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Dust
2010-04-25, 07:03 PM
One of the things that's always baffled me about DnD is the inclusion of services designed to please evil creatures. Not because evil doesn't need a break every now and then, but because it seems to me that MOST groups would have their curioisty overtake their common sense. At least, mine does.

Sigil, city of doors, is a perfect example. As a city stationed smack-dab in the middle of the multiverse, Sigil's inns and taverns cater to a diverse clientele. We all know that efreets from the City of Brass kick back in flaming halls of sumptuous luxury. Meanwhile, Demons and Devils spend their nights in establishments designed for unthinkable debauchery.

The problem with this, of course, is that my group's first response (from at least SOMEONE) is to interrupt with, "Cool, I'll do that!" when I mention the debauchery of unspeakable evil.

I've heard of GMs who handle this by informing curious PCs that the cost of such a night of demonic hedonism is paid in Experience rather than gold, as a portion of their humanity and soul is siphoned away. But this doesn't sit well with me.

So how do you handle PCs who, in their worldly travels, wish to partake of activities designed for Evil - or alternatively, Celestial - beings, other than simply saying 'no' by having an npc give a lackluster reason?

PersonMan
2010-04-25, 07:11 PM
Well, depending on the activity, it may just not work. Demons, for example, may enjoy cutting open random peoples' faces, which isn't much fun for most humans. However, for other ones, if the PC regularly partakes in such activities, have them eventually get a reputation for such things, which can be helpful or harmful.

Ravens_cry
2010-04-25, 07:14 PM
Players make their own decisions. If they want to paint the town red at Evil Bobs House of Evil, it's not really fair to stop them, unless your genuinely uncomfortable with this aspect of the game.

Procyonpi
2010-04-25, 07:17 PM
Methinks you need to be clearer in your pre-game communication. While most campaigns have good characters with good goals, some players like to play evil characters. You should be clear before you start that you're running a good campaign.

As for what to do with these characters right now...

Change their alignment to evil, if their character isn't already evil and such behavior continues. If they're just fooling around and don't really want to be evil, this should help.

After that, you have basically three options:
1. Except their decision to play evil characters and plan your adventures accordingly.
2. Railroad them into being good by having ridiculously powerful good NPCs force them to.
3. Kick them out of the game.

Dust
2010-04-25, 07:22 PM
I should probably express that this was a hypothetical example and situation. I'm merely wondering if this is a common problem for other GMs, and if so, what the best solution is.

Cisturn
2010-04-25, 07:22 PM
maybe you could just fast forward through it, say something like "You venture in to the Demon's club and have a night of unbridled debauchery, you wake up the next morning with no memory, a horrible headache, slash marks on your waist, a negative level, and the phone number 666-8349 burned into your forearm. And finally for the next year you take double damage from acid"

PCs speculating about what could have happened is usually funnier than just telling them, also it might make other members of your group less likly to try anything like that.

aivanther
2010-04-25, 07:24 PM
I would think Demon's house of unspeakable debauchery would involve experiences that are a little to intense for the average pc race. Such as eating humans alive. Or wrestling...while on fire! They might become the attraction rather than a participant if you get what I mean.

If they do partake, alignment penalties. You want to paint the town with the devils? Well, LE for you then. You want to kick back with the demons? CE for you. Oh, and you wake up with a hangover and a collar around your neck. When you look up you see a Balor looking down at you who says, "Good morning, sweetcheeks."

absolmorph
2010-04-25, 07:32 PM
maybe you could just fast forward through it, say something like "You venture in to the Demon's club and have a night of unbridled debauchery, you wake up the next morning with no memory, a horrible headache, slash marks on your waist, a negative level, and the phone number 666-8349 burned into your forearm. And finally for the next year you take double damage from acid"

PCs speculating about what could have happened is usually funnier than just telling them, also it might make other members of your group less likly to try anything like that.
If my players ever do this...
:smallbiggrin:

Frozen_Feet
2010-04-25, 07:33 PM
My solution to players going "evil is cool" has been either "Go to jail" or "Congratulations, you're now a fresh conscript in the local army". After a while, all adventures DMed by me started in either prison or military - that was just me being pre-emptive. We've also had multiple burnings-at-a-stake, when some players just didn't get a hint.

In case of more... recreational sins, I've had the joy of dumping half-fiend offspring to the care of the happles father, clingy boy and girl friends trying to murder the PCs, etc.

Sydonai
2010-04-25, 07:33 PM
THis is the kind of place that the Succubus prefers to be male for once, and the kind of place you get a Slaad flirting with you(Disturbing if you remember how they reproduce.).

arguskos
2010-04-25, 07:33 PM
Meh. As a player I once asked the DM about such things (it was a fairly mature game, and this was not out of the ordinary). He ruled that evil carnal pleasures were soul-damaging (xp loss), mentally damaging (mental stat penalties), and actively hazardous to one's health (hp damage). On the upside, IT WAS AWESOME and my NE necromancer had an excellent time. The details are better left to the imagination.

Sydonai
2010-04-25, 07:34 PM
And this is where the "Lich-Loved" feat comes from.

Arakune
2010-04-25, 07:43 PM
Wrong club. That's "Skeletons and Zombies: death never was too sexy" night club.

Toliudar
2010-04-25, 07:46 PM
Or indeed, any of the half- templates.

Depending on the maturity level of the players, I'd be fine to let those characters whose personalities seem well suited to such debauchery dive in. Hangovers, scars and good stories for those who dabble lightly. For those who go in over their heads...well, Sigil is known as an exciting place, not a fun place. Caveat emptor.

But no, I wouldn't arbitrarily stop anyone from exploring any place that I was foolish enough to allow into my world.

arguskos
2010-04-25, 07:49 PM
And this is where the "Lich-Loved" feat comes from.
Dude, you don't even know the half of it. :smallamused: Nor will you. It was hardly board-safe.

Anyways, I share the same sentiment as Toliudar: if I mention it, you can involve yourself in it. I don't usually mention such things with low-maturity groups though.

ArcanistSupreme
2010-04-25, 07:55 PM
+1 to if you aren't comfortable with it, don't include it.

Otherwise, all of the vague descriptions of the crazy stuff that went on are pretty funny, and it lets the players think of things that are probably way crazier than anything you could actually describe.

Sydonai
2010-04-25, 07:59 PM
Sigil is famous for being the only place that people willingly hang from their ankles for days and get used like living wine bottles for demons/vampires.

Godskook
2010-04-25, 08:04 PM
1.D&D morality and ethics are not real-world morality and ethics. There are things that we'd consider horrible here that would be rather ok in D&D. This is especially true of sexual behaviors.

2.You as a DM, are not required to change the game's rating to please your player's roleplaying goals. If something would make you, as both a DM and person, uncomfortable, simply fade-out during the important bits, and refuse to make the inappropriate content game-relevant.

An orgy among consentual adults is not really alignment affecting in D&D, while virgin-raping is definitively [Evil]. Both would get fade-outs in any game I DMed. The former would go mostly unmentioned in other events, while the latter would cause hordes of escalating celestial interference to be sent after the offending PC until the player decided that being that creepy is a bad idea in my games.

Ormur
2010-04-25, 10:13 PM
I'd use vague adjectives and maybe a few tongue-in-cheek examples, refuse to go into specifics and then invent some suitably cruel and funny consequences like the negative levels and branded phone-numbers mentioned before.

I'd be wary of making the PC's aware of such institutions or brothels for that matter since logically they probably wouldn't be common knowledge and I've seen at least one bad example of "killing-the-prostitutes-and-burning-down-the-brothel" in PbP. But in places such institutions realistically should exist I'd let them search. I'm not really worried anyone I play with would break character to do something like that, more that it actually would be in character.

Divide by Zero
2010-04-26, 12:11 AM
The Book of Vile Darkness explicitly says something like "Don't let the players look at this." The DM controls what can be done in the game. If players start causing problems, exercise that control, and the problems should go away.

Fishy
2010-04-26, 12:43 AM
Alternatively, demonic bouncers.

"You're not on The List...

Ashram
2010-04-26, 12:53 AM
maybe you could just fast forward through it, say something like "You venture in to the Demon's club and have a night of unbridled debauchery, you wake up the next morning with no memory, a horrible headache, slash marks on your waist, a negative level, and the phone number 666-8349 burned into your forearm. And finally for the next year you take double damage from acid"

PCs speculating about what could have happened is usually funnier than just telling them, also it might make other members of your group less likly to try anything like that.

This is just awesome.

I'm going to be playing a CE (Abyssal-blood) tiefling, and something like this fits right in.

arguskos
2010-04-26, 12:53 AM
Alternatively, demonic bouncers.

"You're not on The List...
I've.... never seen that be so menacing in my entire life. :smalleek: Well played.

The Demented One
2010-04-26, 12:59 AM
What, pray tell, is wrong with letting them do it? And then using that for fun descriptions of just exactly why these places are usually frequented exclusively by fiends, and potential plot hooks?

Ravens_cry
2010-04-26, 01:21 AM
I've.... never seen that be so menacing in my entire life. :smalleek: Well played.
Not half so bad as
"You're not on The List..."

*grab*

Lord Vukodlak
2010-04-26, 01:21 AM
I recall once in a campaign the party happened upon a brothel that catered to all manner of tastes. My evil cleric was the only member of the party not to partake, as he was married and remarked his wife could divorce him and seize his property. Or she'd kill him in a jealous rage. In actuality he loved his wife and family and would gladly sacrifice anyone to get home to them.

He did however later sell an incompetent and annoying enemy of the party to said brothel to one of the more debauchery and evil sections. Something about a limbless fetish

Greymane
2010-04-26, 02:05 AM
Fortunately, we only went to the plane where Sigil is once, and we didn't even go there. We trekked out of the city to find a friend who'd touched a prismatic wall, and was thus plane-shifted, insane and turned to stone.

Most of the characters we use are good aligned, and we rarely get to the level where we can start plane-shifting to Sigil anyway.

I would just give vague approximations of what took place, and let them invent the rest in their own little minds.

However, if they had a cleric in the party, and found a succubus who they could roll in the hay with until they hit enough negative levels to barely be alive? I bet one of them would take that offer, and have the cleric fix them up.

Eldan
2010-04-26, 04:30 AM
You must have got something mixed up...

Sigil is not on a plane. And you need no plane shift to get there. To be more precise, plane shifting there is impossible.


Anyway, yes, these venues exist, but few players go there. If they do, they better be careful, or they find out that for many demons, there's not really a difference between "mortal tavern guest" and "potential sacrifice". You don't want to wake up nailed to the roof of the Temple of the Abyss.

Greymane
2010-04-26, 04:33 AM
Huh. I thought we just went to whatever plane Sigil is on. Yeah, we must've gotten mixed up somewhere.

Delta
2010-04-26, 04:48 AM
So how do you handle PCs who, in their worldly travels, wish to partake of activities designed for Evil - or alternatively, Celestial - beings, other than simply saying 'no' by having an npc give a lackluster reason?

I would go through with this. Most players, when thinking of "debauchery of unspeakable evil" and responding "cool, I'll do that!", are imagining some kind of pretty tame kinky stuff (which of course would be anything but the said kind of debauchery...), so I'd just start of describing some of the "speakable" evil kind of debauchery I can think of (the level of detail depending on the kind of campaign I'm running), and just see how far their characters are really willing to go.

Usually, I think I'll have most of those "cool, I'll do that!" players rethink their decisions after a couple minutes, because in my book, "debauchery of unspeakable evil" will mean exactly what it says on the tin, and most players don't really want that when they realize that. And, well, if they really want to go through with that, it's "welcome to the deep end of the alignment pool, pal".

hewhosaysfish
2010-04-26, 06:26 AM
You must have got something mixed up...

Sigil is not on a plane. And you need no plane shift to get there. To be more precise, plane shifting there is impossible.

I thought Sigil was at the top of the Spire (you know, the infinitely tall one), in the Outlands.

Eldan
2010-04-26, 06:50 AM
Now we are going into metaphysics of Planescape, but...


Sigil can be seen from the Outlands, and it seems to be at the top of the Spire. However, since one can't climb the Spire, one can't ever reach Sigil that way.

Neither Outlands nor Spire can be seen from Sigil, though, and jumping over the edge of Sigil has never resulted ending up in the Outlands.

Finally, none of the magical or other planar traits of the Outlands seem to apply in Sigil.

It could be a layer of the outlands, or a demiplane, or just something entirely different.