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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Marandahir" data-source="post: 7975082" data-attributes="member: 6803643">Video game RPGs like The Elder Scrolls have trained us to play Chaotic Neutral (and/or Evil) - do whatever you want as long as you don't get caught. D&D isn't a video game.D&D offers such an open framework that the game can SHOW the hardship that happens to that shopkeeper that the PCs robbed blind. In a video game, robbing the shopkeep is an exercise in stealth and fencing: as long as you can sneak well enough, grab the stuff when someone isn't looking, and either use it yourself or sell it to a fence, there's no punishment. Your stealthy skills allowed you to get away with actions that in real life could be incredibly harmful.Sure, occasionally doing so would cause a random encounter with hitmen hired by the victim to try to "teach you a lesson," but the vast majority of these cases you the player could get away with horrific crimes, from robbery all the way down to murder if you're that good.In D&D, as a DM, I want players to recognise that their actions have consequences. You don't need to be Lawful Good to avoid them (that comes with other challenges), but when you steal something, you're not getting it for free. It comes back to haunt you in the narrative.Maybe the player will keep doing it - the rewards outweigh the problems. That's okay. But I don't want to handwave their actions that cause other people harm in the game. The NPCs in a D&D game should not be "Welcome to Corneria!" single-dialogue folks, they have their own lives, and when you involve yourself in those lives, they may involve themselves in yours. Maybe the PCs are no longer welcome in the only town within a 3 day's journey, and so they'll have to rough it up in the wilderness. Maybe that NPC's sibling in the big city confronts the players, having spent the last few months hunting them down.And if the players don't get caught at all? Maybe introduce victims in the next session who are down on their luck because the their family lost everything after the players stole from them.It doesn't mean the act of theft here is always evil - in the correct circumstances (robin hood rob from the rich sort of deal), it could be Chaotic Good. But All actions have and should have consequences.When you do good and lawful things, those should have social consequences too. They might be positive ones, or they might not - what if you captured the evil murderous bandits because it's the right thing to do, but later on they escape and come back for revenge? Or their client puts a hit on the players for interfering with the plans?</blockquote>

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