Punishing your players

[Arnwyn]

I think that's often what people mean when they are talking about 'punishing' players.

Agreed. I think that's what people mean, too.

 

[deltadave]

I never punish people for their in character actions. Only when a player is disruptive or disrespectful at the table.

In character actions have their own rewards.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

In the past I have bought into this "punish the players" mentality, I don't really know why, I think the idea was that I would teach them a lesson and they'd go "wow, we did wrong but now we know better". It was part of the whole adversarial gaming thing that was going on, a natural extension of an abomination, so to speak.

I did lots of silly stuff like:
- railroad a LG adventure on the CN pcs because they were too reactive
- law enforcement had long range & near instantaneous telepathy
- handed out cool magic items that didn't fit the specialization to punish the lack of diversity
- and other stuff that was niggly
To be fair, in hindsight it was pretty much 2 way traffic - I remember being on the receiving end of some real bad player metagaming and the alternate DMs were sometimes absolutely dreadful. They did stuff like have a 'cartoon' session where everything became surreal slapstick or not prepare > get frustrated by us "going the wrong way" > arbitrarily kill us with an unavoidable & overpowering encounter. Utter madness.

However the reality is that players will never understand & 'get' DM imposed punishments, they will merely receive it as "the DMs having a rotten session" and shrug it off or get frustrated if it's repeated.

****

Nowadays I let the law of natural repercusions control PC behaviour, I've said to the guys that well played & careful characters should thrive in my campaign. Sloppily played or heedless characters should not make it to the mid-levels - I may be wrong but I'll never know because the current crop are pretty decent.

Punishing player behaviour otoh is a bit different - they're real people - your friends. Why would you, let alone how can this be done? My approach is to spell out the campaign theme & expectations early on and hark back to it if things get weird somehow. The only "punishment" I have it to push the nuclear bomb and cancel/cut short a session, but that is not an option exclusive to me as a DM.

 

[Wombat]

Other than all actions having consequences, I don't "punish" my players or their characters.

Yep. All actions in my games have consequences, be they physical, moral, or legal. My players are used to this, enjoy it, and have learned that sometimes their actions have unintended consequences, but they still have to deal with those consequences.

If the players are unobservant, if they fail to take into considerations the norms of societies and their laws, if they attack ridiculously overwhelming odds, if they try to welch on their taxes, if they attack a major public official in public, if they help bring in wanted bandits, if they start a trade war, all of these and many more actions that they have taken at one point or another, there will be fallout from their actions.

Yes, I have had PCs executed for breaking well-known laws, even if the action was "right". Yes, I have had them tracked by assassins they didn't know about, though they knew that they had made people angry at them. The important point here is that the players know this is something that happens because of what their characters have done, not what they as people have done.

Yeah, sometimes life is "unfair" in the game, but at least they can figure out why.

 

[S'mon]

I enforce consequences, except that I use Fate Points which act a lot like 'lives', except you only start with 3. I don't punish the PCs for deviating from my 'plot', though. One time two supposedly Lawful PCs became renegade outlaws. I pursued them with bounty-hunters & such, but they had a great time evading the long arm of the law and wreaking havoc, that campaign ended with them leading a hobgoblin horde against the castle of their Lawful Good arch-enemies (and former employers)

 

[S'mon]

As others have said, holding the PCs to the consequences of their actiosn is typically what "punishment" refers to. Some players get this idea that, since they're the focus of the story, they can do dumb things without consequence. Many DMs feel otherwise.

Yeah... hmm, the way D&D works, you need to cut the players some slack in enforcing strict realism, primarily by making sure low level PCs are presented with challenging but beatable encounters, not a troll at level 1. It's also fine to approach events with the question "What would be really cool to happen now?" rather than "What would be the likeliest/most realistic thing to happen now?" To me, there's something of a social contract that if the PCs act like heroes, the game-universe will treat them as heroes. If they act like anti-heroes, likewise. On the flipside if the PCs act like jerks with no sense of self-preservation it's ok for the universe to do what it naturally does to jerks with no sense of self-preservation. I was amazed at the recent thread re punishment for a PC group who massacred a bunch of innocent people - town guards & local dignitaries - how many posters suggested the PCs should be heavily fined, given a stiff talking to and waved goodbye... because they're PCs, presumably.

 

[Space Coyote]

Two situations will cause me to increase the difficulty of an encounter on the fly, or just introduce a really difficult encounter:

1) I really hate arrogance in players. It really annoys me when players act all uppity about this character's ability and get a "there is nothing we cant handle" attitude. I dont really "punish" players directly, but I will introduce some encounters that will make the players retreat like spanked puppies (unless that is called "punishing" players?).

2) Attacking someone or something without provocation. I dont care if the party is in the den of evil, fighting for their lives at every turn. When the party encounters a being that is making no attempt to hide from or trick the party and is taking no offensive actions and, perhaps, may even just be talking to them and trying to communicate or start a dialogue, if the party just attacks without provocation, the "enemy" either gets more powerful and/or gets an alignment shift (nothing like attacking an "enemy" without reason just to find out it was chaotic good adventurer on a quest).

On a side note, I have an unspoken rule when I DM: Dont assume anything. One day the party was heading to town and the ranger spotted Ogre tracks that led down a trail to a cave. The rogue snuck in to check out the cave and found an Ogre and backstabbed him, killing the Ogre. Just after that, a child Ogre came out from behind a curtain leading to a back room, dragging a teddy bear and asked, in common language, why daddy was laying on the floor. The Ogre was Lawful Neutral and worked as a blacksmith in the nearby town. These players have already been warned not to use "player knowledge"; monster alignment will not necessarily follow the monster manual.

 

[devilbat]

I will add another voice to the only form of punishment my players get are the circumstances of thier actions. I have no vendetta against them.

Agreed. I also explain early and often, that every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

I have recently learned to tell players at character creation, that if your character concept includes a description similar to "My character is always getting himself, and the party into the trouble", then you can expect it to work in spades.

 

[yennico]

I will add another voice to the only form of punishment my players get are the circumstances of thier actions. I have no vendetta against them. Ever.

Then again, I have my players paranoid enough that they always act with caution.

Ditto

 

[yennico]

On a side note, I have an unspoken rule when I DM: Dont assume anything. One day the party was heading to town and the ranger spotted Ogre tracks that led down a trail to a cave. The rogue snuck in to check out the cave and found an Ogre and backstabbed him, killing the Ogre. Just after that, a child Ogre came out from behind a curtain leading to a back room, dragging a teddy bear and asked, in common language, why daddy was laying on the floor. The Ogre was Lawful Neutral and worked as a blacksmith in the nearby town. These players have already been warned not to use "player knowledge"; monster alignment will not necessarily follow the monster manual.

I also use the do not asssume anything rule.Using meta-gaming knowlege is a crime. I like your example. If the rogue does not show remorse, perhaps I shift the alignment of this PCs. one step to evil.