Was I being a dick to do this.

[shadzar]

The rogue goes, "I'm going to open one, there is treasure, we're due for one more treasure parcel this level, its in the DMG." Before they can stop him, he undoes the locks.

Sorry, stopped here, so don't know what you did, but if it wasn't something very bad to the rogue character, or his player, then you were a dick to let him get away with this towards the other players.

Frankly I would have stopped the game as the rogue was inescapably crushed under the lid of the sarcophagus and killed, then shown the player the door. The DMG does not exist to the characters.

Even if NOT said by the rogue player in character, that sort of metagaming is not something I would tolerate.

 

[Darwinism]

Let me get this straight; you have a metagaming player and instead of talking to the player or punishing his character you punish the entire group for going along with him for the sake of party cohesion, which is in itself something you nearly always want to have.

Yeah, you're a dick. But hey it looks like there's plenty of other dicks agreeing that it is right and just to penalize a group of people for the actions of one. So at least you've got a nice echo chamber.

 

[ffy]

[MENTION=6669722]Darwinism[/MENTION] the group wasnt punished, they got xp for the encounter and leveled up, and they learned a lesson about not expecting their metagaming to always hold up. as it was actually an interesting little side-trek and not a huge waste of time or a 'rocks fall, everybody dies' punishment, i cant see anything dickish about it

 

[Darwinism]

That would make more sense if he hadn't set the entire encounter up to tempt someone he knew would fall for it with what he obviously thought was an unbeatable encounter.

 

[rethgryn]

Let me get this straight; you have a metagaming player and instead of talking to the player or punishing his character you punish the entire group for going along with him for the sake of party cohesion, which is in itself something you nearly always want to have.

Yeah, you're a dick. But hey it looks like there's plenty of other dicks agreeing that it is right and just to penalize a group of people for the actions of one. So at least you've got a nice echo chamber.

You got a point, though nobody in the groups character came to permanent harm as a result. They dropped to zero but they escaped.

 

[Darwinism]

You got a point, though nobody in the groups character came to permanent harm as a result. They dropped to zero but they escaped.

Oh, as far as dick moves go it is definitely a very mild one. But, still, the warnings given didn't jive with the level of danger; a group of orc hunters are spooked out by some ruins does not equate itself to horrible dangers in any adventurer's mindset.

 

[Roxolan]

The guide, a Orc NPC, warns them not to go deeper as the places are unexplored and there are many dangers deeper, its also not part of their mission.

The player playing as the rogue insists on going down into the cave against the advice of the NPC, as there might be treasure down there. The rest of the part argues that they have more pressing business than going into a random dungeon but begrudgingly goes along with him. [...]

The orcs tell them that deeper, the ruins get weirder and that it would be advisable not to go any further. There are traps and powerful defenders. The rogue takes this as even more of an invitation to go down.

To be fair, "adventurers are hired for a mission, they stumble on an unrelated dungeon/quest, it nets them a thousand times more XP and gold than the mission" is a common enough plot.

Out of earshot of the orcs, the party berates the rogue for being a racist and a potential murderer.

Since the player clearly hadn't understood the whole "orcs are not monsters" thing, this should have been done out of character before he even attempted the ambush.

At the end of the round, with the alarm still sounding bursts out of the end of the hall, a gollem. A solo monster that is 4 levels higher than then they are. "Come on," says the rogue, "we can take him, the DM wouldn't put a monster in here that was above our level." [...]

They also took issue with me throwing a monster at them that was 4 levels higher than them but I figured since it was a completely optional encounter that they could have avoided or fled from, it was fair game.

Again, this is the point where a preemptive OOC explanation is required, if your campaign is indeed the sort in which the players might stumble on a dungeon too dangerous for their level. (Although if it was a MM1 golem, this dungeon was not one of them.)

The rogue is bound and gagged for the remainder of the journey.

I hope there were no hard feelings. From the point of view of the rogue's player, I'd be annoyed at the unfair punishment.

People I told the story to took issue with me having as sort of alignment test. You see orcs in a dungeon, most players are going to assume they are there to be killed. But I thought it would be fun to subvert the expectation. Had the players killed the orcs, their guide, who is himself an orc would have left them in disgust and told the humanoid tribes about them, giving them a penalty to their reputation, a system I made up.

Once again, if the whole group understood that orcs are not monsters in this world, this is fine (and they'd only have killed the orcs if they were roleplaying unscrupulous bandits). But if one or more player didn't, then you need to do an OOC explanation, not a metagamey "trap".


As for the people in this thread saying that metagaming should be punished in-game with grudge monsters/traps, well, I expect some of you will be immortalized in grognard.txt.

 

[rethgryn]

Since the player clearly hadn't understood the whole "orcs are not monsters" thing, this should have been done out of character before he even attempted the ambush.

He doesn't have that excuse, I let everyone look through the two setting books. I gave everyone a primer on the setting. Its not my fault if he didn't read it, (especially considering that he owns the setting books) and approached the encounter like something out of a video game instead of role-playing.

 

[DracoSuave]

You need an OOC explanation that orcs are not monsters in a world after going from a city where goblins are citizens into the wilderness where a friendly non-monster orc is guiding them through terrain, leading them to a place where other friendly non-monster orcs are sharing their camp and exchanging information and you need to inform someone who owns the campaign setting that "Orcs aren't monsters in this world"!?!

Hell, it's not even hidden information, it's in the 'Things you should know about Eberron' spiel that they put in the very beginning.

As for the people in this thread saying that metagaming should be punished in-game with grudge monsters/traps, well, I expect some of you will be immortalized in grognard.txt.

In this case, it was incorrect metagaming. He's metagaming a game he's not actually playing. That sort of behavior is self-punishing as his metagame expectations run counter to the way the game actually is run.

There's good metagaming (adjusting player character tendancies towards campaign and party tendancies and goals) and there's bad metagaming (killing orcs you find just because you think they're worth XP, as if tabletop rpgs are like MMOs and grinding actually whas a point)

 

[Roxolan]

He doesn't have that excuse, I let everyone look through the two setting books. I gave everyone a primer on the setting. Its not my fault if he didn't read it, (especially considering that he owns the setting books) and approached the encounter like something out of a video game instead of role-playing.

So it's the player's fault. You still solve the problem through OOC discussion rather than in-game "traps".

In this case, it was incorrect metagaming. He's metagaming a game he's not actually playing. That sort of behavior is self-punishing as his metagame expectations run counter to the way the game actually is run.

Indeed it is, which is why it's not necessary (and bad DMing IMO) to turn the golem into a death machine or whatever else was suggested in this thread to punish him.