told us what they were actually yelling about.

I keep saying that it was the OP character that really mishandled the sitaution. He should have used his influence to calm things down not cause things to become more heated.

And you are right it is always possible for anyone to fail their will save and become under the vampire's power so I would think that if that is what the others thought was why the miltia was firing on the cleric then it would be even more important to keep a cool head and assess what is really going on.

This is just not about a commoner giving a lord lip with no provocation or a DM having a NPC act in an irrationale manner there were some really good reasons to have the NPC act this way. It is about how the OP's character handled the situation he wants to know if he handled it like a lord or a tryant.

IMO he handled it poorly may be not as a tryant but he could have handled the situation with more finesse.

One way to rule is to treat everyone of a lessor rank than you with little respect for their feelings and weild an iron fist and expect unwavering obedience. You may get it but the people who follow you do do out of fear not loyalty.

You can also choose to rule and expect obedience by showing some respect for others and compassion for them. To use kindess and understanding. To understand that if you have a man's heart you get his loyalty and obedience and they are freely given. The op could have choosen to play that kind of leader one who understood that dignity is something that everyone needs and he could have done so much to allow all involved a chance to keep their dignity. At the point that he came in no one was totally in the wrong.

 

[Fenes]

I still say that getting fired upon, and then seeing the militia prepare another volley, only stopped by the intervention of the priestess, and this despite being a known ally and telling them that, pretty clearly places the burden of showing respect and aplogising on the militia. The player characters may have been able to handle the situation better, but the fault lies in the militia first and foremost.

And I do think that if the PCs had fired upon some high and mighty cleric come to help them and would have acted like the captain did, then many posters here would talk about stupid uppity arrogant PCs that disrespect NPCs.

 

[Elf Witch]

He is still above the captain in station, and his fame probably far exceeds those of the lords of the keep. His personal power is unquestionably much much greater.

If the captain gets away with his actions, can PCs pull such antics as well, when confronted by NPCs of higher level/standing? Shoot at the Prince of a neighboring country that came to help them because they did not know his colors, tell the royal wizard to sod off, and expect their liege to back them up?

I still don't get why so many think that any militia member would be backed for shooting at their own (and much more powerful) allies, and then not apologising, but putting on some ego-fed powerplay.

I will tell you why I would back the miltia it is because they didn't do anything wrong. They are under attack by vampires, what appeared to be a vampire shows up at the front of the keep. Their orders were to protect the keep from the vampires. I would think that killing vampires by firing silver arrows is following orders.

I have said this before if this was my game and the cleric did what he did I would have the guards fire arrows to. There are consquences to your actions you don't just do things like that. You know the guards are going to be trigger happy with all that they have been through. You usually play clerics with a decent wisdom and anyone with a decent wiasom knows that it is not very prudent to blunder into a tense situation like the one these miltia have been in.

Your Prince example is not the same at all. Nor is telling off a wizard.

We are not talking about NPCs or PCs getting up in the face of higher lord for no reason. You have a tense situation going on you have a keep under seige the lords of the keep have left to find allies. From what I understand the PCs were offered hospitality but not command of the keep which means that command fell to the captain. One of these PCs does something foolish causing you to waste your ammo and cause your nerves and those of your men to become more frayed. In rushing another PC cleric yelling and even when you stop firing she keeps yelling so I think it was perfectly natural for the captain who is in a tense situation to yell back because that is what people tned to do.

The PC lord who then came along imo didn't behave as a leader or a very wise lord he behaved like an angry bully. Sure he may have the right of noble blood to be offended at the captain yelling at the cleric and he may have had the right to beat the snot out of him. But was his actions the actions of a smart wise leader. I don't think so. A wise leader would know that men in war often get anxious and tense and tempers get heated he should have tried to salvage the situation.

And yes I do think that PCs in this same situation should expect their leige to back them if something happened like this.

 

[Elf Witch]

I still say that getting fired upon, and then seeing the militia prepare another volley, only stopped by the intervention of the priestess, and this despite being a known ally and telling them that, pretty clearly places the burden of showing respect and aplogising on the militia. The player characters may have been able to handle the situation better, but the fault lies in the militia first and foremost.

And I do think that if the PCs had fired upon some high and mighty cleric come to help them and would have acted like the captain did, then many posters here would talk about stupid uppity arrogant PCs that disrespect NPCs.

And if the cleric had been turned or was mind controlled would it be different then? How were they supposed to know in that situation that the cleric was who he said he was?

I played in a DnD game dealing with undead and vampires one of our party got seperated from us and when he came back we were just so happy to see him that we didn't stop to think hey he has been gone in a vampire infested city.

So he managed to kill two of us before we were able to fight back.

Fighting Vampires changes things you can't just trust your eyes. An ally may no longer be an ally.

 

[Fenes]

Which is why you listen to the more powerful, magic capable allies you have - such as the priestess. When all that stands between you and (un)death is a group of allies, you don't give them lip after you try to kill them just because they prevent your own death.

In my opinion, we have a lower standing, lesser powerful militia member acting in a stupid, disrespectful manner towards more powerful, higher standing (noble, clergy) allies who were granted hospitality.

The smart thing would have been to call for the priestess, and stop firing after the cleric started talking.

So, even leaving the social issues aside, I blame the militia for messing up.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Which is why you listen to the more powerful, magic capable allies you have - such as the priestess. When all that stands between you and (un)death is a group of allies, you don't give them lip after you try to kill them just because they prevent your own death.

In my opinion, we have a lower standing, lesser powerful militia member acting in a stupid, disrespectful manner towards more powerful, higher standing (noble, clergy) allies who were granted hospitality.

The smart thing would have been to call for the priestess, and stop firing after the cleric started talking.

So, even leaving the social issues aside, I blame the militia for messing up.

you know, we really must have read the OP pretty differently. The priestess started the "lip" by scolding the militia members after they had already stopped the attack. There was absolutely nothing to scold them about, she was in the wrong. They responded to her behaviour instead of groveling, and you call that "lip"? The so called lord (really have no reason to call him one) goes in and instead of pulling both parties into line, escalates it still more by acting as if his people had done no wrong. Again a lack of groveling, so the PC decides it's time to become physically violent....

I'm afraid I don't see where the militia messed up here. See a possible vampire and wait to call in a consultant? yeah, how about follow standing orders instead? Stop when the possible vampire is identified by an ally? Oh look, they did that. Accept a "scolding" for doing their job in a way that inconvienenced the lowest wisdom cleric on the planet? No, being a guest doesn't give you the right to abuse your host and being a priestess doesn't excuse being stupid. Grovel to a bully who can't keep his own priestess in line? Again, no thanks. The only mistake the captain made was in actually accepting the bully's challenge, as if it was anything other than a death threat if he didn't grovel to him.

Edit and "powerful capable magical allies"? looks like they came back with their tail between their legs from their first foray, and aren't smart enough to approach a vampire besieged keep in a non amorphous form, so I'm not seeing much for the militia to automaticly want to defer to here....

 

[kigmatzomat]

He is still above the captain in station, and his fame probably far exceeds those of the lords of the keep. His personal power is unquestionably much much greater..

No, not really. If you read the OP & GM posts, you'll see the local lord is one (1) level lower than the PCs (10th vs. 11th). So he is not only a true Lord (unlike the PC lordling), he is also an accomplished adventurer. Oh, and the lord has his own 10th level wizard, so you're basically looking at either retired adventurers who made good or combat-capable nobles.