Do you ever use this in your campaigns? I think I'll start when I start my first campaign, but I'm not sure if it's too cruel to the characters, or just plain unfair as a GM to basically force them into good alignments?
It would work like this: Bandits attack the party, they kill all but one and she begs for mercy.
About a week later, they are attacked by a massive group of about nine. If they spared her life, she is part of that group and persuades the others to leave the party alone. If they did not spare her life, then they are ruthlessly attacked by the bandits who outnumber them by quite a bit.
Second example: They are riding past a village and see a Young Dragon attacking the townsfolk and burning the buildings. They are at a level where this monster would be a pretty easy kill. If they rush to the village and slay the dragon, huzzah they are heroes and will be remembered by the village forever.
If they decide to leave the innocents to a firey death, this dragon will grow up (perhaps fall in a Pool of Aging) and attack them much later on.
What think?
Depends on how strong karma affects the world at large.
Cause and Effect is separate from that, though similar as well.
I seems a little like "Guess the GM's thoughts, or fight something bigger." And the game is already about fighting bigger and bigger things. You're just making recurring villains and/or their offspring.
If you want them to play nice, just ask them to play nice.
Also:
defeating the weaker encounter -> less XP/loot.
not fighting the bandits -> less XP/loot.
I like XP/loot...
"ex-ploot" :)
Do you ever use this in your campaigns? I think I'll start when I start my first campaign, but I'm not sure if it's too cruel to the characters, or just plain unfair as a GM to basically force them into good alignments?
Personally I'm never a big fan of the game always working to push you towards your GM's idea of good. Its awesome to have consequences, but your examples both feel like the GM is going out of his way to enforce the idea. "Wow, that dragon we didn't slay fell into a pool of aging and just happened to come around to slay us? What a coincidence!" and "We left no survivors but somehow 10 bandits know who and where we are?" Could you imagine the players response to that sort of thing?
Another thing is that sometimes your players will shock you by making decisions for the wrong reason(defeating the purpose of karma. "We let the bandit go because she's a woman!" doesn't sound quiet the same as mercy) or sometimes they take a third option and do something interesting(Convincing the dragon to protect the village, and even offer to quest for it for instance).
In my game, there is currently a bit of consequence happening for the PCs' actions. Here is a bit of backstory to set it up.
There is a young, idealistic Paladin named Alexander in the main capital city who has sort of been the party's liason for the nobility and various important figures. Whenever the party wants an inside edge with those groups, they stop by to see Alexander. He has also been a vocal advocate for a couple of the PCs who happen to be half-orcs, and was responsible for level of acceptance those PCs enjoy today.
There was a siege of the capital by a rival kingdom, and during one of the battles in this invasion the PCs captured an infantry Sergeant. During the interrogation process, the PCs revealed to this Sergeant some prior information they were privy to, namely that he and his comrades were being used as cannon fodder by another faction in the enemy forces. They came to an agreement with this Sergeant, that he would help them eliminate the other faction leader, with the understanding that he would not renounce his loyalty to his kingdom or divulge information that would compromise his men. They agreed.
The PCs talked Alexander into releasing the prisoner for this revenge mission. Alexander was wary, because the prisoner had a bitter grudge against the Paladins, but relented. The PCs with prisoner in tow tracked down and eliminated the other faction leader. And then things got more complicated.
They let the Sergeant go.
And so, weeks go by. The PCs return to the capital from a mission, and learn that Alexander has been jailed. For what offense? Treason, for aiding and abetting the enemy.
Regardless of intent, the fact of the matter stands that a prisoner of war of an invading force was under his jurisdiction, and was released on his order, and now is nowhere to be found.
Alexander's trial is in a few days, and while there is a good chance the PCs can prevent him from being executed, they *will* lose him as an available resource.
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Just remember that Karma doesn't just apply to PCs. That bandit that's begging for mercy is facing her bad karma accumulated through banditry. The players have no incentive to show mercy, they are merely the instrument of karma.
Karmic thinking runs more along LN lines than anything else. Good acts are indeed rewarded, but karma involves a lot of fatalism; any hardship you endure is assumed to have been earned and is therefore justified. There's no "Bad things happen to good people".
As Icyshadow mentions, cause and effect is different. When I was running an Ars Magica campaign, we had a very headstrong magus with basically every socially negative flaw he could grab. But he was a wizard in Ars Magica, so he was pretty powerful.
So the group is taking a ship up the coast of Ireland to their new home. The player decides to start ordering the captain of the ship around (!), which of course went over poorly (because he was a bizzaro, one eyed grotesque mockery of a human being). So a fight breaks out. Other PCs intervene and calm things down, until the same player starts trouble again. The wounded captain and is forced to flee to shore and the PCs take over the ship.
Ok, so this captain was supposed to be a long-term associate for the party, and he was fully written up. One of his flaws was he was under a curse, that he could not rest on land (I thought that was thematic for a ship's captain, he slept on the ship). Forced to shore in the wilds of Ireland, wounded and without supplies, he soon failed all his survival checks (due to wounds, totally fair rolls).
Well, guess who rises from the grave as an angry wight? Yeah, can't rest on land. So now they've got an undead monster plaguing their covenant.
That, IMO, is cause and effect. Though they didn't know the captain was under a curse, they basically caused him to rise as an undead horror.
The same player caused the last wound on his bodyguard (companion) by refusing to allow the local priest to perform last rights because it might make his casting of a ritual healing spell more difficult. This was after the companion (roleplayed by him) had converted to Christianity just a few days prior. The priest was also fully written up, with a fear of heights. So, unknowingly, the wizard levitates the priest into the air to keep him from performing last rites, and the priest understandingly panics, and the whole town basically rushes to his rescue. The player uses a powerful wind spell to protect himself from the mob...blowing his bodyguard into the air from his deathbed.
That campaign ended pretty soon thereafter; that player had basically alienated everyone within a 20 mile radius in a few short months by insisting that having magic would make everyone overlook the fact that he was something like -15 on all social rolls and had no social skills at all.
So don't shy away from the consequences of the actions of the PCs, that's to be expected. You don't have to enforce 'good' behavior with that Hammer of Karmic Justice, just logical consequences. If a PC quietly murders someone and there's no evidence it was him, he should probably get away with it. If he draws a sword on the king in the throne room, don't hesitate to have him hacked to pieces.
I see now, thanks guys. :) Definitely lots of things to consider, I'll take everything on board!
Now, not really related to Karma, but it's a sort of GM ethics type of thing. In my campaign, the characters will eventually take the Test of the Starstone. Instead of just brute force and intelligence, I think I'd like to test the characters' morals, so they can prove to be heroic and godlike in personality. One idea was that there is a room with an illusion of a Garden of Eden type thing, with demigods and angels living happy without war or strife. Three will greet the party and try to persuade them to abandon their quest and start a new life in Paradise. If they accept, they have to surrender their arms and armour (tools of death have no place here!) If they do, the illusion shatters and the three turn into foul beasts, who, as the party has nothing to fight with) proceed to probably slaughter them easily. They do this because they are not heroic enough to be gods, and they fail the Test.
Would this be an awful, evil, horrible thing to do? It fits perfectly with the story, and the Test is supposed to be insanely difficult...
Instead of just brute force and intelligence, I think I'd like to test the characters' morals, so they can prove to be heroic and godlike in personality.
Do gods in your setting only have heroic and 'godlike' personalities? Plenty of gods are not heroic at all, and they are all over the place ethically. One of the characters who passed the test of the starstone is actually NE(though details are unknown, god of secrets) and another did it absolutely wasted(no idea how that happened either, god of hangovers).
Three will greet the party and try to persuade them to abandon their quest and start a new life in Paradise. If they accept, they have to surrender their arms and armour (tools of death have no place here!) If they do, the illusion shatters and the three turn into foul beasts, who, as the party has nothing to fight with) proceed to probably slaughter them easily. They do this because they are not heroic enough to be gods, and they fail the Test.
It sounds awesome in theory, but if your PCs are dead you don't really have a game. You might want to be a little less threatening. Hopefully a bunch of characters who want to be adventurers just aren't interested in stopping their career of adventuring for some reason.
Instead of just brute force and intelligence, I think I'd like to test the characters' morals, so they can prove to be heroic and godlike in personality.Do gods in your setting only have heroic and 'godlike' personalities? Plenty of gods are not heroic at all, and they are all over the place ethically. One of the characters who passed the test of the starstone is actually NE(though details are unknown, god of secrets) and another did it absolutely wasted(no idea how that happened either, god of hangovers).
Well, not really. In fact, the whole point of them taking the test is so they will be able to push back Rovagug, the Evil god of destruction who is waking again. But that's also the reason why the HAVE to be good, and HAVE to pass the test as Good heroes. Do you know what I mean? :)
Three will greet the party and try to persuade them to abandon their quest and start a new life in Paradise. If they accept, they have to surrender their arms and armour (tools of death have no place here!) If they do, the illusion shatters and the three turn into foul beasts, who, as the party has nothing to fight with) proceed to probably slaughter them easily. They do this because they are not heroic enough to be gods, and they fail the Test.It sounds awesome in theory, but if your PCs are dead you don't really have a game. You might want to be a little less threatening. Hopefully a bunch of characters who want to be adventurers just aren't interested in stopping their career of adventuring for some reason.
Very true, but that's what I'm counting on, to be honest! The majority are Good characters, so they'll hopefully see the importance of not leaving and surrendering the world to destruction!
Horrific HTMLing. I'm new to this, sorry. Dx
Horrific HTMLing. I'm new to this, sorry. Dx
Your just fine, don't worry. People format in all sorts of ways. sometimes they put everything in quotes and bold their responces. You can also always go back and edit, but that can annoy people. Just break the quote up into two quotes and answer, though that's easier said than done on some devices.
Anyways... Just remember players shock you sometimes. Also that you don't have to be a good guy to not want Rovagog to destroy the world. Evil people live on it too! Canonically Asmodeus and Achaekek are both very much against Rovagog destroying the world.
:)
Actually, that's a very good point. Evil and good having to work together could make for some awesome RP moments!
I'm not sure, never read them actually. They're supposed to be very good though, maybe I'll pick one up!
Oh, and the Alignment's not an issue any more. First session was yesterday; we've got three NGs (Ranger, Cleric and Sorcerer), one CG (Samurai) and a LN (Monk).