Realistic Consequences vs Gameplay

[Nagol]

Than continuing down the rails of the published adventure? Very probably.

There may be some people here who are taking a stance along the lines of "teach the buggers a lesson," but I don't think that's my position. To my mind, the execution/s would be the logical result of actions taken. If your PCs are negotiating with Lord Vetinari, knowing his reputation, and someone mouths off and someone else tries to kill Vetinari or take him hostage, a slow death in the lightless depths of the scorpion pits is a result; no need to play that out; extending the obvious and inevitable feels to me like the GM bullying the players, more than a couple sentences ending with "make new characters." The OP described the player of the character that instigated the fight in the chambers as "bored." Crapping on the game out of player boredom is close enough to asshattery for me to call it that, and it's something I don't have any patience for.

Yeah, the situation looks very similar to
DM: This dungeon door is trapped.
Player: I open it anyway.
<mechanical resolution>
DM: Make a new PC.

Compare:

DM: This man is powerful, controls the legal machinery, and is known to be unstable and severely punishing of dissent.
PC1: I mouth off at him.
PC2: I attack him to take him hostage!
<Mechanical resolution>
DM: Make new PCs.

The stakes were known, actions were declared, so consequences should be reaped. The DM can keep throwing softballs if he is intent on it, but isn't beholden to do so.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Yeah, the situation looks very similar to
DM: This dungeon door is trapped.
Player: I open it anyway.
<mechanical resolution>
DM: Make a new PC.

Compare:

DM: This man is powerful, controls the legal machinery, and is known to be unstable and severely punishing of dissent.
PC1: I mouth off at him.
PC2: I attack him to take him hostage!
<Mechanical resolution>
DM: Make new PCs.

The stakes were known, actions were declared, so consequences should be reaped. The DM can keep throwing softballs if he is intent on it, but isn't beholden to do so.

I disagree. There isn't a long roleplaying session dealing with the trapped door where you have to continuously show deference to the trap or it goes off, while there does appears to have been a long series of roleplaying sessions leading up to the confrontation with the [-]trapped door[/-] NPC.

There's also a structural difference between the physical challenge of the trapped door -- where, yes, a poor choice to ignore the trap may result in consequences -- and the social challenge of an untouchable but boorish and annoying NPC. The former I could disarm, or chop down, and avoid the trap. The latter I usually have to guess what the GM intends the result to be an submit to the NPC along the way. Fundamentally, these kinds of NPCs require the players to submit to the NPC in many ways that a trapped door does not -- they're not the same kind of challenge nor do they present the same onus to the players.

Again, if I'm correct that the NPC in the OP is the Burgomaster of Vallaki, he's meant to be confronted at some point -- there are multiple plot points to do just that in the adventure. The GM has a lot of leeway to make a decision as to how any such confrontation with the PCs pans out, and I think that the OP's problems are, in large part, due to choices the OP made in this confrontation to not have any flex in the adventure and not anticipate that the PCs, or at least some of the PCs, would be very displeased by how the Burgomaster has acted and try to thwart him, depending on what elements of the adventure the GM has already presented (or chosen to present, not everything in Vallaki is necessary).

 

[hawkeyefan]

Than continuing down the rails of the published adventure? Very probably.

It’s hard to say without knowing what adventure it is. If it’s Curse of Strahd as suggested, then I think confronting any of the different rulers among the various settlements of Barovia is well within the range of expected behaviors by the PCs. And none of these rulers hold sufficient power to make an attempt to kill/overthrow them a foregone conclusion one way or another.

There may be some people here who are taking a stance along the lines of "teach the buggers a lesson," but I don't think that's my position. To my mind, the execution/s would be the logical result of actions taken. If your PCs are negotiating with Lord Vetinari, knowing his reputation, and someone mouths off and someone else tries to kill Vetinari or take him hostage, a slow death in the lightless depths of the scorpion pits is a result; no need to play that out; extending the obvious and inevitable feels to me like the GM bullying the players, more than a couple sentences ending with "make new characters."

I suppose it’s possible. If I present a villain or other antagonist for the PCs to have to deal with, and they attempt to do so and fail, I usually see if there’s some other way for them to proceed.

I get your point about their execution being a logical outcome. But is it the only outcome? If so, why? If not, what else could happen?

The OP described the player of the character that instigated the fight in the chambers as "bored." Crapping on the game out of player boredom is close enough to asshattery for me to call it that, and it's something I don't have any patience for.

I don’t know if I’d agree with that. I mean, instead of blaming the player for being bored, we could just as easily blame the GM for running a boring game. Neither seems all that fair nor all that productive.

This ruler sounds as if he’s meant to be an antagonist. So PCs going after an antagonist seems pretty predictable to me. Now, maybe a direct confrontation is not what the GM had in mind. And maybe the fiction had clearly established that a direct confrontation was a bad idea. So it seems a conflict between player and GM expectations.

 

[prabe]

This ruler sounds as if he’s meant to be an antagonist. So PCs going after an antagonist seems pretty predictable to me. Now, maybe a direct confrontation is not what the GM had in mind. And maybe the fiction had clearly established that a direct confrontation was a bad idea. So it seems a conflict between player and GM expectations.

It seems to me to be a conflict between the players. The sense I get (and if I'm wrong I sincerely hope the OP corrects me) is that the players/characters made a decision as a party to try to solve whatever they were trying to solve by talking to the Mad Tyrant. There probably was some disagreement over whether this was the way they wanted to go about it, but one way or another the players/characters who wanted to talk won the right to decide--maybe the ones who wanted to fight gave up arguing. While (some of) the PCs were endeavoring to social-encounter their way toward their goal, the other PCs decided to sabotage that effort.

Now, published adventures can be ... completely unclear how to proceed if the PCs do something the writers didn't anticipate, especially the longer adventure-path-style. I've broken at least one by accident, and I may have had a hand in redirecting a party well off the track in another, and I'm pretty open about my dislike for the category both as a player and a GM. It sounds as though the OP has managed to keep things moving in the campaign, though I suspect getting them back to the published material (if that's the desire) will prove difficult.

 

[Imaculata]

I get your point about their execution being a logical outcome. But is it the only outcome? If so, why? If not, what else could happen?

This seems like the right approach to me. The goal ultimately is to continue the adventure and have fun. Is simply executing the pc's fun? Kinda yes, but only to me, not to the players. And it stops the adventure dead in its tracks.

I would always pursue an option that allows play to continue. This does not mean that the DM is required to throw the players a soft ball. Being on death row can be an exciting follow up, if you allow for a daring escape.

Luke Skywalker was sentenced to death by Jabba twice, and escaped heroically both times. That's what I think my players want out of an adventure.

 

[Nagol]

I disagree. There isn't a long roleplaying session dealing with the trapped door where you have to continuously show deference to the trap or it goes off, while there does appears to have been a long series of roleplaying sessions leading up to the confrontation with the [-]trapped door[/-] NPC.

There's also a structural difference between the physical challenge of the trapped door -- where, yes, a poor choice to ignore the trap may result in consequences -- and the social challenge of an untouchable but boorish and annoying NPC. The former I could disarm, or chop down, and avoid the trap. The latter I usually have to guess what the GM intends the result to be an submit to the NPC along the way. Fundamentally, these kinds of NPCs require the players to submit to the NPC in many ways that a trapped door does not -- they're not the same kind of challenge nor do they present the same onus to the players.

Again, if I'm correct that the NPC in the OP is the Burgomaster of Vallaki, he's meant to be confronted at some point -- there are multiple plot points to do just that in the adventure. The GM has a lot of leeway to make a decision as to how any such confrontation with the PCs pans out, and I think that the OP's problems are, in large part, due to choices the OP made in this confrontation to not have any flex in the adventure and not anticipate that the PCs, or at least some of the PCs, would be very displeased by how the Burgomaster has acted and try to thwart him, depending on what elements of the adventure the GM has already presented (or chosen to present, not everything in Vallaki is necessary).

It could take hours to get to that door. I've had groups take hours whilst in front of that door looking for alternative choices before someone decides to say 'Eff it! I open it anyway!"

No, you can chop down disarm, or avoid the NPC too -- using the correct tools. If you have an axe, you can chop down the door. If you have Dominate you can chop down the NPC. Tools exist; sometime groups have them and thus the options are greater. Other times the group doesn't have them and using them isn't an option.

The PCs must submit to not going through the door unless they risk setting off the declared trap. The PCs must submit to interacting with the PC politely or risk setting off the declared trap. I see no difference at all.

 

[hawkeyefan]

It seems to me to be a conflict between the players. The sense I get (and if I'm wrong I sincerely hope the OP corrects me) is that the players/characters made a decision as a party to try to solve whatever they were trying to solve by talking to the Mad Tyrant. There probably was some disagreement over whether this was the way they wanted to go about it, but one way or another the players/characters who wanted to talk won the right to decide--maybe the ones who wanted to fight gave up arguing. While (some of) the PCs were endeavoring to social-encounter their way toward their goal, the other PCs decided to sabotage that effort.

Maybe there is conflict between players....hard to say for sure. Certainly there is conflict in the actions/goals of the PCs. I don't know if the players mind that or not, though. I personally have no problem in a game when someone's character has a different idea than mine or otherwise disagree with them about something.

I mean, when the fifth player returned in the next session, he seemed to side with the two who had attacked. Or at least, he wanted to free them and attacked the guards and ultimately the party escaped.

I think that if the players are that torn about what to do....if it's not just a disagreement between characters, but also players.....then they need to talk it out and decide how they want to proceed. Nothing about this situation seems beyond repair.

Now, published adventures can be ... completely unclear how to proceed if the PCs do something the writers didn't anticipate, especially the longer adventure-path-style. I've broken at least one by accident, and I may have had a hand in redirecting a party well off the track in another, and I'm pretty open about my dislike for the category both as a player and a GM. It sounds as though the OP has managed to keep things moving in the campaign, though I suspect getting them back to the published material (if that's the desire) will prove difficult.

I don't know....it depends. We don't have details.....we don't know if this is a king or a mayor or something in between, we don't know how many guards the town has at its disposal, we don't know what the townspeople think of this situation, we don't know what additional factions may have a stake in things and whether they would be sympathetic to the PCs or just additional antagonists. We don't know what published adventure it is or what NPC it is, so knowing how far from what's expected this may be is hard to gauge.

If it's Vallaki in Curse of Strahd as has been suggested....then I don't think this is beyond what would be expected in the adventure, and I think there is plenty of information provided to support this approach, as well as many others.

 

[hawkeyefan]

It could take hours to get to that door. I've had groups take hours whilst in front of that door looking for alternative choices before someone decides to say 'Eff it! I open it anyway!"

No, you can chop down disarm, or avoid the NPC too -- using the correct tools. If you have an axe, you can chop down the door. If you have Dominate you can chop down the NPC. Tools exist; sometime groups have them and thus the options are greater. Other times the group doesn't have them and using them isn't an option.

The PCs must submit to not going through the door unless they risk setting off the declared trap. The PCs must submit to interacting with the PC politely or risk setting off the declared trap. I see no difference at all.

Well, there's more, but let's start with "how many HP does the trap do when triggered?" compared to "how many HP does the NPC do when triggered?"

 

[Retreater]

Some of you are speculating about the specific published adventure, and your insights are correct. I didn't want to get too much into spoilers for that module, and I thought the situation could be explained without naming names.
I'm aware the adventure assumes a possible overthrow of the ruler. The group did not act in unison or decisively, did not make allies in the town, surrendered to the leader. So I was wondering what the leader's realistic actions should be.
As it turns out, the group has all run away, being fugitives from justice.
Last night's session (in another campaign), hot-headed friend was playing in a social encounter where he was in a dance competition with teenage girls. Because he was losing, he asked if it would be possible to grapple them and hit them to give himself an advantage in the otherwise friendly dance-off with a tribal people the party was trying to befriend as allies.
I might have to do a talkin' to the guy.

 

[Ovinomancer]

It could take hours to get to that door. I've had groups take hours whilst in front of that door looking for alternative choices before someone decides to say 'Eff it! I open it anyway!"

No, you can chop down disarm, or avoid the NPC too -- using the correct tools. If you have an axe, you can chop down the door. If you have Dominate you can chop down the NPC. Tools exist; sometime groups have them and thus the options are greater. Other times the group doesn't have them and using them isn't an option.

The PCs must submit to not going through the door unless they risk setting off the declared trap. The PCs must submit to interacting with the PC politely or risk setting off the declared trap. I see no difference at all.

Aside from looking askance at taking hours to deal with a trapped door (and where you just kill the character of the player that becomes frustrated with the hours long ordeal), it seems that you're making the case that the way to deal with a social encounter is the same as dealing with a trapped door. That there is no difference, and they should be adjudicated in the same manner, yes?

Normally, I'd be sympathetic to this argument, but I think you've taken the position that the GM-notes and fiat driven social adjudication is what should be shared rather than what would be my preference of letting action declarations have impacts in solving both problems rather than sticking to the GM's prepared idea of how things should work out.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Some of you are speculating about the specific published adventure, and your insights are correct. I didn't want to get too much into spoilers for that module, and I thought the situation could be explained without naming names.
I'm aware the adventure assumes a possible overthrow of the ruler. The group did not act in unison or decisively, did not make allies in the town, surrendered to the leader. So I was wondering what the leader's realistic actions should be.
As it turns out, the group has all run away, being fugitives from justice.
Last night's session (in another campaign), hot-headed friend was playing in a social encounter where he was in a dance competition with teenage girls. Because he was losing, he asked if it would be possible to grapple them and hit them to give himself an advantage in the otherwise friendly dance-off with a tribal people the party was trying to befriend as allies.
I might have to do a talkin' to the guy.

I think that NPC in question would be much more likely to engage in exile rather than execution. For one, it's just as deadly to the average person. For two, execution kinda goes against the 'everyone be happy or else' vibe he's pushing -- executions aren't happy, even if they are or else. Third, I think you missed a huge opportunity to engage with some of the other factions in town, but, that's just me. A well timed intercession by one of those factions might have been a great twist to the game and given loads of new room to explore. Finally, Strahd himself might have made an appearance on behalf of the PCs, which would have been both epic and firmly made a point that if Strahd likes it, the PCs are probably in the wrong.

That said, I don't think your game's in too bad a place for this module, even if having made enemies in Vallaki certainly makes things a bit harder on the PCs (mostly by denying Vallaki as a base of operations). And, you can always circle back to Vallaki later in the adventure and resolve some of these issues. CoS is remarkably tolerant of changes for things like this -- don't be afraid to make it your own as you play through.

As for your player that wants to engage in physical cheating during a dance party -- yes, you need to understand what he wants from the game because this doesn't seem like it aligns with what's being presented. GMs thinking that it's their game is a cancer on our hobby -- it's everyone's game, just differently apportioned. GMs need to make sure they're presenting a game the players want to play, and players have the duty to engage honestly. This player seems to be confused about either what it is you're offering or what it is he wants from it. And in the game is not where either of you are going to find that out.

 

[Retreater]

@Ovinomancer that's right. They shrugged off allying with Lady Fiona, even calling her to her face "the greater evil." The wereravens came to help to create a distraction and gave the rogue thieves tools to pick his locks - but they blew their chance with a sequence of terrible rolls and not working together. They blew off talking to the Vistani. The Lord of Vallaki was even going to let them go after the festival, but they kept making it worse, like killing guards, etc.
Ireena and Rictavio even worked together to try to get them out.
Having Strahd appear was the last Deus ex Machina in my pocket, but I was hesitant to give the party an immunity card as it seemed there was no consequences and they didn't realistically fear anything in the campaign.

 

[Mallus]

To my mind, the execution/s would be the logical result of actions taken.

Is it logical to decree the execution is a forgone conclusion? With no opportunity for escape and/or intervention? I think that's all most people here are asking for (and the way events played out in the OPs game).

 

[billd91]

@Ovinomancer that's right. They shrugged off allying with Lady Fiona, even calling her to her face "the greater evil." The wereravens came to help to create a distraction and gave the rogue thieves tools to pick his locks - but they blew their chance with a sequence of terrible rolls and not working together. They blew off talking to the Vistani. The Lord of Vallaki was even going to let them go after the festival, but they kept making it worse, like killing guards, etc.
Ireena and Rictavio even worked together to try to get them out.
Having Strahd appear was the last Deus ex Machina in my pocket, but I was hesitant to give the party an immunity card as it seemed there was no consequences and they didn't realistically fear anything in the campaign.

Your players don't happen to read Knights of the Dinner Table, do they? If so, do a couple of players view Bob, Dave, and Brian as positive role models?

 

[billd91]

Is it logical to decree the execution is a forgone conclusion? With no opportunity for escape and/or intervention? I think that's all most people here are asking for (and the way events played on in the OPs game).

I don't think anyone's precluding that, but as I posted above, that kind of initiative should come from the players, not a deus ex machina, to be in any way satisfying. And the players, aside from the returning 5th player who made the jam worse, seemed pretty divided on the subject and/or rejected every outside overture. So... whatcha gonna do? Sometimes the entirely reasonable outcome is death - create a new PC.

 

[Ovinomancer]

@Ovinomancer that's right. They shrugged off allying with Lady Fiona, even calling her to her face "the greater evil." The wereravens came to help to create a distraction and gave the rogue thieves tools to pick his locks - but they blew their chance with a sequence of terrible rolls and not working together. They blew off talking to the Vistani. The Lord of Vallaki was even going to let them go after the festival, but they kept making it worse, like killing guards, etc.
Ireena and Rictavio even worked together to try to get them out.
Having Strahd appear was the last Deus ex Machina in my pocket, but I was hesitant to give the party an immunity card as it seemed there was no consequences and they didn't realistically fear anything in the campaign.

Well, that's a much fuller picture. Thanks.

Sadly, fearing the town of Vallaki is a bit of a paper tiger -- pretty quickly the party is quite capable of running roughshod over the entire town. It's the usual murder hobo power curve problem. Having players that are going to push that curve makes it very challenging, and it sounds like you have a few of those players.

 

[Manbearcat]

@Retreater

There could be a lot of different things happening here.

One thing that is very common to D&D is when players start to perceive the following game dynamics:

1) The combat mechanics are transparent, overwhelmingly player-facing, and yield a clear win condition.

2) Noncombat mechanics are the opposite; opaque and overwhelmingly GM-facing and don’t have a clear win:loss condition.

Due to this, players can feel like their decision-points become difficult or impossible to navigate if it’s not combat. Consequently, every obstacle becomes one to oppose by engaging the combat mechanics/turning things violent.

It’s sort of a “when all you have is a hammer, everything becomes a nail” problem.

Have s conversation about that with your players and see if that is what is in play and what you can do collectively to reconcile it.

 

[prabe]

Is it logical to decree the execution is a forgone conclusion? With no opportunity for escape and/or intervention? I think that's all most people here are asking for (and the way events played out in the OPs game).

It's plausible that I would do exactly that. They knew the Mad Tyrant was, well, a mad tyrant, and they attacked him (first verbally, then physically). Action, meet consequence.

It's clear there's a disconnect between some of the players, however, so addressing that (maybe with new characters) would be a better solution.

 

[Lanefan]

What resolution mechanics were involved in:
a) deciding the reaction of the king
b) resolving that the ensuing reaction resulted in execution

I dont see any mechanics at all, just GM whim.

Of course it's GM whim!

The King is an NPC. NPCs are the GM's characters to play, just as PCs are those of the players, and thus the GM gets to - based on the King's personality and motivations - decide exactly what the King's reaction will be. (I can't believe I actually have to spell this out!)

Amnd if the King's word is the law, which here seems to be the case, then if he says "Off with their heads!" then those PCs are about to get a bit shorter.

 

[Lanefan]

Well, there's more, but let's start with "how many HP does the trap do when triggered?" compared to "how many HP does the NPC do when triggered?"

Assume that in either case the answer is "as many as required to kill the PC beyond easy revivability", for comparison's sake, and proceed.