New DM, Brand New Players

[Adam Bird]

So my adventurers have 3 sessions of Lost Mines under their belts.
Rogue, Sorcerer, Monk.
Rogue is trying his hardest to RP.
Sorcerer is my wife and gets bored with dialogue.
Monk picked 1/2 Orc so he can be his brutish self and call it RPing.
My question is...
The monk, although he says he wants to fight for good, and be a “good” character, ends up killing all the time.
They captured Ynnic the goblin in the first cave, took him with them to the town of Phandalin, and the Monk literally piked him outside the tavern to get the RedBrand ruffians’ attention.
So when they found Glassstaff in the RBR hideout, and damaged him enough to get him to give up, the monk went to hit him again to “knock him out” he missed with his fist, then followed up with his quarterstaff.
He wasn’t dead, but I told him he was doing really bad. He then proceeded to carry him around in his staff and set him down before the next fight. I rolled to see if he was ok and when the monk went to pick him up, he was dead (I rolled a 1 for Glassstaff)
They lost out on his info.
Is that a Dick-ish thing to do?
To be honest, i was hoping he died to maybe get the monk thinking about the long game a bit more

 

[ccs]

So your monk/party didn't stabilize the dying bad guy?

Probably not so much a dick-ish move as just not knowing the rules. about dealing non-lethal damage & healing. And not realizing that what you were describing was a dying enemy vs one who'd just been severely pummeled.

If you WANT them to know the condition of a foe, just tell them straight up. If they still don't apply any 1st aid, healing etc....

As for your monk? This is D&D. It's perfectly fine to be a good guy & still kill your foes.

 

[jasper]

As long as you flat out told the monk player the guy was close to dying, I have no problem. In D&D stupid actions will affect the party.

 

[Adam Bird]

I mean they are all brand new players. So I probably should have made stabilizing more known.
In all honestly, my concern about dick-ishness on my part is because I wanted the guy to die so the Monk maybe thought about what he was doing a bit more. They got surprised going into every room because he would specifically say “I’m smashing all the crates and casks in the room”
It’s frustrating to at least my wife, playing a high Charisma character, because she wants to get some info out of these people.
Glassstaff had surrendered, and the Monk said he still wanted to knock him unconscious..then used a quarterstaff...
I need to find some way to get everyone to mesh better. These people all know each other, we all played WoW for years together.
The Roleplaying part is what is new to everyone.
And of course only the rogue will read any of the general info I’ve put out to help them understand the game.

 

[Thondor]

They'll be growing pains for the first little while.
A lot of this is about everyone communicating expectations, as well as what can be done. Some debriefing post and pre game can help.

Let there be in game consequences - but let the players know why those consequences happen. This is the big difference between a video games and trpg's, actions have more consequences.

 

[GMMichael]

They lost out on his info.

They should lose out on much more than that!

Civilized people have an odd habit of not liking uncivilized people. Which means, one, that NPCs are likely to ignore the monk or actively avoid him, once his demeanor becomes known. The resulting socializing and bargaining problems are likely to rub the non-monk PCs the wrong way.

Which leads to point two: if the monk goes around increasing the PCs' odds of dying (making enemies, drawing surprise attacks), those PCs have very good reason to abandon him.

So...natural consequences, I guess? See if you can get the other PCs to voice their concerns to the monk, in-character. That should help them get in touch with their characters and possibly let the monk's player know that becoming a pariah is not personal - just role-playing.