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Message: <blockquote data-quote="rethgryn" data-source="post: 5453301" data-attributes="member: 67514">Traditional Games Discussion at Something Awful called me a grognard for  this but i thought it was hilarious and a great "trap" to see if they  were paying attention. I also arranged for this to happen when they were  a few xp away from leveling so it was a sort of test to see if they  were roleplayers or metagamers. This is in the Eberron setting. Ok, so  the players are on a quest to get a macguffin from this town on the  western side of the continent. They can't teleport there because  something has gone wrong with the teleportation circle and the  organization that runs the teleportation network also wants them to  investigate that too. On the way, being led by a guide through  the wilds, territory that is ruled by warring humanoid clans (orcs,  kobolds, goblins, etc), which I stated, in this setting, were generally  not hostile to them as long as they don't cause trouble and are just  passing through. The players even did a minor quest to travel with  permission of an orc so that war parties and most bandits leave them  alone. There is a storm as they are passing through some ruins. There is  an opening in a ruined building that leads downward where they take  shelter from the storm. 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. They decend the stairs and go down  when they see a fire in a room. Sitting around the fire are a group of  orcs, who are unaware of their approach. The rogue is first in line,  sneaking up on them. He tells me "great! I need the xp."Keep in  mind, the orcs are not only unaware of them, but also have done  absolutely nothing to the party either. They haven't attacked villages,  they aren't worshiping demons, and as far as the players know, they are  just, in a cave, warming themselves around a fire, however, the rogue  still thinks they deserve to die so that he can get "experience" using  them as target practice. What a dick, right?So the rogue gets  ready for his sneak attack. When, luckily for the group a smart party  member, jumps in and says hi to the orcs. The orcs, startled for a  moment greet them and introduce themselves as a hunting party, taking  shelter from the rain. Out of earshot of the orcs, the party berates the  rogue for being a racist and a potential murderer.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. The group tells  him that his judgement thus far has not been strong, and that they  should wait it out. The rogue goes down anyway, and the party  begrudingly follows. The come down stairs to a corridor lined with  sarcophogai, leaning against the walls. The sarcophogai are chained  shut. 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. Out of the sarcophogai  comes a flood of oily viscous liquid that spaltters all over the floor,  running into a drain, as well as an hostile fish like aberrant creature.  We go into rounds. Once the slime hits the drain an alarm goes off. The  rogue's turn comes up first and he blows his daily's on the creature,  using his action point. The creature goes down.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." Two or three rounds, and one  downed defender later, the bloodied rogue is abandoning the party,  running away upstairs. The monster is bloodied but so is the rest of the  group. The gollem had a power that caused him to explode when he was  either bloodied or died, damaging the party. The barbarian drags the  battlemind with him, as they flee. The Gollem, content that the  intruders have fled, returns to his guard post.The rogue is bound and gagged for the remainder of the journey. Also they level up.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.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.</blockquote>

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