I would like to share something that happened during the last session at my weekend game.
And to know if you think i did well or i could handle things differently.
My players are a female elf magus, a male dwarf cleric of Pharasma, a male aasimar paladin, female tiefling rogue, female human sorcerer (draconic bloodline) and a male human fighter (TWF);the party alignment is good centered (many CG, one true N,one NG and one LG)
They are in a Katapesh/Osirion like setting (home -made world) and they were, in the last session, going again a whole ruined village in which gnoll slavers made their camp/slave auction.
A girl (human bard 4 NPC) they needed to escort during a trip has been captured by the gnolls and is now chained and naked in a cage, waiting for a "customer".
The camp included a small market in which the gnolls sold the items/gear they stripped off the people they captured, a giant building containing luxury rooms to put the girls on display and an arena for fights and other forms of fun with the slaves ( all this crap i wrote just to build up the sense of urgency in the PC to destroy the gnolls camp and free the slaves ).
But there were a whole lot of gnolls: about 80 of them,many regular CR1, but more or less 20 CR 4 elite and one CR 6 barbarian chieftain.The PC were all 5 at that time (now they are all 6) and immediately realized they had no chances of taking on the entire camp at once,but again i had planned several occasions to create a diversion, and there were some capable NPC around to be discovered and befriended, so to have an ally during the decisive fights.
The NPC were:
Xaisha - CE Lamia ,regular CR 6.She has been captured by the gnolls chieftain, but instead of killing her outright, he offered her a deal:to help him subduing the slaves with her mind-affecting skills and in exchange the gnolls won't eat her.Of course she obeyed by force, but wasn't happy and took the opportunity to talk in secrecy with the PCs.
The bodyguards of some of the real customers there to buy the girls.Just normal level 4-5 warrior, but they could be talked into changing side (they aren't of evil alignment, just mercenary paid to watch over the merchants).
Jhalisiel - CN female elf cleric of Calistria 5. She was there acting as a customer to try setting free the enslaved girls, and she was waiting for an occasion of getting help, just like the PCs.
What happened
Seeing a female elf around there the PC asked her who she was and what she is doing in such a place.Of course Jhalisiel, fearing that the conversation could arouse suspicions, told the PCs not to bother her (she couldn't know it, but the rogue, the cleric and the paladin made their Perception and noticed her Calistrian symbols under her cloak). But Xaisha too saw the conversation, and seeing the diversion she needed alerted some elite gnolls,who went after Jhalisiel.
Meanwhile the gnoll chieftain were talking with the tiefling PC about organizing an arena fight between a gladiator/slave of his and the party's fighter, whom the gnoll believed a bodyguard of the party's rogue (who was posing as the slave merchant).
When the fight was going to begin the gnolls that Xaisha sent after the elven girl rushed into the arena with an unconscious Jhalisiel, only to drop her at the chieftain's feet.
He slapped her to wake her and had her talk about the real reason of her presence, then in front of the audience he had the gnolls pin her down to the ground; afterward she was stripped completed naked and sexually harassed before being hung to a torturing rack and whipped until she passed out again. (I didn't thought of getting this far, but looking at the gnoll's behavior i could not save her taking in account the gnoll chieftain was there to offer a “show” for his customers). The PCs were there also (except the paladin, he stayed with their caravan watching their goods) and they just kept saying “To hell with this, we cannot help her now or else we'll end up doing her company”.
But it wasn't ended.
Next morning the PCs were still trying to figure how to create a diversion to sneak into the arena and getting to the chieftain's rooms when i said them they were again hearing screams of pain and shame coming from inside the arena: Xaisha contacted the chars and said them the chief ordered some of his gladiator slaves to rape Jhalisiel,and the Lamia was happy with it,since the raping of the elven cleric would have given them the time to create a diversion.
In the end
The chars again said “We cannot just rush in the arena weapons clanging and shouting to save that elf, we still won't stand a chance.Let's do your plan”(So the idea wasn't even theirs)
Xaisha knew of the lair of a basilisc nearby, they just needed to drive it out of his hole without being turned to stone, and they managed it.The lamia then used her Charm monster ability to throw the beast on some of the gnolls. Soon a lot of gnolls were being turned to stone and others were trying to fight back.
Xaisha convinced the second in command that it was the merchant's doing, so to create a diversion and flee with some of the “goods” (slaves) so another fight begun in another part of the village (many merchants and their bodyguards were slain along with other elite gnolls).
With all of this fighting the chars managed to get into the arena and fought the chieftain and only a few on his elite guards,slaughtering them and “saving” Jhalisiel.
Now, they managed to free the enslaved girls (including the one they needed to, the bard) and destroy the auction, but my general feeling has been that they shouldn't have acted like this. A lot of NPC were sacrified ,not to talk of what poor Jhalisiel had to go throught.
Do any of you think i should have forced things to have the PCs captured instead?
Or that there were another way to save the elven girl?
First off, props for not railroading the PCs into how you thought they should have executed the mission. It was also cool that when you saw they were struggling you had one of the NPCs contact them and basically offer them a solution they could work with.
The only things I'm unclear on are:
I've found that when players are loathe to act in a situation, it's often because they don't really know what their options are. For instance, a group of players that typically only engages in kick-in-the-door style encounters might never have thought to make a diversion, or try stealth. Likewise, if the players only ever judge NPCs as "Alignment evil, me smash!" then it might never have occurred to them to forge a temporary alliance for the greater good.
From what you've told us thus far, I'd say that you handled things with more grace than many a GM. However, since the solution chosen by the players was not the optimal one, and subjected the captives and other NPCs to more harm than they should have endured, that could factor into the XP rewards.
This doesn't mean that you should screw them out of any XP, but you could illustrate things that you would have given objective-based bonus awards for: preventing harm from coming to innocents, successfully recruiting allies, avoiding getting any neutral guards killed, etc.
In addition, their actions should certainly have an effect on NPC dispositions. If neutral guards died due to their reticence to act, others might think the PCs cowardly. If the paladin knew what was going on, their deity might put him on notice for not asserting themselves. The Calistrian cleric would almost certainly be angry since their inaction caused her to come to harm.
Anyway, definitely sounds like an interesting scenario. I'd be curious to see how things shake out. :)
1Why would the paladin have remained with the baggage train rather than taking an active part in opposing slavers?
2How did the elven cleric suddenly go from talking with the PCs to being unconscious in front of the gnoll chieftain?
3Did the party have some reason to believe that stealth and subterfuge were not options?
Well, a LG character should take a hit... not a full alignment change, but if they knew what was happening and ignored it that's not exactly kosher with LG.
NG can be seen as a pretty pragmatic good, so them playing the "long game" makes sense.
CG are supposed to be really pro-freedom and liberty, but not necessarily champions of it. If the character previously acted like a champion of liberty, I'd say they should have a bit of an alignment hit, a slight drift toward NG.
The TN character should be fine.
That's my take, at least, from a purely alignment standpoint.
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#2 & #3 sound reasonable. #1 sounds like the paladin player meta-gaming to me.
Without hearing more, my gut instinct says it's a case of a player wanting the perks of being a paladin without having to own up to the roleplaying challenges of the class. It also tends to support my theory that "You evil, me smash!" is how they think a paladin is supposed to be played. You might solicit suggestions from others here on how a paladin could have approached the situation and use that to help the player learn that even for a paladin, there can be many ways to approach a scenario.
Regardless though, a paladin or cleric should understand the old adage, "All that it takes for evil to prosper is for a good man to do nothing." The paladin's deity might not necessarily sanction their powers (esp since the player's stated meta reason was not to ruin the game for everyone else), but some manner of mystical reprimand from either a priest or in a dream vision could be in order.
Above all though, it mainly sounds like a case where the players might just need to learn what all their characters are capable of, and what is possible in a table-top RPG. If most of them are used to only computer RPGs, then they may be accustomed to having multiple choices presented or being stuck on a set of rails. This is your chance to help them grow as players and encourage their creativity.
Edit: So as to avoid embarrassing anyone in front of their friends (something you should never do to an introvert), you might try handling any coaching 1 on 1 in-between the game sessions. In the case of the paladin, you could either roleplay out the encounter on a non-game night, or even write up the vision as a vignette in an email.
I would point out that the players did not actually cause many of these events, they just couldn't stop them - in some cases, justifiably so, in other cases due to previous choices made. So while I certainly think you could have some NPCs playing "Monday morning quarterback" to clue them in on what other options they could have taken, I wouldn't overly punish them for not thinking to take those actions at the time. In the end, they succeeded at their task, just not in the optimal manner.
That's true too, although I don't recall advocating a particular course of action, least of all a suicide mission.
TL;DR: ARGH SMASH is not the only way to play a paladin.
#2 & #3 sound reasonable. #1 sounds like the paladin player meta-gaming to me.
Without hearing more, my gut instinct says it's a case of a player wanting the perks of being a paladin without having to own up to the roleplaying challenges of the class. It also tends to support my theory that "You evil, me smash!" is how they think a paladin is supposed to be played. You might solicit suggestions from others here on how a paladin could have approached the situation and use that to help the player learn that even for a paladin, there can be many ways to approach a scenario.
Regardless though, a paladin or cleric should understand the old adage, "All that it takes for evil to prosper is for a good man to do nothing." The paladin's deity might not necessarily sanction their powers (esp since the player's stated meta reason was not to ruin the game for everyone else), but some manner of mystical reprimand from either a priest or in a dream vision could be in order.
Above all though, it mainly sounds like a case where the players might just need to learn what all their characters are capable of, and what is possible in a table-top RPG. If most of them are used to only computer RPGs, then they may be accustomed to having multiple choices presented or being stuck on a set of rails. This is your chance to help them grow as players and encourage their creativity.
Edit: So as to avoid embarrassing anyone in front of their friends (something you should never do to an introvert), you might try handling any coaching 1 on 1 in-between the game sessions. In the case of the paladin, you could either roleplay out the encounter on a non-game night, or even write up the vision as a vignette in an email.
sometimes paladins do have to take the longer road. Otherwise how do you explain paladins allowing slavery to exist in abasalom? It is legal to own and trade slaves in abasalom in a certain quarter. Shouldn't paladins have to fight that (although it is "legal"? IF the paladin stayed out "knowing" he would not be able to control himself--it should be ok-as long as he knew it would be aiding a longer term plan to free them which WOULD succeed. Otherwise do you make a paladin charge an unaware demon in a room before waiting for buffs? better to succeed in the long term with a workable plan then to join the slaves by acting recklessly. Now if the party was not working toward a plan to free the slaves--then yeah--bad on him.
I think you did the right thing. The players had a different solution than yours, and they did it without getting all the NPC's killed. Had their emotion overcome them, then they party might have been wiped, and nobody would have been saves. Sometimes the hero can't save everyone.
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There is a huge difference between a Paladin just ZERG!-ing into combat at the sign of someone being hurt/humiliated/mistreated, and a Paladin who says "this wrong may not be prevented now, but the perpetrator shall have it wrought back upon him 100 fold when the reckoning comes...." and also playing the long term goal here. Injustice happens a lot, but I believe that ultimately the actions taken add up....in this case, slaughtering the unholy evil gnolls and freeing all the slaves. The Lamia would have to be put down too, for collusion.
Lawful Good /= Lawful Stupid, and choosing to sit outside and ignore the scenario by LALALALALALALALALA I CANT HEAR YOU AND SEE THE EBIL! isn't playing good, simply put.
Without knowing more, it really sounds like he was metagaming.
The rest did what they could, when they could, and as such acted accordingly.
Just think how epic it would have been for Ser Pallydin to stand in the middle of the arena, and bellow out a challenge and then denial of parole to the evil Gnoll chieftain, how awesome for him to sink his weapon deep into the skull of said BBEG and claim justice for those unable to protect themselves.
EPIC.
Instead, he hid.
WEAK.
I don't understand the paladin not being there. Was that done to avoid the paladin potentially acting rashly out of a compulsion to save the slaves?
So, on the one hand we have: one CR 6 gnoll, 20 CR 4 gnolls and 60 CR 1 gnolls...
On the other hand we have five level 5 PCs (6 if we count the paladin), a CR 6 Lamia, an indeterminate number of level 4-5 fighters and a level 5 cleric, plus some slaves, say some commoners.
If I had been in the party, there would have been a slave uprising right then and there.
As far as what the party did, to me from what you have described it more or less depends on when they talked to the Lamia and discovered she wanted out of there. If that happened before the elf cleric was captured, then the party should have surprise attacked the chief and his immediate bodyguards, freed the Lamia, healed the elf cleric and then wrought bloody vengeance on the gnolls using battleground control to divide and conquer while freeing more slaves and potentially enlisting the bodyguards to help.
Perhaps my characters are more impulsive, but not many of my good or neutral characters would have stood for what happened here.
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I would like to share something that happened during the last session at my weekend game.
And to know if you think i did well or i could handle things differently.** spoiler omitted **...
Props dude I feel like it played out incredibly well leaving your party victorious but not completely fulfilled, it reminds me of a lot of great tragic stories where the heroes now have to ask themselves how far are they willing to go to get what they want/think they need? This is actually an incredible jump off point for great storytelling and personal introspection from these characters and how they want to handle it, do they blame themselves for not acting, the lamia for using such tactics, or the gnoll for what he did to her? And what about the girl, did she survive the assault, is she ok physically/mentally, can they find some way to help her and maybe find penance for what sins they feel they committed through inaction?
From what I see dude you don't have a problem you have stepped into some great story telling and have one of those rare chances to really get your players into it on a personal level that doesn't happen often. My personal idea for what to come next hinges on whether the cleric survived the event and whether the gnoll is "alive" remember that calistra is just as much a goddess of revenge as passion and that should/would probably play heavy in the actions of the cleric next and would probably be where she tries to find comfort/unleash her pain especially if her rapist somehow survived the affair. The other option is also the lamia who sold her out as the focus of her ire and potentially questing by your party but I would say 1st and foremost use your downtime to develop this cleric and be prepared to rp a lot next game as your players come to terms with the consequences of their actions and let the chips fall where they may.
Edit: Also I get the paladins reasoning he has a duty to uphold not just the laws of law & good but those to his faith which may conflict with what he his about to do if this is a legal event. Also he as a paladin must strive to uphold both the values of good and law and he could potentially hurt or kill some of these other slaves if he loses his cool and starts fighting there on the spot, remember sometimes the best solution is to remove yourself from the problem less you make it worse.
Heh, I should have focused more on what the OP did as the GM than what the players did...
Yeah, props to the OP for some really inventive and engrossing GMitude. I suppose you could have played it differently but I don't see how you could have played it better. You did your best with what I believe to be a too-timid party.
There is a huge difference between a Paladin just ZERG!-ing into combat at the sign of someone being hurt/humiliated/mistreated, and a Paladin who says "this wrong may not be prevented now, but the perpetrator shall have it wrought back upon him 100 fold when the reckoning comes...." and also playing the long term goal here. Injustice happens a lot, but I believe that ultimately the actions taken add up....in this case, slaughtering the unholy evil gnolls and freeing all the slaves. The Lamia would have to be put down too, for collusion.
Lawful Good /= Lawful Stupid, and choosing to sit outside and ignore the scenario by LALALALALALALALALA I CANT HEAR YOU AND SEE THE EBIL! isn't playing good, simply put.
Without knowing more, it really sounds like he was metagaming.
The rest did what they could, when they could, and as such acted accordingly.
Just think how epic it would have been for Ser Pallydin to stand in the middle of the arena, and bellow out a challenge and then denial of parole to the evil Gnoll chieftain, how awesome for him to sink his weapon deep into the skull of said BBEG and claim justice for those unable to protect themselves.
EPIC.
Instead, he hid.
WEAK.
You are assuming the paladin would have won. He could have lost the fight, and the party not having him later could have meant their doom.
edit:I just realized the paladin metagamed. I would have had that come back to him somehow.
I would like to share something that happened during the last session at my weekend game.
And to know if you think i did well or i could handle things differently.** spoiler omitted **...
Why did you put the PCs into this trap? What were they supposed to do? Why play upon their OOC sensibilities like that?
Apologize to them and dont do it again.
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I would like to share something that happened during the last session at my weekend game.
And to know if you think i did well or i could handle things differently.** spoiler omitted **...
Why did you put the PCs into this trap? What were they supposed to do? Why play upon their OOC sensibilities like that?
Apologize to them and dont do it again.
I disagree with this entirely. Playing on player's OOC sensibilities is a great tool for a GM, and as long as everyone in the group is up for it, will help push them into character more.
OP, you did good like a few other said. Don't apologize. I don't think you need to punish them either as long as they felt sorta dirty about the whole thing.
Now I don't know if the Paladin was Metagaming or not but in games where people have played Paladins as Lawful Stupid I have seen other players step in and reign in their stupidity. Namely, in a 3.5 game a CG Fighter/Rogue suggests someone stays back to protect the caravan and of course the LG paladin is the best suited for the job... while the rest went into the den of scum and villiany. But if he's the one who suggested it, I call BS.
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Anyway, definitely sounds like an interesting scenario. I'd be curious to see how things shake out. :)
I'll certainly pleased to let you know what happens next,and i already planned a scenario involving again that elven calistrian cleric.
From what I see dude you don't have a problem you have stepped into some great story telling and have one of those rare chances to really get your players into it on a personal level that doesn't happen often. My personal idea for what to come next hinges on whether the cleric survived the event and whether the gnoll is "alive" remember that calistra is just as much a goddess of revenge as passion and that should/would probably play heavy in the actions of the cleric next and would probably be where she tries to find comfort/unleash her pain especially if her rapist somehow survived the affair. The other option is also the lamia who sold her out as the focus of her ire and potentially questing by your party but I would say 1st and foremost use your downtime to develop this cleric and be prepared to rp a lot next game as your players come to terms with the consequences of their actions and let the chips fall where they may.
Jhalisiel will surely come back, i'm writing a lot of subplots.
I would like to share something that happened during the last session at my weekend game.
And to know if you think i did well or i could handle things differently.** spoiler omitted **...
Why did you put the PCs into this trap? What were they supposed to do? Why play upon their OOC sensibilities like that?
Apologize to them and dont do it again.
The players enjoyed the scenario, but as i wrote, i'm the first one to doubt i played the event in the best way.
On a pure metagaming talk, till this point i was having troubles balancing the CRs of the various encounters:the PC did a walk in the park of every fight.Yes, i know how to read the tables and how to add (or mix) different CRs but i was much used to the 3,5 way of handling CRs and PF confused me in the beginning (Encounter have lower CR number but higher challange for it).
I'm still adjusting to this system,so i tried a scenery that involved a lot of enemies.
And on a personal note, i like to add mature content, not to the extent of promoting rapes/tortures/slave trades and the likes however.
So, on the one hand we have: one CR 6 gnoll, 20 CR 4 gnolls and 60 CR 1 gnolls...On the other hand we have five level 5 PCs (6 if we count the paladin), a CR 6 Lamia, an indeterminate number of level 4-5 fighters and a level 5 cleric, plus some slaves, say some commoners.
The NPCs bodyguard were all of the NPC class Warrior, but since they hadn't a chance to really step into a more active role i didn't bother to determine the real nunmber.
They and the gnolls sent after them just killed each other in a cut scene.
great scenario (even though it would have been just as interesting with the mature content part swapped).
You handled things very well as a GM and if you wanted you could award your players less exp than normal for their solution that involved some casualties.
On the other hand they did find a solution that they survived, even though their good alignment probably won't in the long run. Only the paladin should get some serious headaches, but I'm biased towards those righteous pompous ...
Perhaps your players don't like that many variables and you would do good to have simpler situations, just check on the fun your players had and listen to what they say out of character.
I would like to share something that happened during the last session at my weekend game.
And to know if you think i did well or i could handle things differently.** spoiler omitted **...
Why did you put the PCs into this trap? What were they supposed to do? Why play upon their OOC sensibilities like that?
Apologize to them and dont do it again.
I disagree with this entirely. Playing on player's OOC sensibilities is a great tool for a GM, and as long as everyone in the group is up for it, will help push them into character more.
OP, you did good like a few other said. Don't apologize.
No, because he's playing on the PLAYERS modern and rather coddled sensibilities- rather than the CHARACTERS in game, period and in character sensibilities. D&D is a ROLE-playing game.
For example, If my ROLE is that I am a stoic hardened combat veteran, but in reality I am a teen-aged girl the DM should not be trying to push the girls buttons, nor should he be expecting Players to react instead of their PC's.
Trust me, I have been DMing for a long time, and this is a newb DM's trick.
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No, because he's playing on the PLAYERS modern and rather coddled sensibilities- rather than the CHARACTERS in game, period and in character sensibilities. D&D is a ROLE-playing game.
For example, If my ROLE is that I am a stoic hardened combat veteran, but in reality I am a teen-aged girl the DM should not be trying to push the girls buttons, nor should he be expecting Players to react instead of their PC's.
Trust me, I have been DMing for a long time, and this is a newb DM's trick.
I again disagree. Now I don't know quite how long you've been running games, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume it's longer than my own, but I'd point out the simpliest tricks are often the most effective.
Take your scenario, the role of the stoic veteran and the teen-aged girl, I think pushing the buttons of the girl should be appropriate, as her sensibilities are likely coddled as you say and I question the girl's ability to play that character properly.
If said fighter walked in the OP's scene, then the player has a choice to make. To shape the character, define them with their actions. If they decide to continue playing their toon as a stoic warrior, then they will simply ignore the cruelty and go on which could be heart wrenching to the player but would be playing that character. If however, the girl is upset to the point she decides to have her character intervene, that is not failure. It simply further defines the character, perhaps adding a thin layer of compasion, a breaking point in his stoic mask. It's not neccasarily the character she went into the encounter with, but then that character wasn't within her range of ability to play.
You may say that either choice is forcing the player out of character, but I believe that is advancing the depiction of the character. And chances are, as long as they don't get killed for their actions, the player will come out of this scenario having enjoyed the game. And having been in similar situations, both as GM and a PC, I can safely say that they will enjoy it.
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Since 1974.
And no, a good DM doesn’t need to “trick” his players.
Pushing players to act OOC in accordance with their personal views and modern sensibilities is just sophomoric DMing.
Again, I ask the OP- Why did you put the PCs into this trap? What were they supposed to do?
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DrDeth: Just so that the rest of us don't mistake your intentions here, do you have any constructive criticism for the OP?
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My question is WHY is it meta gaming for a paladin to choose not to accompany the party on a mission of subterfuge. A paladin's bluff and deception skills are minimal and generally not in practice to any degree.
Knowing that his allies were going on a mission of that type, he was well within his boundaries to not participate. Going along would have jeopardized his friends, himself, the slaves and the mission. I say it was well played.
As has been mentioned, LG does not equal Lawful stupid. Roaring a challenge against unbeatable odds serves your god in NO way whatsoever. By sitting out he provided the opportunity for the rescue and safety of all involved.
Why do so many GMs like to screw with paladins so badly?
My question is WHY is it meta gaming for a paladin to choose not to accompany the party on a mission of subterfuge.
Why would the paladin have remained with the baggage train rather than taking an active part in opposing slavers?
Basically because he believed if he was presented with gnolls selling naked girls he could no longer restrain himself from attacking,therefore ruining the mission.
From what the OP describes, the paladin PC acted on information that the player knew but that the character did not yet know (i.e. that gnolls were torturing a naked girl). Unless several of us have misinterpreted things, there was no subterfuge mission being undertaken [at that time] for the paladin to sit out. That's why several of us believe the paladin's player was metagaming (even if it was with the group's best interests at heart).
As far as "screwing" with paladins goes... I don't see this scenario as screwing with the paladin (or other characters) at all. Part of playing a paladin is upholding a very strict code of conduct. It isn't something to be ignored when inconvenient. Upholding both the letter and spirit of that code is part of what it means to roleplay a paladin.
IMO having moral conundrums matter is part of the draw of playing such a class — it is a challenge of your creativity and skill as a roleplayer. If a player 'sits-out' tough moral challenges, or worse the GM never provides any, then that is robbing the player of a great deal of the experience and reward of playing such a challenging class. This is why I advocated the OP try to coach the paladin's player on what it means for their character to be a paladin and give them some ideas on what their god might have expected of them.
Charging in and getting themselves (and possibly the party) killed wouldn't have helped anyone — no one is disputing that. However, the way in which the scenario was laid out, it seems the GM made it abundantly clear that a frontal assault was not the answer. The players' inaction shows that they understood this, it's just that they were perhaps not experienced enough as RPG players to recognize or make opportunities to act upon.
TL;DR: Part of what makes the challenge of playing a paladin rewarding is facing tough moral issues. Part of the joy of roleplaying is finding creative solutions to seemingly impossible scenarios.
So, on the one hand we have: one CR 6 gnoll, 20 CR 4 gnolls and 60 CR 1 gnolls...On the other hand we have five level 5 PCs (6 if we count the paladin), a CR 6 Lamia, an indeterminate number of level 4-5 fighters and a level 5 cleric, plus some slaves, say some commoners.
The NPCs bodyguard were all of the NPC class Warrior, but since they hadn't a chance to really step into a more active role i didn't bother to determine the real nunmber.
They and the gnolls sent after them just killed each other in a cut scene.
My point was that the PCs were not forced into a situation where it was 5 level 5 PCs versus 80 gnolls. They had the ability to raise an army of their own, and frankly with all that they had at their disposal, the gnolls should have gone down pretty quickly.
Also, like others, I believe the paladin player shamelessly metagamed to avoid putting his paladin in the position of making a difficult moral choice. Doing so put the rest of the party at risk and greatly reduced their options to achieve their stated goals.
Shame on him. Now, I would not compound the problem by metagaming yourself and punishing the character for the player's problem, but I would have a talk with the player about metagaming and about heroic fantasy role playing. Well, I'd have that "heroic fantasy role playing" talk with the whole dang party...
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I actually have to agree with DrDeth on this one. There's a difference between "mature themes" and shock value. Slavery and sexual assault are both subjects that can very easily be triggers for players, depending on any number of factors in their personal background.
(I didn't thought of getting this far, but looking at the gnoll's behavior i could not save her taking in account the gnoll chieftain was there to offer a “show” for his customers)
Is pure rationalization. You made the characters. You made the situation. You can make them do whatever you want. That's the same line bad players will say when they use their characters to f&*% with other players ("it's what my character would do" is not a valid excuse for bad table etiquette).
That said, if you want to explore these themes and your players are onboard, that's up to you and your group. But manipulating your players is just going to encourage metagaming.
Which leads me back to your original question. You gave them an "impossible" situation, with one very specific way out in mind. They didn't find your way out, and now you're frustrated because they made a mess of everything. From their point of view, they did the best they could with what they had. That's the problem with the Kobayashi Maru approach. It only works if 1) everyone knows you can cheat and 2) you let them cheat the way they want to.
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Which leads me back to your original question. You gave them an "impossible" situation, with one very specific way out in mind. They didn't find your way out, and now you're frustrated because they made a mess of everything. From their point of view, they did the best they could with what they had. That's the problem with the Kobayashi Maru approach. It only works if 1) everyone knows you can cheat and 2) you let them cheat the way they want to.
Hmm.... I don't agree that the situation was impossible.
The PCs were supposedly pretending to be slave buyers. When the elf cleric was brought in and stripped naked, the lead PC could have, SHOULD HAVE, said "Hold! I have an interest in this slave, but not if she is ruined, I have a wealthy client who likes them innocent and unspoiled. I will pay twice her value if she is untouched."
That would have set the gnoll leader's greed against his rapacious nature. Since he's selling slaves, it seems that greed wins in that case. So it should have worked.
Then, of course, they should have done what I described above.
Part of what makes the challenge of playing a paladin rewarding is facing tough moral issues. Part of the joy of roleplaying is finding creative solutions to seemingly impossible scenarios.
I would maybe be more inclined to agree with this if I ever saw a single situation of a Druid's neutrality being challenged, or a Monk's Lawfulness. Or a Barbarian's chao...ticity? The most I've ever seen is nonsense about dominating a Druid to wear metal armor. Hardly a moral struggle.
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This scenario is 'impossible' only for those who see a direct assault as the sole way of resolving an encounter. I've GM'd more than one group that I would have no qualms about facing with this encounter and expecting that they would engineer a solution. Heck the first part of the Serpent's Skull Adventure Path contains a scenario* that isn't too different from this and is far more limited in the options the players have.
Even from just the paladin's point of view, here are just a few possibilities I've seen other paladin players employ in my games and others:
- Request an audience with the gnoll leader to learn by what terms they could gain the freedom of the slaves.
- Issue a challenge to the gnolls to select a champion, with the winner either keeping the slaves or winning their freedom.
- Offer to take the place of one of the slaves trusting that his god (and allies) will see justice done.
- Witness the injustice taking place and send for reinforcements from their order or the local government's guard. They themselves would remain with the slaves to monitor their position and tactics, and to treat the injuries of the victims.
- Pray for insight into what they might do to help.
I'd have little interest in playing under a GM who didn't challenge my abilities as a roleplayer. If the OP failed at anything, then it was over-estimating his group's creativity and experience.
Laithoron, you're being overly critical of the paladin.
Seriously, you're presuming a single player pressed for time during a single encounter would be able to come up with things that a large number of people would.
I'm not saying that the GM did wrong: in fact it sounds like people did well. However, I can totally see someone looking at this as some kind of vicious trap, though. I don't think it necessarily is, but I can totally see it nonetheless.
I don't know if the paladin was metagaming. I don't really see enough information above to be sure of that.
The party seemed to know they were going into a gnoll slave camp and that they would be grossly outnumbered and that acting rashly could get them all killed.
If the paladin knew all of this and doubted his own self control and/or has a history of might before brains if present in that situation then in my book he was not meta gaming.
Did he dodge that one? Possibly really depends on how you look at it. On the other hand it could be that the paladin spent a very long and painful day sitting watching a mule praying that his team, that he could not help due to his own failings, was able to save the slaves.
Or he could be a metagaming prig and said peh I'm not going to bother.
As far as the overall difficulty of the situation is concerned it sounds to me that the party is a little slow at problem solving. There isn't anything really wrong with that. As presented there are numerous solutions to the above problem assuming a willing dm which the OP seems to be. I'd just want to keep in mind my audience. This was a puzzle, some groups don't really go for puzzles or intrigue and you might want to keep them simple if that is the case.
I've played with groups that your situation was the standard affair every week. I've also played with groups that would have never conceived of that situation occurring in one of their games. On the whole it seems like the OP handled a difficult situation well.
I would maybe be more inclined to agree with this if I ever saw a single situation of a Druid's neutrality being challenged, or a Monk's Lawfulness. Or a Barbarian's chao...ticity?
Just because you haven't seen something personally doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Also, the 'codes' of those other classes are far easier to uphold compared to that of a paladin. I'd hardly consider it to be a fair comparison.
- The challenge/reward of being a druid is turning your back on the comforts of civilization and drawing closer to nature.
- For a monk it's forsaking the physical comforts and excesses that others enjoy in exchange for self-perfection.
- For a barbarian... well... I guess the challenge here would be struggling with when not to be the bull in the china shop in exchange for the power to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of the GM. ;)
A classic challenge for all three of those classes is the time-honored high-society ball in which the party must negotiate the political arena without ever so much as raising their fist. You should have seen the way the barbarian/druid in my PbP used to sweat those encounters! ;)
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Hmm.... I don't agree that the situation was impossible.
The PCs were supposedly pretending to be slave buyers. When the elf cleric was brought in and stripped naked, the lead PC could have, SHOULD HAVE, said "Hold! I have an interest in this slave, but not if she is ruined, I have a wealthy client who likes them innocent and unspoiled. I will pay twice her value if she is untouched."
That would have set the gnoll leader's greed against his rapacious nature. Since he's selling slaves, it seems that greed wins in that case. So it should have worked.
Then, of course, they should have done what I described above.
The party is pitted against 80+ enemies. That's the impossible situation. They know a straight up fight is not going to work. So usually parties fall back on one of two options: get help, or be sneaky.
They talked to one of the NPCs to get help. The NPC told them to leave her alone. No help there.
So the party starts working on a sneaky plan. A gladiator fight to distract the gnoll chieftan (admittedly maybe not a great plan). Meanwhile the GM is doing a whole bunch of behind the scenes roleplaying with himself. So in the middle of their plan he dumps the non-helpful NPC in front of them and has the other NPCs start sexually abusing her.
As a player, this, to me, is a big flashing "YOUR PLAN SUCKS" sign. It is the gods speaking through the GM and telling me that I'm doing it wrong (it would also tell me I had to do something right now, and in that respect, I agree with you, I'd intervene regardless of circumstances).
So fighting won't work. Sneaking won't work. No what?
Now the GM gives them his plan (and the threat of more rape) because they couldn't figure it out. At this point, the GM loses all rights to complain about the characters' actions because he 1) put them in this situation in the first place and then 2) told them that this was the only way to get out. They're on rails at this point.
From the information the PCs had available, I don't see what they did wrong. I see a situation with a lot of complicated back story that might be helpful to the PCs if they ever had a chance in hell of knowing it.
blah blah blah I type too much
There is of course the third option of talk your way out of it, as some of you have suggested. But since it wasn't the GM's plan, I'm not sure it would have worked.
My point really is that there is a phenomenon where a GM will carefully engineer a trap with one specific way out, and when the characters try anything that isn't his specific way out, he will shut them down. He will also usually say "it's not my fault, I'm just playing the situation." And I'm saying that's not a very good argument when you've created the situation.
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The party is pitted against 80+ enemies. That's the impossible situation. They know a straight up fight is not going to work. So usually parties fall back on one of two options: get help, or be sneaky.
They talked to one of the NPCs to get help. The NPC told them to leave her alone. No help there.
So the party starts working on a sneaky plan. A gladiator fight to distract the gnoll chieftan (admittedly maybe not a great plan). Meanwhile the GM is doing a whole bunch of behind the scenes roleplaying with himself. So in the middle of their plan he dumps the non-helpful NPC in front of them and has the other NPCs start sexually abusing her.
As a player, this, to me, is a big flashing "YOUR PLAN SUCKS" sign. It is the gods speaking through the GM and telling me that I'm doing it wrong (it would also tell me I had to do something right now, and in that respect, I agree with you, I'd intervene regardless of circumstances).
So fighting won't work. Sneaking won't work. No what?
Now the GM gives them his plan (and the threat of more rape) because they couldn't figure it out. At this point, the GM loses all rights to complain about the characters' actions because he 1) put them in this situation in the first place and then 2) told them that this was the only way to get out. They're on rails at this point.
From the information the PCs had available, I don't see what they did wrong. I see a situation with a lot of complicated back story that might be helpful to the PCs if they ever had a chance in hell of knowing it.
Don't have time to properly fisk this whole thing. Coupla points...
1. The party is not facing off against 80 gnolls. There are 80 gnolls in the camp, but not all of them are immediately in position to attack the party.
2. The party is directly in contact with the chief gnoll and his main lieutenants. A quick takedown of the leader ALONE could demoralize the rest of the gnolls, at the very least it would leave them leaderless.
3. Judicious use of battlefield control done by reasonably competent tacticians should have kept the bulk of the gnolls from being able to attack at once, and five or six level 5 characters should make short work of level 4 gnolls and should simply mow level 1 gnolls down like grass.
4. ...
Oh hell, I don't have time for this. This was not remotely an impossible situation. The ways to have defeated it are legion.
Also, the 'codes' of those other classes are far easier to uphold compared to that of a paladin.
I'd argue that the harder the code is to uphold, the less the class needs to have additional challenges thrown upon them. It's double taxing.
Laithoron, you're being overly critical of the paladin.
Seriously, you're presuming a single player pressed for time during a single encounter would be able to come up with things that a large number of people would.
I am being critical, yes. As for overly critical? I think my suggestions have all been reasonable and moderate, and I haven't attacked anyone's intelligence. From the description, it didn't sound like the party was pressed for time at all, though maybe that was a misread on my part.
My chief presumption has been that we're simply dealing with inexperienced players. I also was under the impression that the party had time to discuss the situation rather than it being like in a combat round where the GM is only going to allow a few moments for each player to respond. That's why my advice has been focused at helping the players (the paladin in particular) to improve and think outside of the box. If you reread my posts, you'll see that I did not advocate changing their alignment or stripping them of their powers.
Also, the OP came onto a forum to garner feedback. Isn't the entire point of doing so to solicit what a large number of people could come up with?
EDIT: (Addition)
I'd argue that the harder the code is to uphold, the less the class needs to have additional challenges thrown upon them. It's double taxing.
No argument there. With the paladin such challenges practically present themselves, with other classes, the GM usually has to work more on the setup. I think that's why so many GMs disallow paladins in their campaigns — they don't want to have to double-check their planning and ensure there's multiple solutions to a moral conundrum.
The other problem is that human history has shown us that morality IS something people WILL have differences of opinion on. What one GM might see as a clever way of honoring the spirit and letter of the code, another might cry foul on. I'd say it's a character choice that definitely requires a higher-than-normal level of understanding between player and GM.
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@Gandal - You did a fantastic job with this scenario and there wasn't much else you could do to get the PC's through it especially since they were all out of ideas. You enabled them to try to work through the problem and then provided a small distraction that was in-game realistic to allow them the chance they needed to finish the quest of rescuing the girl.
I wouldn't dock them anything for not coming up with a solution to the problem that would've saved the NPC unnecessary harm. I'd role play it out with her suffering from PTSD and this would open up more story lines for you to work with as well as they try to help her with her recovery.
Don't listen to people who are saying that you put them into a trap, you put them before a tough scenario and they made it through it without any important NPC or player deaths. The job of a DM is to challenge PC's not to coddle them in my opinion and this is what you did. If you have to play to the Player's sensibilities rather than that of the Character's to motivate them and to push them into some heroic action(s) that's fine as well, as long as people know the difference and are motivated to play your game.
In the end, it's all about everyone at YOUR table having fun and if you accomplished doing this, you are a great DM no matter how long you've been doing it.
My 2 coppers,
UN
Oh hell, I don't have time for this. This was not remotely an impossible situation. The ways to have defeated it are legion.
I know. That's why I had little quotes around the word. But that's not really my point. My point is that sometimes GMs will create an "impossible" (note the quotes) situation and build in the one back door. He will leave a delicate trail of breadcrumbs to the back door, just waiting for the players to follow the route and play out the epic display of wits and ingenuity that he, himself, created.
And then the players will stomp through, sweeping the bread crumbs aside and ruining everything.
And it doesn't matter if the players try to break down the front door, pick it, talk their way through, whatever. He won't let them in the front door. Because there's nothing behind the front door, because the GM assumed they'd only be going his way.
And I'm saying this may have been one of those times.
It also may not be. I'm just giving my read on it.
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The other problem is that human history has shown us that morality IS something people WILL have differences of opinion on. What one GM might see as a clever way of honoring the spirit and letter of the code, another might cry foul on. I'd say it's a character choice that definitely requires a higher-than-normal level of understanding between player and GM.
Absolutely agree. I think the Alignment system is such a broken mess that playing a Paladin without knowing your GM is just asking for trouble.
Since 1974.
And no, a good DM doesn’t need to “trick” his players.
Pushing players to act OOC in accordance with their personal views and modern sensibilities is just sophomoric DMing.
Again, I ask the OP- Why did you put the PCs into this trap? What were they supposed to do?
I thought i already answered.
I needed to test a mission with a lot of enemies.It isn't my fault if slave auctions are made like this (and in Rome they were far worse.)
I already said i never use girls in my games like that, that has been a natural consequence of the player's actions (they carelessly inquired nearby the gnolls and lamia).
I should specify my players are adult males, and i asked them if they were bothered by my descrption of what was happening (by their negligence);i assure you if i had little teenagers girls as players things would have been different (the mission would have been.)
And i would like to specify that i'm not gm'ing table RPs since 1974 for two very pratical reasons:
Edit: And please stop making too many assumptions out of thin air, you don't know me or my players, and i told from the very beginning of the thread this was about disturbing content.If you don't want to read things like these don't open the thread.
Apologize for the harshness
I actually have to agree with DrDeth on this one. There's a difference between "mature themes" and shock value. Slavery and sexual assault are both subjects that can very easily be triggers for players, depending on any number of factors in their personal background.
(I didn't thought of getting this far, but looking at the gnoll's behavior i could not save her taking in account the gnoll chieftain was there to offer a “show” for his customers)Is pure rationalization. You made the characters. You made the situation. You can make them do whatever you want. That's the same line bad players will say when they use their characters to f&*% with other players ("it's what my character would do" is not a valid excuse for bad table etiquette).
That said, if you want to explore these themes and your players are onboard, that's up to you and your group. But manipulating your players is just going to encourage metagaming.
Which leads me back to your original question. You gave them an "impossible" situation, with one very specific way out in mind. They didn't find your way out, and now you're frustrated because they made a mess of everything. From their point of view, they did the best they could with what they had. That's the problem with the Kobayashi Maru approach. It only works if 1) everyone knows you can cheat and 2) you let them cheat the way they want to.
This is reasonable.I agree i could depict the event of the elven cleric with kinder words (but English isn't my mother lang.)
basically the way out was letting the lamia screw with the gnolls putting one against each other and be ready to kill those who survived, so to begin releasing some slaves and giving them some equip, so they could help back.And the elven cleric was meant to help the party.
So the rogue posing as a slave buyer didn't think to offer to buy the cleric of Calistra from the gnolls? "And I want her unmarked! Unspoiled for my master!" Promise some stupid sum of gold, leave "to retrieve it," then start whittling away at the gnoll encampment.
Whoops, forgot to tell.
Yes, the rogue said she wanted that elven woman,but rolled low on Bluff, and the gnoll chieftain wasn't convinced enough.The dwarf cleric said "He wants to sell her, so they won't kill her, and my spells will cure every wounds and even make the scars disappear once we'll have bought her" (which again i think it is metagaming too much)