Interesting. The more information Rastrak provided, the more I believed that he was trying, in good faith, to run an enjoyable game. It sounds like fun, and I'd enjoy a campaign where the half-orc brothers are running the local stores. Not to mention a heist! Complications are the heart of soul of fun - for me.
And, in general, I would agree that turning problems into plot opportunities is a good thing--as I said. It's also neat to do things like have your store NPCs be more than just Ageless Nameless Faceless [Gender-Neutral] Culturally Ambiguous Entrepreneurial Persons. And I don't, even slightly, think that he
wasn't trying to "run an enjoyable game."
But none of those things is the same as saying that it was wrong to fail to clarify what was happening. The
character would have known and been aware of the meaning, and would have responded accordingly--he or she would have SEEN that it included the gauntlet. Punishing the whole group for one person misunderstanding an
intentionally vague statement,
after the player had
intentionally appraised what he was offering to the buyer, is an Unwise Move. It may not have been a
dick move, but it's pretty close, and I would have a problem with it if it happened to me. Given my bouts of absent-mindedness, I strongly suspect it
could have, and I'd be pretty upset.
I try not to accuse other people of being malicious, or (as someone else put it) lying liars, given that I wasn't there. But seeing as you have looked into the hearts of all the people involved, perhaps you know better than I do?
Your sarcasm does your point disservice. No, we weren't there. No, we can't specifically say what happened. All we have is the one person speaking up about it. But it's curious, is it not, that we're getting a biased account and yet challenging the person it should theoretically be biased
toward?
More to the point, whether or not
you think this is a fun situation, can you understand why people might be angered by it? Can you see how it could result in sore feelings and maybe even lingering resentment, even if nothing truly harmful ever results from it? If so, then it is a little hard to accept that you think it was
completely okay to do this. The DM pulled a fast one on a player, possibly with full intent, possibly only as a subconscious thing against a (different) player whose behavior has been a source of frustration. It couldn't be by accident because the DM was aware of the blacksmith's deceitful intent, given that all of the blacksmith's actions were selected by the DM.
Randrak's intent
may have been wholly virtuous, or wholly vicious, or anywhere in-between. I don't really think that matters. What does matter is that, in his own words, some were upset
and felt deceived, and the action clearly soured the session for some of the group. That, pretty clearly in my mind, demonstrates that it was an
unwise move, in this context, with this group, at this time.
The miscommunication was between the players. The ranger PC was at the table when the barbarian wrapped the entire thing as a set. People forget and make mistakes. It happens to PCs just as much as to real people. I'd have given a roll myself, but I see no reason to treat the players like children and protect them from themselves. If they make a mistake, they've made a mistake. Mistakes like that add to the game and allow different and grand interactions as group attempts to overcome it.
Are you saying that speaking clearly and forthrightly is equivalent to treating people like children? Because I find that a little difficult to believe.
And, since it came up in a different post of yours: remember that the person who
sold the armor wasn't the person who
bundled the armor, and (unless I'm mistaken)
neither of those people was "Mr. Cellphone."
Relative to typical D&D worlds like Oerth or FR, Middle Earth was a low magic setting.
True, though somewhat off-topic. Just as "Vancian" doesn't narrowly mean the way Jack Vance wrote magic, "Tolkien(esque)" doesn't narrowly mean the way JRRT wrote equipment/magic.
Wow, guess a lot of DMs were having wrongbadfun back in the day - and are doing so again playing OSR games and, well, 5e, because 5e is pretty open to that style, again (in keeping with it's goals of supporting more styles, and being for everyone who ever loved D&D, including those older editions were 'gotchya' moments were de rigueur).
Is that actually what happens? Intentionally deceiving players into doing things you know they don't want to do, have stated they don't want to do, and have made a legitimate effort to avoid, by feeding them intentionally ambiguous and counter-intuitive information and then, if not delighting in the results, at least insisting that they accept that that's what happened?
Because "rolling things behind the screen" and "not playing with your
cards plot coupons face up" doesn't equate to "intentionally deceiving your players and being surprised when they dislike it." I've played a (very little) bit of OSR-type games, and the DM was quite fair and honest when
some effort was made to deal with things--like, I dunno, a good-faith effort to appraise the value of something being sold, and getting a strong success from the associated roll. Or a good-faith effort to, say, search a room for traps and getting a strong success on the associated roll. I see literally zero difference between the example appraisal-followed-by-deception and successfully searching a room for traps, the DM saying that you notice nothing dangerous, and then half an hour later telling you that your character is dying of poison because you didn't specifically look for poison gas
already in the air, because that's soooooo different from searching for traps.
Roll a deception check out in the open, and trust the player to RP appropriately. Not hard, but not the only way to do it 5e, where the DM is free to decide when a check is called for.
Well sure. But in this case, the deception was PURELY a deception of the player, NOT the character. The character knew the ring was there. The character knew precisely what articles were being sold. The player rolled, presumably in the open, and got a good result. Is deceiving the player while the character
should NOT be deceived something 5e supports?
Sure. Not so much that it'd be unfair to the player, as it's just unlikely to be effective at moderating the player's bad behavior compared to just communicating honestly with him.
And yet such things were, explicitly, suggested in the oldest of schools--Gygax's own prose. I've read it. They aren't (typically*) quite as
strident as usually believed, but it absolutely recommends punishing players for player behaviors (such as when they seek to play non-standard, or sometimes even non-
human, races) specifically to moderate those "bad" behaviors.
Then again, bad player behaviors can spill over into RP and character actions, which may still have consequences in game...
At which point it becomes appropriate to punish the character for those behaviors. E.g. a player who constantly tries to screw over her party members or even kill them, may face unexpected problems when her character's criminal past becomes a serious issue for the party. It's initially a player behavior, but the in-character effects (dicking over the fellow players) are met with in-character response ("this person is a known thief and scoundrel, and we have evidence that you, too, have been cheated by them" kind of thing).
*I say "typically" because the usually-cited examples aren't
egregious, but still over-the-top for my tastes, unless you take a very narrow and generous reading. But I have seen some examples that were...pretty much just as strident as alleged. Gygax, it seems, was a much nicer and more likable person when writing or speaking
personally than he was in his "professional" game-making prose.
I'm sure people here will still somehow blame you for it, even though it worked out and the players aren't upset with what happened. Good for you, though.
Assuming ill of your fellow posters does your position even less good than the sarcasm did Lowkey's.
I'm glad the OP's players don't blame him, that they had fun (because that is the point of the game), and that there are no hard feelings. But I'm not going to pretend that no one was in the wrong. If nothing else the OP should have politely and privately spoken to phone guy about his poor table etiquette before it ever became persistent enough to be annoying. And phone guy should have been more courteous to the rest of the group (DM included).
Agreed. Just because the group lets it slide--whether with enthusiasm or a heavy sigh--doesn't mean it was a good thing to do. It wasn't the
worst thing to do, and it had elements that were even good ideas (like trying to turn it into a plot hook of its own). But being forgiven for a wrong does not make the action right!
