So am i out of line with how I DM'd this?


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I had a player get rather irate in a game because he thought that i didnt give him a fair shake. I think I was being perfectly reasonable. DM is always right nonsense aside.

The party is 2-3rd level. They are in a lager town of around 600 people. A border village that became a trade post over time. I have written that the sheriff or constable for the town is a retired thief and bounty hunter rouge 2/ranger 2 and there is a 5th level wizard in town. The towns goverment is a noble lordling who is petty and annoyed that he is posted here.

Anyways the pcs rob the nobles house in the night and get away scott free and steal the nobles prized jewels, two large rubys worth 1500 or so gold each. GJ players, however they do screw up. They go to the only moneylender and moneychanger in town who very often does business with the lord. The lord being a vain man has showed them to the merchant prior and even used them as collateral. The merchant informs the lord after the pcs try and sell it and he tells them it will take a few days to get together the money.

The gurds and constable come to arrest the pcs, one pc shoots a guard with a crossbow and hell breaks loose. Theres a standoff the guards finally charge in, body count is 11 dead guards. One pc did not fight and the rouge sneaks off. The others are captured and put on trial. One pc rolls a natural 20 on diplomacy and I rule that the pc who didnt kill any guards will be senteanced to a labor camp and that the pcs who did kill trhe guards will be executed without torture or the shame of public execution because of the natural 20.

The pc thinks that was unfair because of the 20 diplomacy roll. So what do you think?

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

Perfectly fair. Sometimes, nothing you say can help.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

First off...if you gave the players a chance to see that the Moneychanger recognized the gems and was lying (ie. Sense Motive) then I think you were perfectly justified, as I personally think that they should've gone to a fence, or gone to another town to dispose of the gems. As for the skill rolls...I would have had them have to make a series of diplomacy and/or bluff checks to try to finagle things, though they likely would have ended up in jail for at least 6 months, if only due to possession of stolen property. But you might point out to the players that a natural 20 on a skill check is NOT an auto-success as per the core rules.


Good Grief. Tell them to shut the hell up.

Let's look at this. They stole from the most powerful man in town, resisted arrest and murdered 11 guards while doing so. Ask them this "If it was a court today and a bank robber shot 11 cops while resisting arrest do you think there is anything the bank robber could say that would keep them from getting the death sentence?"


JudasKilled wrote:

I had a player get rather irate in a game because he thought that i didnt give him a fair shake. I think I was being perfectly reasonable. DM is always right nonsense aside.

The party is 2-3rd level. They are in a lager town of around 600 people. A border village that became a trade post over time. I have written that the sheriff or constable for the town is a retired thief and bounty hunter rouge 2/ranger 2 and there is a 5th level wizard in town. The towns goverment is a noble lordling who is petty and annoyed that he is posted here.

Anyways the pcs rob the nobles house in the night and get away scott free and steal the nobles prized jewels, two large rubys worth 1500 or so gold each. GJ players, however they do screw up. They go to the only moneylender and moneychanger in town who very often does business with the lord. The lord being a vain man has showed them to the merchant prior and even used them as collateral. The merchant informs the lord after the pcs try and sell it and he tells them it will take a few days to get together the money.

The gurds and constable come to arrest the pcs, one pc shoots a guard with a crossbow and hell breaks loose. Theres a standoff the guards finally charge in, body count is 11 dead guards. One pc did not fight and the rouge sneaks off. The others are captured and put on trial. One pc rolls a natural 20 on diplomacy and I rule that the pc who didnt kill any guards will be senteanced to a labor camp and that the pcs who did kill trhe guards will be executed without torture or the shame of public execution because of the natural 20.

The pc thinks that was unfair because of the 20 diplomacy roll. So what do you think?

Should have let the PC going to the money-lender get a wis check or something, as this is something that his character (barring extremely low mental stats) should have thought of. If you rob a small community blind, you skip town the same night.

Natural 20 doesn't mean jack on a skill-check. You get your roll + skill modifier. And if that doesn't do it, he cannot talk himself out of it (which is about right, considering that they up and KILLED 11 guards who were hunting them for a pretty big crime)


Seems legit to me. Skills don't auto-succeed, and I'd imagine there'd be huge negative circumstance modifiers to their roll. (Public execution was used to shame them? really? Not to instill fear in the masses?)

That aside, what was the purpose of your game?

Are they supposed to be a group of chaotic/evil thieves, or were they deviating from the agreed-upon agenda/feel/themes of your game? Is the purpose of your game to have fun and just be crazy?

Only you and your players know the answers to that, but IMO rather than just killing off PCs I like to add plot twists... somebody comes in and stays the execution, or helps them escape in the night, etc. Of course, this benefactor likely has motives of their own, more often insidious in nature than not. It might even be something or someone worse than the minor lordling. Maybe it is someone that wants to raze the entire town, and promises the PCs they can keep the rubies, and torture the noble in a slow death. Whatever works for your group.

Abide the Rule of Cool.


The Admiral Jose Monkamuck wrote:

Good Grief. Tell them to shut the hell up.

Let's look at this. They stole from the most powerful man in town, resisted arrest and murdered 11 guards while doing so. Ask them this "If it was a court today and a bank robber shot 11 cops while resisting arrest do you think there is anything the bank robber could say that would keep them from getting the death sentence?"

Exactly.

I've seen this type of behavior from players who for whatever reason feel there should be no bad repercussions for anything their PCs do in-game, regardless of how bad what they do actually is.

Maybe this outcome will help them see that there is actually a world beyond their characters, and in future games they might play them more responsibly :)


I wouldn't let them off the hook. They are lucky to be getting off without torture.

I wouldn't Deus Ex Machina the execution either. Rolling up new characters is it's own fun, and the players learn a valuable lesson about actions and consequences. If you remove the consequences, the gameworld loses any feeling of realism. The players need to realize their characters are part of a reactive world, and the people they share the world with have the same desire to live as their characters do. They just became psycopathic, heartless killers in the eyes of that town. I'd have the children of the guardsmen in the front row at the execution throwing rocks.

Sovereign Court

JudasKilled wrote:


The pc thinks that was unfair because of the 20 diplomacy roll. So what do you think?

Just out of curiosity what does the PC think should happen?


Remind them that Diplomacy just make people more friendly towards them. In a court situation friendship is not part of the equation, the judge is going to rule based on the laws of the land, as that is his job. However if the PC had foresight he should have taken profession Lawyer (which he should consider when they break out of jail) which could have allowed him to get osama off the hook with that Nat 20.


Shizzle69 wrote:
Remind them that Diplomacy just make people more friendly towards them. In a court situation friendship is not part of the equation, the judge is going to rule based on the laws of the land, as that is his job. However if the PC had foresight he should have taken profession Lawyer (which he should consider when they break out of jail) which could have allowed him to get osama off the hook with that Nat 20.

1st, nat 20 on skills is not auto-success.

2nd, the dc to get out of that kind of crime should be pretty darn near two hundred. Sounds like there were lots of witnesses. Even if a player found a loophole in the written law, it's unlikely that a small town court would let them free. This is Golarion, not the modern world. People don't get off on technicalities unless the judge is in their pocket.


I'm surprised they made it to a court. You just offed 11 cops, their ain't no stinking cameras, their ain't no stinking journalist, suddenly their ain't no stinking PC's left. The guards in the heat of the moment would be extremely unlikely to accept surrender, or knock them out so they can bring them to justice. It is entirely likely the party would have been tried, judged, and executed by their actions.


Kerym Ammath wrote:
I'm surprised they made it to a court. You just offed 11 cops, their ain't no stinking cameras, their ain't no stinking journalist, suddenly their ain't no stinking PC's left. The guards in the heat of the moment would be extremely unlikely to accept surrender, or knock them out so they can bring them to justice. It is entirely likely the party would have been tried, judged, and executed by their actions.

+1

Actually in the real world even with journalist, etc. someone who kills 11 cops is not all that likely to be arrested.

Scarab Sages

Someone who raises a weapon to a cop will get shot dead in a second. I have a cop friend who is a marshall (collects warrants) and has killed/seen killed several people who resisted by being threatening or assaulting.

I think your actions were completely valid. Because they killed 11 guards. The nat 20 on diplomacy (what was the modifier, anyways?) ruled into the guy that didn't fight getting hard labor was a good ruling.

In the next game they will have to learn that they are not above the law and human decency. Even if they were above the law, they could have gotten a much lower sentence had they been doing non-lethal damage.


That is a sack and a half of stupid! 11 guards and they got a trial? REALLY!?! Get a stick! Stupid should be punished before it spreads.

Scarab Sages

JudasKilled wrote:

The guards and constable come to arrest the pcs, one pc shoots a guard with a crossbow and hell breaks loose. There's a standoff the guards finally charge in, body count is 11 dead guards. One pc did not fight and the rouge sneaks off. The others are captured and put on trial. One pc rolls a natural 20 on diplomacy and I rule that the pc who didn't kill any guards will be sentenced to a labor camp and that the pcs who did kill the guards will be executed without torture or the shame of public execution because of the natural 20.

The pc thinks that was unfair because of the 20 diplomacy roll. So what do you think?

It is a wrong decision.

First, you don't get to kill everyone in sight and get away with it, just because you roll 20+ Diplomacy.
It's a court of law, where facts are presented, not 'Celebrity Dancing X-Factor Pop Idols on Ice'.
The judge couldn't care less that you've got shiny teeth and a snazzy suit.
Get your ass back in the cell and face the standard punishment.

Second, you don't get away with a clean death when you've attacked the law. Sets a bad precedent. The law-abiding public want to see cop-killers screaming in agony, so they know the criminal scum will be too busy puking their guts up thinking 'That could have been me' to rob anyone else's house.


If they were unconscious at any time in their capture, they would not get to wake up. Guards who knew they were that dangerous would not let it happen.

The only way they might get to survive would be some sort of Running Man thing where they are given a path to certain death rather than execution.

I don't think you were unreasonable. Whats to learn, you steal from a town it fights back. Don't steal or don't get caught.

Snorter might have a point.

I can see them crippled and then killed by the new sheriff in the town square. Wouldn't even be a judgment thing just a reputation exercise. The town will not feel safe if they think the guards are defenseless and the guards will want to nail them to a wall somewhere to save face.

s


Sigurd wrote:
The only way they might get to survive would be some sort of Running Man thing where they are given a path to certain death rather than execution.

That would be cool! (the Running Man/ Death Race(2008)/ Condemned thing) Wizards (without books) and Clerics (without holy symbols) are going to be very sad however.

Or having the execution interrupted by some sort of attack, but if you're not willing to cheese it up, I'd just have them roll new characters, the damage already too extensive. I agree that having the characters surrender shouldn't have been an option.

Liberty's Edge

Stupid is as stupid does.

Court case? Only if judge Lynch was presiding.

The first rule Ive always explained to my players in any campaign is actions have consequences.

You really cant expect to take on 'the man' in his home town and then hang around. At least not unless you intend to do the right thing and take him down and take his place. Anything else is also an attack on his authority to 'be' the man.

As far as I can see what would have been likely is that any one who resisted would have been killed on the spot and heads placed on spikes as an example of what happens to outlaws with the surrendering one given some form of clemency (ie hard labor - press ganged into the kings navy or something equally as unpleasant).

The laws of the land in most medieval societies (or even frontier societies) are there simply to protect the interests of the rulers/leaders and to protect their assets (and that includes their serfs/followers). This is true regardless of what the supposed alignment of the town is.

Grand Lodge

First off... the PC's are in a caste system one where a monarchy rules. So therefor the court of justice is not a judge but the noble that they robbed from. Said noble being petty and vindictive, is not going to let the PC's get away with embarrassing him in any way. The way I see it is if the Noble was feeling generous is that the PC's would be slaves for life but most likely would be executed though because of the circumstances involved and the publicity involved with the town guardsmen.

Equating current courts of law and the way of thinking to medieval types of law are vastly different. Nobles and governance's usually are more of a dictatorship then a democracy. The current ruler tends to make the laws and then cause others to enforce them. Sure sometimes they have to answer to a council or the like but that is only if the DM writes them in.


You screwed up in letting them live at all :)

That high a body count? Oi. they wouldn't have been captured at all, they would have been executed on the spot with extreme prejudice and whoever did it would receive a medal for ridding the town of such villainous [censored]s.

Trials would be reserved for people not strong enough to wipe out the /other half/ of the town's defensive force..

-S

Sovereign Court

Deanoth wrote:

First off... the PC's are in a caste system one where a monarchy rules. So therefor the court of justice is not a judge but the noble that they robbed from. Said noble being petty and vindictive, is not going to let the PC's get away with embarrassing him in any way. The way I see it is if the Noble was feeling generous is that the PC's would be slaves for life but most likely would be executed though because of the circumstances involved and the publicity involved with the town guardsmen.

Equating current courts of law and the way of thinking to medieval types of law are vastly different. Nobles and governance's usually are more of a dictatorship then a democracy. The current ruler tends to make the laws and then cause others to enforce them. Sure sometimes they have to answer to a council or the like but that is only if the DM writes them in.

wait this is confusing... are you a player in this game?

Liberty's Edge

Pan wrote:
Deanoth wrote:
First off... the PC's are in a caste system one where a monarchy rules.
wait this is confusing... are you a player in this game?

I just assumed he was making assumptions about the OP's gameworld.

Grand Lodge

Wow. I admire you for even agreeing to GM these guys into another session where the results would matter. I think I would have probably had the noble turn out to be a polymorphed ogre mage or rakshasha or something and let the bodies fall where they may.

I think beyond "reality" or "natural 20's" or whatever, you need to ask, "Do I want to run this kind of game?" If the answer is yes, then let them off the hook with some cool plot twist. If the answer is "Not really..." then let them all be executed.

Or do both! You can have them all executed as per the way you've already ruled, and then have some mysterious patron raise them and geas them for some mission or another.

Good luck.


Looks like the consensus is that you gave them the courtesy of a reach around, where as the rest of us would have just given them the barbed wire wrapped stick.

Silver Crusade

OOOOhhh, Lord loves a hangin', that's why he give us necks!
It tightens up our vocal chords, and loosens up our pecs!
So if you are a horse thief and guilty to the bone,
Go ahead and blame a friend and you won't hang alone!

Now the fun really starts if they got busted for this sort of thing in Cheliax. Or Nidal. Or Galt. Or Geb. Or...


Just wow! Get new players! I've killed the Human Paladin in my campaign three times now! Each time the party did what it took to get him back. Even though this last time he got reincarnated as a Goblin (Which is the Rangers 1st favored enemy) I haven't had any kind of problem like that. You just need to find more mature/experienced role-players! Even in Oblivion and other PC/console RPG's have repercussions for what you do!


Nochtal wrote:
Even in Oblivion and other PC/console RPG's have repercussions for what you do!

Ummmm....sort of. I've been playing Oblivion a lot recently. It's just 1k gold per murder. I've got enough money to kill 160 people and the guards will just let me walk.....

Dark Archive

Yes, its not that harsh of a reprimand, but it is still there! lol

Point was, just because they are PC's doesn't mean they are invincible or untouchable by consequences.


JudasKilled wrote:

I had a player get rather irate in a game because he thought that i didnt give him a fair shake. I think I was being perfectly reasonable. DM is always right nonsense aside.

The party is 2-3rd level. They are in a lager town of around 600 people. A border village that became a trade post over time. I have written that the sheriff or constable for the town is a retired thief and bounty hunter rouge 2/ranger 2 and there is a 5th level wizard in town. The towns goverment is a noble lordling who is petty and annoyed that he is posted here.

Anyways the pcs rob the nobles house in the night and get away scott free and steal the nobles prized jewels, two large rubys worth 1500 or so gold each. GJ players, however they do screw up. They go to the only moneylender and moneychanger in town who very often does business with the lord. The lord being a vain man has showed them to the merchant prior and even used them as collateral. The merchant informs the lord after the pcs try and sell it and he tells them it will take a few days to get together the money.

The gurds and constable come to arrest the pcs, one pc shoots a guard with a crossbow and hell breaks loose. Theres a standoff the guards finally charge in, body count is 11 dead guards. One pc did not fight and the rouge sneaks off. The others are captured and put on trial. One pc rolls a natural 20 on diplomacy and I rule that the pc who didnt kill any guards will be senteanced to a labor camp and that the pcs who did kill trhe guards will be executed without torture or the shame of public execution because of the natural 20.

The pc thinks that was unfair because of the 20 diplomacy roll. So what do you think?

A not 20 is not always auto-success. Sometimes your best just isn't good enough. You can add the admiral's comments to my thoughts also.


Kerym Ammath wrote:
I'm surprised they made it to a court. You just offed 11 cops, their ain't no stinking cameras, their ain't no stinking journalist, suddenly their ain't no stinking PC's left. The guards in the heat of the moment would be extremely unlikely to accept surrender, or knock them out so they can bring them to justice. It is entirely likely the party would have been tried, judged, and executed by their actions.

I like the entire post, but that bolded area is classic.


Let's look at this from a meta-GMing point of view

Your character wanted to try the make-money-fast scheme, and wanted to be burglers. No biggy. I enjoy GMing and playing such people.

Problem: They are beginners, and really try to sell the loot in the same town. Because they know that whoever got the merchandise will likely face serious charges, trying to sell it to a merchant in town, who probably doesn't know what it is, should be an evil act.

If you wanted to encourage this kind of adventure-finding, you should have demanded a quite easy sense motive check to know that something is up. You haven't mentioned that in your post, and if you missed this, that would be a shame.

However, your PC's really wanted a standoff, that will get them killed, that's the way it is. Even if they would have killed all town guards, the big brother of the lord, likely a duke or something, would have sent his best fighters.

But if your PC's would have fled from the town guards, they would have to question their loyalty to the lord before persuing them. Most town guards are underpayed and don't care for the jeweles of the lord.

Now all in all you were perfectly fair (except sense motive, that I don't know), and your group is about the worst, most reckless party of burglers. Punish stupidity.

RPG Superstar 2008 Top 16

There's nothing wrong with your ruling about how that played out, but you should try not to "fast forward" ahead to the execution too quickly. Even a death sentence can be an adventure hook.

I'd give them a chance at a jailbreak scenario, but make it clear that their chances are slim. The subsequent adventure would be a grueling test of their ability to think on their feet, something that would make it clear that they dug themselves into a deep hole and you're not letting them off the hook. Let them know that inspired roleplaying will give them bonuses for their next characters if they don't manage to escape.

Perhaps things might open with the party chained to the town gaol's wall, clad only in loincloths. Spellcasters have iron gags (quickly modified from bits for horses) riveted around their heads. Their jailors laugh at their impending doom, except for a couple of merciful souls who treat them kindly. I'd make these characters sympathetic, putting the PCs in a bind later, as these NPCs try to prevent their escape.

A diminutive figure appears in the shadows of the cell, crushing despair filling the dismal chamber. Resembling a sharply-dressed gnome, this gutterkin devil (found in The Great City: Urban Creatures and Lairs) offers the PCs a chance at survival, asking only the cost of an unspecified favor later. His decayed, predatory smile gleams unnaturally in the darkness if they agree. After contracting with the tiny fiend they receive one prybar and one potion of reduce person, enabling one to slip his bonds. The devil urges the party not to waste any time, as only the truly determined will survive.

Before all the characters can pry themselves loose, the guards discover the escaping PCs. Violence ensues and they get their first dilemma: If they stay to pry their allies loose, more guards are sure to arrive. Do they abandon the last one or two PCs to their doom?

The next few scenes would feature town militia tracking the PCs with dogs and furious lynch mobs of townsfolk. If they take cover in a building, the townsfolk set fire to it to flush them out. If they head into the wilderness, their ill-equipped band draws the attention of monstrous predators.

I'd keep the aftermath of this adventure as a theme for the campaign: Whenever they think they have a good thing, their past catches up to them.

Scarab Sages

Let’s make several assumptions and make asses out of everybody, and maybe pull some good gaming out at the end.

Let’s assume your group is inexperienced at this, wanted (as a previous poster suggested) to just make some fast cash, and get away with it. Let’s assume they had no idea the sh*tstorm that would ensue. Let’s assume they thought a well-rolled skillcheck could get them out of anything.

Let’s assume that now they know better.

We can also assume, since the OP states straight-up that at least one of the players is upset, that this “learning experience” is stinging a bit.

Maybe this is a good opportunity to discuss the type of game your group wants to run. If you are already on the same page, then humor might be a way to salve the wounds while rolling up new characters. Sort of a “Well THAT didn’t go to plan haha” kind of thing.

One possible way to hook the next campaign is to somehow tie in this incident. The players might have fun rolling up members of this town who are conspiracy nuts who think that the party was only the tip of the iceberg of a shadow organization trying to kill their noble and eventually take over their town--or their nation. (And wouldn’t it be funny if there actually WERE such an organization, and the first group of PCs stumbled into it?)

Possibilities abound. ;)

A point in further support of having the new group come from this town, is that there might really be something cathartic about having the new PCs be able to refer to the old PCs, even if spitting when saying their names “those bastards! may they rot in hell!” lol


I see nothing wrong with what ya ruled. They are lucky they even got a trail and a swift death.

Silver Crusade

One could always let them roll to disbelieve the guillotine as it falls.

Just to make them feel better.


I would allow them a Diplomacy check on the executioner. A critical success means that after he executes them, when talking about the execution for years to come, he'll quip, "Eh.. they didn't really seem all that bad. Except for that whole murderous, evil outlaws and thieves bit, they seemed pleasant enough."

Silver Crusade

Ravenot wrote:
I would allow them a Diplomacy check on the executioner. A critical success means that after he executes them, when talking about the execution for years to come, he'll quip, "Eh.. they didn't really seem all that bad. Except for that whole murderous, evil outlaws and thieves bit, they seemed pleasant enough."

Y'know...people would often try to get in the headsman's good graces.

To make sure their death was quick and clean.

Friendly - One chop
Indifferent - Eh, medium effort
Unfriendly - This one is going to take a few tries.

And considering that a few of the guards may very well have slipped the man some coin to make sure it's messy and painful....

Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Mikaze wrote:
Ravenot wrote:
I would allow them a Diplomacy check on the executioner. A critical success means that after he executes them, when talking about the execution for years to come, he'll quip, "Eh.. they didn't really seem all that bad. Except for that whole murderous, evil outlaws and thieves bit, they seemed pleasant enough."

Y'know...people would often try to get in the headsman's good graces.

To make sure their death was quick and clean.

Friendly - One chop
Indifferent - Eh, medium effort
Unfriendly - This one is going to take a few tries.

And considering that a few of the guards may very well have slipped the man some coin to make sure it's messy and painful....

You're worried about the guards who are on a silver a week bribing the executioner rather than the vindictive and petty lord who could drop a year's slary for the executioner without blinking and ask for "something that will be remembered. For a very long time"? Priorities. Besides which, as noted, cops stick together and the executioner undoubtedly had drinks with some of the dead guards. Maybe they even owed him some gambling debts. The only reason not to t ake all day hacking the PCs apart is professional ethics.

But yes, as GM I'd allow the remaining PCs to try and stage a rescue, but it should be very difficult and should require actual planning. I'd also seriously consider if I want to Gm the game as it's clear my players and I have very different expectations that are likely to cause problems further downstream.

Grand Lodge

Pan wrote:
Deanoth wrote:

First off... the PC's are in a caste system one where a monarchy rules. So therefor the court of justice is not a judge but the noble that they robbed from. Said noble being petty and vindictive, is not going to let the PC's get away with embarrassing him in any way. The way I see it is if the Noble was feeling generous is that the PC's would be slaves for life but most likely would be executed though because of the circumstances involved and the publicity involved with the town guardsmen.

Equating current courts of law and the way of thinking to medieval types of law are vastly different. Nobles and governance's usually are more of a dictatorship then a democracy. The current ruler tends to make the laws and then cause others to enforce them. Sure sometimes they have to answer to a council or the like but that is only if the DM writes them in.

wait this is confusing... are you a player in this game?

As stated below your post to mine... I was assuming based on what the OP said. So it was an educated guess. He mentioned that there was a lordling which was a Minor Noble. Noble implies a noble birth and part of a monastic government. So based on those assumptions I JUST stated then my original reply is that the Lordling Noble was then the Judge and therefor HE makes the laws in his principality/village unless there is a council of sorts then HE has to answer to that council as well. The Noble would have to answer to his Duke and from there directly to the King/Queen.

So in answer to your question, No I do not play in the OP's game but I am making some educated guesses based on his posting.

Sovereign Court

Deanoth wrote:
Pan wrote:
Deanoth wrote:


So in answer to your question, No I do not play in the OP's game but I am making some educated guesses based on his posting.

Too bad; I was hoping you were a PC. I wanted to hear more of this story.

Capitalizing words for emphasis isnt necessary but thanks for helping me out.

Grand Lodge

Pan wrote:


Capitalizing words for emphasis isnt necessary but thanks for helping me out.

Old habits die hard... and you are more then welcome :)

Dark Archive

JudasKilled wrote:

I had a player get rather irate in a game because he thought that i didnt give him a fair shake. I think I was being perfectly reasonable. DM is always right nonsense aside.

The party is 2-3rd level. They are in a lager town of around 600 people. A border village that became a trade post over time. I have written that the sheriff or constable for the town is a retired thief and bounty hunter rouge 2/ranger 2 and there is a 5th level wizard in town. The towns goverment is a noble lordling who is petty and annoyed that he is posted here.

Anyways the pcs rob the nobles house in the night and get away scott free and steal the nobles prized jewels, two large rubys worth 1500 or so gold each. GJ players, however they do screw up. They go to the only moneylender and moneychanger in town who very often does business with the lord. The lord being a vain man has showed them to the merchant prior and even used them as collateral. The merchant informs the lord after the pcs try and sell it and he tells them it will take a few days to get together the money.

The gurds and constable come to arrest the pcs, one pc shoots a guard with a crossbow and hell breaks loose. Theres a standoff the guards finally charge in, body count is 11 dead guards. One pc did not fight and the rouge sneaks off. The others are captured and put on trial. One pc rolls a natural 20 on diplomacy and I rule that the pc who didnt kill any guards will be senteanced to a labor camp and that the pcs who did kill trhe guards will be executed without torture or the shame of public execution because of the natural 20.

The pc thinks that was unfair because of the 20 diplomacy roll. So what do you think?

Funny, Judas, here's how I remember that game happening:

Through lack of any significant plot development, we opted as a party to make some money the old-fashioned way, and watched the city square for a few minutes. We noticed a noble walking alone (hardly a lordling, without any accompaniment whatsoever) and followed him home. The home itself was not described as being anything but large, and it didn't seem like we were robbing someone important. We watched the home, trespassed, and stole a single, expensive ruby from it. There were no sense motive checks whatsoever and description was lacking to the point that nobody in the party had any inkling whatsoever that we were robbing someone of important stature, let alone a lord or government figure.

Being that we were smart enough to take a single gem (rather than make the place devoid of furnishings altogether), we opted to profit from the gem before notice was taken, and go. The moneylender told us we'd have our money the next day--and if you were to ask my "player opinion", this is the approximate moment you decided that we were going to pay for the crime with our lives, because literally nothing we did after this met with any success. And it was terribly obvious.

Guards showed up. I hid the gem quickly. We let them tear the place apart and search us, and they didn't find it, and they still decided they were going to rough us up and arrest us, despite utter lack of evidence. At this point, I'm aggravated that my sleight of hand check mind as well have not been made, because we're still facing a grand theft charge, as stated by the overly-aggressive guards. Clearly I wasn't the only person who felt like the small town had developed some sort of psychic awareness in regard to gems, because as a party we decided we'd stomp out the aggressive guards and flee immediately. Unfortunately, there were many more guards than we'd anticipated (some might say more than there should have been in a trade town with only one moneylender), and we lost.

At this point in the game, you get verbose again, and describe to us in brutal detail exactly how roughed up we are, complete with an "arrest shaving", where, lo and behold, the guards discover the gem hidden in my character's hair-tie. To this day I'm without the words to describe that particular circumstance.

After being terribly beaten, starved, and re-beaten, we were able to talk quietly in our cell, and come up with a clever alibi... Note that at this point the rogue considered making an attempt to free us, but the jail was described to him as being Fort Knox, and he was balked... In the cell we came to the conclusion that we had a substantial claim of self-defense, which we'd pursue. We agreed that because the gem was found, we'd have to suck it up and deal with the repercussions of theft.

So at the end of the trial, we're finally given the opportunity to speak our piece, and I--the bard--natural 20 the diplomacy roll to plea for our lives based on our alibi. I roleplay my character's oratory to the best of my ability, and speak respectfully, despite the urge not to, and Judas, the DM, rather than just tell me we were destined to make new characters, lets me waste my breathe. We're told that we're all sentenced to quick deaths. I don't recall any mention of torture or public humiliation, but it's probably because I was at that point pointing out how ridiculous I felt the entire game was.

And it was. I'm still bitter. And that's the story.

At the time we were playing by a house rule (or perhaps just an incorrect rule) that natural 20s always succeeded on skill checks. It was 3.0, if my memory serves me, and the "mis-rule" was a standard for us then.


It always impresses me just how different these things are from the players' perspective than the GM's.


This always amazes me.....

You realize that there are DM's who can run either good PC's or Evil PC's and a few DM's who can run both!

In other words get another DM (one capable of dealing with evil acts)....
The reason I say this is the absolute must in the DM's response to a basic theft......that you !must! be caught and must be punished.......

OR
Play PC's that always do the right thing and never do anything that offends your DM's personal belief system.......

I would say after the posts I would get a new DM!

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
The Admiral Jose Monkamuck wrote:


Actually in the real world even with journalist, etc. someone who kills 11 cops is not all that likely to be arrested.

That's because they're likely to be shot dead before that option comes up.

The players got what they deserved for being both greedy and exceptionally stupid.

The smaller the town is the more likely it is that people are that much more familliar with each other. If you steal something that hot you don't fence it in the same neighborhood. What they should of done if they were going to be thieving bastards is to have the patience to wait and hock the loot somewhere far away from that location. And by all means wait to pulls such stunts when you're intending to leave any way.

Diplomacy does no good when you're caught red (and bloody) handed. to many players seem to think that ubermaxing this skil should be a get out of stupidity card. There are going to be situations where the DC is Impossible.

The fact that he had a jewel worth that much trouble to steal should be the red flag that this is a person of consequence. And this jewel was just part of his wealth. And in a village of 600 people that's a sizable fish in a relatively small pond.


Diplomacy doesn't work off a single check. Even if you rule natural 20s being auto-success, it's not enough.

The first roll is to improve the person's mood. The Judge was likely hostile (wanted you dead), and you need him to be Indifferent before you can make a request. Auto success simply gives you one step up, which is not enough, so you'd need actually a DC of 30 + judge's Cha to get him to Indifferent and enough to even listen to your plea for leniency.

Even if you make that, making the request is a second roll. The modifier on the Judge is going to be between at least "giving dangerous aid" and "giving aid that results in punishment", with a Lord, the guard force, and likely the town screaming for blood.
At Indifferent, that's another check between 25 or 30, plus Cha modifier.

And that's just to get you to be tortured and banished or permanent indentured servitude, instead of death.

.

However, from the sounds of it, it was a problem between people expectations from the gaming, which is something that should be handled by the DM.

If it pretty much boiled down to "Told the players a nat20 is an auto-success, and then said the nat20 failed", then the DM made a cardinal failure: changed the game's rules partway through the game.

Liberty's Edge

Funny how different things are when presented from the GM's perspective and the players.

Also, when was this game played and in what system?

The OP implies that it is a recent game and it is posted in the PFRPG advice section. The player who posted later seems to suggest it was played some time ago and using the D&D 3.0 rules if I am reading that correctly.


Well you know idle hands breed mischief. Of course the moneylender recognizing the gem is suspect. Most moneylenders would have let it slide and when it became known that the collateral for the loan was missing, he would have been in a great position to wrangle possible long term concessions out of the noble, such as being placed in charge of the towns weights and measures (allowing him to skim money), and a guarantee of a monopoly. All of that is much more profitable than a nobles passing favor. Sorry, but the moneylender would probably have screwed the noble something good, instead the noble thanks him today forgets him tomorrow, and the whole party dies.

Always a different tale when the PC's speak up.


Pardon me, but an "arrest shaving"? Heh... I just found that a little funny, sorry. :-)

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