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

[Paul Farquhar]

Not if you are powerful enough to just take them out. Your post implied that they had no chance against you. Any mob would just end up with a dead village. If you are that powerful, they are not in fact threatening you, even if they are on the offensive. You are not acting in self-defense. You are murdering them when you could just leave.

You have a gun. I have a bigger gun. If I try to “just leave” you will kill me. I’m powerful enough to win in a fight. I’m not powerful enough to stroll away whilst the bullets bounce off.

 

[Thomas Shey]

How does that change things

Unless I'm not allowed to suggest a GM who won't allow someone to even define the village their character comes from is being excessive, it changes things because when you drag in an accusation about what I'm saying about a specific other poster (who, far as I can tell, is not that exctreme, you're either misrepresenting me or shadowboxing. So, yeah, if you want to pick a fight with me, go to the trouble of addressing what I'm talking about and at least be honest about it.

I've rightly told players that they can't add "a village" or similar that they suggested simply because something about the village did not fit the region or was already basically the same as the one they wanted to add except the existing one was already tied to the world. Usually if the player doesn't care enough to go further than something like "a village" I'll suggest some existing places or offer to let them leave it blank and pick one for them when it comes up.

And, yeah, I think that's excessively controlling, at least as a generic policy (there can be special cases). Be offended if you want. But at least admit its about you, not someone else you're defending.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I'm looking at the 5.5e PHB right now and alignment is not listed as optional. It's step 4 of what you do when you make a character. It also very clearly says that alignment is ethical attitudes and ideals. It does not say it's actions.

Which is, frankly, ridiculous. I write lawful good on my character sheet and go around eating babies. Do I go to heaven because my actions don’t matter, so long as my heart was in the right place? Evil is as evil does.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The goalpost shifted. The original example was "the characters destroyed the entire village." It was not they defended themselves from a lynch mob. It was not that they killed a few an escaped. It was that they destroyed the entire village.

The original scenario was: They will arrange a lynch mob, but the players have the capability to destroy the entire village, so that would presumably be a dumb thing to try. And from there, things escalated further and further, or goalposts shifted, or whatever. Either way - if for some reason all the villagers decide to try lynching a player character for bogus reason, there might be very immediate and bad consequences for the villagers that actively threaten them, but the consequences for the player characters would be much more removed - simply because the investigation into what happened at the village takes time and if there were plenty of resources to investigate, identify and persecute them, and if it was a guaranteed or highly likely outcome, it seems the place doesn't need adventurers.

Unless the investigators are adventurers themselves. Which could be fun. But since the village-burning isn't, we'll probably need something else to create this scenario. Like a village burning down after the adventurers visited, by some nasty villains something. I don't think I'd be okay with my players killing a village and that would be a reason to talk about the nature of our shared game experience out-of-game, not talking about in-game consequences, but then, my villagers probably also won't form suicidal lynch mobs.


It reminds me of something - in the real world, people might have killed women for being suspected being a witch - but in the real world, witches don't exist. If a bunch of villagers decide a random women in town is a witch, they are just going after a lone woman. She has basically no chance. If there were actual witches, they'd probably curse them, turn them into frogs, or mind-control them to kill each other or something like that (if she's still non-evil, she might just cast something like Fear and Expeditions Retreat, never to be seen again). In a world with real witches, witch hunts would probably would not be some random lynch mobs, but a mercenary group specialized for the task that you can hire. Going after witches would be just too risky.

---

Anyway, what was the original topic again?

 

[TiQuinn]

Long, long ago I had decided to be a no-kill DM. I had a player who kept pushing it so after a while I gave up and killed off his character. When I was out of the room he admitted he was wondering what he could get away with and was actually happy I killed their character. Pretty foreign concept to me but now I will never guarantee survival. So plot armor? Sure. Invincible plot armor? Nope.

This right here is the crux of what I’m seeing in the situation you’re describing.

You had problems with the players. The players themselves in different occasions were doing things that probably should’ve been dealt with outside the game, but instead you apply in-game repercussions and called it the logical results of poor decision making, in lieu of saying to the player “Are you trying to play a character just to test the limits of the rules? Because that’s messed up if you are, man.”

 

[Maxperson]

You have a gun. I have a bigger gun. If I try to “just leave” you will kill me. I’m powerful enough to win in a fight. I’m not powerful enough to stroll away whilst the bullets bounce off.

You are if you can just take out the whole village(mob).

 

[AlViking]

This right here is the crux of what I’m seeing in the situation you’re describing.

You had problems with the players. The players themselves in different occasions were doing things that probably should’ve been dealt with outside the game, but instead you apply in-game repercussions and called it the logical results of poor decision making, in lieu of saying to the player “Are you trying to play a character just to test the limits of the rules? Because that’s messed up if you are, man.”

You've never had a problem with a player? You've never realized in hindsight that you could have done it better? Learned from your mistakes?

 

[Maxperson]

The original scenario was: They will arrange a lynch mob, but the players have the capability to destroy the entire village, so that would presumably be a dumb thing to try. And from there, things escalated further and further, or goalposts shifted, or whatever. Either way - if for some reason all the villagers decide to try lynching a player character for bogus reason, there might be very immediate and bad consequences for the villagers that actively threaten them, but the consequences for the player characters would be much more removed - simply because the investigation into what happened at the village takes time and if there were plenty of resources to investigate, identify and persecute them, and if it was a guaranteed or highly likely outcome, it seems the place doesn't need adventurers.

Unless the investigators are adventurers themselves.

It would be interesting if they hired the group that did it to find the culprits.

It reminds me of something - in the real world, people might have killed women for being suspected being a witch - but in the real world, witches don't exist.

I think all the witches out there would probably take an exception to this. Heck, one thinks she was responsible for Charlie Kirk because she cursed him a day or two before he was killed.

 

[AlViking]

...
Anyway, what was the original topic again?

Keith Amann isn't happy with the new revisions IIRC.

 

[Maxperson]

You've never had a problem with a player? You've never realized in hindsight that you could have done it better? Learned from your mistakes?

I was once in danger of not realizing that I could have done it better, but then I was saved by...