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

[Thomas Shey]

I do not understand it. I encourage my players to add to the setting. It makes my life far easier if they create things because it takes away from my burden.

Yeah, I'm with you; as I've noted your description of your GMing style sounds a fair bit like mine. But there are people who absolutedly hold their campaigns very, very close.

 

[Belen]

I continue to see multiple contradictions. You say it was not an unfun game session but you’re sad after the fact. You express disappointment with the player’s choice - that they had no consideration, and they were being a kleptomaniac - again not in a positive light, but in a disapproving way. You are sitting in judgment of the player’s choice, like someone who’s partner just misplayed a hand of bridge and is not happy with them. This does not come across to me as a game where the rogue character pushed his luck and got himself killed and everyone’s happily telling the story later about how the scrawny thief tried to make off with a 200 pound chest of treasure. That would indicate everyone had fun. Your story, as presented, doesn’t.

As a DM, I hate it when a character dies. It does not matter if it was because of their own decision. I would say that it makes me sad when it happens which is exactly my base assumption with @AlViking

 

[Maxperson]

What does that even mean? People are robots, incapable of making moral choices?

This is D&D. Alignment is more than just actions.

In 5e good and evil are optional personality traits, not “part and parcel of what you are”, whatever that is supposed to mean. The game was changed because it’s moral system didn’t travel well beyond the 1970s Bible Belt.

No they aren't. In 5e good and evil are alignments which are not listed as optional. The personality traits just help people roleplay those alignments and TEND to indicate good or evil, or lawful/chaotic. You aren't evil just because you picked the Greed trait as an Entertainer.

 

[TiQuinn]

As a DM, I hate it when a character dies. It does not matter if it was because of their own decision. I would say that it makes me sad when it happens which is exactly my base assumption with @AlViking

But again - Why blame the player? Was the player unhappy? If they wanted to play a character who was pushing the envelope, why is that a bad thing?

 

[billd91]

I continue to see multiple contradictions. You say it was not an unfun game session but you’re sad after the fact. You express disappointment with the player’s choice - that they had no consideration, and they were being a kleptomaniac - again not in a positive light, but in a disapproving way. You are sitting in judgment of the player’s choice, like someone whose partner just misplayed a hand of bridge and is not happy with them. This does not come across to me as a game where the rogue character pushed his luck and got himself killed and everyone’s happily telling the story later about how the scrawny thief tried to make off with a 200 pound chest of treasure. That would indicate everyone had fun. Your story, as presented, doesn’t.

People contain multitudes. It's entirely possible to have fun during a session and yet regret some of the things that happened because of the headaches they cause for the overall campaign. And it's possible to have found a PC's antics amusing from one close-up perspective, but dumb from another perspective, and ultimately kind of irritating from yet a third, broader perspective.

 

[Belen]

Yeah, I'm with you; as I've noted your description of your GMing style sounds a fair bit like mine. But there are people who absolutedly hold their campaigns very, very close.

My two settings have been running since 2002 and I have things cyclical cycle where there are apocalypses etc. I mainly use them as a framework for my games so that the consistency is in the gods or concrete items like the heavens or days of the week etc.

I like to run wildly different themes and premises but not have to rebuild everything every time.

I get the long running worlds that some have developed but I have never had the patience for it. I really respect the folks who can build with that type of consistency.

 

[AlViking]

I believe I said the PCs had little to fear from a lynch mob because they are capable of destroying the entire village. Not that they actually did this, by burning or otherwise.

I mean, I have seen PCs nuke a populated planet, so they might do that, that’s a matter for the players, not the DM.

The fact that they automatically knew with no doubt that they had nothing to fear if they destroyed the entire village is what I have an issue with. Will there be serious repercussions? Maybe, maybe not, the players are unlikely to know for certain. That's what I took issue with, that players can alway get away with anything they want. Which, if that's the case for your game we just play very different games.

As far as burning down a village, I do agree with @Belen on that one because if they actually did do that I would consider them evil and I don't want evil PCs, which I tell people during the session 0.

 

[billd91]

But again - Why blame the player? Was the player unhappy? If they wanted to play a character who was pushing the envelope, why is that a bad thing?

Having a player willing to push the envelope helps things happen - but some of those things aren't good in the long run. You've never played at a table where a player had a character do rash things that made things difficult for the rest of the group or the DM from time to time? Those players can be fun and funny and also very frustrating.

 

[TwoSix]

It wasn't deeply unfun but I also don't like killing off characters. Nobody, including the player, had an issue with the way this played out.

As far as the scenario it was obvious the alarm had been raised. I told them they had a chance to get away. At that point I guess I could have captured them and given them opportunity to escape (that happened not long ago with the entire group) but I decided it didn't make sense for the orcs. This was a roving warband encampment, not a permanent fortress.

The player had multiple obvious options to survive and did not take them. If you would have still found someway for the character to survive that's fine but many players would hate that. Maybe you've never had a player that will push the limits until you kill off their character. I've hit it a few times - the player (different character, different scenario) even admitted that it was what they were doing. Now I talk about campaign lethality in session 0 and abide by what the group wants but I let them know death will never be completely off the table.

This actually seems fine to me. It seems like the player’s specific intent was to push boundaries by taking risky actions, in an attempt to judge if the GM will actually follow through on consequences. It’s a way to establish stakes.

 

[AlViking]

I continue to see multiple contradictions. You say it was not an unfun game session but you’re sad after the fact. You express disappointment with the player’s choice - that they had no consideration, and they were being a kleptomaniac - again not in a positive light, but in a disapproving way. You are sitting in judgment of the player’s choice, like someone whose partner just misplayed a hand of bridge and is not happy with them. This does not come across to me as a game where the rogue character pushed his luck and got himself killed and everyone’s happily telling the story later about how the scrawny thief tried to make off with a 200 pound chest of treasure. That would indicate everyone had fun. Your story, as presented, doesn’t.

It wasn't the most fun session I ever had. We still enjoyed ourselves. I was sad that the character died, they died as a direct results of their actions. Of course I'm sitting in judgment of what the character did and had the orcs react in a way that I thought was appropriate. That's what DMs do.

Just when did kleptomaniac become a slur we can never use to describe a character? What else would you call a character who stole every chance they got no matter what the cost was?