D&D General The Monsters Know What They're Doing ... Are Unsure on 5e24

[Paul Farquhar]

Evil is also defined by intent, which while we out here can't judge it as we aren't mind readers, a setting cosmology based around alignment can.

People "intend" a lot of different and conflicting alternatives, and frequently change their minds. Intent is meaningless unless acted upon.

 

[AlViking]

Man, I read this post and I’m not sure how it sounds to you in your head as you’re typing it out but I’m hearing someone who either doesn’t like this player or doesn’t like this player’s character.

“Sadly, they decided their next character was a kleptomaniac”

This reads as a very judgmental approach to viewing other people’s characters. For years, the rogue was a thief. Thieves in D&D steal things. Is that really being a kleptomaniac? Why does that judgement have to come into your campaign at all?

Like, how am I to believe that you run your table without a predetermined position about how you’re going to treat PCs?

Really? I was relaying how this player had 2 characters in a row who died because they ran a kleptomaniac with no sense of self preservation and suddenly I'm judgmental? I had no problem with the character, I just don't think it was a well thought out concept when he knew full well that actions have consequences and PCs don't have invulnerable plot armor.

Characters do have a certain amount of plot armor in my game but the guy wrote two characters that saw the red lines and purposely ran past them yelling "Can't catch me!" That's kind of sad because I'd rather they had made a character that had a smidgen of self preservation instead of someone that was suicidally committed to stealing things no matter what. When attempting to steal the chest I told them that the chest was too heavy and they kept trying to drag it off anyway. They could have grabbed a handful of loot, they could have run off and hidden, I gave them more than one way to survive. They chose not to.

If a player knowingly pushes the boundaries of safety past the breaking point I'm not going to save their character. But I'm still kind of sad when as a DM I have to cut a character story arc short because of the consequences of their actions.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

1) What you just said about all of them not being responsible, yet the whole village killed.

By the entire village, I meant those involved in the lynch mob. Clearly killing anyone no involved would be morally wrong (although I have known player characters do much worse).

2) The Tabaxi might be considered a monster, which would mean the mob would be the ones acting in self-defense as far as the law is concerned.

What do you mean by "monster"? There is no legal definition to draw upon. But killing any sentient being that is not a genuine threat is morally wrong (that would include the likes of dragons in D&D). Of course laws may be morally wrong too, which is why heroes are often outlaws.

3) Any Tabaxi capable of massacring an entire village is also capable of getting away without killing anyone, so the murder is a choice and not self-defense in any case.

That's very much easier said than done, and anyway, the whole party would obviously defend any party member from a lynch mob. It's not just a single individual.

...but really didn't want to get into that argument.

Actions have consequences and the consequences described in these posts are not an attempt by the DM at punishing the player as has been incorrectly claimed here.

Actions have consequences, and the party becoming outlaws is a fairly common one in my experience, especially when a society has racist and unjust laws.

 

[TiQuinn]

Really? I was relaying how this player had 2 characters in a row who died because they ran a kleptomaniac with no sense of self preservation and suddenly I'm judgmental? I had no problem with the character, I just don't think it was a well thought out concept when he knew full well that actions have consequences and PCs don't have invulnerable plot armor.

Characters do have a certain amount of plot armor in my game but the guy wrote two characters that saw the red lines and purposely ran past them yelling "Can't catch me!" That's kind of sad because I'd rather they had made a character that had a smidgen of self preservation instead of someone that was suicidally committed to stealing things no matter what. When attempting to steal the chest I told them that the chest was too heavy and they kept trying to drag it off anyway. They could have grabbed a handful of loot, they could have run off and hidden, I gave them more than one way to survive. They chose not to.

If a player knowingly pushes the boundaries of safety past the breaking point I'm not going to save their character. But I'm still kind of sad when as a DM I have to cut a character story arc short because of the consequences of their actions.

The way you’re describing both the player and the character even in this post indicates to me that you still don’t like the way the player ran the character, or the concept of the PC itself, and maybe just don’t like the player. You keep calling him a kleptomaniac. How is that not a judgement in a game where rogues have skills built around stealing things? It’s like calling a fighter a brute who just likes to swing their sword around and kill things in a disapproving way. But of course, they like to do that! It’s the purpose of the fighter!

And again, when you say the player ran past your red lines saying “Can’t catch me”, this seems like you really dislike or condescend to the player. Isn’t it just better to admit that you maybe had a problem with the player that could’ve been dealt with outside of game, rather than in game punishments?

I’m picking up a lot of resentment, not impartiality.

 

[AlViking]

The way you’re describing both the player and the character even in this post indicates to me that you still don’t like the way the player ran the character, or the concept of the PC itself, and maybe just don’t like the player. You keep calling him a kleptomaniac. How is that not a judgement in a game where rogues have skills built around stealing things? It’s like calling a fighter a brute who just likes to swing their sword around and kill things in a disapproving way. But of course, they like to do that! It’s the purpose of the fighter!

And again, when you say the player ran past your red lines saying “Can’t catch me”, this seems like you really dislike or condescend to the player. Isn’t it just better to admit that you maybe had a problem with the player that could’ve been dealt with outside of game, rather than in game punishments?

I’m picking up a lot of resentment, not impartiality.

I don't like killing PCs. Sometimes it happens and yes, I was a bit sad. The only regret I had was that I had to kill the character the player thought they would enjoy playing. The character literally had two opportunities at theft and took them despite knowing it was dangerous. He was not acting in a skillful way in any way, shape or form.

Let's review what happened.

1. The character snuck into camp and went for the biggest, fanciest tent. So far, so good.
2. There was a big heavy chest and he opened it without checking for traps so a shrieker on the inside of the chest started shrieking (there was a simple way to disable it).
3. The character saw lots of loot and tried to drag the chest away. Being a low strength character there was no chance he was going to be able to get away with it as the shrieker kept making noise.
4. He still had a chance to grab a handful of treasure and run but persisted on dragging a chest that he knew full well was too heavy.
5. Several orcs arrived and killed the character.

What would you have done? He knew orc warriors were coming. He knew that it was a large encampment of well-armed warriors. He knew it was impossible to drag the chest fast enough to get away. Were the orcs supposed to just help him carry off the chest with apologies for the noise?

I had no issues with the player or any of the other characters they ran. We continued to game together for years after this. Why do you keep insisting on making this into a DM horror story because actions and decisions have logical consequences?

 

[TiQuinn]

I don't like killing PCs. Sometimes it happens and yes, I was a bit sad. The only regret I had was that I had to kill the character the player thought they would enjoy playing. The character literally had two opportunities at theft and took them despite knowing it was dangerous. He was not acting in a skillful way in any way, shape or form.

Let's review what happened.

1. The character snuck into camp and went for the biggest, fanciest tent. So far, so good.
2. There was a big heavy chest and he opened it without checking for traps so a shrieker on the inside of the chest started shrieking (there was a simple way to disable it).
3. The character saw lots of loot and tried to drag the chest away. Being a low strength character there was no chance he was going to be able to get away with it as the shrieker kept making noise.
4. He still had a chance to grab a handful of treasure and run but persisted on dragging a chest that he knew full well was too heavy.
5. Several orcs arrived and killed the character.

What would you have done? He knew orc warriors were coming. He knew that it was a large encampment of well-armed warriors. He knew it was impossible to drag the chest fast enough to get away. Were the orcs supposed to just help him carry off the chest with apologies for the noise?

I had no issues with the player or any of the other characters they ran. We continued to game together for years after this. Why do you keep insisting on making this into a DM horror story because actions and decisions have logical consequences?

I keep coming back to your own phrasing in your posts. I’m sorry if that sounds like a DM horror story but you’re making it sound like a deeply unfun event that you’re still not happy about. What exactly am I supposed to take away from it? It’s not like you’re expressing this as a funny thing where that time the doofus rogue tried to steal a chest and got killed and everyone laughed about it and had a great time anyway.

How would I have handled it: I probably would’ve said with the alarm raised, and guards likely on their way, you’re going to have to make a choice: get away now without anything which would be easy to do, try to steal a little something from the chest which is harder but certainly doable, or try to take the whole chest, which is going to be a really hard roll for you. Now they could be caught but the outcome of that for me would still not necessarily be death - there’s still possibilities for escape; but the story at that point is you’re captured. Maybe you feel you did all of that. I’m just saying to me, it doesn’t read that way.

 

[Belen]

How would I have handled it: I probably would’ve said with the alarm raised, and guards likely on their way, you’re going to have to make a choice: get away now without anything which would be easy to do, try to steal a little something from the chest which is harder but certainly doable, or try to take the whole chest, which is going to be a really hard roll for you. Now they could be caught but the outcome of that for me would still not necessarily be death - there’s still possibilities for escape; but the story at that point is you’re captured. Maybe you feel you did all of that. I’m just saying to me, it doesn’t read that way.

That was exactly what he just described. It sounded like he gave the PC every opportunity to get away. The guards showed up, attacked, crit, and the PC died. That is the luck of the dice.

 

[Remathilis]

While I didn't give a detailed response to the first post which was a single sentence, I've clarified what I would do in my home campaign which you are ignoring. I would base any response to burning down a village on several factors. I should also note that I don't care why the village was burned down and I assume that not ever single individual from the toothless grandmother to the newborn baby residing in the village is responsible for the lynching.

So the fact that it was relation for a RACIALLY MOTIVATED LYNCHING doesn't factor at all? That nobody in the community tried to stop them is a tacit approval of such behavior.

I won't say more due to the politics rule on this board.

Why not? Magic exists and it would be logical for someone important in the village to have a sending stone to contact someone else in case of emergency or vice versa. If it wasn't magic, when the PCs started burning the village did they kill everyone in the vicinity and there's no chance of someone escaping? If so, how? Unless the PCs have a small army of hirelings, I see no way they could have stopped everyone.

I didn't realize your setting was Eberron where magical telegraphs exist between po-dunk villages. Then again, I would hope a setting so magically advanced would have moved passed lynch mobs, but then again, I live in 21st century America so I guess its naive to expect that.

Unless the group somehow massacred everyone in the village, everyone working in the fields, everyone who could possibly know what happened, why would people would let others know what happened. Why wouldn't it be believed? Traders stop by the town and see the smoking ruins and ask what happens - survivors tell them what they saw would be one logical way for the word to spread. Communities are connected by ties of family, friendship, culture.

And every person was close enough to get a good look at the PCs and was clear headed enough to remember distinct details. Nobody misremembered, nobody didn't get a clear look and made up details to fill in gaps. Nobody lied to settle old-scores or take advantage of an opportunity ("It wasn't travelles, its Old Man Wicker whose hogs keep eating my turnips. I saw him learning fire magic from a devil!")

In the most recent mass school shooting, several people reported contradictory descriptions of the shooter, even leading to a false arrest. We have camera phones and high-speed wifi and we couldn't get our stories straight. Yet a bunch of farm hands in the field smelled smoke and rode into to town and can give perfect descriptions of the PCs?

I grew up in a small town and there was a bank robbery before I was born. Several people were able to give detailed descriptions of the robbers and their vehicle because everybody knew everybody and strangers stick out like a sore thumb.

And yet D.B. Cooper was never caught. Lots of people ride into town and ride out without ever being caught. Whole Podcasts worth. Even in an era of advanced forensics and DNA matching. Sometimes, the criminals move on. Most of the notorious outlaws in the West had long and profitable careers despite their notoriety.

I clarified my response on this because I wasn't clear in my initial one line response. Depends on the details of where the village is, what the local government it like, what the resources are. Word will likely spread and I'll judge the response based on that. Best case scenario for the PCs is that people are likely to recognize them as murderers or at least with suspicion - after all how many heavily armed small groups are running around the countryside? Depending on the area there may be wanted posters or the government may hire someone to track the group down and bring them to justice.

The original poster (who I realize is not you) said it was an area under the influence of a raksasha and thus a PC tabaxi would be mistaken for one and lynched. No further info was provided but village. My take was that it seemed particularly convienent that all of a sudden the entire nation gained knowledge of the PCs guilt.

In the video game Elder Scrolls Online, if you are caught committing a crime (pickpocketing, murdering, or assault) a bounty is placed on your head. As long as that bounty is active anywhere you go IN THE MULTIVERSE (ESO has planes like D&D) citizens will react hostile to you and guards will accost you. If your bounty is low, they will just demand you pay the bounty and surrender any stolen items, but if its high enough you will be attacked by every guard in the Oblivion and Nirn. That's what this scenario reminded me of. One NPC catches you and every guard across the multiverse is hunting for you. That's fine for a video game, but I always viewed D&D as having a slight amount for nuance.

There are a lot of factors here and variance but it wouldn't be unreasonable for things to escalate to the point where a small army is hunting down the PCs. They may be powerful but I'm not going to limit the response to what I think the PCs can handle, I'm going to make the response fit the crime and the region. It could be anything from getting a bad reputation to being forced to pay a weregild (GP paid in compensation for the crime), jail, being hunted down, nothing at all. It will always be something that I judge logical for the crime and the region.

YOU judge. That's the point. YOU, AlViking, have sat in judgement of the PCs and found them guilty. Of course Every NPC is going to believe they did it, you know they are guilty and you control every NPC! There is no situation where the PCs ride off and aren't punished for their crime. The world itself will bend to make sure of it.

What players can't do in my game is assume that their actions have no consequences or that the consequences of their actions will always be something they can handle.

So, hypothetically, can they not just leave? Go to a different country? Opt to get on a boat for a different continent? Become pirates? Or is the arm of the law always going to find them? Is the king of the nearby nation going to extradite them? What if they join the BBEG in exchange for protection? Would you allow it? Or is the universe always going to find a way to answer this crime?

Player decisions change the course of campaigns all the time but they still live in a world where they can't assume they an get away with whatever they want to do.

I find those two sentences exclusionary. I don't disagree that actions have consequences, but if the players decided that those racist villagers had it coming and now the game has taken on a form you didn't prepare for (they join the bad guys, become a bandit gang, or leave to a totally new part of the world) are you fine with this or does the campaign end because they did want they wanted to do?

Same old accusation that has is not true now and has never been true.

Jury remains out.

 

[Thomas Shey]

This "gives" something totally unimportant--literally a label and nothing else--and claims that that is a "compromise". Except that the GM never moved from their initial position. Players have always been able to give their surnames or small-scale cultural traditions, so long as they aren't in some way disruptive. Hence, it isn't a compromise, and specifically makes sure to avoid doing either of the possible things that could actually matter to the player.

This is one of those cases where you're being, if anything, overly generous: I've absolutely hit GMs who would not let players add something as simple as a village their character from, because they assume a player will take some sort of advantage from it or simply don't want players adding anything of any real footprint at all.

I'm not suggesting this is anything but an extreme case, but given I've seen more than one of them, I have to assume its an example of where some of the same mindset can go when carried far enough.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Appropriate in fiction consequences for actions are not punishment.

Approrpiate being the operative word.
Sure, actions have consequences. But quite possibly, a random village being destroyed might just be a tragic mystery in the world where adventurers are roaming the world and trying to fight off the evil that the guards and the armies can't handle.
and figuring out who destroyed the village is basically the kind of thing adventurers might be tasked to do.

And of course, killing a lynch mob might simply be considered an act of self-defense, and if the entire village is coming for a character in an adventure group, the result might be tragic, but not surprising, and justified. These villagers acted unlawful and evil - trying to kill someone innocent without any form of legal process - aka lynching - is almost certainly good enough to justify self-defense.