D&D 5E No good deed goes unpunished

[Dannyalcatraz]

No one is going to quit their job or murder each other etc over that kind of money.

I wish it were true, but it simply isn’t. A quick search for “man killed over $50” yielded reports from Vegas, San Antonio, Palm Beach, Tacoma, Tulsa, Jackson, etc.

I wouldn’t be surprised to find similar results in other countries. (If you look, remember to do the currency conversion.)

 

[cthulhu42]

You told us 1200 gp, without any context. I therefore have to assume that your D&D economy is roughly standard. I did quick, easy calculations using the defaults values.

If it *isn't* standard, then your 1200 gp value is meaningless to the average reader. You might as well have said 3000 flurbos.

Granted, and there was no need for me to get snippy. I'll site lack of sleep and beg apologies.

As for context, I'd argue that I gave it what I said, "These are peasants, suddenly with more gold on hand than they could ever expect to see in their lives. What sort of effect would that have on these humble folk? I decided that it wouldn't be good."

The book notwithstanding, I can make that statement true if I need it to be.

The crux is this: A small group of people are suddenly gifted with a decent sum of money for the lot of them, or a life changing sum of money for a few of them. It's been pointed out at length that there are a multitude of ways that this situation could go. I, as DM, have decided to take it in a dark direction, and am asking for ideas in that vein. That's really all there is to it.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Something I learned from studying the history of money.

Some close knit communities have a custom of founding informal banks called lending societies. Everyone chips in, everyone takes a turn as a beneficiary of a loan of some or all of it, which must be repaid with interest. This allows the community to lift up their own, one at a time.

Now, imagine someone wants to cut in line, or doesn’t want to repay their loan. In many rural societies, far from civilization centers, self help is the default option. In bigger cities, sometimes the communit bank gets taken over by organized crime groups, which ALSO default to self help...

Now add the campaign ingredients in your small town. If they had such a lending society, and suddenly the community had a huge (to them) influx of cash, all kinds of tensions could arise. Some might insist on equal shares, distributed immediately. Others might want to boost the lending society’s coffers with the windfall. Tensions rise.

And next in line to benefit from thevlending society? The least trustworthy or otherwise most disliked member of the community...

 

[Fanaelialae]

I wish it were true, but it simply isn’t. A quick search for “man killed over $50” yielded reports from Vegas, San Antonio, Palm Beach, Tacoma, Tulsa, Jackson, etc.

I wouldn’t be surprised to find similar results in other countries. (If you look, remember to do the currency conversion.)

What's the commonality between all the places you listed?

They're all modern day places that are big enough that I recognized the names. It's not like Sharon Springs, N.Y. (for example) is on that list (and while Sharon Springs has a small town feel to me, it's population is MUCH larger than 70, and certainly not everyone knows each other). Crime in small towns is much less common than in a big city, in large part because of the close knit community such places naturally encourage. That applies far more in a medieval-esque setting, since in such a world you can't just hop into your car and head to the big city for a few hours. You're isolated, and highly dependent on your neighbors for survival.

Killing for the money and remaining in town is a bad idea because if you've killed someone then you've weakened the town's ability to survive as a whole (and you are part of that whole). You can't even spend the money to improve your lot significantly, since word gets around in a small town and therefore if you spend it everyone will know what you did.

Killing for the money and leaving is a bad idea because then everyone will know what you did. Assuming there is any kind of system of justice, once word gets out you're likely to be in real trouble. You could maybe hide out in the woods, but you can't spend the money there and your life is going to be significantly worse than if you'd never stolen the money in the first place.

It could occur as a crime of passion, but that's going to be rare. People who are willing to kill a friend or family member over something like $10,000 are the exception rather than the rule. Based on my personal experiences, that's likely doubly so for small town folks, because from what I've seen they care about how they are regarded by their community. While crimes of passion aren't rational, they are heavily driven by our passions. You might be angry at the elder for not giving you more of the money, but those emotions are likely to be tempered by fear of the community's reaction if you were to step over the line. You're not being tempered by your rational mind, but rather by your passions themselves.

That's my take on it anyway.

 

[jodyjohnson]

The crux is this: A small group of people are suddenly gifted with a decent sum of money for the lot of them, or a life changing sum of money for a few of them. It's been pointed out at length that there are a multitude of ways that this situation could go. I, as DM, have decided to take it in a dark direction, and am asking for ideas in that vein. That's really all there is to it.

I'd ask my players. I'm not a fan of springing things on characters that they would understand even if the player's don't.

If the players don't understand the relative value of currency in the world, at least the characters should unless they are being played especially naive.

 

[Ancalagon]

Granted, and there was no need for me to get snippy. I'll site lack of sleep and beg apologies.

As for context, I'd argue that I gave it what I said, "These are peasants, suddenly with more gold on hand than they could ever expect to see in their lives. What sort of effect would that have on these humble folk? I decided that it wouldn't be good."

The book notwithstanding, I can make that statement true if I need it to be.

The crux is this: A small group of people are suddenly gifted with a decent sum of money for the lot of them, or a life changing sum of money for a few of them. It's been pointed out at length that there are a multitude of ways that this situation could go. I, as DM, have decided to take it in a dark direction, and am asking for ideas in that vein. That's really all there is to it.

Aaaand I was a bit abrupt too so that didn't help.

Ok, let's see if I can think of something that meets your desire *and* respects my "math"

Villager gets some gold to go buy supplies for the village (iron for the smith? medicines? doesn't matter) at the nearest town of some import. Gets a good price, has a spare gold piece or three and goes to the tavern. Befriended by other man who turns out to be an "urban scout" for a local band of brigand. He could rob the peasant... but instead decides to find out where this gold comes from!

So now the brigands are going to prey on the village. Perhaps they even convince the peasant to betray his fellow villagers for a cut of the money?

1200 gp is a nice sum for a small band of brigands after all...

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

What's the commonality between all the places you listed?

They're all modern day places that are big enough that I recognized the names.

Of course they are- an internet search is going to be HEAVILY weighted towards

1) current events
2) that someone took the time to upload to a website or news feed

If you want to find earlier examples, you’re going to have to adjust your search parameters to account for inflation AND, in all likelihood, look at microfiche or other non-subscription Internet resources. You’re simply not going to find the case of a man killed in a small town like Ogden, KS in 1913 over $2 using a basic online search. (Yes, I did adjust the $50 for inflation.)

Those small town records usually aren’t going to be accessible online because of the costs involved. I know when I had to do some records sifting in Waxahatchie, TX- 16x the size of Ogden- for documents just 20 years old, I had to go to Waxahatchie and have someone do a physical search.

 

[Sunseeker]

What's the commonality between all the places you listed?

They're all modern day places that are big enough that I recognized the names. It's not like Sharon Springs, N.Y. (for example) is on that list (and while Sharon Springs has a small town feel to me, it's population is MUCH larger than 70, and certainly not everyone knows each other). Crime in small towns is much less common than in a big city, in large part because of the close knit community such places naturally encourage. That applies far more in a medieval-esque setting, since in such a world you can't just hop into your car and head to the big city for a few hours. You're isolated, and highly dependent on your neighbors for survival.

Killing for the money and remaining in town is a bad idea because if you've killed someone then you've weakened the town's ability to survive as a whole (and you are part of that whole). You can't even spend the money to improve your lot significantly, since word gets around in a small town and therefore if you spend it everyone will know what you did.

Killing for the money and leaving is a bad idea because then everyone will know what you did. Assuming there is any kind of system of justice, once word gets out you're likely to be in real trouble. You could maybe hide out in the woods, but you can't spend the money there and your life is going to be significantly worse than if you'd never stolen the money in the first place.

It could occur as a crime of passion, but that's going to be rare. People who are willing to kill a friend or family member over something like $10,000 are the exception rather than the rule. Based on my personal experiences, that's likely doubly so for small town folks, because from what I've seen they care about how they are regarded by their community. While crimes of passion aren't rational, they are heavily driven by our passions. You might be angry at the elder for not giving you more of the money, but those emotions are likely to be tempered by fear of the community's reaction if you were to step over the line. You're not being tempered by your rational mind, but rather by your passions themselves.

That's my take on it anyway.

As someone who lived in small towns for about half my life this is very true.

Everyone knows everyone. Even the kooky old guy who lives in the little cabin 20 miles from town up the mountain. And we don't just "know" them in the casual sense of we're familiar with their face or their truck. We know them. We know where they live, we know who their mother, father and grandfather is, and in a very real sense, in very small towns most of the town is usually related to each other. New blood is rare. Small towns often have 2 or 3 "major" families that make up the bulk of the town, who are usually related. There's a couple of smaller families who make up the rest. So it's not even that you would be theoretically stealing from a guy who knows your face, you're stealing from someone who is possibly your aunt or uncle.

On top of that, it's not just that was know who you're related to, we know where you work. We know your extended family lives in OtherTown down the river. We know a lot about pretty much any given member of society because we all work together, eat together, sleep together (both Biblically and metaphorically) and attend the same house of worship together.

People who live-in-town certainly DO commit crimes against each other, but usually as a result of drunken idiocy, youthful arrogance or long-time grudges. These are not master criminals with well-thought-out plots of how to steal the money and run off to CityVille and make a new life for themselves. In all of those cases, everyone knows exactly who is responsible. There's no "whodunnit" element. And to be honest, most of the "crimes" in small towns are social ones, not to put too fine a point on it, but I'm talking about sex. Married person gets drunk and sleeps around. Young punk things they know better and knocks up the Pastor's daughter. Larry hates Moe so he sleeps with Moe's best friend Curly.

In fact, a small town (even IRL) could probably tell you about the last time someone actually got killed in their town. Small towns don't have much (or get much) in the way of news, but oh boy do they have gossip!

 

[greymist]

Corrupting the villagers would work, but, IMO, would lack the consequence you want to put onto the PCs. They do a good deed and the recipients mess up, not really their fault.

I like shidaku's idea (post #9) - the villagers decide to do the right thing, they want to replace the sheep/cows/pigs that were lost to the giants. They pass the word to the travelling tinker who visits every month or two with goods from the city. He passes the word to a merchant who hires a couple of "adventurers" to guard the one or two shepherds and the animals they take to the village. Once there, the villagers decide that it might be worthwhile to hire the guards to look after the village - after all the last group of adventurers were so completely altruistic.

From there, the new guards take over the village, setting themselves up as the law, judge, and possible executioners. When the PCs pass through the village again, they can take down the bad guys easily - but they will have to deal with the consequences.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

You told us 1200 gp, without any context. I therefore have to assume that your D&D economy is roughly standard. I did quick, easy calculations using the defaults values.

If it *isn't* standard, then your 1200 gp value is meaningless to the average reader. You might as well have said 3000 flurbos.

That's an entire afternoon at Blips and Chitz! Stay away from Roy 2 though. That thing is a flurbo sucker.