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4 months ago ::
Jan 18, 2013 - 5:52PM
#131
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Date Joined:
Jan 18, 2013
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Two nights ago, I was DMing a (rather large) group of my friends when I hit a snag between what one of my players wanted to do and what I as the DM would allow. The group was in a city seeking out people with connections to a thieves' guild when my friend Bryan asked where he could find kerosene or some other flammable agent so that he could burn down a brothel. He plays a human vampire (from the Heroes of Shadow player option) who, prior to his vampirism, was a priest for one of the city's churches. He reasoned that it was in his character's zealous nature to purge the sin and wickedness from his city. However, I didn't feel comfortable letting his character go through with that action. I reasoned that his character had enough insight to know that setting fire to one building could result in a sizable portion of the city burning down before the fire gets contained, but he still wanted to go through with it, arguing that his character wouldn't care if one scummy portion of the city was lost.
I was able to skim past the matter by throwing a skill challenge at the players, but the issue was never resolved. As a DM, I don't like shutting down my players' suggestions, but I don't know how to steer him away from a careless action without resorting to, "I'm the DM and you can't do that because I say so." What should I do if he presses the matter again in a future session?
Well, here's what I would have done as a DM...
Let him burn down the brothel and then deal with the consequences. Whether or not it burned down the entire city, a section of it, or just that one building is almost irrelevent to me. You make the appropriate rolls and announce it as it occurs. What should concern the PCs (and players) is what happens afterward. Obviously, arson is highly illegal...if he burned the brothel down, he is then a criminal in the eyes of the law. A section of the city? The constablery might be inclined to include the PCs party as well. The city? Well, realistically...Nero didn't survive to see Rome rebuilt. And this isn't even considering the possibility of fatalities in such a conflagration, which amps up the 'Oh man, I f'd up' factor real fast.
As a DM, there have been relatively few instances where I vetoed a player's actions. In the house rules I have, I tell them that if they can do it realistically, there is no reason why their characters cannot. I also tell them that they have to live and die by their choices and actions. It's gotten characters killed, and it has led to some truly amazing gaming sessions.
Don't stifle your players too much, especially in matter of simple actions. Sometimes you have to let the kids make a mistake so they can learn a lesson.
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4 months ago ::
Jan 18, 2013 - 8:03PM
#132
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If a player in my game were to suggest such an action, I may counter with a simple Gygaxian "Are you sure you want to do that?"
Evil and good aside, it's likely the characters would be aware of the basic laws of the city they were, and it's likely there were would be a law against arson, complete with punishments.
At the least, the DM and the players could reasonably assume that the city would certainly frown on such actions, and any existing police forces would probably try to catch and punish the perpetrator of an arson.
I do not think there is anything at all wrong with reminding a player of such before he commits the crime. I would fully let him do so, and I would be eager to see the results if he chose to. Most likely a lot of dice rolling would ensue; how much did the fire spread, how quickly did the building burn, how much time was there for people inside to escape, how quickly did the law respond, were there any witnesses to the crime, etc.
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4 months ago ::
Jan 19, 2013 - 5:41AM
#133
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Along with 'mass murderers make for poor PCs'.
Depends on the context. I have a player who is constantly trying to play "evil" characters. I recently put him in a situation where he has to do something truly evil. He has acquired access to the lamentation engine, which requires massive amounts of blood to work. He's started kidnapping homeless and destitute people to power his machine. Meanwhile, the party has been placed in charge of investigating a recent rash of murders. The bodies of dozens of homeless people have been turning up completely exanguinated.
Next thing you will tell me Browbeat  is bad.
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4 months ago ::
Jan 21, 2013 - 2:18PM
#134
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Date Joined:
Jun 25, 2009
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Two nights ago, I was DMing a (rather large) group of my friends when I hit a snag between what one of my players wanted to do and what I as the DM would allow. The group was in a city seeking out people with connections to a thieves' guild when my friend Bryan asked where he could find kerosene or some other flammable agent so that he could burn down a brothel. He plays a human vampire (from the Heroes of Shadow player option) who, prior to his vampirism, was a priest for one of the city's churches. He reasoned that it was in his character's zealous nature to purge the sin and wickedness from his city. However, I didn't feel comfortable letting his character go through with that action. I reasoned that his character had enough insight to know that setting fire to one building could result in a sizable portion of the city burning down before the fire gets contained, but he still wanted to go through with it, arguing that his character wouldn't care if one scummy portion of the city was lost.
I was able to skim past the matter by throwing a skill challenge at the players, but the issue was never resolved. As a DM, I don't like shutting down my players' suggestions, but I don't know how to steer him away from a careless action without resorting to, "I'm the DM and you can't do that because I say so." What should I do if he presses the matter again in a future session?
I understand why you might not want to do this. But, here's a suggestion.
Let him do it. Then...have someone who survives the fire (and saw him do it), swear revenge and hunt him down and even do everything that NPC can do to try and ruin the PC's life. Actions have consequences. And if the PC defeats the revenge seeking NPC, then you'll have just created a kick ass personal plot twist for the player.
But, if you go through with saying no, it's your call. Only do what you're comfortable with as DM. Sure, the players are there to have fun. And you're there to provide fun for the players. But at some point, you have to take into consideration what YOU want as well. Because if you're not having fun, there's not much reason to keep being the DM. Even some of the locals on this board would bow out of a game that doesn't want to play their way. 
My username should actually read: Lunar Savage (damn you WotC!)
*Tips top hat, adjusts monocle, and walks away with cane* and yes, that IS Mr. Peanut laying unconscious on the curb.
http://asylumjournals.tumblr.com/
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4 months ago ::
Jan 24, 2013 - 3:22AM
#135
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Date Joined:
Jun 28, 2008
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For the OP, here's what I'd do. First, check with the player, make sure he really wants to do this, and explain your concerns or whatever. Second, did his character mention this idea to the other heroes? If he did, then when the arson happens, they obviously will probably have a clue that he did it. If not... Have him show up to the game early so you can play out the arson. With the other players not around, you don't have to worry about them interjecting, or having knowledge their characters' don't, or boring the other players while you focus on the vampire. Let him get his materials and make his way there. He's going to have to burn this place down, he might get spotted, right? So depending on the time of day, there may be witnesses he'll need to avoid. I mean, it's a brothel, there's people coming and going (no pun intended  ) all the time! There's bound to be a homeless drunk in a nearby alley, too. Maybe our vampire also sees a domestic dispute in a second story window in an adjacent building to foreshadow something later. Then, depending on how clever and thorough he is, make some kind of roll to see if the fire spreads and works as intended. On a low roll, I'd have a heroic patron notice the fire and start trying to get the women out of there! What does our vampire do now? Block them in? Kill the hero? If your roll is high, say 16+ on a d20, the fire spreads to other buildings and causes widespread devastation. If it does spread, perhaps our vampire witnesses a woman and her baby on the second floor trapped near the window. This is the woman our vampire saw getting domestically disputed earlier. Does our vampire decided to rescue this poor woman? Probably not, but if he does, maybe this woman insists on trumpeting his heroism to everyone in later days, putting him in quite the awkward position. Assuming our vampire gets away unscathed, you can do a couple things. First... the obvious... an undead whore haunts our vampire. There are a billion cool undead to choose from. Or maybe an obsessed, wealthy client of a particular prostitute hires a wizard to find out who did this. Rituals are sorely underused in 4e. The investigating wizard could use speak with dead to get clues from the dead whores. Heck, he could raise dead on the one who the client loves. I believe there is also a ritual where you can see things that happened in the past in a particular location. If the wizard figures out a vampire is involved, well there's only one thing to do: Hire a vampire hunter! Lots of potential fun with this scenario. Your player will have the chance to define who his character is and what he thinks is right and wrong.
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4 months ago ::
Jan 24, 2013 - 8:37AM
#136
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Date Joined:
Jan 16, 2013
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I've been thinking about this and if you really don't want to encourage this kind of behavior there are a few things you can do. IMO by far the best is to communicate with the Player OOG and let them know that it's not something that would be good for the campaign and it makes things more difficult for you. Make sure you listen to their side as well. Who knows you may even change your mind about it when you hear what he has to say.
The other way to handle it is IG. If this is something you are going to handle in game there's a couple ways that I can think of to do this. The first one is not preferred and not one that I would necessarily use myself but it is a possibility. You make it a non-event.
Basically....
Player: "I want to burn down a brothel".
DM: "Ok, you burned down the brothel". DM then returns to previous discussion/events for the group, basically glazing over the event in question.
Now depending on the player this might be encouragement enough for them to continue these kinds of decisions/behavior, but if each time it is handled with a quick "Ok, you do that" and then move on, then the player will get tired of doing those things. (This is why I don't prefer this method because you can be ruining a players good time which is not what you want to do) If you choose this method you should make an effort to find other fun and interesting things that the player would be into so that they continue to have fun instead of getting bored.
Now the above method is just ONE method and it is not the method I would personnally choose, however it MAY work if that is how you want to run things.
Personnally I would make it more interesting for the player(s) by making this a fun part of their adventures. Perhaps something like what Winterhaven_Regular mentioned above or something else that builds upon the player(s) ideas instead of blocking them.
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4 months ago ::
Jan 24, 2013 - 12:12PM
#137
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Date Joined:
Jun 20, 2012
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Two nights ago, I was DMing a (rather large) group of my friends when I hit a snag between what one of my players wanted to do and what I as the DM would allow. The group was in a city seeking out people with connections to a thieves' guild when my friend Bryan asked where he could find kerosene or some other flammable agent so that he could burn down a brothel. He plays a human vampire (from the Heroes of Shadow player option) who, prior to his vampirism, was a priest for one of the city's churches. He reasoned that it was in his character's zealous nature to purge the sin and wickedness from his city. However, I didn't feel comfortable letting his character go through with that action. I reasoned that his character had enough insight to know that setting fire to one building could result in a sizable portion of the city burning down before the fire gets contained, but he still wanted to go through with it, arguing that his character wouldn't care if one scummy portion of the city was lost.
I was able to skim past the matter by throwing a skill challenge at the players, but the issue was never resolved. As a DM, I don't like shutting down my players' suggestions, but I don't know how to steer him away from a careless action without resorting to, "I'm the DM and you can't do that because I say so." What should I do if he presses the matter again in a future session?
Well, here's what I would have done as a DM...
Let him burn down the brothel and then deal with the consequences. Whether or not it burned down the entire city, a section of it, or just that one building is almost irrelevent to me. You make the appropriate rolls and announce it as it occurs. What should concern the PCs (and players) is what happens afterward. Obviously, arson is highly illegal...if he burned the brothel down, he is then a criminal in the eyes of the law. A section of the city? The constablery might be inclined to include the PCs party as well. The city? Well, realistically...Nero didn't survive to see Rome rebuilt. And this isn't even considering the possibility of fatalities in such a conflagration, which amps up the 'Oh man, I f'd up' factor real fast.
As a DM, there have been relatively few instances where I vetoed a player's actions. In the house rules I have, I tell them that if they can do it realistically, there is no reason why their characters cannot. I also tell them that they have to live and die by their choices and actions. It's gotten characters killed, and it has led to some truly amazing gaming sessions.
Don't stifle your players too much, especially in matter of simple actions. Sometimes you have to let the kids make a mistake so they can learn a lesson.
Yep. I always let the player do what he wants. If it looks like the player doesn't seem to realize the consequences but his character most certainly would... I make that player knowledge with a quickness. Also, here's a good house rule that I've implemented for this very occasion... vampires are flammable. Those that sparkle take quadruple damage from fire. And the player must leave the table immediately.
A rogue with a bowl of slop can be a controller.
WIZARD PC: Can I substitute Celestial Roc Guano for my fireball spells?
DM: Awesome. Yes.
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4 months ago ::
Jan 24, 2013 - 12:18PM
#138
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Date Joined:
Jun 20, 2012
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I've never gotten that impression; I don't mind seeing points adressed on their own
As long as the sentence isn't taken out of context, I don't see why anyone would. Especially when people often complain of double-posts and posts that they are too busy to read.
Darned if ya do, darned if ya don't.
A rogue with a bowl of slop can be a controller.
WIZARD PC: Can I substitute Celestial Roc Guano for my fireball spells?
DM: Awesome. Yes.
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