Town adventures and consequences

[Raven Crowking]

I wouldn't even bother telling them what I expect; I would just play out the consequences. Players are usually clever, and will realize that wearing full plate to a dinner party is a social faux pas when they are barred from the party....or when the other guests get their first look at them!

What you might consider doing, though, is modelling NPCs in appropriate gear first. I.e., as an encounter on the road, the PCs see NPCs who are well dressed, who obviously look down upon their blood-soaked gear (even while thanking them for their aid). Said NPCs might then be pressed upon to provide appropriate clothing and even "groom" the characters socially (or have their retainers do it).


RC

 

[JoeGKushner]

Err... I don't know what problem or previous edition you are talking about, but whatever you mean by it, it doesn't seem to be be a logical responce to what I just wrote. In fact, it seems to me to be the opposite of understanding what I wrote.

And what you wrote was... "Originally Posted by Celebrim
I've said from very early on that 4e was very carefully crafted to produce a particular play experience, which however enjoyable it might be, made it impossible to play D&D the way I'd played it for 20+ years across 3 editions. Conversations like this only reinforce that belief."

So talking about the exact same scenario in previous editions in reply to where you talk about 4e having this problem comes across as the exact opposite of understanding eh? Your reading is different than mine.

You just don't get it. I mean, this is just one of a long series of statements that are just utterly backwards. Characters who rely on armor ought be at an advantage in terms of how easy they are hit or suffer damage compared to those that don't rely on armor.

In a fantasy game where players are masters of magic, martial arts that can split steel, and back stab entities that have no vital organs... your wrong. In some generic recreational historical game, you'd be right. In D&D? Nope.

Conversely, those who don't rely on armor are at various advantages in terms of mobility compared to those who do. If those that wear armor have no advantage in protection, why would they wear it? And if wearing armor caused you no disadvantage in mobility, why would you not wear it?

As noted before, depending on their class, they'd wear if it that was where they gained their armor class. Not every class has this restriction. In 4e, those divisions are even reduced further with heavy armor not being the end all be all of previous editions and not being as much a rules enforcement as it sometimes was for those who played fighters and paladins.

Again, you just don't get it. I want to be entertained. I don't want 'to ambush' players. I rather dislike 'ambush' to begin with. If more than 1:4 or 1:5 encounters are ambushes, you are probably doing something wrong. What happened to meeting engagements, or does the villain have some supernatural sense of where the PC's are at all times and spends every moment waiting for them to show up?

Then it shouldn't be a problem. I'm stating that if you screw with the players based on their equipment, they will find ways to be more self sufficient and play classes that don't rely on if. If that's not a problem for your group then it's not something you have to worry about.

Players may or not be ambushed in town or out depending on their choices and the advantages or disadvantages of their character. I don't have some prearranged story that includes 'ambush in town', and if I do have an encounter in mind that involves 'ambush in town' it will probably - barring really bad choices by the player - be one which I expect the players and their characters to have the resources at their disposal to win (or at least survive) and that will include my calculation about the availability of armor.

So you don't want to ambush the players except when you ambush them... right.

What makes you think I'm putting them at a disadvantage? I'm not putting them at anything. Presumably, characters take their armor off because they realize it puts them at an advantage, and put it back on for the same reason. Again, I don't think you even get it. Didn't I rip apart the entire approach of, "Try to get the PC's to take their clothes off in order to ambush them." Yes, occasionally if you take your armor on and off rather than living in it 24 hours a day, you might find yourself fighting defensively/using the expertise feat/etc. when you might otherwise have prefered your armor, but what of it? You'll still probably rip apart whatever it is you are fighting, because, dude - you are a hero and the bad guys probably aren't clanking around in plate mail either.

And as I noted, if you do it too often, they'll avoid that by playing characters that don't need the armor and don't suffer the hindrance of it's loss.

In which case, they will be 'punished' when they get into game situations where you are 'punished' for not wearing armor - like I don't know, when the angry bugbear warband is trying to smash you flat with mauls or shoot you full of arrows fired from great bows. I suppose it is true that if I ran a desert focused campaign or nautical campaign (ran one and been a player in the other) that most people will find some alternative to heavy armor regardless of class, just because, for example, being strapped into to 60 lbs. of steel when you fall off a boat in 6000' feet of water is usually bad. Even if you manage to rip the buckles off, you are still losing that +4 plate mail. However, that doesn't mean that you don't own armor. You just don't wear it aboard the boat or anywhere else it doesn't make sense. And yes, if you are in a campaign where heavy armor doesn't make sense, you'll try to grow your character's abilities and gear to suit that situation. I wouldn't normally plan on wearing plate in a campaign that was centered on the jungle or desert, although I might consider that line of play opened up for me if I found a magic item that let me endure high temperatures.

And this is where a game system that doesn't rely on magic items and specifics, like say 4e, can shine. If your not playing characters that rely on heavy armor, then these scenarios you mention vanish. The Swordmange and other classes don't necessarily have to worry about the whole losing +4 plate. Same as ye old Monk, Psionicist, Sorcerer, Wizard, etc... didn't have to in previous editions.

Sorta. For example, your Paladin might get a ring of water breathing, which makes wearing armor aboard a ship a bit less suicidal. Also, that Paladin maybe has a +20 swim check, allowing them to heroically swim (if just barely) with 100 lbs of dead weight. But these are ways to compensate for the inherent disadvantages of armor; they don't elimenate their existence.

But they could. For example, high level characters, in most editions, tend to have similiar armor classes. It's generally a matter of player taste how that is accomplished mechanically. Those rogues and mages who have ACs almost or better than the fighters don't get them from plate mail. For those classes, yes, it's essentially eliminated from existence. Lower level play is even more like that as high ability scores can make up for mid level armors easily. Mages have very low level spells that mimick the benefits of armor without having to carry it.

The mechanics, if prone to GM abuse, of wearing armor, are easy to avoid for a group that doesn't want to deal with it.

 

[Celebrim]

In a fantasy game where players are masters of magic, martial arts that can split steel, and back stab entities that have no vital organs... your wrong. In some generic recreational historical game, you'd be right. In D&D? Nope.

You should have read the old threads about the monk problem as I suggested. It's system independent. It's true in M&M. It's true in GURPS. It's system and setting independent. But I'm tired of arguing.

And this is where a game system that doesn't rely on magic items and specifics, like say 4e, can shine. If your not playing characters that rely on heavy armor, then these scenarios you mention vanish.

We have a fundamental difference of opinion over what makes a game system shine.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

IME, 9/10 of the time nothing major happening when you're out and about or at night when you're asleep in an inn really translates into about 4-5/10. This is one of the reasons I distrust DMs.

If it's really 9/10, you need to make darn sure you keep it at 9/10. Otherwise, as Joe says, if you're penalizing people for wearing heavy armor and weapons, you're going to see swordmages instead of paladins and fighters and rogues instead of avengers and barbarians.

Brad

 

[GMforPowergamers]

IME, 9/10 of the time nothing major happening when you're out and about or at night when you're asleep in an inn really translates into about 4-5/10. This is one of the reasons I distrust DMs.

If it's really 9/10, you need to make darn sure you keep it at 9/10. Otherwise, as Joe says, if you're penalizing people for wearing heavy armor and weapons, you're going to see swordmages instead of paladins and fighters and rogues instead of avengers and barbarians.

Brad

ok, you don't know me, so I will try not to take this as an insult... but 9/10 is 90+% of the time...

I want to run bar brawls, and dinner parties, and investigaations... without hearing "I hit it with my excution axe"

I don't want to run some sorta deadly encounter with the PCs having no weapons...

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

ok, you don't know me, so I will try not to take this as an insult... but 9/10 is 90+% of the time...

It certainly wasn't meant as one. But I've had my character jumped with lethal intent when asleep on the train, ship, in the inn, or out shopping/having dinner/watching a play so many times I made a point of having mithral nightshirts or otherwise making sure I was able to bring my asskicking gear along surreptitiously even at the Met...or building my character in a way that I wouldn't be hosed in such a situation.

It really gets tiresome, and does encourage one to play a character that isn't disadvantaged in those situations.

I want to run bar brawls, and dinner parties, and investigaations... without hearing "I hit it with my excution axe"

I don't want to run some sorta deadly encounter with the PCs having no weapons...

And that's great to hear. Just tell the players that, in general, a bar fight is a bar fight and if it doesn't look serious it won't be, and make sure they're cool with it and understand it, and as long as you keep your side of the bargain, it should be groovy.

Brad

 

[roguerouge]

Weem is wise. (I'd also make sure to describe certain towns as ones in which weapons are peace-bonded and certain ones which are not. And YES, that includes spell component pouches.) I'd add circumstance penalties to all social skills except intimidate, which would get a bonus. Narrate with staring, scurrying and fearful looks and you've got yourself a nice Western town.

 

[haakon1]

so what do the rest of you think?

It depends on the town.

In the real world, you can't carry a gun legally in London. But you can carry a gun openly, if you want to, in many US states. (In rural Washington State, I saw a civilian pull up in a pickup at the gas station and walk in with a revolver on his belt, and nope, he wasn't there to rob it.) And concealed carry also exists.

Whereas in Somalia, and a some points in Iraq's history, civilians did go around carrying AK-47s. Heck, in Somalia, an RPG-7 or light machingun wouldn't be out of place.

So, in D&D world, I think standards and norms will also vary.

IMC, I haven't "jumped" the PCs in town ever, since they've only been in friendly towns, usually towns they are serving.

However, I did have one city where weapons needed to be peace-bonded. And yes, this put most of the characters at a disadvantage to arcane casters and the monk. (As opposed to the time there was a puzzle written in Druidic, so everyone was at a disadvantage to the Druid, etc.)

And when the PC's went to visit a political leader, I had the guards "hold onto" their weapons. Only the rogue refused, and he wasn't allowed in. Later I had an NPC explain that they were worried about assassination attempts by adventurers, since an adventurer had been mouthing off in a pub about how he could kill the rule and (blah blah) his daughter anytime he wanted, so the militia had killed him and stepped up their security procedures. (An NPC event inspired by a flaming discussion on EnWorld, yeah!)

I don't see how any of this would be a tragedy for the players . . . but perhaps I was the sort of DM to have a cloud of enemy ninja's descend on the disarmed characters inside their country's equivalent of the Pentagon, it would piss people off.

Speaking of the Pentagon reminds me of Ravencrow's point about modeling behavior. If you want the PC's, to disarm, have an NPC switch from the equivalent of Battle Dress Utilities to the equivalent of a military officer's office uniform (military issue dress shirt and tie, shoes instead of boots, cap instead of helmet, etc.) and see if the PC's get the idea.

 

[haakon1]

If the Bard or Rogue finds themselves relatively advantaged in urban environments for cultural reasons, what exactly is surprising or undesirable about that?

Indeed. It's much like a Druid or Ranger in a wilderness setting.

 

[Starfox]

First, the discussion on balance and allowed arms really is relevant. I've not seen a game in a long where wearing armor was so obviously superior that you had to occasionally penalize it with social stigma. And I'd not want to play such a game; basically it only has two modes, one where armor is worn and too powerful, one where it is not worn, and armor wearers are over-penalized.

Second, looking at pre-modern history, professional fighters have rarely been stigmatized for wearing arms. In fact, the wearing of arms was a mark of nobility; for a knight or nobleman to be caught unarmed is embarrassing. And PCs should generally be of knightly class or the equivalent, or they'll run into all kinds of other problems - like loitering laws. Commoners were simply not supposed to live adventuring lives. Basically, this means that classes like knights, fighters, and paladins (I am talking both character class and social class here) that wear arms as a part of their daily lives could also wear arms as a part of their social life. Characters like rouges would not be expected to be of knightly caliber, and thus not trusted to wear arms on social occasions, but then again they never wear heavy arms or armor anyway.