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Sir-Carlos
2022-06-08, 09:07 AM
Okay, this is something super minor, so I donÂ’t know if I even should approach the DM about it. That is why I vent here:

We just began a new adventure. We did one quest for a Duchess, which didnÂ’t go that well, but we still managed to do it. The Duchess pays us and, on top of that, gifts one high-born character a piece of jewelry, to remember her by. Now, that character is a bit of a scoundrel, so he immediately sold the piece of jewelry for 200 gold, xD. From that gold, we bought a cart, 2 mules, some wheat and some pumpkins for 100 gold.

The thing is: we are playing Curse of Strahd and in the night, we got teleported to Strahds domain. The mules are still with us, but the cart and the wares are gone, they werenÂ’t teleported with us. Without us being able to do something about it, despite us holding watch the entire night. I am a bit salty about it and so is the player of the high-born character. I feel silly being salty about something so minor and I understand that Curse of Strahd WILL take away things that are dear to the players. But the way it happened feels wrong, you know what I mean? Any thoughts? Should I talk with the DM about it? And how do I approach this? Am I being an Idiot?

( man this whole text seems kind of silly)

One Tin Soldier
2022-06-08, 09:27 AM
I think your instincts are probably right here, but it might be worth asking your DM if they plan on taking items or loot from you regularly during the campaign. If nothing else, establishing that early on will set your expectations.

Batcathat
2022-06-08, 09:50 AM
If it's just a one time thing, I wouldn't be bothered by it (it doesn't sound like you lost anything important, if I understand things correctly?) but I could see being annoyed if it was a regular thing.

But obviously there's not any "right" or "wrong" reaction here, so if it bothers you, you should probably bring it up (of course, if the GM think you're complaining about something largely insignificant, that's a valid reaction too).

Alcore
2022-06-08, 11:00 AM
You are right to be salty; there was no chance to save them.


I agree with the others and talking with the GM (and that it is quite minor so if it a one off occurrence it is... okay-ish?). Good thing you are here as salty is better than salty and emotional. Just approach it calmly (you might get that stuff back).

kyoryu
2022-06-08, 11:37 AM
Honestly the thing that bugs me is the "oh you're playing Strahd" shift when clearly nobody thought that was a thing. It was also done fairly clumsily.

Altheus
2022-06-08, 11:57 AM
This confuses me, the GM giveth and the GM taketh away.

You had a bit of bad luck, why were you bothering with a cart anyhow?

KorvinStarmast
2022-06-08, 12:23 PM
You had a bit of bad luck, why were you bothering with a cart anyhow?
Useful for carrying people and stuff. We entered Barovia on a cart recently, but it belonged to some Vistani we had met before we came through the first gate.

For the OP: discuss with GM, with the "I don't understand why" as your intro to the question, and see what the response is. Pursue it or don't once you get the initial response.

Mastikator
2022-06-08, 01:09 PM
It happens. Your DM always takes away your carts, my DM always kills our horses. :smallcool:

Talakeal
2022-06-08, 02:18 PM
Players are always incredibly salty about any loss of property, no matter how minor.

Psychologists say loss aversion causes people to feel loss seven times as strongly as gain, and I say that is conservative when it comes to PCs.

I once had the players get mad when they refused to turn the Macguffen that their mentor had sent them to retrieve despite already agreeing to it and having been paid for their services, and then said that he was “pouting like a two year old” when he responded by ending their professional relationship.

In short, yes you are being unreasonable, but the GM should absolutely have seen it coming if they have ever DMed before because it is not unusual or unexpected.

Pauly
2022-06-08, 02:39 PM
The GM gifted the other player an obvious macguffin intended to be a plot hook down the line. This isn’t a reward, as it was over and above the reward. It’s also a unique and noticeable item. It’ clear to me that the GM had plans for that item in the future because he said ‘this is for you to remember me by” - the GM literally told the character to hold onto this because it will be important later.

I’d be salty that the player who received it sold it for coin. I’d be completely unsurprised that the GM would then do something to make what he bought with the proceeds less valuable because of human nature. If you mess with someone else’s plans don’t be surprised if they mess with yours. Should the GM have messed with what the player bought? - most people here will say probably not. On the other hand it’s a bit of a murder hobo thing to do and if you reward murder hoboism you get more murder hoboism.

I think you’re completely right to be salty. It’s just that you’re salty at the wrong person.

Batcathat
2022-06-08, 02:39 PM
Players are always incredibly salty about any loss of property, no matter how minor.

Psychologists say loss aversion causes people to feel loss seven times as strongly as gain, and I say that is conservative when it comes to PCs.

I once had the players get mad when they refused to turn the Macguffen that their mentor had sent them to retrieve despite already agreeing to it and having been paid for their services, and then said that he was “pouting like a two year old” when he responded by ending their professional relationship.

In short, yes you are being unreasonable, but the GM should absolutely have seen it coming if they have ever DMed before because it is not unusual or unexpected.

I think "always" is an exaggeration, I've seen players lose far more than that with a shrug and while I haven't had the misfortune of meeting one, I don't doubt there are people who would have a meltdown over much less.

That said, I agree that a reaction like this is common enough that it shouldn't be entirely unexpected from the GM's perspective.

meandean
2022-06-08, 03:03 PM
I could see this both ways. On one hand, it does make sense that if you're suddenly and involuntarily teleported, you don't get to bring along possessions that you're storing on a cart somewhere else. On the other hand, the mules did get teleported, so why not give you the other things? It's rather hard to believe that a cart, wheat, and pumpkins will create a game balance issue.

I would ask the DM why the mules were teleported and not the other stuff. That question should prompt them to lay out their thought process for you.

icefractal
2022-06-08, 03:12 PM
On the other hand - how much use would the wheat and pumpkins even be if you've been pulled into Ravenloft now?

I'm not sure what was the original plan - go to another kingdom and try to sell them for more? Start a farm? Make pumpkin pies? But it seems like those may well be impossible in this situation even if you'd kept all the goods.

An important question is - did you (the players) know that this campaign was going to be Curse of Strahd? If not, the bigger issue would be the bait-n-switch than the lost cart. If so, then why were you trying to play Markets & Merchants to begin with? It doesn't seem like an adventure/campaign very suited to that playstyle.

kyoryu
2022-06-08, 03:43 PM
Again my issue is the rug pull.

Regardless of what was done or if the pumpkins could have gone through, the players clearly thought they were playing a game where that was reasonable, and made decisions on that - and it got completely changed without any input from them or any ability to change that.

That's not really something that I'd consider best practices.

Quertus
2022-06-08, 04:22 PM
Again my issue is the rug pull.

Regardless of what was done or if the pumpkins could have gone through, the players clearly thought they were playing a game where that was reasonable, and made decisions on that - and it got completely changed without any input from them or any ability to change that.

That's not really something that I'd consider best practices.

So... if (*if*) "every living thing within an X-foot radius" was teleported, with their possessions (so, no naked PCS), *but* the cart does *not* count as a possession for the mules, then it follows logic and game physics for the cart and pumpkins to be left behind.

But, even under that scenario, you would consider it... not best practices... to initiate such an effect... without telegraphing the effect, or giving the PCs some ability to interact with it? Am I reading that right? If so, why?

Why is this not, instead, best practices to give the PCs something that they can investigate ("How come the cart and pumpkins didn't get teleported?"), come to understand the mechanism ("Oh, it only teleports living beings and their possessions"), and later use as a tool, that they earned?

Why are mysteries not best practices? Why is earning things not best practices?

Batcathat
2022-06-08, 04:29 PM
Why is this not, instead, best practices to give the PCs something that they can investigate ("How come the cart and pumpkins didn't get teleported?"), come to understand the mechanism ("Oh, it only teleports living beings and their possessions"), and later use as a tool, that they earned?

Why are mysteries not best practices? Why is earning things not best practices?

This is a good point. Potential reasons like that is part of why I personally wouldn't be bothered by it happening once (but if similar things happened again and again with no payoff, I'd probably mind).

GloatingSwine
2022-06-08, 05:42 PM
On the other hand - how much use would the wheat and pumpkins even be if you've been pulled into Ravenloft now?

I'm not sure what was the original plan - go to another kingdom and try to sell them for more? Start a farm? Make pumpkin pies? But it seems like those may well be impossible in this situation even if you'd kept all the goods.

An important question is - did you (the players) know that this campaign was going to be Curse of Strahd? If not, the bigger issue would be the bait-n-switch than the lost cart. If so, then why were you trying to play Markets & Merchants to begin with? It doesn't seem like an adventure/campaign very suited to that playstyle.

I dunno, Unexpected Strahd could be fun, but I feel like Ravenloft is the sort of place you should get to by pulling too tenaciously on the wrong thread rather than by going "poof" in the night.

Grod_The_Giant
2022-06-08, 05:50 PM
The "your mules get transported, your cart doesn't" bit strikes me as a spur-of-the-moment compromise between leaving everything behind (because why would Strahd/the mists bother with a cart?) and taking the whole thing (because you paid for it and presumably had plans).

Quertus
2022-06-08, 05:54 PM
I dunno, Unexpected Strahd could be fun, but I feel like Ravenloft is the sort of place you should get to by pulling too tenaciously on the wrong thread rather than by going "poof" in the night.

On the one hand, when you say that, I realize that every party that went to Ravenloft on my watch did so via the "poof in the night" method, and that makes the Ravenloft of my experience feel kinda... arbitrary compared to your hypothetical Ravenloft.

OTOH, do we really want to give terrible alignment-change GMs an even bigger stick? "Oh, you didn't bow and scrape to my NPC enough? Change your alignment to Evil... and, while we're at it, free trip to Ravenloft."

Maybe I'll take comfort in a cold and uncaring universe (or however Marcus put it).

(Also, what BBEG wouldn't earn a free trip to Ravenloft? What would the PCs motivation even be at that point, other than to use Sending to ask Ravenloft what the expected wait time is? :smallamused:)

MrStabby
2022-06-08, 08:29 PM
I don't think it unreasonable to be unhappy about this. I don't think the DM did anything too bad, but that doesn't mean it won't be annoying.

So the party go some suff that was important to the party. You can tell how important it was given that they traded some jewelery for it. That clearly shows its value to the players. Takin away with no fight, no ability check... with no warning kind of sucks.

On the other hand, this was a preamble and a set up to the whole new campaign. Yes its a bit railroady but the DM wants you to be at a paricular point to kick off the next phase and that is somewhere without the cart and wares. You had some different expecatations here.

So to put a positive spin on it - if the DM is generally a good DM there are some good reasons to think it won't be a regular thing. Its a specific action for a specific circumstance.

On the negative side, it was a bit unthinking of the DM and the DM didn't really communicae that well... so maybe his specific thing won't repeat but there may be other issues.


And the answer...

Play along, try to have fun and work with the DM to make a fun plot for everyone. Express sorrow at the lost carts, see if you can get new ones and consider the loss of your produce as a setup for the campaign.

KorvinStarmast
2022-06-08, 09:21 PM
When life deals you lemons, make lemonade.

Your have two mules. Get ten or twenty pounds of salt. Barovia has a lot of trees/forests.
Set up camp, slaughter the mules, and after rubbing the meat with salt slow smoke it.
A few hundred pounds of Donkey Jerky. Food for weeks.

You don't need food for a good long while. All you need is water.

meandean
2022-06-08, 09:27 PM
When life deals you lemons, make lemonade.

Your have two mules. Get ten or twenty pounds of salt. Barovia has a lot of trees/forests.
Set up camp, slaughter the mules, and after rubbing the meat with salt slow smoke it.
A few hundred pounds of Donkey Jerky. Food for weeks.

You don't need food for a good long while. All you need is water.A salty solution to a salty problem!

Tanarii
2022-06-08, 10:38 PM
I think you’re completely right to be salty. It’s just that you’re salty at the wrong person.
Agreed. I also think the person to be salty with is the player of the PC that sold the jewelry.

Reversefigure4
2022-06-09, 01:22 AM
It's a Curse of Strahd campaign, which actively encourages the GM to play mean with the players. This doesn't seem like a particularly bad loss? 100gp worth of stuff practically falls out of trees on adventurers, and I doubt you had serious game-defining plans for those pumpkins that aren't easily replaced. It's a far cry from 'the heirloom sword my father left me'.

Do you trust the GM? If not, Curse of Strahd doesn't seem like a great campaign choice. If so, then why worry over a small loss of pumpkins and a cart?

Morgaln
2022-06-09, 04:20 AM
I can somewhat relate to the OP, as I had something similar happen to me. In a Vampire:Dark Ages campaign, we were travelling in a caravan, with each of us having their own cart. When passing through a village, we noticed suspicious activity that seemed to relate to us, so I stayed behind in the village to investigate, while the rest of the group travelled onwards. I left some equipment in my cart that I didn't want to carry around during a possible stealth sequence (e. g. my bow). My investigation didn't turn up anything due to some bad die rolls, but while I was in the village, the caravan got ambushed by people with fire arrows. While the other characters easily fought off the attackers, after the battle we were informed that a single cart had burnt down during the battle and that cart had been mine.
I was pissed; certainly due to the loss of expensive equipment that I didn't have the resources to replace, but also because I hadn't had any way to even interact with the scene that resulted in me losing stuff. I had not been there, so I couldn't prevent my cart from burning or extinguish the fire; we had drivers and other non-combatants with us, but clearly those didn't do anything to try and save my cart. Even if my investigation had turned up anything, it would not have been in time to prevent the ambush, so I couldn't even pass it off to myself as indirectly failing to prevent it.

Despite the anger over the loss itself, I think the bigger issue was my lack of agency in what happened. I did get over it eventually, but the thing is, I don't even see how the issue could have been fixed aside from a full-out retcon (which I wouldn't have wanted). So that would be my question to the OP: what do you expect your GM to do to fix the issue? Is there anything they can do to lay the matter to rest or at least help you get over it? If not, talking to the GM might not have much effect aside of causing a scene.

kyoryu
2022-06-09, 10:56 AM
So... if (*if*) "every living thing within an X-foot radius" was teleported, with their possessions (so, no naked PCS), *but* the cart does *not* count as a possession for the mules, then it follows logic and game physics for the cart and pumpkins to be left behind.

But, even under that scenario, you would consider it... not best practices... to initiate such an effect... without telegraphing the effect, or giving the PCs some ability to interact with it? Am I reading that right? If so, why?

Why is this not, instead, best practices to give the PCs something that they can investigate ("How come the cart and pumpkins didn't get teleported?"), come to understand the mechanism ("Oh, it only teleports living beings and their possessions"), and later use as a tool, that they earned?

Why are mysteries not best practices? Why is earning things not best practices?

The issue isn't the mystery. It's the rug-pull.

In this scenario I think a better way of handling it is "you'll start in <setting> but will be pulled into Strahd's domain." Much like, in general, a movie doesn't advertise itself as a comedy but it turns out it's actually a horror movie.

Do that, and everything else can remain the same, and it is less likely to have issues.

Zombimode
2022-06-09, 11:13 AM
In this scenario I think a better way of handling it is "you'll start in <setting> but will be pulled into Strahd's domain." Much like, in general, a movie doesn't advertise itself as a comedy but it turns out it's actually a horror movie.

Actually, some movies do this. And some people enjoy watching movies (or playing games) withou knowing much or anything about them.

And this element of suprise is exactly one of the benefits of blind-watching / blind-gaming.


Now, if you enjoy that or not is up to preference.
But rug-pull is not a bad GM pratice - just something that some players might not enjoy.

kyoryu
2022-06-09, 11:17 AM
Actually, some movies do this. And some people enjoy watching movies (or playing games) withou knowing much or anything about them.

And this element of suprise is exactly one of the benefits of blind-watching / blind-gaming.


Now, if you enjoy that or not is up to preference.
But rug-pull is not a bad GM pratice - just something that some players might not enjoy.

I can only really think of two significant movies that do this - From Dusk Til Dawn and The Matrix.

The Matrix was a surprise, but the surprise was heavily telegraphed, even if the nature wasn't. The whole advertising campaign was basically "not everything is what it seems".

Thrudd
2022-06-09, 11:54 AM
There's no indication, atm, that the players didn't know they were playing Curse of Strahd. Now, hopefully, none of them knew exactly what happens in that adventure (since that's sort of the point). But it is possible that they were aware that Ravenloft-related stories involve getting transported to a realm of gothic horror movie monsters. Also, this is 5e, and gold is really not as important as in other editions. Losing 100 gold (which, honestly, was wasted on pumpkins and wheat?! anyway) is not a big deal. Losing a cart is not a big deal- it isn't like carts don't exist in Barovia. I don't imagine having a cart and some trade goods is going to mean a whole lot in this scenario (or any 5e D&D scenario), anyway.

I would roll with the punches and trust the DM, it's the very beginning of the campaign. Reserve judgment for at least a few more sessions before deciding if they are a bad sort of "rug puller".

Zombimode
2022-06-09, 11:55 AM
Ok, movie advertisement is its own topic as trailers range from "stiring interest without showing much" to "spoilering major plotpoints" to "completely misleading".

It doesn't matter for the point I'm trying to make here, though.

Experiencing something with as little as possible knowledge of it beforhand IS something that some people like and even prefer.
Having your expectations suverted IS something that some people really enjoy.

Think about it: when someone talks about their favorite show and someone else, who has not seen it yet but plans to, shuts them up immediately? The same principle.


And with horror specifically it being telegraphed makes it loose a lot of its sting.
For passive media like a movie it doesn't matter as much because while the viewer knows that this is a horror movie, they can still have empathy towards the characters that are subject to the horror and thus feel the horror themselves.

For active media like video games and ttrpgs telegraphed horror is much harder to achieve in a way that actually holds up to the genre - instead of just being a paint job (that is: a game using common horror aesthetics without actually being horror).
If you want a effective horror game, doing some form of rug-pull is a really useful technique.

Easy e
2022-06-09, 01:08 PM
Yes, you are being salty about nothing.



Have fun gaming.

RazorChain
2022-06-10, 01:19 PM
That's because you had too much pumpkin and wheat!

Cart 15 gp
Mule 8 gp a piece total 16 gp.

Wheat 1 cp per lbs
Let's say that pumpkin is also 1 cp per lbs

That means you were carrying 6.900 lbs of pumkin and wheat!

and the mules can only pull 4000 lbs so you were stuck. Your DM did you a favor getting you out of there.

Thrudd
2022-06-10, 01:46 PM
"Oh no! The DM has rudely thrust our D&D characters into an adventure, separating us from the mundane trade goods we had purchased. We wanted to spend the session engaging in everyday commerce, haggling with commodity traders in order to achieve a small profit! I was going to use "charm person" to get them to agree to a price 50% greater than market value! We were going to set up a LLC and start a trade route between settlements, and now, what, we're supposed to fight vampires and werewolves? boooring..."

:smalltongue:

Alcore
2022-06-10, 04:17 PM
"Oh no! The DM has rudely thrust our D&D characters into an adventure, separating us from the mundane trade goods we had purchased. We wanted to spend the session engaging in everyday commerce, haggling with commodity traders in order to achieve a small profit! I was going to use "charm person" to get them to agree to a price 50% greater than market value! We were going to set up a LLC and start a trade route between settlements, and now, what, we're supposed to fight vampires and werewolves? boooring..."

:smalltongue:

You're right! It is perfectly A-OK to start a game, let players make plans and then go; "Ha! Ha! We're going to do something else!" Oh, and steal their stuff without so much as a check to save.

I also own Curse of Stradh and know how much of a poorly written meat grinder it is. But hey... The Wizards are a perfectly respectable company that can make an adventure module and not leave 9/10ths of their own work undone. Upon looking at other products this one is just glaringly bad in the 5e lineup.


If it wasn't a DM I trusted I would walk. (More for the bait and switch than a wagon) Few here have commented on what a serious red flag the DM just waved...

Batcathat
2022-06-10, 04:26 PM
If it wasn't a DM I trusted I would walk. (More for the bait and switch than a wagon) Few here have commented on what a serious red flag the DM just waved...

Yes, what sort of horrible monster would rob their players of a 100 gp worth of pumpkins?

Being a little annoyed is kind of understandable, but treating it as some massive red flag seems excessive. If it was some valuable treasure, an important Macguffin or a beloved family heirloom, sure. But again, it was a 100 gp worth of pumpkins.

Alcore
2022-06-10, 04:40 PM
Yes, what sort of horrible monster would rob their players of a 100 gp worth of pumpkins?

Being a little annoyed is kind of understandable, but treating it as some massive red flag seems excessive. If it was some valuable treasure, an important Macguffin or a beloved family heirloom, sure. But again, it was a 100 gp worth of pumpkins.

Perhaps you didn’t read the Bait and Switch? (That you quoted no less) or the rest of the post that might provide the context you’re ignoring…

Thrudd
2022-06-10, 04:46 PM
You're right! It is perfectly A-OK to start a game, let players make plans and then go; "Ha! Ha! We're going to do something else!" Oh, and steal their stuff without so much as a check to save.

I also own Curse of Stradh and know how much of a poorly written meat grinder it is. But hey... The Wizards are a perfectly respectable company that can make an adventure module and not leave 9/10ths of their own work undone. Upon looking at other products this one is just glaringly bad in the 5e lineup.


If it wasn't a DM I trusted I would walk. (More for the bait and switch than a wagon) Few here have commented on what a serious red flag the DM just waved...

There's no indication that the player's didn't know they were playing Curse of Strahd. Whether or not they knew exactly how it was going to work, they knew it was a module, which means there's almost certainly going to be some railroading to get you there. Yeah, dropping 100gp on something and then immediately losing it is annoying. However, we all know that amount will be recovered quickly, and whatever they thought they needed it for, they're in a different situation, now. When they get back from Barovia, they'll buy more pumpkins and another cart, or maybe their stuff will still be there.

Dr.Samurai
2022-06-10, 04:50 PM
Okay, this is something super minor, so I donÂ’t know if I even should approach the DM about it. That is why I vent here:

We just began a new adventure. We did one quest for a Duchess, which didnÂ’t go that well, but we still managed to do it. The Duchess pays us and, on top of that, gifts one high-born character a piece of jewelry, to remember her by. Now, that character is a bit of a scoundrel, so he immediately sold the piece of jewelry for 200 gold, xD. From that gold, we bought a cart, 2 mules, some wheat and some pumpkins for 100 gold.

The thing is: we are playing Curse of Strahd and in the night, we got teleported to Strahds domain. The mules are still with us, but the cart and the wares are gone, they werenÂ’t teleported with us. Without us being able to do something about it, despite us holding watch the entire night. I am a bit salty about it and so is the player of the high-born character. I feel silly being salty about something so minor and I understand that Curse of Strahd WILL take away things that are dear to the players. But the way it happened feels wrong, you know what I mean? Any thoughts? Should I talk with the DM about it? And how do I approach this? Am I being an Idiot?

( man this whole text seems kind of silly)
First, I'd trust your instincts that this isn't worth the trouble, because I don't think it is. You guys bought something and lost it almost immediately after, so that you're having a negative reaction to it makes sense. But somewhere in your mind you're telling yourself "dude, chill, it's not a big deal", and you're right, it really isn't a big deal.

It doesn't matter who was on watch for how long, it's a supernatural evil mist that can pluck anyone from anywhere at anytime. There's no method to the madness but for what the DM decides. I'd go with it. You still have the two mules, see what you can do with those. But remember... there's way more to come in the campaign and at some point the cart, wheat, and pumpkins that you lost won't be visible in the rear-view.

You did the right thing posting here, and I think you can safely let this go and just enjoy what's to come in Barovia. Good luck to you and your party!

Batcathat
2022-06-10, 04:58 PM
Perhaps you didn’t read the Bait and Switch? (That you quoted no less) or the rest of the post that might provide the context you’re ignoring…

First of all, as far as I've seen we don't even know how much the players actually knew going into the situation. Second, even if they were going in completely blind, it's not like the GM smashed some grandiose, well-crafted plans. They bought some pumpkins, they lost them. It's fine to be annoyed about it, but I don't think it says very much about the game or the GM in general.

Like I said earlier, it would be bad if it became a regular thing. But since there's no particular sign of that, I wouldn't consider doing it once much of a red flag. For example, I would consider it very bad GM behavior to have the party ambushed in their sleep every session, but that doesn't mean it's bad or any sort of red flag to do it once (especially with minimal consequences).

Jay R
2022-06-10, 05:21 PM
Your question assumes that you have a choice to make. If so, then make it in favor of having more fun.

Getting salty about carts is not fun. Drop the unfun issue and focus on the adventure.

You'll have a much more enjoyable game that way.

Pauly
2022-06-10, 06:54 PM
Yes, what sort of horrible monster would rob their players of a 100 gp worth of pumpkins?

Being a little annoyed is kind of understandable, but treating it as some massive red flag seems excessive. If it was some valuable treasure, an important Macguffin or a beloved family heirloom, sure. But again, it was a 100 gp worth of pumpkins.

It wasn’t as if the GM gifted a player a patron’s family heirloom with explicit instructions that it was a Macguffin (‘this is to remember me by’) only for the player who received it to sell it in order to buy some mules, carts and trade goods. I mean if a player did that it would be a complete red flag to keep them in your group.

oxybe
2022-06-11, 01:01 AM
Yes, what sort of horrible monster would rob their players of a 100 gp worth of pumpkins?

Being a little annoyed is kind of understandable, but treating it as some massive red flag seems excessive. If it was some valuable treasure, an important Macguffin or a beloved family heirloom, sure. But again, it was a 100 gp worth of pumpkins.

I dunno if it's our luck with picking modules or what, but my experience with official 5e stuff is that whoever writes these things DESPERATELY wants to keeps PCs poorer then the worms writhing under the roads they trod on.

Like, we're level 4, probably gonna level up when we get to town since we had a 3 fight gauntlet, and at my richest I've had maybe just north of 50gp on my person. I think the group has like... 3 magic items right now? two of which we don't use: a rune-laden scrollcase we can't identify or open and gemstone that makes you a bit crazy. The only item we're actively wearing are boots that make the rogue cold resistant (of the four of us half of the party is already cold resistant and the bard just needs to wear cold weather clothing). I think we may have gotten our 4th magic item, stuff has been hinted at upon first acquiring it, but we haven't really experimented yet with it to find out any given properties. No magic weapons or armour just yet and i'm treating my singular healing potion like it's the most precious thing in the world. Probably because as the cleric if I ever go down in combat, my party will need it to bring me back up.

So yeah, if I'm playing in a WotC module and someone just up and unceremoniously took away 100gp of ANYTHING of mine, which I would consider a large purchase that I had spent some of my very little cash on, yeah I'd be salty.

As for the mystery aspect... are there clues as what happened? If the stuff is gone and there's no clues as to what happened it's not a mystery. Mysteries have clues. Something for you to work with and build up on. If it's supposed to be a mystery, as to why your stuff is just up and gone without notice and you have nothing to lead you in a given direction... that's just bad mystery writing, which i guess is on brand for 5e modules IME. So hey, points to WotC for consistency.

Warder
2022-06-11, 06:19 AM
I don't really get it, I guess. I don't think OP is being unreasonable - everyone has their own things they care about in a game - but the expectation that everything that happens in a roleplaying game must always be able to be controlled by players is odd to me. Doubly so when it comes to stuff like the Mists of Ravenloft, which are notoriously callous in the way they take people away from what they hold dear.

Some of the most interesting stuff to happen in D&D campaigns comes from the idea that the world doesn't revolve around the player characters and that certain things happen with or without the players. Having to react to events like that is every bit as important and interesting as being able to be proactive or preventative through decisions you take, it's just another layer of storytelling. Of course, that hinges on not having a hostile DM, but those are pretty rare and this situation certainly doesn't sound like it.

Jay R
2022-06-11, 08:03 AM
I feel silly being salty about something so minor and I understand that Curse of Strahd WILL take away things that are dear to the players.

Are the contents of that cart dear to you? Pumpkins?

From my Rules for DMs:


4. It is not the DM's job to oppose or obstruct the players. It is the GM's job to provide opposition and obstructions to the PCs. (Max Killjoy)

a. Try to make the difference clear to the players. Celebrate their victories with them; don’t mourn the loss of your NPC.

21. The DM does not have the right to screw up the PC's story. He does have the right to screw up the PCs' plans. Don’t confuse the two.

So, yes, the DM should do things that obstruct the PCs. This can sometimes include taking away some of their props. But the DM should not enjoy taking away your cart. Was he treating it like a personal victory over you, or just ruling on what happened?

And when he takes away something that screws up your plans, he should not take away something that is crucial to your PC’s story.

So is that cart and its contents crucial to your story?



But the way it happened feels wrong, you know what I mean? Any thoughts? Should I talk with the DM about it? And how do I approach this? Am I being an Idiot?

Well, let's consider how it happened. The DM (or the adventure text) needed to teleport you to where the adventure would be. You then bought something that couldn't be teleported, right before it happened. At that point, the DM has no real choice.

Here's the relevant rule (for my approach):


37. The player identifies with the PC, and will take what happens to the PC personally. If the PC wants to defeat the orcs, then the player wants to defeat the orcs. The DM does not have that luxury. The orcs want to kill the PCs, but the DM should not.

a. Follow Matt Dillon’s principle from the TV show Gunsmoke: “I never hang anybody. The law does.” The DM should never kill a PC. Sometimes the game might.

So did the DM decide to take away your carts, or is that just the way the spell works? If the DM decided, “I want to take away their wheat and pumpkins, hee hee hee,” like a bad cartoon villain, then the DM took it away from you, and you may have a right to be salty about it. But if the teleport spell was already going to happen, and it doesn’t transport carts, then the game took it away from you. Shrug, move on, and go get something better than pumpkins and wheat.


Any thoughts? Should I talk with the DM about it? And how do I approach this? Am I being an Idiot?

Decide in advance what you would say, and what the principle involved is. I don't think you can get anywhere with the DM, because you don't even know what principle you would be defending. It seems to me that you would have to defend one of the following statements.

Teleport spell shouldn't work the way the book says it works.
We should be immune to teleport when we have a cart of wheat and pumpkins.
PCs should always have implicit abjuration spells far beyond their level.


I don't think you can build a meaningful case for this being wrong.


( man this whole text seems kind of silly)

I think you should trust your gut on that.

Shrug, move on, and go get something better than pumpkins and wheat.

Alcore
2022-06-11, 09:50 AM
First of all, as far as I've seen we don't even know how much the players actually knew going into the situation. Second, even if they were going in completely blind, it's not like the GM smashed some grandiose, well-crafted plans. They bought some pumpkins, they lost them. It's fine to be annoyed about it, but I don't think it says very much about the game or the GM in general.

Like I said earlier, it would be bad if it became a regular thing. But since there's no particular sign of that, I wouldn't consider doing it once much of a red flag. For example, I would consider it very bad GM behavior to have the party ambushed in their sleep every session, but that doesn't mean it's bad or any sort of red flag to do it once (especially with minimal consequences).
Firstly you are barely engaging with anything I did write so it is hard to find anything to talk about with you.

Secondly your points, even the one you brought up again (to me personally), are just strawmen in our personal context. You think I oppose, or am ignorant of, your points (or at least that is the impression you give me). I am not.

Thirdly; I’ll make my point more explicit for you to understand.

1. I own a copy of Curse of Stradh and feel it’s poorly written.
2. If it wasn’t a DM I trusted a bait and switch like would make me seriously consider leaving the table. Especially for the module in question.
3. It is a red flag. Which you agreed with not “much of a red flag.”


What do I expect the opening poster to do with this information? Nothing but thought. I only expect him to think critically on every post. If the DM is bad he can at least notice earlier than later.

Batcathat
2022-06-11, 10:03 AM
Firstly you are barely engaging with anything I did write so it is hard to find anything to talk about with you.

I commented on the part I disagreed with (perhaps snarkier than was necessary, but still), which seems like engagement enough to me.


Thirdly; I’ll make my point more explicit for you to understand.

1. I own a copy of Curse of Stradh and feel it’s poorly written.
2. If it wasn’t a DM I trusted a bait and switch like would make me seriously consider leaving the table. Especially for the module in question.
3. It is a red flag. Which you agreed with not “much of a red flag.”

I don't have a problem understanding your points, I just don't agree with all of them. Obviously, it's up to you when you consider leaving a table, I just felt it was an excessive reaction given what we know about the OP's situation.

Tanarii
2022-06-11, 10:23 AM
2. If it wasn’t a DM I trusted a bait and switch like would make me seriously consider leaving the table. Especially for the module in question.

What bait and switch?

I (also?) originally took this to mean "not telling them they're running ravenloft", but we don't know that. So someone countering that point is valid.

Other than that possibility, the OP situation doesn't contain a DM bait and switch.

DM gave them a maguffin.
Player sold maguffin for worthless bupkis
DM didn't bother to bring bupkis along because it's irrelevant to and even a distraction from the adventure, unlike maguffin.

The OP is salty at the wrong person. The person to be salty at is the player that sold the maguffin.

Pauly
2022-06-11, 02:53 PM
I’ve re-read the OP and I can’t find any hint of bait and switch about Ravenloft. It says The thing is: we are playing Curse of Strahd and in the night, we got teleported to Strahds domain which to my reading clearly indicates the players knew it was going to be Curse of Strahd when they signed onto the campaign.

The idea of a hypothetical bait and switch came up in the discussion of why did the GM let the party buy trade goods in the first place if they were playing Strahd. The simplest answer is that the GM was letting players exercise their own agency, even if their agency was counter productive to the intended plot.

It seems the party didn’t expect to be pulled into Strahd’s domain so quickly. The player sold the maguffin and the rest of the party seems to have been on board with playing pumpkin traders of the old republic or jack-o-latern fortress or whatever their plan was. I think it’s fair for a GM to push the skip chapter button if the player group isn’t engaging with the tutorial and send them to the main game.

Quertus
2022-06-11, 07:11 PM
As for the mystery aspect... are there clues as what happened? If the stuff is gone and there's no clues as to what happened it's not a mystery. Mysteries have clues. Something for you to work with and build up on. If it's supposed to be a mystery, as to why your stuff is just up and gone without notice and you have nothing to lead you in a given direction... that's just bad mystery writing, which i guess is on brand for 5e modules IME. So hey, points to WotC for consistency.

The fact that the stuff is gone *is* the clue. :smallamused: Or potentially could be, if there are exploitable/predictable/interfaceable mechanics for the teleportation effect.


2. If it wasn’t a DM I trusted a bait and switch like would make me seriously consider leaving the table. Especially for the module in question.
3. It is a red flag. Which you agreed with not “much of a red flag.”

As has been covered already in this thread, "Bait and Switch" / certain styles of violation of expectation is a matter of taste. Some hate it, some are neutral, some love it. So, *if* there was a bait and switch (which is unclear, and, in fact, there probably wasn't, given the wording of the OP), it is not a red flag for the GM, but for "you", in "your" incompatibility with the GM's style. Also, if you don't like the Pizza the GM chef served, use your words, tell them that, and see if they'll work with you to make food you do enjoy.

Or,



I’ve re-read the OP and I can’t find any hint of bait and switch about Ravenloft. It says The thing is: we are playing Curse of Strahd and in the night, we got teleported to Strahds domain which to my reading clearly indicates the players knew it was going to be Curse of Strahd when they signed onto the campaign.

The idea of a hypothetical bait and switch came up in the discussion of why did the GM let the party buy trade goods in the first place if they were playing Strahd. The simplest answer is that the GM was letting players exercise their own agency, even if their agency was counter productive to the intended plot.

It seems the party didn’t expect to be pulled into Strahd’s domain so quickly.

Pretty much this.


The player sold the maguffin and the rest of the party seems to have been on board with playing pumpkin traders of the old republic or jack-o-latern fortress or whatever their plan was. I think it’s fair for a GM to push the skip chapter button if the player group isn’t engaging with the tutorial and send them to the main game.

While you're probably right that it was a McGuffin (and certain other modules make me retroactively facepalm about how badly... I mean, how much opportunity for adventure the party has potentially given themselves with that act, if it is indeed the blunder of selling a McGuffin), I think that, *if* the GM pushed the "skip chapter" button, if the GM took this action simply to remove something that they didn't like, then that's a **** move on their part. Learn to use your words, people, not abuse your power. :smallannoyed:

Rater202
2022-06-11, 09:23 PM
Guys? If the GM let them buy things and then immediately took them away that he GM was wrong. GM made them waste gold.

Gold is a limited resource for PCs, they could have used that gold to buy other things.

If the GM didn't want them to have pumpkins or a cart then the GM shouldn't have let them buy it in the first place.

This combined with the fact that there was no way for them to avoid being teleported, and thus lose the cart and supplies, is a mild red flag.

It's not inherently a deal-breaker, but...

So no OP, you're not being salty about anything. You invested a resource and the arbitrary whims of DM fiat made that investment immediately fail.

Keltest
2022-06-11, 09:26 PM
Guys? If the GM let them buy things and then immediately took them away that he GM was wrong. GM made them waste gold.

Gold is a limited resource for PCs, they could have used that gold to buy other things.

If the GM didn't want them to have pumpkins or a cart then the GM shouldn't have let them buy it in the first place.

This combined with the fact that there was no way for them to avoid being teleported, and thus lose the cart and supplies, is a mild red flag.

It's not inherently a deal-breaker, but...

So no OP, you're not being salty about anything. You invested a resource and the arbitrary whims of DM fiat made that investment immediately fail.

The Gm didnt force them to spend the gold, and especially not on a couple tons of pumpkins. Sometimes players do things that dont work out. Thats how a sandbox game works. Its ok to be mildly annoyed about it, the same as when you roll a 1 on an attack roll even though your + to hit is greater than their AC. It doesnt mean anything about the DM unless they overtly lied about playing Curse of Strahd or something.

Morgaln
2022-06-11, 10:07 PM
I’ve re-read the OP and I can’t find any hint of bait and switch about Ravenloft. It says The thing is: we are playing Curse of Strahd and in the night, we got teleported to Strahds domain which to my reading clearly indicates the players knew it was going to be Curse of Strahd when they signed onto the campaign.

The idea of a hypothetical bait and switch came up in the discussion of why did the GM let the party buy trade goods in the first place if they were playing Strahd. The simplest answer is that the GM was letting players exercise their own agency, even if their agency was counter productive to the intended plot.

It seems the party didn’t expect to be pulled into Strahd’s domain so quickly. The player sold the maguffin and the rest of the party seems to have been on board with playing pumpkin traders of the old republic or jack-o-latern fortress or whatever their plan was. I think it’s fair for a GM to push the skip chapter button if the player group isn’t engaging with the tutorial and send them to the main game.

But even if the players knew that they were playing Curse of Strahd, did they know that their cart would not be teleported with them? After all, I assume all their equipment got teleported. Including backpacks, which they would not have on them when resting during the night. So some of their possessions got teleported and other stuff didn't get teleported. That is not "you should have known you can't keep this," this is "I'll arbitrarily decide to take some stuff from you." I absolutely understand players would be annoyed by that.

icefractal
2022-06-11, 10:15 PM
*If* the mists were added because the GM was annoyed by the selling, then that's bad GMing.

However, I see no evidence of that; from the description it seems they were already playing Curse of Strahd, and therefore the mists were already coming. So the questions are:

1) Was the mists not taking the cart a reasonable ruling? IMO, yes, the mists are a semi-sentient force that wants to kidnap people, and would have no reason to bring along cargo. In fact not bringing the mules would also be reasonable; maybe the logic was that they're creatures and thus worth grabbing.

2) Knowing that the mists were coming, should the GM have forbidden buying the pumpkins? IMO no, there's no IC reason the PCs wouldn't buy them; this would feel like an awkward metagame intrusion. Re: balance - 100 gp is trivial *and* if it's absence merited GM intervention, increasing future loot would be a much less awkward method.

I mean I totally get why the players are annoyed - the situation changes from "we're outsmarting the GM by turning this flavor keepsake into cash money" into "well ****, we played ourselves" and that's a big downgrade. But in this case I think the view to take is "you can't win them all".

Rater202
2022-06-11, 11:00 PM
The GM doesn't hae to forbid them from buying pumpkins, just have it that there aren't several tons of pumpkins to buy.

Likewise, if the trinket was meant to be a plot coupon that the PRcs were meant to hold onto then it's as simple as no one wants to buy it: It's obvious from the home of the Noble Lady and if it turns out it's Hot anyone who buys it is gonna be in a huge mess of trouble.

It does matter how much or how little gold they wasted, random GM fiat made them waste a limited resource and that's not kosher anymore than the GM having someone sneak into th Wizard's room at the in and steal their spellbook without a roll to hear them and wake up or forcing the Paladin into a no-win scenario where they're forced to Violate their Oath specifically to make them fall is.

If the GM didn't want them to sell the trinket, or to have a cart full of pumpkins, there were plenty of reasonable alternatives to what ended up happening.

In general a GM readily taking away things that you spend in-character resources on is a red flag.

oxybe
2022-06-12, 04:26 AM
The fact that the stuff is gone *is* the clue. :smallamused: Or potentially could be, if there are exploitable/predictable/interfaceable mechanics for the teleportation effect.

That's not a clue. That's an excuse and reason to not get attached to anything material. Re-reading the OP, they were actively guarding it and it was just gone "because: mist".

This waking up and your PC is gone, your security cameras didn't pick anything up and your neighbours didn't see or hear anything. That's not a mystery, that's a "call the cops" and hope for the best while keeping an eye out on craigslist or kijiji for a couple of weeks to see for your machine or specific parts shows up while praying your insurance covers "Mist-related tomfoolery". I mean sure, the cost of a PC isn't much in the grand scheme of how much disposable money you'll make in your life, but iit still hurts in the moment. It's analogous to why "Oh woe is me... I'm a poor orphaned PC with no family or loved ones for the GM to mess with" is a meme within the TTRPG community. Too many moms, dads, brothers and sisters sacrificed to the altar of forced melodrama in ye olden days that players just got jaded to the concept of PCs being raised within a well-adjusted family.

Honestly this is the sort of thing that the GM should've warned the PCs about in session 0, that yes a some point they would be whisked away unceremoniously and some of their stuff go missing when they get warped into the mist.


The Gm didnt force them to spend the gold, and especially not on a couple tons of pumpkins

You're right. Now they know better then to spend their gold on anything flavourful or non-essential and anything given to them by NPCs will be unceremoniously put in the bottom of their backpack when outside of the NPC's sight and be promptly forgotten about until relevant, like all good NPC items.

icefractal
2022-06-12, 04:59 AM
Not regarding the OP per-se, more some of the responses -
How ridiculously cash-poor (and yet cash-requiring) campaigns are people playing that 100 gp is a big deal, precious character resources without which you might as well give up?

Like, in 3.x that doesn't buy much! A couple 1st level potions, some of the cheapest utility items ... and for anything significant it's a drop in the bucket. I guess in 5E that's a Common item or a decent chunk of an Uncommon one, so it's better, but still a small fraction of a Rare item - and that's assuming it's a campaign where items can be bought at all.

So - are there a bunch of "the PCs are paupers" campaigns out there I'm unaware of?



You're right. Now they know better then to spend their gold on anything flavourful or non-essential and anything given to them by NPCs will be unceremoniously put in the bottom of their backpack when outside of the NPC's sight and be promptly forgotten about until relevant, like all good NPC items.Eh ... trading the locket for a bunch of pumpkins to sell is a lateral move, flavor-wise, unless the PC really dreamed of being a pumpkin farmer or something. In fact you could argue it's trading flavor away for utility - but personally the pumpkins are novel enough that I like it. It's an interesting and valid move by a PC that didn't happen to work out on this particular occasion due to external factors.

But that's what happens sometimes! If you consider external factors and any hindrance to the PCs plans a bad thing, then what you're looking for is "writing a story" - much the same as a GM who considers any hindrance to their planned plot a bad thing.

Thrudd
2022-06-12, 07:32 AM
Eh ... trading the locket for a bunch of pumpkins to sell is a lateral move, flavor-wise, unless the PC really dreamed of being a pumpkin farmer or something. In fact you could argue it's trading flavor away for utility - but personally the pumpkins are novel enough that I like it. It's an interesting and valid move by a PC that didn't happen to work out on this particular occasion due to external factors.

But that's what happens sometimes! If you consider external factors and any hindrance to the PCs plans a bad thing, then what you're looking for is "writing a story" - much the same as a GM who considers any hindrance to their planned plot a bad thing.

Right. Besides, losing your pumpkins could become a great motivation during the adventure as well!

*standing in a chamber full of mangled bodies, one vampire thrall stands shuddering at sword point, whimpering:*
"Why are you dddoing this? What ddddo you wwwwant? Strahd is willing to give you anything!"
*splattered in gore, you reply, gravely voice and steely eyed:* "I WANT my pumpkins back. WHERE ARE MY PUMPKINS?!"
*the thrall cowers from your rage* -" Puupuuu pumpkins? I ddon't know? we can ffffind some for you maybe? Strahd has extensive holdings..."
*deadpan stare* "No. I want MY pumpkins."
"bbbuuut, we ccca cccan't!"
"Then what good are you to me?" *runs through the poor, stuttering thrall and watch as he spits up blood and falls, silently clutching the gaping wound as he bleeds out on the floor*
"We're coming for you Strahd, you son of a bitch..."

Keltest
2022-06-12, 08:00 AM
The GM doesn't hae to forbid them from buying pumpkins, just have it that there aren't several tons of pumpkins to buy.

Likewise, if the trinket was meant to be a plot coupon that the PRcs were meant to hold onto then it's as simple as no one wants to buy it: It's obvious from the home of the Noble Lady and if it turns out it's Hot anyone who buys it is gonna be in a huge mess of trouble.

It does matter how much or how little gold they wasted, random GM fiat made them waste a limited resource and that's not kosher anymore than the GM having someone sneak into th Wizard's room at the in and steal their spellbook without a roll to hear them and wake up or forcing the Paladin into a no-win scenario where they're forced to Violate their Oath specifically to make them fall is.

If the GM didn't want them to sell the trinket, or to have a cart full of pumpkins, there were plenty of reasonable alternatives to what ended up happening.

In general a GM readily taking away things that you spend in-character resources on is a red flag.

You seem to be acting as if D&D is a game where nothing bad can ever happen to the players. Is it "random GM fiat" making them waste a limited resource if they have to drink a health potion after combat? After all, the GM chose to put mobs who could damage them there, and chose to have them attack.

Rater202
2022-06-12, 08:11 AM
You seem to be acting as if D&D is a game where nothing bad can ever happen to the players. Is it "random GM fiat" making them waste a limited resource if they have to drink a health potion after combat? After all, the GM chose to put mobs who could damage them there, and chose to have them attack.That's a bit of a strawman of my argument. Obviously bad things have to happen or there's no plot. What doesn't need to happen is the GM arbitrarily doing things to the PCs that the players have no chance to counter. Like being teleported to another realm without a large number of supplies you spent a finite resource on with no save despite being awake and standing guard.

Using the health potion example: The player making the call to spend gold on consumables and then using it for it's intended purpose isn't GM fiat.
GM fiat would be if a PC spent gold on a potion and then the motion wasn't there when they went for it because they got pickpocketed and the GM didn't let them roll to notice.

In this case the GM let them sell the trinket, let them by a cart and a bunch of pumpkins, and then arbitrarily took it away from them without a roll.

Batcathat
2022-06-12, 08:30 AM
I'm not sure how common this attitude is, but to me there's a big difference between things I can't affect as a player just because the GM says I can't and things that just can't be affected in-universe. For example, I'm much more okay if the GM have decided in advance that a certain group of enemies is powerful enough to almost certainly win a fight than if the GM just decide that we lose, no matter how many enemies we kill or clever plans we come up with, even though the end result is basically the same.

In this case, it sounds like there wasn't anything the characters could've done in-universe (unlike if they're being pickpocketed, for example). That said, I'm also rather particular about things being consistent, so if there wasn't some good reason for the mules to be brought along but not the carts, I might get salty about that instead.

Thrudd
2022-06-12, 08:37 AM
I'm not sure how common this attitude is, but to me there's a big difference between things I can't affect as a player just because the GM says I can't and things that just can't be affected in-universe. For example, I'm much more okay if the GM have decided in advance that a certain group of enemies is powerful enough to almost certainly win a fight than if the GM just decide that we lose, no matter how many enemies we kill or clever plans we come up with, even though the end result is basically the same.

In this case, it sounds like there wasn't anything the characters could've done in-universe (unlike if they're being pickpocketed, for example). That said, I'm also rather particular about things being consistent, so if there wasn't some good reason for the mules to be brought along but not the carts, I might get salty about that instead.

The question here, is whether the DM should have followed the module they were running, or decided to alter what was written to allow them to keep their cart and pumpkins. I'd say they made a compromise by allowing them to keep the mules. There's isn't a roll you can make to avoid the magical mist that brings you to the adventure. It's valid to critique the technique employed by this (and earlier Ravenloft) modules to get the characters to Barovia - but that's what they're running.

Rater202
2022-06-12, 08:42 AM
I'm not sure how common this attitude is, but to me there's a big difference between things I can't affect as a player just because the GM says I can't and things that just can't be affected in-universe. For example, I'm much more okay if the GM have decided in advance that a certain group of enemies is powerful enough to almost certainly win a fight than if the GM just decide that we lose, no matter how many enemies we kill or clever plans we come up with, even though the end result is basically the same.

In this case, it sounds like there wasn't anything the characters could've done in-universe (unlike if they're being pickpocketed, for example). That said, I'm also rather particular about things being consistent, so if there wasn't some good reason for the mules to be brought along but not the carts, I might get salty about that instead.

Fair enough but if the PCs spend in-character resources on something they shouldn't lose it without using it, even if the GM has to fudge the rules a bit.

Same reason why enemies never aim for the backpack or the wizard's spellbook. Realistically they would for tactical reasons but taking away the PCs toys makes the game less fun.

It's like... In the second edition of Chronicles of Darkness they made it an explicit rule that the Storyteller can't take away any items or npcs your character has because of merits unless they refund you the full XP cost. I'm operating on the same logic: The GM can't arbitrarily take things away from the PCs.

Keltest
2022-06-12, 08:49 AM
That's a bit of a strawman of my argument. Obviously bad things have to happen or there's no plot. What doesn't need to happen is the GM arbitrarily doing things to the PCs that the players have no chance to counter. Like being teleported to another realm without a large number of supplies you spent a finite resource on with no save despite being awake and standing guard.

Using the health potion example: The player making the call to spend gold on consumables and then using it for it's intended purpose isn't GM fiat.
GM fiat would be if a PC spent gold on a potion and then the motion wasn't there when they went for it because they got pickpocketed and the GM didn't let them roll to notice.

In this case the GM let them sell the trinket, let them by a cart and a bunch of pumpkins, and then arbitrarily took it away from them without a roll.

Why are you assuming its arbitrary? Theyre playing a module where one of the specific intents is for the DM to screw with the players. If nothing else, there is the obvious "living/nonliving creature" divide between the mules and the cart.

Frankly, its not the DM's job to stop the players from playing themselves sometimes either.

Rater202
2022-06-12, 08:54 AM
Why are you assuming its arbitrary? Theyre playing a module where one of the specific intents is for the DM to screw with the players. If nothing else, there is the obvious "living/nonliving creature" divide between the mules and the cart.

Frankly, its not the DM's job to stop the players from playing themselves sometimes either.
Well, for one I'm assuming that the PCs didn't spawn into Ravenloft buck naked because the OP would have shared that information.

If some non-living things made the jump, then it becomes questionable that others didn't.

We also don't know that the PCs played themselves: They obviously thought that they'd get to make use of the cart and/or pumpkins so presumably, they didn't think they'd randomly lose them that night.

We also don't know if they knew they'd be doing this module ahead of time. You could argue they land themselves if they did, but if the GM sprung this o them then the GM should have fudged things so that they kept the stuff that they spent a finite in-character resource on.

Or just not let them buy stuff in the first place. As I said, if the GM didn't want them to have a cart and pumpkins then Pumpkins could have been out of season and nobody had a cart to sell.

Keltest
2022-06-12, 08:58 AM
Well, for one I'm assuming that the PCs didn't spawn into Ravenloft buck naked because the OP would have shared that information.

If some non-living things made the jump, then it becomes questionable that others didn't.

We also don't know that the PCs played themselves: They obviously thought that they'd get to make use of the cart and/or pumpkins so presumably, they didn't think they'd randomly lose them that night.

We also don't know if they knew they'd be doing this module ahead of time. You could argue they land themselves if they did, but if the GM sprung this o them then the GM should have fudged things so that they kept the stuff that they spent a finite in-character resource on.

Or just not let them buy stuff in the first place. As I said, if the GM didn't want them to have a cart and pumpkins then Pumpkins could have been out of season and nobody had a cart to sell.

"living creatures and what they had on their persons" seems perfectly consistent to me.

And it seems pretty strange to insist that the DM doesnt have legitimate ability to take away the possessions of the players, but he does have the legitimate ability to flat out forbid them from going shopping or spending gold on DM Approved (tm) items.

oxybe
2022-06-12, 09:15 AM
Not regarding the OP per-se, more some of the responses -
How ridiculously cash-poor (and yet cash-requiring) campaigns are people playing that 100 gp is a big deal, precious character resources without which you might as well give up?

Like, in 3.x that doesn't buy much! A couple 1st level potions, some of the cheapest utility items ... and for anything significant it's a drop in the bucket. I guess in 5E that's a Common item or a decent chunk of an Uncommon one, so it's better, but still a small fraction of a Rare item - and that's assuming it's a campaign where items can be bought at all.

So - are there a bunch of "the PCs are paupers" campaigns out there I'm unaware of?

Eh ... trading the locket for a bunch of pumpkins to sell is a lateral move, flavor-wise, unless the PC really dreamed of being a pumpkin farmer or something. In fact you could argue it's trading flavor away for utility - but personally the pumpkins are novel enough that I like it. It's an interesting and valid move by a PC that didn't happen to work out on this particular occasion due to external factors.

But that's what happens sometimes! If you consider external factors and any hindrance to the PCs plans a bad thing, then what you're looking for is "writing a story" - much the same as a GM who considers any hindrance to their planned plot a bad thing.

Starting with your second point: Once bitten, twice shy. If investing resources into the GM's world means they can just get poofed away without anything you can do about it, why invest in the GM's world? Seriously. because if the GM is just gonna do whatever the heck he wants that's, to use your turn of a phrase, "writing a story".

Again, this isn't a "hindrance": it's just a tasteless and random loss of stuff. There's really no factor the PCs could've reasonably planned for outside of "not doing the content the GM had planned for the night". I come to the session with the general agreement that yeah, i'm gonna roll with what the GM has planned, but also the agreement that he's not gonna unceremoniously mess with me.

As for the first point of D&D poverty mode, I'm currently playing in a 5e Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign.

We're level 4 and I think we may level up next session if we manage to get to town since we just gauntleted our way through a few fights.

Looking at my character sheet? Combined I've got just shy of 40GP in coin, outside of my Chainmail and Warhammer (starting equipment) my most expensive items are a single healing potion and 100ft of silk rope. I, technically, have a magic item but if i attune myself to it it begins constantly jabbering repetitive sequence of a language I don't understand and while doesn't magically compel me to act, it makes it so that something vaguely south has my attention. So yeah, that thing is like wrapped in a shirt, double bagged and hidden in the bottom of my backpack until i figure out a way to make it not drive you crazy.

Because we're up north in the middle of bumbleheck nowhere the few things we may want to buy are also overpriced by up to twice as much as PHB price as it's hard to get stuff shipped to the middle of the tundra.

I dunno if we have just terrible luck or the module is written to keep the PC broke as heck, but scrimping and scrounging has been the name of the game.

We've been basically doing the D&D equivalent of living paycheque to paycheque.

My time with Descent into Avernus had a similar issue: I joined the game partway through when they were well into hell and gold was largely useless and what gold I did have, there was little to nothing to spend it on as Soul coins were the currency of choice and even then as a group we only had a handful between us, mostly being used as a token to get a plot mcguffin or as fuel to get from point a to point b in the wacky races-esque war machines.

So yeah, my experience with the prewritten stuff is that the designers want to keep you broke as hell.

Rater202
2022-06-12, 09:17 AM
And it seems pretty strange to insist that the DM doesnt have legitimate ability to take away the possessions of the players, but he does have the legitimate ability to flat out forbid them from going shopping or spending gold on DM Approved (tm) items.The GM doe snot have the legimtate ability to render harm onto the PCs in ways that the PCs have no means of defending against: Taking away their items without them having a chance to prevent the loss falls under this category.

The GM does, however, have the legitimate ability to establish the ground rules of a scenario, which would include what items are and are not available for sale in the local market.

To use a deliberatly exaggerated example: Just because a PC wants to buy a dragon egg, that doens't meant that there's someone selling dragon eggs in town.

Batcathat
2022-06-12, 09:24 AM
Same reason why enemies never aim for the backpack or the wizard's spellbook. Realistically they would for tactical reasons but taking away the PCs toys makes the game less fun.

We probably shouldn't get too into it to avoid derailing the thread, but I feel like I should point out that these "rules" aren't omnipresent. I remember a thread a year or two ago about whether or not it was okay for enemies to target a wizard's component pouch and there were plenty of strong opinions on both sides, so while everyone probably agrees the game should be as fun as it can be, not everyone agrees on what that looks like.

I suppose both whether or not enemies aren't allowed certain tactics and whether or not things like the OP's scenario are okay are session zero material.

Keltest
2022-06-12, 09:25 AM
The GM doe snot have the legimtate ability to render harm onto the PCs in ways that the PCs have no means of defending against: Taking away their items without them having a chance to prevent the loss falls under this category.

The GM does, however, have the legitimate ability to establish the ground rules of a scenario, which would include what items are and are not available for sale in the local market.

To use a deliberatly exaggerated example: Just because a PC wants to buy a dragon egg, that doens't meant that there's someone selling dragon eggs in town.

Sure he does. The GM is not obligated to be fair. If the players are meant to run away from a scenario instead of standing to fight it, for example, but they do so anyway, the GM is perfectly within their rights to pull the trigger until the players either get the hint or die. Likewise, if the players decide to expend a resource on a bunch of useless nonsense, thats their decision to make.

Rater202
2022-06-12, 09:38 AM
The GM is not obligated to be fair. The GM is also not obligated to have players.

Playing fair is part of the social contract of the game.

Keltest
2022-06-12, 10:22 AM
The GM is not obligated to be fair. The GM is also not obligated to have players.

Playing fair is part of the social contract of the game.

Its literally the world against 4-6 people, the game already isnt fair. And I dont just mean in the sense that thats the premise of the module.

Talakeal
2022-06-12, 11:07 AM
Same reason why enemies never aim for the backpack or the wizard's spellbook. Realistically they would for tactical reasons but taking away the PCs toys makes the game less fun.


Not fun for you.

I personally wouldn’t enjoy a game where I have arbitrary plot armor.

Morgaln
2022-06-12, 02:04 PM
"living creatures and what they had on their persons" seems perfectly consistent to me.

And it seems pretty strange to insist that the DM doesnt have legitimate ability to take away the possessions of the players, but he does have the legitimate ability to flat out forbid them from going shopping or spending gold on DM Approved (tm) items.

The OP said that it was night when the transport happened and that they had someone on guard. That implies some of them were resting. I assume that people do not sleep with their weapons, armor and backpacks fixed to their bodies. Even if they were just sitting around a campfire, I seriously doubt they hadn't taken off their backpacks at the very least. So by your reasoning, they should have lost quite a bit of equipment. If that had been the case, I'm quite sure the OP would have mentioned it.
So since stuff got transported that wasn't on anyone's person and other stuff didn't, the choice was arbitrary.

Pauly
2022-06-12, 03:27 PM
The GM doe snot have the legimtate ability to render harm onto the PCs in ways that the PCs have no means of defending against: Taking away their items without them having a chance to prevent the loss falls under this category.

The GM does, however, have the legitimate ability to establish the ground rules of a scenario, which would include what items are and are not available for sale in the local market.

To use a deliberatly exaggerated example: Just because a PC wants to buy a dragon egg, that doens't meant that there's someone selling dragon eggs in town.

The GM is not obligated to prevent the players making bad decisions. Except, maybe, in the case of campaign ending bad decisions.
In this case the player who received the item made 2 bad decisions.
- Sell an obvious MacGuffin
- Spend most of the money on useless* trade goods with the proceeds.

In this case we aren’t talking about Frodo selling the one ring in Bree in the Prancing Pony so he can buy another round of beers. Given the nature of the item and who gave it to the party my guess is that it was intended to give the PCs an ally within Ravenloft, someone recognizes the Duchess’ crest and then reacts favorably to the party kind of thing. The players made a decision and the game moved on with the consequences of that decision.

*useless as in they don’t provide a bonus or in game effect to the player’s actions,

Dr.Samurai
2022-06-12, 07:41 PM
I am so surprised that in a game where you'll be fighting vampires and werewolves and wielding legendary artifacts against the undead... people are THIS concerned about a cart and some pumpkins.

I get being a bit annoyed that things went down the way they did but it seems to me there's a terrible amount of not keeping things in perspective going on around here. Many assumptions are being made about the DM as if sheaths of wheat and pumpkins are super integral to the game and removing them from player custody is a major setback. They are not. Like, at all. It's not that serious.

I'd expect this type of reaction if the DM took magic weapons or armor right before the PCs were entering a pivotal battle or something. And if the DM did it often. But that's not at all what's going on here.

Pex
2022-06-12, 08:44 PM
Why are you assuming its arbitrary? Theyre playing a module where one of the specific intents is for the DM to screw with the players. If nothing else, there is the obvious "living/nonliving creature" divide between the mules and the cart.

Frankly, its not the DM's job to stop the players from playing themselves sometimes either.

If the module itself tells the DM to be a donkey cavity to the players that's not the defense you think it is. That's a condemnation on the module for encouraging such DM behavior.

oxybe
2022-06-12, 09:03 PM
I am so surprised that in a game where you'll be fighting vampires and werewolves and wielding legendary artifacts against the undead... people are THIS concerned about a cart and some pumpkins.

I get being a bit annoyed that things went down the way they did but it seems to me there's a terrible amount of not keeping things in perspective going on around here. Many assumptions are being made about the DM as if sheaths of wheat and pumpkins are super integral to the game and removing them from player custody is a major setback. They are not. Like, at all. It's not that serious.

I'd expect this type of reaction if the DM took magic weapons or armor right before the PCs were entering a pivotal battle or something. And if the DM did it often. But that's not at all what's going on here.

Because the pumpkins are largely stand-in for player agency.

It doesn't matter that it's pumpkins specifically.

Let's say the players bought 100gp worth of flippytigewgas after selling an item they had no attachment to.

IME in a WotC module 100gp is a heck of a lot of cash early on. The reason for the flippytigewgas purchase doesn't matter: whether they were purchased for food, trade, construction, personal attachment or whatever. They wanted to buy the and the GM said "yes".

And then it's just gone. Nothing they could have done could've stopped it from occurring. They're out the original item they sold+whatever personal gold they invested in addition to the gold they got from the item and their flippytigewgas.

Replace flippytigewgas with "pumpkin", "magic weapon", "healing potions","orphaned puppies","innocent orc babies" or whatever you like.

Or to break it down as simple as possible:

Player:"Can I sell [thing I don't care for] and buy [thing of interest]?"
DM: yes
Also DM: now you no longer have [thing of interest].

Mastikator
2022-06-13, 01:12 AM
You're right. Now they know better then to spend their gold on anything flavourful or non-essential and anything given to them by NPCs will be unceremoniously put in the bottom of their backpack when outside of the NPC's sight and be promptly forgotten about until relevant, like all good NPC items.

Players buying stuff and becoming merchants is really great for some types of campaigns, especially sandbox campaigns where it is important that the players identify with the setting. These things are great because they allow the players to put down some roots.

For a meatgrinder like CoS it's a distraction. The DM did the right thing to take them away.

Pauly
2022-06-13, 01:24 AM
Because the pumpkins are largely stand-in for player agency.
[snip]

Or to break it down as simple as possible:

Player:"Can I sell [thing I don't care for] and buy [thing of interest]?"
DM: yes
Also DM: now you no longer have [thing of interest].

Alternatively.
Players: Sign on to a Curse of Strahd campaign. They know by reputation that the module is a bit of a meatgrinder that puts the party in difficult situations.
GM: Gifts a player a Maguffin (nb player doesn’t earn the Maguffin and the GM does everything but put a neon flashing sign saying “this is a Maguffin” on it). The reasonable inference is that this will be a helpful Maguffin.
Player: Sells plot relevant Maguffin for gold.
GM: Allows player to have agency
Player: Uses gold to buy non plot relevant stuff.
GM: Moves onto next plot point, the byproduct of which is that the plot irrelevant stuff becomes completely irrelevant.

The issue isn’t the GM cancelling the player’s agency. The issue is that players used their agency on plot irrelevant stuff. The GM didn’t waste the player’s time effort and resources, the players did it to themselves.

Batcathat
2022-06-13, 01:49 AM
The issue isn’t the GM cancelling the player’s agency. The issue is that players used their agency on plot irrelevant stuff. The GM didn’t waste the player’s time effort and resources, the players did it to themselves.

I guess a lot of it comes down to the question of whether the GM should stop players from making mistakes and I don't think there's a single answer to that question. Some groups would be pissed about the GM letting them waste their money on something the GM knew would be taken away, some groups would be pissed about GM giving them meta-knowledge their characters wouldn't have (some groups would probably be pissed about either, people aren't always very rational).

Pex
2022-06-13, 01:54 AM
Alternatively.
Players: Sign on to a Curse of Strahd campaign. They know by reputation that the module is a bit of a meatgrinder that puts the party in difficult situations.
GM: Gifts a player a Maguffin (nb player doesn’t earn the Maguffin and the GM does everything but put a neon flashing sign saying “this is a Maguffin” on it). The reasonable inference is that this will be a helpful Maguffin.
Player: Sells plot relevant Maguffin for gold.
GM: Allows player to have agency
Player: Uses gold to buy non plot relevant stuff.
GM: Moves onto next plot point, the byproduct of which is that the plot irrelevant stuff becomes completely irrelevant.

The issue isn’t the GM cancelling the player’s agency. The issue is that players used their agency on plot irrelevant stuff. The GM didn’t waste the player’s time effort and resources, the players did it to themselves.

I stand by what I wrote before in terms of the module, if it actually does that, but yes this. I'm with Tanarii on this. The person to blame, if there is to be blame, is on the player who sold the jewelry. Oxybe is right the DM should not take away player agency, but I don't find that's what happened here given the players knew the campaign they were to play going in. I have a suspicion the player who got the pumpkins did so not because he was interested in pumpkins but that he wanted to derail the game. It could just be me being cynical, but with my own bias I cannot fathom why a player would sell a gift from a noble for vegetables. The player knew it was a McGuffin and wanted to disrupt whatever plan the DM had. Some players just do that for their own jollies. If the player wasn't trying to derail the game my other cynical suspicion is the player was metagaming. Knowing they are playing this module the player figured pumpkins would be rare if not existent in Barovia, and he would get rich selling them there. The only way I can see the player to be absolutely innocent is if it's his first D&D/RPG game ever and doesn't know how things work, so to speak.

oxybe
2022-06-13, 01:56 AM
Alternatively.
Players: Sign on to a Curse of Strahd campaign. They know by reputation that the module is a bit of a meatgrinder that puts the party in difficult situations.
GM: Gifts a player a Maguffin (nb player doesn’t earn the Maguffin and the GM does everything but put a neon flashing sign saying “this is a Maguffin” on it). The reasonable inference is that this will be a helpful Maguffin.
Player: Sells plot relevant Maguffin for gold.
GM: Allows player to have agency
Player: Uses gold to buy non plot relevant stuff.
GM: Moves onto next plot point, the byproduct of which is that the plot irrelevant stuff becomes completely irrelevant.

The issue isn’t the GM cancelling the player’s agency. The issue is that players used their agency on plot irrelevant stuff. The GM didn’t waste the player’s time effort and resources, the players did it to themselves.

Bolded is where the GM screwed up.

The GM could have easily said "no, McGuffin is a hot commodity and no one would buy it" or "no [thing i don't want to focus on] is not available for purchase"

but they did say yes on both accounts, they let the pcs spend their gold and now they are sans McGuffin or Gold or [thing].

The PCs are fundamentally worse off then before because the GM let them do a thing he probably didn't want them to do, didn't make it clear, and is punishing the players because they failed for forecast his plans.

Pauly
2022-06-13, 02:17 AM
Bolded is where the GM screwed up.

The GM could have easily said "no, McGuffin is a hot commodity and no one would buy it" or "no [thing i don't want to focus on] is not available for purchase"

but they did say yes on both accounts, they let the pcs spend their gold and now they are sans McGuffin or Gold or [thing].

The PCs are fundamentally worse off then before because the GM let them do a thing he probably didn't want them to do, didn't make it clear, and is punishing the players because they failed for forecast his plans.

That’s only true if they’re Frodo selling the one ring. But if they’re Sam selling Galadriel’s rope, then it’s OK to let the players sell it. There is a huge difference between ‘You need this item to complete the campaign’ and ‘this item will reduce the difficulty level of some later challenges’.

oxybe
2022-06-13, 04:00 AM
That’s only true if they’re Frodo selling the one ring. But if they’re Sam selling Galadriel’s rope, then it’s OK to let the players sell it. There is a huge difference between ‘You need this item to complete the campaign’ and ‘this item will reduce the difficulty level of some later challenges’.

You're talking about a DM's future knowledge of the module. To the characters or players unless it's explicitly mentioned there's no immediate difference if the item is necessary, something to help them later or just some backpack weight they hope .

The players and by extension the characters sold a necklace they got as a reward and they had no attachment to. Did they, the players know it was going to be future important? Did the characters know? Or was it just presented as a bonus for a job done and effectively cash in a different form (see: gems, art pieces, fine silks, etc... mentioned to be worth X amount GP one would traditionally find in treasure hoards or stashes)?

They then bought things they were interested in, whether it was a player whim or in-character choice (this latter bit can be important because the CHARACTERS don't know they're playing Curse of Strahd or that they're going to be mist'd away).

This is Sam selling the rope he found for a nice new sickle to tend the herbs and garden and then having it just disappear after leaving Lothlorien because it's "not plot relevant".

I'm not familiar with Curse of Strahd. I haven't played it so I'm talking from entirely an outsider's point of view and it simply looks like a GM punishing a player for no valid reason.

Our player

A) did not have metaknowledge on the importance of the necklace OR
B) the player had the metaknowledge but the character doesn't, and the player doesn't want to act on that knowledge, knowing how the character would act with any other necklace is to sell it

once the necklace was sold, the wheat + pumpkins were bought along with the cart and mules because our player

A) did not have metaknowledge on when they would get warped/what would come with them OR
B) the player had the metaknowledge but the character doesn't, and the player doesn't want to act on that knowledge, so they bought the "non plot stuff" the character would have bought any other time

Then, while the characters were actively guarding and watching the stuff, it was whisked away.

Which is why it seems, as an outsider, either the GM is needlessly punishing the players for acting in character, or punishing them for not knowing things they had no way of knowing outside of reading the module/reviews.

Jay R
2022-06-13, 10:06 AM
Guys? If the GM let them buy things and then immediately took them away that he GM was wrong. GM made them waste gold.

Gold is a limited resource for PCs, they could have used that gold to buy other things.

If the GM didn't want them to have pumpkins or a cart then the GM shouldn't have let them buy it in the first place.


If the GM didn't want them to sell the trinket, or to have a cart full of pumpkins, there were plenty of reasonable alternatives to what ended up happening.

In general a GM readily taking away things that you spend in-character resources on is a red flag.

That’s certainly one way to play, but neither the rules, not the history of the game, nor consensus among gamers imply that it is the only way to play, or even the best way to play.

Some of us are playing to simulate being in a fantasy world. And in a fantasy world, things happen that you cannot predict or control.

I agree that over the long haul, I should have the ability to improve my character’s fortune, but that isn’t the same as saying that nothing I do should ever hurt my character’s fortune in the short term. Things happen that I cannot control, because my PC is adventuring in a world, not a computer simulation of wish fulfillment.

Consider two driving simulations. You could program one to simulate driving in a real world, and if you accidentally turn into something you didn’t see, you end up crashed. You could simulate a different program to prevent crashes, by having the program eliminate problems that you couldn’t anticipate.

Neither of these programs is better than the other. They just appeal to different tastes, like different flavors of ice cream.

Consider the following three situations.


The PCs want to sell the vampire bane sword to get an item that is always useful. The DM knows that there is a vampire in the next village.
The PCs want to take the east road, towards the forest. The DM knows that the west road has a more lucrative adventure.
The PCs want to sell a noble’s gift to them in order to buy a cartful of wheat and pumpkins. The DM knows that there is a teleport spell coming that will only bring objects up to the characters carrying capacity.

In all three cases, the players are making a decision. It’s based on incomplete information, but it’s still their decision. Many of us prefer to play in a game where we can make our own decisions even when those decisions are wrong.

Of course, I have faith that I will make enough right decisions to offset the wrong ones. But if the DM prevents us from making wrong decisions, then we aren’t really making decisions at all. And making decisions is what playing the game is.

When I play poker, I often make decisions that are wrong, based on the cards in my opponents’ hands that I can’t see. That’s what playing the game is. I don’t want some DM or computer to change those cards to make my decisions right. That wouldn’t be playing poker

I want to make my own decisions, even when those decisions are wrong, based on information I don’t have.

You don’t want to play that way. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

But there’s nothing wrong with playing my way, either.

KorvinStarmast
2022-06-13, 10:43 AM
A few thoughts:
First, I'd trust your instincts that this isn't worth the trouble, because I don't think it is. {snip}
You did the right thing posting here, and I think you can safely let this go and just enjoy what's to come in Barovia. Good luck to you and your party! For certain values of the term 'enjoy' ... :smallsmile:

I mean I totally get why the players are annoyed - the situation changes from "we're outsmarting the GM by turning this flavor keepsake into cash money" into "well ****, we played ourselves" and that's a big downgrade. But in this case I think the view to take is "you can't win them all". That's a healthy approach, good recommendation.

How ridiculously cash-poor (and yet cash-requiring) campaigns are people playing that 100 gp is a big deal, precious character resources without which you might as well give up? In CoS, gold doesn't have the purchasing power in Barovia that it does elsewhere. (Module design issue). Losing 100 GP at low level is a significant downer.

Its literally the world against 4-6 people, the game already isn't fair. And I don't just mean in the sense that that's the premise of the module. But it for sure is a premise embedded in the module.
The players and by extension the characters sold a necklace they got as a reward and they had no attachment to. Role playing moment here: why is there no attachment to a reward offered for a task achieved? Your post highlights something I've noticed: there's a 'materialist' approach I have seem some players use in D&D that devalues stuff like "X gave us Y" - which in my groups is usually internalized as a connection to X. A few of my players are very mechanistic: how much GP can I get for this is a reaction that I have seen ... and it often feels like a "push button get banana" as a mind set.

I'm not familiar with Curse of Strahd. I haven't played it so I'm talking from entirely an outsider's point of view and it simply looks like a GM punishing a player for no valid reason. I guess that for the modern player they may need a sign outside the first gate that says "Welcome to the Suck" to get the idea that Barovia is 'not quite right' in a lot of ways.

Then, while the characters were actively guarding and watching the stuff, it was whisked away. That's for sure annoying. But in the case of Barovia, our party had the entire caravan they were guarding 'whisked away' when we went inside a building to do some stuff .... it's a Barovia thing. (Not in Kurt's game, a previous one)

Psyren
2022-06-13, 11:02 AM
I view this as kind of a trust issue. Yeah you might lose a cart (and... pumpkins/wheat) in the short term, but that's not the same as saying the DM is taking something from you without recompense. 5e doesn't have Wealth By Level, but that doesn't mean there's no way for you to be made whole in some way. Including (eventually) a brand new cart laden with stuff.

In other words, take a breath and see where it goes.

Also, if you don't mind me saying so, you got robbed in the initial purchase anyway. A cart is 15gp and 2 mules are 16gp (31 total), so unless you were in the desert I'm not seeing how pumpkins and wheat made up the other 69gp.

Dr.Samurai
2022-06-13, 11:08 AM
Because the pumpkins are largely stand-in for player agency.
I don't think they can be though. Because the DM allowed them the agency to do something MUCH MORE impactful, which is sell the mcguffin. So the DM allowed them to sell this item, and then buy a bunch of useless stuff with it.

So you can't say the DM is denying agency just because they lost the stuff when they were transported to Barovia. Or, at least, you'd have to acknowledge that the DM also allowed a lot of agency, and then explain why one instance supersedes the other.

For certain values of the term 'enjoy' ... :smallsmile:
Lol, fair point :smalltongue:

In other words, take a breath and see where it goes.
Agreed.

kyoryu
2022-06-13, 12:13 PM
It's not about the 100 gp of stuff.

It's about player investment and expectations. I mean, basically, you don't want to arbitrarily take things away from players that they've invested in. And it's not just things. Those purchases say, to me, "hey, I think that doing this kind of trading would be cool." Like, the player thought about that, and invested time in making decisions and plans.

And to have that simply taken away, with no real explanation, despite the best efforts of the player to guard them?

If players are upset, there's usually a reason, and 90% of the time that boils down to mismatched expectations. Once I played a DCC game where I sat and thought about starting gear - only to have the scenario start with having all of that gear stripped from us (and not returned). It annoyed me. I had invested nothing but time and thought in it, but if it didn't matter, why not just tell me it doesn't matter up front, since losing it wasn't even an in-game thing?

It's kinda the same here, and why I recommend against rug-pull scenarios. The rug-pull usually happens in the first session or so, and it almost never has the dramatic impact GMs want, and often will upset people. So, why do it? Just tell people up-front "the campaign is about this" and go with that.

And, should the PCs have known? Clearly they didn't, or they wouldn't have bothered investing in plans that would be ruined by getting randomly teleported away.

It's not about what happened. It's about communication and aligning expectations.

Tanarii
2022-06-13, 12:32 PM
I do think that to some degree player agency was retroactively negated by the DM.

But it's the start of a Ravenloft campaign. That's part of signing up for a Ravenloft campaign, agreeing that your initial agency in regards to starting equipment may be negated. Knowing that when you get transported there, who knows what gear will come with you. You could end up buck naked.

Same as signing up for any campaign where you are told you will be captured and have to escape at the end of session N.

If the players were unaware how Ravenloft works, and the DM didn't tell them, then yeah there's a bit of culpability. But I'd still be irritated with the player that sold what, to me, smells like something you'll need later on.

kyoryu
2022-06-13, 01:26 PM
If the players were unaware how Ravenloft works, and the DM didn't tell them, then yeah there's a bit of culpability. But I'd still be irritated with the player that sold what, to me, smells like something you'll need later on.

I think this is the thing, really. There's a presumption that the players knew it, and knew that's how Ravenloft worked. Also, reading the initial post, I didn't pick up that the amulet was a quest item.

This is where I think the GM should have done a touch of expectation alignment. "You're... buying stuff to trade? You know this is a Ravenloft game, right? And that usually in Ravenloft games you get transported to Ravenloft without your stuff?"

Pauly
2022-06-13, 03:35 PM
I think this is the thing, really. There's a presumption that the players knew it, and knew that's how Ravenloft worked. Also, reading the initial post, I didn't pick up that the amulet was a quest item.

This is where I think the GM should have done a touch of expectation alignment. "You're... buying stuff to trade? You know this is a Ravenloft game, right? And that usually in Ravenloft games you get transported to Ravenloft without your stuff?"

The amulet was a plot item, not a quest item. The distinction being there was no active quest that the item was linked to.

As to why I think it is a plot item:
From the OP We did one quest for a Duchess, which didnÂ’t go that well, but we still managed to do it. The Duchess pays us and, on top of that, gifts one high-born character a piece of jewelry, to remember her by. Now, that character is a bit of a scoundrel, so he immediately sold the piece of jewelry
From this
1) The jewelry was a gift, not a reward. The party had already been rewarded. The gift was made despite the mission not going well.
2) It was given to a specific character for a specific reason
3) If the GM had intended it to be a reward to the party they would simply have increased the reward for completing the mission by 200gp.
4) The Duchess gives the character instructions that this will be referred to later on “to remember her by”. If the GM had no future plans for the item they wouldn’t have said that it was for them to remember her by.
5) The character who sells it is ‘a bit of a scoundrel’ from which I infer that the GM didn’t expect the item to be immediately sold, because the OP refers to selling it as being a scoundrel act.

Psyren
2022-06-13, 03:42 PM
It's not about the 100 gp of stuff.

It isn't and it is. Because in the grand scheme of things, "my cabbages pumpkins!" is truly not worth staging an intervention over, even if that loss wasn't telegraphed. I guarantee the party will get the 80gp back; the DM truly does not need to pre-clear every single plot turn, especially not one this minor.

kyoryu
2022-06-13, 04:10 PM
It isn't and it is. Because in the grand scheme of things, "my cabbages pumpkins!" is truly not worth staging an intervention over, even if that loss wasn't telegraphed. I guarantee the party will get the 80gp back; the DM truly does not need to pre-clear every single plot turn, especially not one this minor.

I agree that the GM does not need to "pre-clear every plot turn".

I disagree that this is minor. This is, from the POV of the players, completely invalidating every plan that they had. That's a lot more impactful than "oh, the mayor is actually in love with the captain of the guard". The GM does not need to clear NPC actions. They do not need to clear world facts. All of these things are normal expectations - the world has a history, NPCs do things. These are expected things, even if the specifics aren't.

This is not those things. This is "lurch the players elsewhere, completely changing what they're doing, despite them taking precautions". And, like, honestly, stuff like this happens usually so quickly in the campaign, why not tell the players that it's going to happen? This isn't the plot. This is the setup to where the "actual" game starts.

Most of the arguments that this is minor seem to boil down to "well, it's Ravenloft, they should have known". Well, they didn't, clearly. If they did, then "you're gonna get zapped to Ravenloft" would have been obvious - so why not just tell the players that don't have the meta knowledge?

Easy e
2022-06-13, 04:31 PM
You know, as your travel through Barovia is that you will still have plenty of chances to trade stuff and barter.

Our group spent way too much time trying to set-up a multi-level marketing scheme than engaging with the plot in Barovia.


Edit: I also do not see it as a problem, because I do not believe that Player agency trumps everything else in an RPG. I think it is one element that you keep in balance, not too much one way or too much the other. You know, the Golden Mean. I am willing to bet, that there is a lot of Player agency all ready in this campaign.

Batcathat
2022-06-13, 04:38 PM
I disagree that this is minor. This is, from the POV of the players, completely invalidating every plan that they had. That's a lot more impactful than "oh, the mayor is actually in love with the captain of the guard".

Based on the OP that doesn't seem to be the issue at hand though. Being forced into a different realm (and not being able to complete whatever non-pumpkin related plans they had) doesn't seem to be a problem, specifically losing the pumpkins is.


Most of the arguments that this is minor seem to boil down to "well, it's Ravenloft, they should have known". Well, they didn't, clearly. If they did, then "you're gonna get zapped to Ravenloft" would have been obvious - so why not just tell the players that don't have the meta knowledge?

Again, not all players want to have that sort of meta-knowledge. Maybe (parts of) this group did, but a GM shouldn't assume that it's part of their job to keep the players from situations like this. Of course, they shouldn't really assume it's not part of their job either, so deciding things like that within the group seems like a good idea.

Talakeal
2022-06-13, 06:09 PM
So, my biggest question is, did we ever find out what the players wanted seven thousand pounds of pumpkins for?


snip.

Well said!

Tanarii
2022-06-13, 07:11 PM
I think this is the thing, really. There's a presumption that the players knew it, and knew that's how Ravenloft worked. Also, reading the initial post, I didn't pick up that the amulet was a quest item.

This is where I think the GM should have done a touch of expectation alignment. "You're... buying stuff to trade? You know this is a Ravenloft game, right? And that usually in Ravenloft games you get transported to Ravenloft without your stuff?"
If the players didn't know it was a Ravenloft game, they absolutely should be salty about that. Not the missing Pumpkins. :smallamused:

Tawmis
2022-06-14, 12:23 AM
Okay, this is something super minor, so I donÂ’t know if I even should approach the DM about it. That is why I vent here:
We just began a new adventure. We did one quest for a Duchess, which didnÂ’t go that well, but we still managed to do it. The Duchess pays us and, on top of that, gifts one high-born character a piece of jewelry, to remember her by. Now, that character is a bit of a scoundrel, so he immediately sold the piece of jewelry for 200 gold, xD. From that gold, we bought a cart, 2 mules, some wheat and some pumpkins for 100 gold.
The thing is: we are playing Curse of Strahd and in the night, we got teleported to Strahds domain. The mules are still with us, but the cart and the wares are gone, they werenÂ’t teleported with us. Without us being able to do something about it, despite us holding watch the entire night. I am a bit salty about it and so is the player of the high-born character. I feel silly being salty about something so minor and I understand that Curse of Strahd WILL take away things that are dear to the players. But the way it happened feels wrong, you know what I mean? Any thoughts? Should I talk with the DM about it? And how do I approach this? Am I being an Idiot?
( man this whole text seems kind of silly)

What would Strahd care about a cart?

Maybe he only allows living things (and things closely attached to them - clothing/armor) to come into his realm.

And thus the goats, to feed his vampire spawn, should they want - and the party to feed upon himself.

Removing easy passage to make for easier prey.

I mean, I am guessing you guys are level 1 or 2 or early on - so, I, personally as a player, would not see this as a big deal.

As long as the DM doesn't continue to yank things from you guys going forward.

Psyren
2022-06-14, 12:24 AM
Most of the arguments that this is minor seem to boil down to "well, it's Ravenloft, they should have known". Well, they didn't, clearly. If they did, then "you're gonna get zapped to Ravenloft" would have been obvious - so why not just tell the players that don't have the meta knowledge?

I can't speak for anyone else, but my arguments didn't have anything to do with what setting they were playing in. They could have fallen into a portal, landed in Kendermore and had all their pumpkins "borrowed" for all I care, my advice wouldn't have changed.

GloatingSwine
2022-06-14, 05:00 AM
On the one hand, when you say that, I realize that every party that went to Ravenloft on my watch did so via the "poof in the night" method, and that makes the Ravenloft of my experience feel kinda... arbitrary compared to your hypothetical Ravenloft.

OTOH, do we really want to give terrible alignment-change GMs an even bigger stick? "Oh, you didn't bow and scrape to my NPC enough? Change your alignment to Evil... and, while we're at it, free trip to Ravenloft."

Maybe I'll take comfort in a cold and uncaring universe (or however Marcus put it).

(Also, what BBEG wouldn't earn a free trip to Ravenloft? What would the PCs motivation even be at that point, other than to use Sending to ask Ravenloft what the expected wait time is? :smallamused:)

The ideal path to Ravenloft is one the players follow with their eyes open yet greedily fixed on something they think they want at the end of it, no matter how many signs say it's a bad idea to keep going (because if there's a sign that says it's a bad idea to keep going the average adventurer will want to keep going *even more*).

It's just more on theme for the plane of eternal ironic punishment y'know.

Mastikator
2022-06-14, 05:26 AM
I agree that the GM does not need to "pre-clear every plot turn".

I disagree that this is minor. This is, from the POV of the players, completely invalidating every plan that they had. That's a lot more impactful than "oh, the mayor is actually in love with the captain of the guard". The GM does not need to clear NPC actions. They do not need to clear world facts. All of these things are normal expectations - the world has a history, NPCs do things. These are expected things, even if the specifics aren't.

This is not those things. This is "lurch the players elsewhere, completely changing what they're doing, despite them taking precautions". And, like, honestly, stuff like this happens usually so quickly in the campaign, why not tell the players that it's going to happen? This isn't the plot. This is the setup to where the "actual" game starts.

Most of the arguments that this is minor seem to boil down to "well, it's Ravenloft, they should have known". Well, they didn't, clearly. If they did, then "you're gonna get zapped to Ravenloft" would have been obvious - so why not just tell the players that don't have the meta knowledge?

But they didn't take precautions, they spent their gold on pumpkins. Those pumpkins are useless in a CoS game, whatever plans they had for those pumpkins and wheat were most likely unrelated to CoS. The DM was RIGHT to invalidate their dumb plans. It's the DM's job to thwart the players for disrupting the game. Wasting time and resources of nonsense is only going to distract the players.

GloatingSwine
2022-06-14, 05:50 AM
But they didn't take precautions, they spent their gold on pumpkins. Those pumpkins are useless in a CoS game, whatever plans they had for those pumpkins and wheat were most likely unrelated to CoS. The DM was RIGHT to invalidate their dumb plans. It's the DM's job to thwart the players for disrupting the game. Wasting time and resources of nonsense is only going to distract the players.

It may well have been right for the GM to thwart their plans to become Barovia's foremost pumpkin magnate, but doing that via fail-forward design "now you have to figure out what to do with a cartload of pumpkins in the plane's most depressingly doomed village before they rot, good luck!" keeps the game moving way better than "all my pumpkins gone".

Batcathat
2022-06-14, 05:51 AM
But they didn't take precautions, they spent their gold on pumpkins. Those pumpkins are useless in a CoS game, whatever plans they had for those pumpkins and wheat were most likely unrelated to CoS. The DM was RIGHT to invalidate their dumb plans. It's the DM's job to thwart the players for disrupting the game. Wasting time and resources of nonsense is only going to distract the players.

While I don't think the GM was wrong in the pumpkin debacle (as long as they had a good reason for it and didn't just want to screw with the players), this seems like going too far in the other direction. Players have a tendency to go off in random directions at times and I prefer playing with (or being) a GM that at least tolerates behavior like that (especially since things quickly get rather railroady if the GM is completely in charge of what the players should do).

KorvinStarmast
2022-06-14, 07:30 AM
But it's the start of a Ravenloft campaign. (snip) Same as signing up for any campaign where you are told you will be captured and have to escape at the end of session N.
(snip) But I'd still be irritated with the player that sold what, to me, smells like something you'll need later on. The player who did that is my guess as to where the problem at that table is.

The amulet was a plot item, not a quest item.
5) The character who sells it is ‘a bit of a scoundrel’ from which I infer that the GM didn’t expect the item to be immediately sold, because the OP refers to selling it as being a scoundrel act. For 'scoundrel' insert 'possible munchkin' (not enough data points to discern that at this remove) and this anecdote may be a warning sign that there's a My Guy player in the group.

...the DM truly does not need to pre-clear every single plot turn, especially not one this minor. In Barovia, curve balls and frustrated plans are a thing.

I disagree that this is minor. This is, from the POV of the players, completely invalidating every plan that they had. It's ChinatownBarovia, Jake. For a variety of other campaigns I'd be wholly on your side here as regards "Why take their pumpkins? Let this play out" as the better approach.

so why not just tell the players that don't have the meta knowledge? IMO, the transition into Barovia is intended to be jarring, and the entire theme of dark and dreariness endemic in Strahd's little domain is supposed to grow on the players.

Our DM last year was doing a good job of making the mood feel dark (and he briefed us ahead of time that this campaign has some dark moods to it, and that death was a serious possibility for any PC (we got about one hair away from a party wipe in Death House). That briefing/campaign document was enough to set expectations. Maybe the party in this case wasn't paying attention during the expectation setting session. (I've run into that with some frequency ... players not actually paying attention nor reading the posts I put up on the campaign forum where I supply information).

What eventually happened is that one player quit when we got to around level 3 and finally got to Valaki.
It appears in retrospect that no, he wasn't ready for that mood, nor for that feel to the game.
But how would he have known that until we'd played a number of sessions and it became apparent that the tone wasn't as light hearted as he'd prefer. I tried to embrace it, and when the caravan that my uncle had charged me with escorting simply disappeared, I didn't get all salty.
The DM didn't have to tell me "It's Barovia, Sciento."

Our group spent way too much time trying to set-up a multi-level marketing scheme than engaging with the plot in Barovia. That's hilarious, and I love it!

So, my biggest question is, did we ever find out what the players wanted seven thousand pounds of pumpkins for? Pie would be my guess, or, selling at the local Halloween festival/county fair.

As long as the DM doesn't continue to yank things from you guys going forward. Other than their collective chain, which is what Strahd does, right?

It may well have been right for the GM to thwart their plans to become Barovia's foremost pumpkin magnates, but doing that via fail-forward design "now you have to figure out what to do with a cartload of pumpkins in the plane's most depressingly doomed village before they rot, good luck!" keeps the game moving way better than "all my pumpkins gone". Yes, I think that's a fine approach: failure is an option, but it need not be the only option.

Dr.Samurai
2022-06-14, 08:17 AM
DM: ... and standing before you is Strahd himself, a sliver of moonlight falling across his pointed canines, freshly painted with the blood of his latest victim. His eyes dart to the party as he notices your arrival. A flick of his wrist, and the doors slam shut behind you. "I am surprised you made it this far" he says in a deep baritone, "but I am thankful for it, I love when my food fights back". Suddenly, the candles and torches in the room go out, and the last thing you see is bats swarming into the room from the chimney at the fireplace, and Strahd vanishing into the deep shadows of---

Player: What does he say about my pumpkins?

DM: What?

Player: My pumpkins, how does Strahd react to my pumpkins on the cart?

DM: You brought the cart with you into Strahd's chambers?

Player: Yeah, I want to know what he thinks about the pumpkins and wheat.

DM: Um... he doesn't say anything, he doesn't even appear to notice it.

Player: Really? I bring an entire cart loaded with wheat and pumpkins into his bedroom and he doesn't even notice?

DM: Yeah, he doesn't notice. He's concerned with other things, like this party of adventurers here to kill him. Speaking of which, the glowing Sword of Holy Light is trembling in your hands and glowing with an intense radiance. You can sense that the sword wants to end Strahd's---

Player: Oh, I forgot I was wielding the sword. I put the sword down and grab a pumpkin from the cart and hold it out before me and say "Hey Strahd, do you like pumpkins?"

DM: ......

Batcathat
2022-06-14, 08:19 AM
DM: ... and standing before you is Strahd himself, a sliver of moonlight falling across his pointed canines, freshly painted with the blood of his latest victim. His eyes dart to the party as he notices your arrival. A flick of his wrist, and the doors slam shut behind you. "I am surprised you made it this far" he says in a deep baritone, "but I am thankful for it, I love when my food fights back". Suddenly, the candles and torches in the room go out, and the last thing you see is bats swarming into the room from the chimney at the fireplace, and Strahd vanishing into the deep shadows of---

Player: What does he say about my pumpkins?

DM: What?

Player: My pumpkins, how does Strahd react to my pumpkins on the cart?

DM: You brought the cart with you into Strahd's chambers?

Player: Yeah, I want to know what he thinks about the pumpkins and wheat.

DM: Um... he doesn't say anything, he doesn't even appear to notice it.

Player: Really? I bring an entire cart loaded with wheat and pumpkins into his bedroom and he doesn't even notice?

DM: Yeah, he doesn't notice. He's concerned with other things, like this party of adventurers here to kill him. Speaking of which, the glowing Sword of Holy Light is trembling in your hands and glowing with an intense radiance. You can sense that the sword wants to end Strahd's---

Player: Oh, I forgot I was wielding the sword. I put the sword down and grab a pumpkin from the cart and hold it out before me and say "Hey Strahd, do you like pumpkins?"

DM: ......

If this was the intended end result, I'd like to change my answer. Robbing the players of that would clearly be unforgivable of the GM. :smallamused:

Mastikator
2022-06-14, 08:45 AM
While I don't think the GM was wrong in the pumpkin debacle (as long as they had a good reason for it and didn't just want to screw with the players), this seems like going too far in the other direction. Players have a tendency to go off in random directions at times and I prefer playing with (or being) a GM that at least tolerates behavior like that (especially since things quickly get rather railroady if the GM is completely in charge of what the players should do).

Yeah but would you say that teleporting the PCs directly into a dungeon is railroady? Because that's literally what CoS is and as far as we know the players signed up for exactly that. CoS is a railroady adventure (may have multiple rails on the inside, but the only escape from the rails is to find the terminal), you can't sign up for a railroad adventure and then scream "muh pumpkins, I was going to derail the campaign with those!".

Like, what are those pumpkins even for? Setting up shop? Playing a merchant? Isn't that a distraction from CoS? I highly doubt they would've been useful at all if they got into Barovia, they most likely would've accomplished nothing and would've just rotted. Same outcome, just faster.

Don't get me wrong, if you sign up for a sandbox then buying a ton of pumpkins is a good move, it's a solid way to get into the campaign setting and put down some roots, but not in a game like CoS.

Edit- (and yes the DM could've just stopped the players from selling the jewel in the first place, but then the players could've complained about "muh player agency" and nothing would be different, when players choose to disrupt the game their agency should be curtailed)

Psyren
2022-06-14, 10:50 AM
It may well have been right for the GM to thwart their plans to become Barovia's foremost pumpkin magnate, but doing that via fail-forward design "now you have to figure out what to do with a cartload of pumpkins in the plane's most depressingly doomed village before they rot, good luck!" keeps the game moving way better than "all my pumpkins gone".

I completely disagree. Tons of players would go careening off down the Pumpkin Tycoon route if that was even remotely positioned as a viable option. The DM is a player too and if they don't want to play Pumpkin Tycoon, nipping that in the bud (and reimbursing the players down the line) is perfectly valid.


While I don't think the GM was wrong in the pumpkin debacle (as long as they had a good reason for it and didn't just want to screw with the players), this seems like going too far in the other direction. Players have a tendency to go off in random directions at times and I prefer playing with (or being) a GM that at least tolerates behavior like that (especially since things quickly get rather railroady if the GM is completely in charge of what the players should do).

Precisely.

kyoryu
2022-06-14, 11:15 AM
If the players didn't know it was a Ravenloft game, they absolutely should be salty about that. Not the missing Pumpkins. :smallamused:

That's.... actually kinda my point.

It's funny, because I'm getting a lot of different feedback on why the players shouldn't be salty, and I wanna address all the situations. It's different people making the arguments. So, here's what I think the GM should have done.

The players know it's CoS

The players know that teleporting to Ravenloft is part of it

The GM should have gently reminded them of this. Attempts to "derail" the campaign by starting a pumpkin empire should have been gently nudged against with a "hey, guys, we agreed we're playing CoS. That's what we're doing, not Pumpkin Empire. If you wanna play Pumpkin Empire, find another GM, because I don't want to run that."

In general, "we agreed to play X, and you're shifting away from that" is a meta level discussion and is generally best to have at the meta level.

The players don't know that teleporting to Ravenloft is a part of it

Since this is common knowledge, I think it's reasonable to make sure everyone is on the same table in terms of meta knowledge. Same advice on "pumpkin empire" - that's not the game everyone signed up for.

The players don't know it's CoS

Tell them, and get their buy-in. I will always give this general advice for any linear game.

The amulet being sold

If you're upset the players sell the amulet because it's "obviously" a plot item, then you're expecting them to be making decisions based on meta knowledge. Which is fine, but then I think it also makes sense to handle that discussion on a meta level. If the reason to not sell the plot item boils down to meta knowledge, and you're upset about them doing something that makes some level of sense in-character but not meta-level, then that's a meta assumption break and should be handled at that level.

As far as "some people like it better..." arguments, sure. The problem that i see boils down to this: If someone doesn't like rug pulls, and you do one, they'll be upset (see: this thread). If someone does like rug pulls, and they're forewarned, it's just not as awesome. So the general advice I'd give is to avoid using them unless you know the players well enough to know that they will respond neutrally or favorably.

Tanarii
2022-06-14, 11:27 AM
The amulet being sold

If you're upset the players sell the amulet because it's "obviously" a plot item, then you're expecting them to be making decisions based on meta knowledge. PCs should be quite capable of recognizing that it's a maguffin in universe too. There's nothing meta about it.

kyoryu
2022-06-14, 01:21 PM
PCs should be quite capable of recognizing that it's a maguffin in universe too. There's nothing meta about it.

I would say the very concept of a maguffin is "meta".

So I don't think "would the characters recognize it as a maguffin" is a good question. i think a better question is "would the characters have recognized it as important?"

And I think they would do so for one of two reasons.

1. It is visibly noteworthy in some aspect (glowing with power, blah blah blah)
2. It is treated as important by others (locked up, secured, etc.)

In this case, neither of those seem to be the case. If the first was, it certainly wasn't communicated by OP, so any description of importance was likely not noted.

The second was absolutely not the case. It was given away as a memento, with apparently no mention of "take care of this" ("keep it secret! Keep it safe!"). The person it was sold to treated it like just another piece of jewelry, apparently.

There was really nothing to suggest (based on OP) that it was anything more than a decent piece of jewelry with possible sentimental value.

Again, I default to "players are rational, most of the time, but they're only rational based on info they've been given." IOW, most player irrationality is due to either mismatched assumptions or a lack of info (and the first is really a subset of the second). Many GMs try to be way, way too subtle.

icefractal
2022-06-14, 01:50 PM
I'm not against selling the amulet, and especially not because it might be a McGuffin.

Does the character who did it comes off as excessively mercenary? Yes, and I assume that's the player's intent, being a "scoundrel" and all. Unless the campaign premise was "only nice non-mercenary characters" then that's a legit way to play. Heck, I could be getting the wrong take - an entirely altruistic character could do the same thing, if the intent was to distribute those pumpkins to the people - "Nobility wearing decorations that could feed an entire village is wrong, of course I'm going to correct that injustice to the extent I can."

And not selling it because "it's a McGuffin"? Way too metagame for my taste, unless there's an IC reason to think it's that important. As GM advice, I would say - "Don't give the PCs something that breaks the campaign if they interact with it 'wrong'."

kyoryu
2022-06-14, 01:57 PM
I'm not against selling the amulet, and especially not because it might be a McGuffin.

Does the character who did it comes off as excessively mercenary? Yes, and I assume that's the player's intent, being a "scoundrel" and all. Unless the campaign premise was "only nice non-mercenary characters" then that's a legit way to play. Heck, I could be getting the wrong take - an entirely altruistic character could do the same thing, if the intent was to distribute those pumpkins to the people - "Nobility wearing decorations that could feed an entire village is wrong, of course I'm going to correct that injustice to the extent I can."

And not selling it because "it's a McGuffin"? Way too metagame for my taste, unless there's an IC reason to think it's that important. As GM advice, I would say - "Don't give the PCs something that breaks the campaign if they interact with it 'wrong'."

I think I would argue for one of a few approaches:

1. Don't put a piece on the board you're not willing to lose. If they sell it, they sell it, and it doesn't break the game. I follow this with everything - NPCs, objects, whatever.
2. Give sufficient in-world evidence that the amulet is important that the players are unlikely to sell it (or are aware there will be consequences)
3. If the assumption is that the players won't sell it because it's a maguffin, then, given the absence of #2, have the meta-conversation if and only if you're presuming players won't sell it for meta reasons. Honestly, this is my least preferred of the three options (I give them in more-or-less my preferred order) but I still think it's at least workable.

What doesn't work to me is when all three of these are not in place, and then GMs get upset because players don't do what they "should".

Dr.Samurai
2022-06-14, 02:03 PM
This entire premise is extremely meta, hinging on the assumption that if the players purchased something with money, no matter how irrelevant to the campaign it is (like, on the scale of a cart of pumpkins in a Curse of Strahd game levels of irrelevant), the DM should not touch it without the players having some chance of preventing the loss.

That is super meta.

If we were just going for verisimilitude and story narrative, there's nothing to be salty about here. But it's this presumption that the DM should somehow honor the player choice to buy wheat that causes the issue, and that's 1000% meta.

Easy e
2022-06-14, 02:12 PM
I live around a lot of farmers, the choice to buy wheat and pumpkins and a way to transport them is never a sure bet.

Batcathat
2022-06-14, 02:21 PM
I'm not against selling the amulet, and especially not because it might be a McGuffin.

Does the character who did it comes off as excessively mercenary? Yes, and I assume that's the player's intent, being a "scoundrel" and all. Unless the campaign premise was "only nice non-mercenary characters" then that's a legit way to play. Heck, I could be getting the wrong take - an entirely altruistic character could do the same thing, if the intent was to distribute those pumpkins to the people - "Nobility wearing decorations that could feed an entire village is wrong, of course I'm going to correct that injustice to the extent I can."

And not selling it because "it's a McGuffin"? Way too metagame for my taste, unless there's an IC reason to think it's that important. As GM advice, I would say - "Don't give the PCs something that breaks the campaign if they interact with it 'wrong'."

Agreed. I dislike a character not selling something because a player identifies it as a possible McGuffin (now, if it's the character identifying it as important that's another argument) for the same reason I dislike a GM not allowing the party to buy pumpkins because they're about to get teleported. While it's obviously impossible to completely eliminate metagaming, I prefer to keep it at a minimum (and not punishing anyone for avoiding it).

Psyren
2022-06-14, 02:27 PM
Again, I default to "players are rational, most of the time, but they're only rational based on info they've been given." IOW, most player irrationality is due to either mismatched assumptions or a lack of info (and the first is really a subset of the second). Many GMs try to be way, way too subtle.

I don't disagree with the latter, but I see very little rational about an expectation of being allowed to play Pumpkin Tycoon in a swords and sorcery roleplaying game.

KorvinStarmast
2022-06-14, 02:36 PM
You can sense that the sword wants to end Strahd's---

Player: Oh, I forgot I was wielding the sword. I put the sword down and grab a pumpkin from the cart and hold it out before me and say "Hey Strahd, do you like pumpkins?"

DM: ...... For some tables, this would be perfectly in character and be the kind of hilarious foolishness that the party has engaged in for session after session; for others it would never happen.
Yeah but would you say that teleporting the PCs directly into a dungeon is railroady? Out of the Abyss does something similar.

If we were just going for verisimilitude and story narrative, there's nothing to be salty about here. But it's this presumption that the DM should somehow honor the player choice to buy wheat that causes the issue, and that's 1000% meta. Fair point.

kyoryu
2022-06-14, 02:40 PM
I don't disagree with the latter, but I see very little rational about an expectation of being allowed to play Pumpkin Tycoon in a swords and sorcery roleplaying game.

Some tables really pride themselves on "you can do anything". (Of course, I'd argue that usually in those games, "Pumpkin Tycoon" looks a lot like most other variations of "go from place to place killing bad guys", as few game systems have enough in them to be usable economics simulators, but I digress...)

That's usually not a game I'd run, but that's where I'd have the meta conversation of "hey, uh, guys, we're not playing Pumpkin Tycoon." It's a break of a meta assumption, so it's a meta conversation.

But at a lot of tables, that's a reasonable course of action.

Psyren
2022-06-14, 02:44 PM
Some tables really pride themselves on "you can do anything". (Of course, I'd argue that usually in those games, "Pumpkin Tycoon" looks a lot like most other variations of "go from place to place killing bad guys", as few game systems have enough in them to be usable economics simulators, but I digress...)

That's usually not a game I'd run, but that's where I'd have the meta conversation of "hey, uh, guys, we're not playing Pumpkin Tycoon." It's a break of a meta assumption, so it's a meta conversation.

But at a lot of tables, that's a reasonable course of action.

I think there are far superior games than Dungeons & Dragons if you truly want to "do anything." The dungeoncrawling expectation is right in the name.

Tanarii
2022-06-14, 04:25 PM
I would say the very concept of a maguffin is "meta".

So I don't think "would the characters recognize it as a maguffin" is a good question. i think a better question is "would the characters have recognized it as important?"
If someone handed me a piece of jewelry IRL with the comment "something to remember me by" I'd treat it like a maguffin. I don't go on crazy adventures, but I'd still treat it as something important to be saved and not sold unless I was completely broke. So I don't see how it is a meta concept at all.

Now, if a character is a scoundrel, and the party is also a scoundrel, it'd be in character for them to sell something like that for some crazy trade goods get-rich-slowly plan, and for the PCs not to be salty at them about it. And for the characters to be salty at the universe when they lost the tools of their scheme before it came to (selling) fruit.

But the player doesn't have reason to be salty at the DM IMO, unless they weren't told the (meta) fact that they were going to be playing Ravenloft, then they should be salty about that.

icefractal
2022-06-14, 07:04 PM
Incidentally, while IMO they shouldn't stay salty IRL, they absolutely could stay salty at Strahd IC, it'd be hilarious.

Strahd: "So, mortals, why do you come to challenge me? To end my reign? Hah, if only you had a chance ..."
PC: "To get revenge for what you took from us!"
Strahd: "And what is that? A lost love, a -"
PC: "Our pumpkins!"
Strahd: ...
Strahd: "What?"
PC: "You heard me. Think you can just have your magic mist grab whatever you want? You'll rue the day you ripped us off! Let's go!"
Strahd: *getting stabbed* "Pumpkins?! WTF is my life?"

Sort of a "Luke Cage fighting Dr. Doom (and winning) over $200" vibe, and/or the type of action movie where an entire crime syndicate is brought down because they gratuitously ****ed with one guy who's very good at kicking ass.

Pauly
2022-06-14, 08:43 PM
I think to be accurate we’ve been using “maguffin” in this thread wrongly.

I see items breaking down into 4 broad categories.

1) Background items. Things that are there for decoration but serve no real function.
The tattered tapestries hanging in the tomb of the undead king.
2) Reward/Treasure items. Things that you can use later for your benefit.
The suspiciously undamaged tapestry in the undead king’s treasure hoard that turns out to be a flying carpet.
3) Quest items. Items that are part of a reason to travel and obtain something.
The tapestry in the library that shows how the ancient heroes of yore entered the undead king’s lair 5 centuries ago along with embroidered writing in an ancient text the party can’t read.
Maguffins are a subset of quest item, and refer specifically to an item that several parties are chasing, and the truest maguffins it doesn’t matter what the item is their value is only in being chased (eg the briefcase in Pulp Fiction).
4) Plot items. Items that are not relevant now, but will become relevant later. Chekov’s gun in other words. How they will become relevant is unclear when they first appear.
The player is elevated to nobility and the king gives them a tapestry to hang in their keep as a sign of loyalty to the crown.

To be technically correct the amulet in the OP is a Chekov’s gun, not a Maguffin.

KorvinStarmast
2022-06-14, 10:41 PM
PC: "You heard me. Think you can just have your magic mist grab whatever you want? You'll rue the day you ripped us off! Let's go!"
Strahd: *getting stabbed* "Pumpkins?! WTF is my life?"
Brilliant. :smallsmile:

To be technically correct the amulet in the OP is a Chekov’s gun, not a Maguffin.
Chekov's bling, methinks. :smallwink:

Pex
2022-06-14, 10:51 PM
To be technically correct the amulet in the OP is a Chekov’s gun, not a Maguffin.


Chekov's bling, methinks. :smallwink:

https://i.postimg.cc/KjpsQN4f/chekov.gif

ciopo
2022-06-15, 07:50 AM
I would like to chime in that, to me, that necklace was neither a chekow gun nor a mcguffin.

"to remember me by" was a nice touch of RP, sure, and I don't know what face the GM might have made when the player expressed the intent of selling it. or if there was a "are you sure?" But that it had a price tag point me to it being "treasure with some whistles and bells"

Perhabs it's an utilitarian view, but in the same vein that "anything with HP can be killed", "anything with GP value can be sold"

As for the cart being left behind in the transition, seems to be something reasonable to happen, for me. What do the mist of Barovia care about a bunch of pumpkins?

Grim Portent
2022-06-15, 08:45 AM
If someone handed me a piece of jewelry IRL with the comment "something to remember me by" I'd treat it like a maguffin. I don't go on crazy adventures, but I'd still treat it as something important to be saved and not sold unless I was completely broke. So I don't see how it is a meta concept at all.

Now, if a character is a scoundrel, and the party is also a scoundrel, it'd be in character for them to sell something like that for some crazy trade goods get-rich-slowly plan, and for the PCs not to be salty at them about it. And for the characters to be salty at the universe when they lost the tools of their scheme before it came to (selling) fruit.

But the player doesn't have reason to be salty at the DM IMO, unless they weren't told the (meta) fact that they were going to be playing Ravenloft, then they should be salty about that.

Unless the person who gave me the memento was someone I cared about the item would be getting stuck in the back of a drawer and forgotten about within a day, and if I ever remembered it was there it would either stay in that drawer, be sold or even thrown out as not worth the effort of selling.

This is not a locket with a picture of a deceased loved one or an item of important heritage, it's a piece of jewelry given by one noble to another after a cursory interaction. At most it could be interpreted as flirting in the same manner as being given a token to bear in someone's name, but if the recipient is not interested then they're not interested.

I've played a few characters who would have literally dropped it or smashed it, possibly even in front of the Duchess, either because they view anything crafted by the artifice of men as bad, or because they view the item as completely insignificant and would pay it no more heed than they would a pebble in their boot and had no interest in money.

kyoryu
2022-06-15, 09:29 AM
I think there are far superior games than Dungeons & Dragons if you truly want to "do anything." The dungeoncrawling expectation is right in the name.

I don't think any game "does anything". Most RPGs do a good job of "anything vaguely action/adventure-movie-like" (and, yes, action movies include negotiations and talking).

Very few games give you the structure needed for real personal drama type stuff. Hillfolk being a notable exception.

Even fewer games (if any) give you the kind of structure you need for Pumpkin Tycoon.

Fortunately, the vast vast majority of the games I'd want to run work well within the common constraints of most systems, the exceptions being games that are more niche. Specifically, like D&D.


If someone handed me a piece of jewelry IRL with the comment "something to remember me by" I'd treat it like a maguffin. I don't go on crazy adventures, but I'd still treat it as something important to be saved and not sold unless I was completely broke. So I don't see how it is a meta concept at all.

Well, yes, because I'm a sentimental idiot. Depending on characters being sentimental seems like a bad move from a GM.


I would like to chime in that, to me, that necklace was neither a chekow gun nor a mcguffin.

"to remember me by" was a nice touch of RP, sure, and I don't know what face the GM might have made when the player expressed the intent of selling it. or if there was a "are you sure?" But that it had a price tag point me to it being "treasure with some whistles and bells"

Perhabs it's an utilitarian view, but in the same vein that "anything with HP can be killed", "anything with GP value can be sold"

Exactly.


As for the cart being left behind in the transition, seems to be something reasonable to happen, for me. What do the mist of Barovia care about a bunch of pumpkins?

I mean, objectively, yes.

The point here is that subjectively (and to a certain extent on a meta level), no.

"Randomly having everything teleported with no ability to stop and no apparent reason in the middle of the night" is not, in most game worlds, a thing that happens in general. It's not an every day campaign occurrence.

It is for Curse of Strahd, and in Barovia, sure. So someone going into a CoS campaign or a Ravenloft campaign that knows that will be unsurprised.

Someone that doesn't know that will probably be irked.

I did just think of another way to resolve the issue in advance that's less meta. The good ol' foreshadowing. "Yup, you're in Barovia now. Keep your stuff close to you. The mists are known to take people in the night, and without a trace - no struggle, no nothing. Some people say they're taken away elsewhere, but nobody knows where. And nobody has returned."

Boom, now when it happens, they know it's a thing that happens, and it doesn't feel like a rug pull.


Unless the person who gave me the memento was someone I cared about the item would be getting stuck in the back of a drawer and forgotten about within a day, and if I ever remembered it was there it would either stay in that drawer, be sold or even thrown out as not worth the effort of selling.

This is not a locket with a picture of a deceased loved one or an item of important heritage, it's a piece of jewelry given by one noble to another after a cursory interaction. At most it could be interpreted as flirting in the same manner as being given a token to bear in someone's name, but if the recipient is not interested then they're not interested.

I've played a few characters who would have literally dropped it or smashed it, possibly even in front of the Duchess, either because they view anything crafted by the artifice of men as bad, or because they view the item as completely insignificant and would pay it no more heed than they would a pebble in their boot and had no interest in money.

I mean smashing it in front of the Duchess might be a bit much (why ruin the contact?), but in general? Yeah. 200gp isn't enough to be significant to the Duchess.

If you want players to treat it as important, call it out as important, either in its inherent qualities ("it's glowing with strange powers!") or in how it's treated ("this amulet has been in my family for centuries. Our legends say it can protect you from the worst of the mists. Keep it dear to you, I do not know what it does, but it may be something that saves your lives, as you have saved ours today").

If you don't do those things ("thanks, here's a piece of jewelry"), don't get upset when players treat it exactly the way it's been described.

Dr.Samurai
2022-06-15, 09:49 AM
I think we're reading WAAAAY too much into the OP.

Long and short of it is that you might as well get angry for having a tough encounter in magical darkness you can't see through, or for being captured and having your items removed, or when you fail an important ability check, or if your character dies, etc.

The point is if you're going to be salty about some pumpkins vanishing because "the players were vested in it", you can be salty about literally anything else that happens in the game that goes against the players' wants.

In other words, be reasonable. It's some cart and pumpkins that have nothing to do with anything. The players are free to be thoughtful about what to do with gifts and their money. That's not a guarantee of anything. Just like I can build a character that's really strong in combat, and it's not a guarantee that I won't get dropped and fail my third death saving throw one day. If that happens, I don't get to cross my arms and huff at the DM "Hey, what about my agency?!"

Tanarii
2022-06-15, 09:50 AM
Well, yes, because I'm a sentimental idiot. Depending on characters being sentimental seems like a bad move from a GM.
No, because those are important words. They're words that trigger "this thing is important in the future" in my mind.
But maybe I'm just crazy.


If you don't do those things ("thanks, here's a piece of jewelry"), don't get upset when players treat it exactly the way it's been described.I translate "this is to remember me by" directly into a call out that "this is something important in the future". But maybe I'm just crazy.


I've played a few characters who would have literally dropped it or smashed it, possibly even in front of the Duchess, either because they view anything crafted by the artifice of men as bad, or because they view the item as completely insignificant and would pay it no more heed than they would a pebble in their boot and had no interest in money.Or possibly these characters were hahahaha
Those would probably be super fun for the player, and just annoying as all heck for the GM. :smallsmile:

Psyren
2022-06-15, 10:18 AM
I don't think any game "does anything". Most RPGs do a good job of "anything vaguely action/adventure-movie-like" (and, yes, action movies include negotiations and talking).

Very few games give you the structure needed for real personal drama type stuff. Hillfolk being a notable exception.

Even fewer games (if any) give you the kind of structure you need for Pumpkin Tycoon.

Fortunately, the vast vast majority of the games I'd want to run work well within the common constraints of most systems, the exceptions being games that are more niche. Specifically, like D&D.

FATE? GURPS?

Bold is more what I was getting at though. If few games give the structure for PT, and D&D is clearly not one of them, then I fail to see what expectation was violated. At worst the players wasted a pittance of gold, and it's highly likely they'll get all that gold back by playing the game. So what have they really lost? Moreover, is the DM not the OP's friend? The assumption that you're playing with friends is stated right in the opening paragraph of the PHB. Even if a friend puts you out temporarily, the expectation that they'll eventually make you whole is pretty basic.

Thrudd
2022-06-15, 10:33 AM
Not really a spoiler for the whole module, but talking about the part they've already been through, which might help the players feel less salty-
I was taking a look at the module, which I hadn't actually read before (just assuming it pretty much worked like earlier Ravenloft stuff). I admit I was skimming a bit, I would never run such a thing myself, but I didn't see any mention of the duchess' jewelry or any sort of reward for helping her. The module says the PCs are supposed to be told that they're already friends with her, she doesn't offer them anything for their help (I can see why people say this is a bad module). So the DM was already off-module when he rewarded anything, the module certainly didn't intend for them to get any gold out of the situation. They were just supposed to go visit the travelers, have a chat with them, and then get whisked away to Barovia, either voluntarily or not, immediately afterward.

There really are no rules about how the mists work, it isn't a spell - it is literally just "Strahd can bring anyone or anything to his domain at any time, whenever he feels like it." They weren't supposed to even receive any gold at this stage of the module, so losing their cart and pumpkins really isn't setting them back at all, they're actually still well ahead of where they were expected to be, resource wise, with whatever gold they each received and the mules. Although transporting the mules and not the cart was a weird choice, I still say there's really no reason to be salty in the big scheme of things. The module doesn't assume or require you to have any gold at all, this is literally just the "intro cutscene", for brand new level 1 characters to get them to Barovia. One of the options for this would have just been "you're camping one night, and mists come. Now you're in Barovia." That's actually the least "rug pull-y" option provided - you don't need to pretend these level 1 characters are getting involved in anything outside Barovia, they certainly would have no business hunting werewolves (which is one of the other setup options) - they're going to spend their first ten levels there, so why bother introducing subplots and NPCs in the outside world, when they are ultimately going to be cut off from that world for the entirety of the campaign? Just start the thing with: "you and your friends are sleeping. you wake up and find yourself surrounded by mists, on a road in a forest, a totally different place than where you were when you went to sleep. There's some travelers with covered wagons nearby."

Did I miss a key sentence somewhere, describing the special heirloom jewelry item that the duchess was supposed to give them, a reward, or a GP value? I'm guessing the DM was trying to create more of a connection between the intro scene, the Duchess and Barovia, which is not present in the module itself. Also, 5e modules seem to heavily lean away from PCs being motivated by money. They expect the players to want to do the adventure for its own sake, to help people, or to accomplish some specific goal, and don't imply or expect that gold be an important part of it. They are a far cry from the old days, where every NPC and monster in a module was listed with how much cash they had in their pockets, along with all the items and equipment they're carrying, no matter how worthless.

Grim Portent
2022-06-15, 12:19 PM
I mean smashing it in front of the Duchess might be a bit much (why ruin the contact?), but in general? Yeah. 200gp isn't enough to be significant to the Duchess.

Well the most recent character who'd ditch or destroy the ring was a lizardfolk who considered fire to be Evil, literally the evil member of a four part pantheon was Fire, anything made by fire such as worked metals was therefore inherently evil and should be destroyed. That humans and elves and so on used metal tools was a sign of their phsyical and spiritual weakness, the latter only being tolerable due to the former, but it was considered a favour to eat them so that they would be reborn as lizardfolk and not need to use fire in future. His involvement in the campaign was linked to another PC who had washed up on the beach after a storm, and came from a culture that also revered the sea complete with tattoos, and that had been taken as a sign that they were supposed to help him get home.

He had no interest in human politics, ranks or social norms. He broadly speaking considered anything that wasn't a reptilian or animal to be weird, irrational and more than a bit heretical in a pitying sort of way. Were there ever a circumstance where it was expedient and he was hungry he would have eaten a child with no qualms, insulting a noble to their face is small beans compared to that, and did come up a couple of times. Dude mouthed off to a god because he doesn't think gods in the human sense are anything more than big and powerful people. It just wouldn't matter to him.

Wound up more or less being the party's sociopathic dog a lot of the time. Great for hunting, killing, sneaking, abducting people and talking to animals, not so great for dealing with anything with soft skin and human social norms. Still got to do plenty of fun stuff and even made the argument in social situations, though generally based on a more primal or pragmatic viewpoint.



No, because those are important words. They're words that trigger "this thing is important in the future" in my mind.
But maybe I'm just crazy.

I translate "this is to remember me by" directly into a call out that "this is something important in the future". But maybe I'm just crazy.


Or possibly these characters were hahahaha
Those would probably be super fun for the player, and just annoying as all heck for the GM. :smallsmile:

To me 'this is to remember me by' is a nobles way of saying 'if you're ever looking to arrange a closer relationship with another noble, hit me up.'

The more destructive or disrespectful PCs work very well in the right kind of game, the problem is when one winds up in a game that they weren't supposed to be in. They work fine for 'enter dungeon, kill stuff, repeat' games, and for games where the PCs being a disruptive or destructive world element is intended, such as games based around fighting back the encroachment of industrial pollution.

A war themed game would also be well suited to characters who don't much care about being polite, and would in fact be a good source of narrative drama because it would engender conflict between the party and the rest of their faction or allies without needing to escalate to actual fighting. If the PCs are a general, a battlemage, the representative of a knightly order and a master assassin involved in a siege or military campaign, then snubbing a noble from their side is just good fodder for future events involving other nobles, reinforcements, supplies and so on.


EDIT: On the actual topic of the OP, I'm personally rather puzzled that the carts and pumpkins wouldn't be taken by the mists. Thematically I would have assumed it would be a case of the mists close around the camp, obscuring everything beyond it, and when you wake up the camp in it's entirety is now found in Ravenloft. Every fallen log, tent, tree and any animals or vehicles within the area transferred. Or perhaps copied, as the alternative is leaving a big blank patch in the place they were abducted from.

Like, I'd imagine a guy sitting on a log when the mists close in wouldn't blackout or fall asleep, nor would he just pop into thin air in Ravenloft because the log isn't under his behind anymore, he'd just be in Ravenloft, log and all, once the mists cleared. A seemless transition more or less, as opposed to being POOFED into the demiplane with a noticeable effect.

Slipjig
2022-06-15, 12:23 PM
I’d be salty that the player who received it sold it for coin Should the GM have messed with what the player bought? - most people here will say probably not. On the other hand it’s a bit of a murder hobo thing to do

I feel compelled to point out that D'Artagnan does exactly the same thing in The Three Musketeers: a noblewoman gives him a piece of jewelry as a reward for his services, and he immediately pawns it, because fancy jewelry is worth much less to a broke soldier than food and beer money.

"Player Agency" doesn't mean that nothing bad ever happens to the players, nor does it mean that every decision they make will turn out to be the right one. D&D isn't a Bioware game where all paths eventually lead to the same ending sequence. Players make decisions with incomplete information, and sometimes it turns out they made sub-optimal decisions. This isn't an argument for "Rocks fall, everyone dies", but if your players roll into Ishtar the day before the Cataclysm and decide (on their own initiative) to sell all their magic items and buy real estate, well, stuff happens. If anything, PREVENTING the PCs from making bad choices would be negating player agency.

And I absolutely love the idea of the pumpkins becoming the PC's version of John Wick's dog. And right before the final throw down, Strahd can unveil the pumpkins-in-peril, and offer to return them if the PCs stand down and deliver Ireena.

Jay R
2022-06-16, 08:52 AM
I feel compelled to point out that D'Artagnan does exactly the same thing in The Three Musketeers: a noblewoman gives him a piece of jewelry as a reward for his services, and he immediately pawns it, because fancy jewelry is worth much less to a broke soldier than food and beer money.

Correct. And the fact that he sold it became a major plot point twenty years later, in a sequel book.

Pauly
2022-06-16, 10:40 PM
I feel compelled to point out that D'Artagnan does exactly the same thing in The Three Musketeers: a noblewoman gives him a piece of jewelry as a reward for his services, and he immediately pawns it, because fancy jewelry is worth much less to a broke soldier than food and beer money.
.

Maybe that example would carry a bit more weight if the entire plot of the book revolves around returning the queen’s diamonds, which were a birthday gift to her from the king which she then gifted to her lover.

Asmotherion
2022-06-17, 06:29 AM
The Dm should be at liberty to set a scene however they see fit. Especially Curse of Strahd, which is not a fair-play campaign, it will be unfair to players very often.

That said, talk to your DM about it, it might be best to discuss things early rather than build up resentment.

Velaryon
2022-06-17, 12:56 PM
No, because those are important words. They're words that trigger "this thing is important in the future" in my mind.
But maybe I'm just crazy.

I translate "this is to remember me by" directly into a call out that "this is something important in the future". But maybe I'm just crazy.

I don't think that's necessarily a guaranteed assumption though. Certainly a plot-relevant item for the future could be introduced that way, but "something to remember me by" usually just refers to a memento or keepsake that's given in honor of pleasant memories. I would interpret someone giving me that as like "hey, I wanted you to have this because I liked you," not "you should hold onto this because someday it will come in handy." Were I given such a thing, I'd probably set it on my table for a week or two before putting it away in a drawer and then finding it again several months or years later, thinking "yeah, she was nice" and then putting it away again for a few more months/years/whatever.

Anyway, on to the main point of the thread:

I'm honestly surprised by how many people are defending the idea that the DM just arbitrarily deleting stuff out of players' inventory is an acceptable practice, or even a good way to handle players potentially distracting from the plot by hyper-focusing on a dumb, frivolous purchase. Mainly because there are much better ways for a DM to handle this, if they see buying a cart full of pumpkins and wheat as a problem.

The problem I have with "it's just pumpkins and wheat, why are the players upset?" is that the same argument can be used in reverse. It's just pumpkins and wheat, why not let the players keep it?

If the DM is worried that the players are going to sidetrack the adventure by playing Pumpkin Tycoon, then any of the following would be better ways to nip that in the bud than just deleting the pumpkins overnight:

"turns out it's not pumpkin season, and the last ones just got bought an hour ago"
"Hey, we agreed to play the gothic horror module where you go slay the vampire. Can we please focus on that instead of going on this pumpkin tangent?"
"'Oh my, that's Lady Cassandra's ring! I couldn't buy that from you, no sir! Her maid shops here on Thursdays and if she saw that ring among my wares, she'd be very cross with you and me both! How can you sell such a valuable keepsake?'"
"Okay, you and your wagon full of pumpkins arrive in the village of Barovia. Everynoe here is busy hiding behind their locked doors and boarded-up windows, and it turns out nobody wants to buy your pumpkins. Better luck next adventure."



A couple people have mentioned that Curse of Strahd is an adventure that expects the DM to "mess with" the players. That's true to a certain extent but not like this. It messes with the players with things like an adventure hook started by ghost children, or a random encounter where they find a body on the road that has the face of a random party member. What the adventure does not do is tell the DM to arbitrarily erase stuff off the player's character sheet. Yes, it's likely that the particular items in question here were of questionable value to the party and campaign, but that's not really the point. Taking away players' stuff because they're having badwrong fun is very much not in the spirit of this adventure or D&D in general.

Also, one thing I haven't seen mentioned in this conversation so far is that Ravenloft as a setting is packed to the gills with tools that make for very railroady games in the hands of the wrong DM, despite the nonlinear nature of the adventure. In addition to the aforementioned mists scooping people up and depositing them into strange lands, there's also the ring of impenetrable poisonous fog encircling the area. When you get into the full Ravenloft setting it's even more common, with most BBEGs having the ability to lock their realms one way or another to prevent escape, the dark powers inflicting permanent changes on characters who commit evil acts, etc. The fact that these tools are built into the adventure doesn't automatically mean that using them to arbitrarily shunt players to the next scene (let alone to take away their stuff) is good DMing.

OP hasn't commented on this thread since posting more than a week ago, but in their shoes what I'd do is talk to the DM and say "hey, this isn't cool and I don't like how you did this. Would it really be such a big deal to retcon that we have the stuff, or at least give us our gold back?" This alone isn't reason to quit the game or carry a grudge with the DM or anything like that, but it could be cause for concern if it's not an isolated incident.

Keltest
2022-06-17, 01:23 PM
I'm honestly surprised by how many people are defending the idea that the DM just arbitrarily deleting stuff out of players' inventory is an acceptable practice, or even a good way to handle players potentially distracting from the plot by hyper-focusing on a dumb, frivolous purchase. Mainly because there are much better ways for a DM to handle this, if they see buying a cart full of pumpkins and wheat as a problem.

And I'm honestly surprised by the number of people willing and ready to assume that the DM was going "muahahah, yes, I have successfully stolen away their pumpkins with a veneer of justification! I am so evil, bwahaha!" Rambo's dog jokes aside, theyre pumpkins. The DM almost certainly didnt care about them either way and assumed the players didn't either (and lets be real, somebody who actually cares about 100 GP is unlikely to invest it in 7 tons of pumpkins), so he left them. Even the OP was half thinking this is just a visceral "don't touch my stuff ever" reaction instead of a real problem.

Jay R
2022-06-17, 02:53 PM
The DM always knows more about what is going to happen than the players do. So when the players decide to do something – anything – the DM knows more about the possible consequences than the players do.

What should a DM do when the players are choosing to do something that the DM knows won’t work?
A. Take way the players’ agency, thus preventing the mistake?
or
B. Allow them to make their own choices?

This is not a simple choice that always has the same answer.

If the mistake will likely lead to a TPK, then I think the DM should try to prevent it. If, for instance, they are about to sell the only artifact that can defeat the evil wizard, then the DM probably needs to step in.

But if they are about to buy a bunch of sunstones when they are about to be trapped on a Plane of Infinite Light, or a ladder when the DM knows that will soon all have flying mounts, then the DM should probably let them do it. People buy items they never use all the time. [I am looking around my home and wincing as I write this.]

So which is it in this situation? My best guess is that the DM already knew that the party would soon be caught with a teleport spell, which, like most teleport spells, will only take as much stuff as they can carry. Then they bought a cartful of pumpkins. Does the DM have a moral obligation to take away player agency by preventing them from making their own choice (buying pumpkins) because he knows the party will soon be separated from them?

I don’t see a compelling reason to do so. The DM controls a lot – he controls the kings and queens, the nobles, the villagers, the peasants, the enemies, the friends, the mentors, the servants, the monsters, the beasts, the trees, the treasures, the traps, the gods, the weather, the volcanoes, the earthquakes, the rivers, the seas, the weather, the moons, the stars, …

But the DM does not control the PCs. That’s the only part of the entire universe that is not the DM’s to control.

If the players are free to make the right decision, then they must be free to make the wrong one. Either way, it's the same freedom -- the right to make the decision.

As I said earlier, this is not a simple question that always has the same answer. And I am aware that I will often make mistakes as a DM. But I prefer to make mistakes in favor of the players getting to play their characters, rather than in favor of taking away their choices.

Pauly
2022-06-17, 03:24 PM
Anyway, on to the main point of the thread:

I'm honestly surprised by how many people are defending the idea that the DM just arbitrarily deleting stuff out of players' inventory is an acceptable practice, or even a good way to handle players potentially distracting from the plot by hyper-focusing on a dumb, frivolous purchase..

Without going i to the specifics of pumpkin kings.
1) if player agency has any meaning it also means the ability to do dumb frivolous things.
2) players should not be immune from the consequences of dumb frivolous acts.
3) The game is a 2 way street. Which means just as the GM shouldn’t arbitrarily delete the player’s stuff that the players shouldn’t arbitrarily delete the GM’s stuff.
3a) If a specific item is inserted into the campaign the working assumption should be that of Chekov’s gun i.e. it was created and pout into the game for a purpose.
4) When playing a linear adventure the GM has a duty to redirect players from non campaign relevant stuff back to the campaign.

Dr.Samurai
2022-06-17, 05:56 PM
To piggyback off Pauly's post, some of the responses read as "if players do X, DM is therefore obligated to...". I don't think people are intending to make that argument, but it comes across like, in order to protect the sanctity of player's doing whatever they want, you have to protect them from their own choices.

Or I may have misread this thread and it's actually all about how salted pumpkins are the key to Strahd's destruction...

Slipjig
2022-06-17, 07:42 PM
To piggyback off Pauly's post, some of the responses read as "if players do X, DM is therefore obligated to...". I don't think people are intending to make that argument, but it comes across like, in order to protect the sanctity of player's doing whatever they want, you have to protect them from their own choices.

I doubt they would put it that way, but some people definitely seem to think that the DM has an obligation to make whatever the players decide to do the correct choice, or at least *A* correct choice. I'd call it, "Yes, and..." DMing. I've seen some great games that follow that mold, but I don't think it's a universal standard.

Warder
2022-06-18, 04:52 AM
I doubt they would put it that way, but some people definitely seem to think that the DM has an obligation to make whatever the players decide to do the correct choice, or at least *A* correct choice. I'd call it, "Yes, and..." DMing. I've seen some great games that follow that mold, but I don't think it's a universal standard.

I'd agree with you. I know that's a preferred play style for some, but I'd personally never want to play in a game like that. Being able to fail is really important to me, whether it is over poor rolls, poor planning or just poor decisions. Failure makes for great stories and makes success feel all the sweeter, with the caveat that I need to know why I failed, or it kind of falls flat. If I keep rolling 1s, that's simple. It gets more complicated when it comes to stuff like planning or decision-making though, and that onus I think falls on the DM to give clues as to why.

icefractal
2022-06-18, 04:53 AM
It's a fine line to walk sometimes.

On the one hand, players (including myself) can get salty when things don't go their way, and sometimes assume the worst - that the GM is unfairly blocking them, even when it's all done impartially. It can bring down the mood of the game.

On the other hand, if anything the PCs do is the right choice, they actually have less choice. Instead of "handle this situation however you want and have the results branch out from your choices" it's "choose what flavor text your inevitable progression past the obstacles has". Long term, letting the chips fall where they may seems better to me.

On the third hand, things the players never see don't really change their experience. If the PCs failed because of legitimate reasons they have no way to know about, it's going to feel the same as failing by fiat.

GloatingSwine
2022-06-18, 04:57 AM
I doubt they would put it that way, but some people definitely seem to think that the DM has an obligation to make whatever the players decide to do the correct choice, or at least *A* correct choice. I'd call it, "Yes, and..." DMing. I've seen some great games that follow that mold, but I don't think it's a universal standard.

The DM also has an obligation to make their own rulings the correct choice, or have an out of character conversation if they want to undo them. The DM in this case didn't say no when the players sold the jewellery or when they bought the pumpkins, so now they should have to deal with players who own a cartful of pumpkins.

Cuts both ways, y'know.

KorvinStarmast
2022-06-18, 09:18 AM
If the players are free to make the right decision, then they must be free to make the wrong one. Either way, it's the same freedom -- the right to make the decision.
Two ways of saying this same (IMO correct) thing.


1) if player agency has any meaning it also means the ability to do dumb frivolous things.
2) players should not be immune from the consequences of dumb frivolous acts.


Or I may have misread this thread and it's actually all about how salted pumpkins are the key to Strahd's destruction... We have spoiler tags, ya know. :smallbiggrin:

Batcathat
2022-06-18, 09:36 AM
The DM also has an obligation to make their own rulings the correct choice, or have an out of character conversation if they want to undo them. The DM in this case didn't say no when the players sold the jewellery or when they bought the pumpkins, so now they should have to deal with players who own a cartful of pumpkins.

Cuts both ways, y'know.

It does, and if it happened because the GM randomly decided to screw with the players by separating them from their precious pumpkins, I agree it was bad GMing. But if the pumpkins was left behind for some concrete in-universe reason (the teleportation only works for living beings and their immediate possessions or it only affects a certain area or whatever) that doesn't go against any GM obligation I can think of.

GloatingSwine
2022-06-18, 10:42 AM
It does, and if it happened because the GM randomly decided to screw with the players by separating them from their precious pumpkins, I agree it was bad GMing. But if the pumpkins was left behind for some concrete in-universe reason (the teleportation only works for living beings and their immediate possessions or it only affects a certain area or whatever) that doesn't go against any GM obligation I can think of.

But then that's a concrete in-universe reason that the GM made up and got to fully define the parameters of, and chose to use to edit out a prior decision they made (enabling the players to convert a possible plot coupon into an unreasonable number of pumpkins) but now wanted to unmake without having to come up with a naturalistic reason.

The classic "creeping fog" method of entry into Barovia is intended to be more seamless (and therefore spooky). You encamp for the night, the fog rolls in, and when wake up in the morning your camp is somewhere else. It hasn't changed, none of it is missing. It is in fact *exactly* as it was when you went to sleep, it's just moved without any of you noticing anything.

Batcathat
2022-06-18, 11:19 AM
But then that's a concrete in-universe reason that the GM made up and got to fully define the parameters of, and chose to use to edit out a prior decision they made (enabling the players to convert a possible plot coupon into an unreasonable number of pumpkins) but now wanted to unmake without having to come up with a naturalistic reason.

Sure, they can, but it's not necessarily the "right" answer either. Personally, I prefer it when the GM creates the world however they choose, but doesn't alter it depending on player action. For example, if the GM decides that the castle is guarded by 20 guards, thinking that would be enough to keep the PCs out, I don't think the GM should add another 20 that were "there all along" when it turns out the PCs killed all the original guards. It's a matter of preference, obviously.


The classic "creeping fog" method of entry into Barovia is intended to be more seamless (and therefore spooky). You encamp for the night, the fog rolls in, and when wake up in the morning your camp is somewhere else. It hasn't changed, none of it is missing. It is in fact *exactly* as it was when you went to sleep, it's just moved without any of you noticing anything.

And if that was what the GM had in mind, only to decide to not include the pumpkins because they couldn't be bothered or wanted to mess with the players or something, I agree that it was wrong.

Velaryon
2022-07-01, 12:57 PM
And I'm honestly surprised by the number of people willing and ready to assume that the DM was going "muahahah, yes, I have successfully stolen away their pumpkins with a veneer of justification! I am so evil, bwahaha!" Rambo's dog jokes aside, theyre pumpkins. The DM almost certainly didnt care about them either way and assumed the players didn't either (and lets be real, somebody who actually cares about 100 GP is unlikely to invest it in 7 tons of pumpkins), so he left them. Even the OP was half thinking this is just a visceral "don't touch my stuff ever" reaction instead of a real problem.

It's not the DM's place to decide which of the party's possessions are important to the party. If the DM felt that the party buying an arbitrarily large number of pumpkins was going to be a problem for the game, then the way to handle that was to make it so that there weren't that many pumpkins available to buy. The process matters here.



Without going i to the specifics of pumpkin kings.
1) if player agency has any meaning it also means the ability to do dumb frivolous things.
2) players should not be immune from the consequences of dumb frivolous acts.
3) The game is a 2 way street. Which means just as the GM shouldn’t arbitrarily delete the player’s stuff that the players shouldn’t arbitrarily delete the GM’s stuff.
3a) If a specific item is inserted into the campaign the working assumption should be that of Chekov’s gun i.e. it was created and pout into the game for a purpose.
4) When playing a linear adventure the GM has a duty to redirect players from non campaign relevant stuff back to the campaign.

1) I can't tell if this is agreeing or disagreeing with what I said. I agree that buying a giant pile of pumpkins was probably a dumb idea, but by making the pumpkins available to purchase, the DM is tacitly allowing the PCs to have them.
2) Reasonable consequences that make sense in-universe and flow logically from that decision, yes. Having the pumpkins rot because the PCs didn't bother to look at a map and realize it was a much longer journey than they thought would be a reasonable consequence. Arbitrarily leaving their stuff behind when they are whisked away in the middle of the night without any chance to grab their stuff or resist being taken is not a logical consequence of their actions, it's DM fiat.
3) The players by definition can't "arbitrarily delete the GM's stuff." That's not how being a player works.
3a) There's no reason whatsoever to assume that based on the information we have. At a certain DM's table who is known for doing things this way it's probably a good assumption. But just as a general assumption about how D&D works, absolutely not. The DMG is literally full of random treasure generating tables. Sure, this particular item was a parting gift from an NPC they had met, but I've already addressed why I do not believe that equals "this item will be important later."
4) Which can and should be done in a less heavy-handed way than "when you wake up your stuff is gone."


The DM also has an obligation to make their own rulings the correct choice, or have an out of character conversation if they want to undo them. The DM in this case didn't say no when the players sold the jewellery or when they bought the pumpkins, so now they should have to deal with players who own a cartful of pumpkins.

Cuts both ways, y'know.

Exactly.

Talakeal
2022-07-01, 03:30 PM
Again, people keep acting like this was some evil scheme on the DMs part to deprive them of pumpkins he didn’t want them to have. I am sure that a cartload of produce was the last thing on the DMs mind, and trying to railroad the PCs by telling them they couldn’t have that many pumpkins as many posters have suggested was, imo, in no way a better solution for either party.

Of course, I am still waiting on clarification for what the pumpkins are for.

Pauly
2022-07-01, 04:09 PM
3) The players by definition can't "arbitrarily delete the GM's stuff." That's not how being a player works.
3a) There's no reason whatsoever to assume that based on the information we have. At a certain DM's table who is known for doing things this way it's probably a good assumption. But just as a general assumption about how D&D works, absolutely not. The DMG is literally full of random treasure generating tables. Sure, this particular item was a parting gift from an NPC they had met, but I've already addressed why I do not believe that equals "this item will be important later."
.

Players delete GM stuff all the time, it’s the essence of being a murder hobo. Killing NPCs who aren’t meat to be killed is the classic example. Deliberately ignoring clues is another example.

It’s pretty easy to tell if an item is treasure/reward or if it is plot related.
- You kill the dragon, the GM makes several rolls on a table and says the treasure haul is blah blah blah plus an amulet worth 200 gp. Obviously loot for the party meant to be sold.
- The baroness gives the player who went of her way to save Tiddums McFluffycat from the feline eating goblins who raided the baroness’ castle an amulet worth 200 gp - obviously a reward to the player for good roleplaying.
- Old man quest giver gifts the only elf in the party a silver dwarven crossbow bolt with an unspecified value and says this is a token of the friendship between elves and dwarves. Obviously a Chekov’s gun.
Any time there is a message attached to an item, the item is given to a specific character for a specific reason or description of an item that shows it is somehow special that goes beyond its in game effect then it is reasonable to assume it is some kind if Chekov’s gun. If later events show that the assumption is wrong or the plot has moved in a different direction then by all means sell it.


4) Which can and should be done in a less heavy-handed way than "when you wake up your stuff is gone."

Well you could let the players struggle with the wagons for 3 weeks then tell them all the pumpkins rotted because you failed to plan for travel times, or when they finally get to market there is a glut of pumpkins and they get coppers on the gold for their investment. It’s the same effect but actually screws with the players more.

I have no problems wth a heavy handed approach such as “when you wake up your stuff is gone” provided it meets the following criteria.
1) The stuff is game breaking. Either because it is so far off the plot as to be breaking the plot or it is way too powerful.
2) The players have not invested too many resources into acquiring it.
3) The players haven’t had the stuff for an extended period and therefore have the expectation that it will continue.
4) It gets the game back on track.
I’ve had GMs delete my stuff before, and whilst in the instant I was butthurt the game was better for it.

icefractal
2022-07-01, 05:58 PM
1) if player agency has any meaning it also means the ability to do dumb frivolous things.
1) I can't tell if this is agreeing or disagreeing with what I said. I agree that buying a giant pile of pumpkins was probably a dumb idea, but by making the pumpkins available to purchase, the DM is tacitly allowing the PCs to have them.
I think the meaning is that for the players to fully have agency, that has to include the possibility to do things that are mistakes, that are a net-negative for their characters.
The GM refusing to let them buy pumpkins because the mist won't pick them up would be less than full agency, therefore.
And IMO, so would the GM changing any previously-decided events in order to preserve the pumpkins once bought. Railroading in the players' favor is more tolerable than the reverse, but it's still not full agency.


2) Reasonable consequences that make sense in-universe and flow logically from that decision, yes. Having the pumpkins rot because the PCs didn't bother to look at a map and realize it was a much longer journey than they thought would be a reasonable consequence. Arbitrarily leaving their stuff behind when they are whisked away in the middle of the night without any chance to grab their stuff or resist being taken is not a logical consequence of their actions, it's DM fiat.I think that's where opinions differ - it depends on how natural the mist's behavior is seen. I'm not versed in all the Ravenloft lore, so to me there are cases for both sides:
+ The mist wants to grab victims, pumpkins are not interesting victims.
+ They're also not creatures, and if it grabbed inanimate objects wouldn't it bring in a chunk of the environment? Which doesn't seem to be the case.
- The mist does bring clothes and gear and such, so obviously it's not limited to purely creatures.
- The transition is elsewhere depicted as seamless, which it wouldn't be if part of the campsite / caravan / etc suddenly disappeared.

GloatingSwine
2022-07-02, 06:20 AM
Again, people keep acting like this was some evil scheme on the DMs part to deprive them of pumpkins he didn’t want them to have. I am sure that a cartload of produce was the last thing on the DMs mind, and trying to railroad the PCs by telling them they couldn’t have that many pumpkins as many posters have suggested was, imo, in no way a better solution for either party.

Of course, I am still waiting on clarification for what the pumpkins are for.

It was clearly not the last thing on the DM's mind because they went out of their way to specifically remove it.

Like they're running Curse of Strahd, they did the invitation from the duchess intro, didn't follow through on it (she asks you to shoo some travellers away, they say "yes, but please come with us to a thing" and that leads you to Barovia) so failed over to the creeping fog, and the DM specifically changed that to remove possessions, which it doesn't in the module (your camp is exactly as you left it, you notice the trees in the fog are subtly different from when you went to sleep and your entire camp is actually somewhere else without apparently having been disturbed at all, spoooooky!)

The DM had to do something active to remove the pumpkins, they didn't just forget the players had them.

I'm sure they didn't do it as an "evil scheme", they just wanted to not get distracted, but the time for that was when the players tried to sell the plot coupon not when they camped in the fog.

For reference, this is all the actual module says about getting into Barovia via the creeping fog:

The woods are quiet this night, and the air grows chill. Your fire sputters as a low mist gathers around the edges of your camp, growing closer as the night wears on. By morning, the fog hangs thick in the air, turning the trees around you into gray ghosts. Then you notice these aren't the same trees that surrounded you the night before.

Nothing changes, your possessions are not removed, there are no rules in the module for what you can and can't bring. Just you camp, fog rolls in, welcome to Estalia Barovia gentlemen.

Quertus
2022-07-04, 07:13 PM
I've been trying not to say this, but I've finally failed my Will save: If I knew that I were going to be playing in a Ravenloft game (as this group apparently did), I, personally, would totally want to stock up on Pumpkins.

Now, this may sound strange, but Minecraft. I would totally want to Tainted Sorcerer free components Continual Flame jack-o'-lantern the realm of horror to the nines!

So losing my pumpkins would kinda be a big thing for me, personally.


The woods are quiet this night, and the air grows chill. Your fire sputters as a low mist gathers around the edges of your camp, growing closer as the night wears on. By morning, the fog hangs thick in the air, turning the trees around you into gray ghosts. Then you notice these aren't the same trees that surrounded you the night before.

Well, that's just dumb. The person on watch doesn't notice the trees teleport?

Talakeal
2022-07-04, 10:20 PM
Well, that's just dumb. The person on watch doesn't notice the trees teleport?

I believe the transition is supposed to happen while blinded by mist.

KorvinStarmast
2022-07-05, 11:37 AM
I think the meaning is that for the players to fully have agency, that has to include the possibility to do things that are mistakes, that are a net-negative for their characters.
The GM refusing to let them buy pumpkins because the mist won't pick them up would be less than full agency, therefore. I am with you. The mists are not natural, though, they are for darned sure supernatural, and Barovia is a dark and unique place ruled by the Dark Powers ... :smalleek:

Dr.Samurai
2022-07-05, 01:50 PM
I think this was all intended. I think the DM knew that his players were more concerned about pumpkins than they were about being trapped in Barovia or stopping an evil Vampire. So the DM did the only thing he could do that would motivate his players to go after Strahd. He had the mists take away their precious pumpkins!!! :smalleek:

Nooooooooo!!!! Not the pumpkins!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Never has Strahd, in the history of D&D, performed so vile an act, so wicked a scheme, as to send shivers down the spines of any hag or fiend, as to dare remove some pumpkins from the players' possessions!

Legend has it the DM went on to change Barovia in another way... everywhere the players turned, there were ripe pumpkins on vines. But whenever the players approached, the pumpkins would immediately rot!! Wherever their gaze fell they could see the objects of their longing, but only from a distance, destined never to get any closer. Who is really imprisoned here? Who is the real dark power?

The devs have been so impressed by this obsessive preoccupation with pumpkins, that they immediately greenlit Curse of Strahd 2: This Time We Squash It, and have reimagined Strahd as a giant pumpkin man that lives in a giant pumpkin castle and has pumpkins for hands and feets and whenever he speaks pumpkins fly out of his mouth.

Early polling indicates this will be the most popular published adventure to date across any edition!!!

KorvinStarmast
2022-07-05, 02:54 PM
The devs have been so impressed by this obsessive preoccupation with pumpkins, that they immediately greenlit Curse of Strahd 2: This Time We Squash It, and have reimagined Strahd as a giant pumpkin man that lives in a giant pumpkin castle and has pumpkins for hands and feets and whenever he speaks pumpkins fly out of his mouth. The PCs will of course be assisting the Vistani Pie maker in trying to overcome Strahd, using the sacred weapon known only as the Radiant Cool Whip Can to complete Strahd's demise. And of course the beautiful damsel in distress will be called
Pumpkin Spice

And they'll get to eat pie.

Of course, I am still waiting on clarification for what the pumpkins are for. Pie, of course.

Mastikator
2022-07-08, 07:24 AM
I think this was all intended. I think the DM knew that his players were more concerned about pumpkins than they were about being trapped in Barovia or stopping an evil Vampire. So the DM did the only thing he could do that would motivate his players to go after Strahd. He had the mists take away their precious pumpkins!!! :smalleek:

Nooooooooo!!!! Not the pumpkins!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Never has Strahd, in the history of D&D, performed so vile an act, so wicked a scheme, as to send shivers down the spines of any hag or fiend, as to dare remove some pumpkins from the players' possessions!

Legend has it the DM went on to change Barovia in another way... everywhere the players turned, there were ripe pumpkins on vines. But whenever the players approached, the pumpkins would immediately rot!! Wherever their gaze fell they could see the objects of their longing, but only from a distance, destined never to get any closer. Who is really imprisoned here? Who is the real dark power?

The devs have been so impressed by this obsessive preoccupation with pumpkins, that they immediately greenlit Curse of Strahd 2: This Time We Squash It, and have reimagined Strahd as a giant pumpkin man that lives in a giant pumpkin castle and has pumpkins for hands and feets and whenever he speaks pumpkins fly out of his mouth.

Early polling indicates this will be the most popular published adventure to date across any edition!!!

The players wanted to play Pumpkin Tychoon TTRPG Edition and the DM destroyed their player agency by removing that option.

Easy e
2022-07-08, 09:07 AM
I guess you have three choices here:

1. Be salty and stop playing
2. Move on and keep playing
3. Be Salty and keep playing


Which do you think will lead to you and the others in your group having more fun?

GloatingSwine
2022-07-08, 09:16 AM
I guess you have three choices here:

1. Be salty and stop playing
2. Move on and keep playing
3. Be Salty and keep playing


Which do you think will lead to you and the others in your group having more fun?

This misses out option 4, which is to have an out of character conversation with the GM about it and how it impacted the game in the hope that everyone has clear expectations about the game in future.

Keltest
2022-07-08, 10:19 AM
This misses out option 4, which is to have an out of character conversation with the GM about it and how it impacted the game in the hope that everyone has clear expectations about the game in future.

That sounds like option 3 to me.

Lets be real here, player agency or not, the DM did not sign up to run Economics Simulator. Those pumpkins were going to splatter into the reality of the situation eventually anyway. Its pretty telling that nobody has been able to venture any ideas on what the pumpkins were for other than playing a totally different game than the one they actually signed up for.

Thrudd
2022-07-08, 10:45 AM
Based on the guidelines presented in the module, there was no reason to make the cart disappear. The cart and pumpkins would also have been pretty much useless to the players, had it remained present (and that shouldn't be surprising to D&D players). Ultimately, it's hard to justify being upset about it, except purely on the principle of "DM shouldn't take stuff away by fiat". We can only guess at the DM's rationale for making it disappear, maybe they have a reasonable in-world justification that isn't obvious from the description of things- but it does seem like a strange thing to do. It wouldn't have hurt anything to let them have a cart of pumpkins, unless the players had some sort of rules cheese planned (that they could accomplish at low level) that nobody here has thought of yet.

kyoryu
2022-07-08, 11:17 AM
That sounds like option 3 to me.

Lets be real here, player agency or not, the DM did not sign up to run Economics Simulator. Those pumpkins were going to splatter into the reality of the situation eventually anyway. Its pretty telling that nobody has been able to venture any ideas on what the pumpkins were for other than playing a totally different game than the one they actually signed up for.

Right, and that's a game alignment issue, and should be handled out of game. Handle meta issues with meta conversations.

This is clearly a case of misaligned expectations. Don't handle those out of game.

The players clearly thought they were going to be in a situation where they could use the pumpkins. They weren't. Lots of people have said they should have known because Ravenloft.... so.... now meta knowledge is supposed to guide you?

And it's not and never has been that bad things can't happen. It's a matter of general expectations - if bandits had come and in a fight the pumpkins were destroyed, I doubt anyone would be salty.

People were upset. If you want to avoid that, you need to understand why. Just saying "they're dumb" or coming up with these strawmen like "what, now GMs have to justify everything" doesn't actually help.

People were likely upset because:

1. Their expectations were undermined (not "my pumpkin empire will work" but "there's normal continuity going on here").
2. Their plans were thwarted in a way that was complete fiat
3. The complete fiat way that their plans were thwarted came out of nowhere

You can fix this a bunch of ways:

1. "Hey, guys, this isn't pumpkin tycoon simulator. This is an adventure game. If you want to do an economics simulator, let's talk about it, because that ain't the game I'm running."
2. Give some ability to react to the mist that gives them some agency.
3. Foreshadow the mist in some way so that it's not a complete rug-pull.

There's a thing in writing called "plants and payoffs". Often viewed as Chekhov's gun, but it's slightly different. The idea is that if you're going to do something nuts, to make it seem congruous, you need to hint at it earlier. Like, if you're in some kind of gritty realistic setting, and you want a ninja attack, you need to have someone hear a TV report of ninjas attacking or something like that. Then when ninjas attack the main characters, the audience thinks (subconsciously) "oh, yeah, there are ninja attacks, so that makes sense." Ninja attacks in New York normally don't make sense, so if you don't set it up like that, you risk the audience doing a WTF.

Same thing here. It's a WTF that also removed agency.

Does the GM have to do these things? Of course not, but if you want to avoid those kinds of situations, it's helpful to do that level of due diligence, especially given the complete level of fiat most games give the GM. It helps to build trust.

So in this case it's "we're in medieval world, hey, pumpkin trading could be cool as a side thing, lulz. We should probably guard against bandits and stuff like that, as that's stuff that normally occurs. Wait, what? A mist just took everything? Where the heck did that come from?"

What you want is "we're in medieval world, pumpkin trading could be cool. There's legends of mists taking people at random? Wow, would suck if that happened! Oh, it happened to us??? Ugh! Of course it did, man we probably shouldn't have bought those pumpkins knowing that!"

I mean, the second is kind of an ideal situation, but setting up that something outside of normal expectations can happen before laying it on the players can help prevent those moments.

Easy e
2022-07-08, 12:41 PM
Instead of focusing on the GM, as this forum likes to do; perhaps we should focus on the players?

Did they ask anything about the game BEFORE they bought the pumpkins? No, they just asked if it COULD* be done, and did it. They didn't care how it fit into the game the GM was planning. How much did the PCs spend looking for local rumors from NPCs about what was happening in the area? How much did the players ask about the type of game they were going to be playing? PCs have to engage in a game and its premise too and the onus should not always be on the GM. It is a collaborative game after all.

However, it has all ready happened; so the real question is..... do the players want to keep playing Curse of Strahd with the GM or not. If they do, then they need to share their feelings; and be ready to move on and keep playing. If they do not, then they need to be done. Pretty simple really.



* = Let's be honest, if the GM said, "No you should not do that as it doesn't fit the theme of this game." There is still a good chance a player could interpret that poorly and also be salty about it.

kyoryu
2022-07-08, 01:43 PM
* = Let's be honest, if the GM said, "No you should not do that as it doesn't fit the theme of this game." There is still a good chance a player could interpret that poorly and also be salty about it.

It's entirely possible.

But then you're having the conversation you need to have - what is the expectation of the game? What kind of game is it, and what kind of game is it not? That's a player/gm level discussion. And if people really want to play Pumpkin Traders, and the GM doesn't, then it's just not a good fit. And that's okay

Dr.Samurai
2022-07-08, 02:29 PM
I was never about Pumpkin Tycoon, it was always about collecting the pumpkin seeds and scattering them on the ground if they ever came across Strahd.

https://c.tenor.com/bD9vHNiR1rQAAAAd/boom-mind-blown.gif

GloatingSwine
2022-07-08, 05:43 PM
That sounds like option 3 to me.

Lets be real here, player agency or not, the DM did not sign up to run Economics Simulator. Those pumpkins were going to splatter into the reality of the situation eventually anyway. Its pretty telling that nobody has been able to venture any ideas on what the pumpkins were for other than playing a totally different game than the one they actually signed up for.

Not quite. If you do it right and everyone listens then saltiness can be remedied.

The DM didn't sign up to run Economics Simulator, but they had their chance to not go down that rabbit hole when the party were trying to sell a gift from a duchess "the man recognises who it is from and says he could not possibly buy it, no-one near here will risk that attention".

He could *also* have tried to fix it gracefully "The people of Barovia are poorer than dirt, they cannot possibly buy this much produce" even if that means the party taking a bath on the pumpkins (but doing so in a naturalistic way not "your stuff disappears at random, do not trust your own character sheet") and maybe making up for it with a small boon later if the players simply gave them away (less valuable than whatever was planned for the necklace).

The DM *had* graceful ways to avoid the mismatch, and graceful ways to get back into harmony with the intent of the module, they did neither, possibly out of haste, and generated salt where none need exist. (and they can fix *that* by just having the players find their cartload of pumpkins abandoned on the road you always find whichever way you walk through the mist. Maybe some of them have been gnawed on.)

Dr.Samurai
2022-07-08, 05:44 PM
Even if the ridiculous conclusion that people are jumping to about the DM is true, the players also have the opportunity to "gracefully" handle the situation and get over it and move on. Hopefully that is what happened.

KorvinStarmast
2022-07-11, 03:37 PM
the players also have the opportunity to "gracefully" handle the situation and get over it and move on. But what about the requirement for outrage? :smallconfused:

Talakeal
2022-07-11, 11:33 PM
So, there is a good chance I am going to be running a Ravenloft campaign in the near future, and if I do, I am definitely going to put in a subplot about the Dark Powers stealing people's pumpkins as some part of nefarious scheme.

KorvinStarmast
2022-07-12, 10:29 AM
So, there is a good chance I am going to be running a Ravenloft campaign in the near future, and if I do, I am definitely going to put in a subplot about the Dark Powers stealing people's pumpkins as some part of nefarious scheme. I'll suggest that the Dark Powers can delegate that to any number of denizens of Barovia; they've got minions to handle their light work. :smallwink:

Pauly
2022-07-12, 03:27 PM
I'll suggest that the Dark Powers can delegate that to any number of denizens of Barovia; they've got minions to handle their light work. :smallwink:

But it’s so nefarious it cannot be trusted to a small yellow humanoid with a variable number of eyes.

KorvinStarmast
2022-07-13, 07:41 AM
But it’s so nefarious it cannot be trusted to a small yellow humanoid with a variable number of eyes. It took me a moment to get the movie ref. :smallconfused:

Kvess
2022-07-13, 10:21 PM
For reference, this is all the actual module says about getting into Barovia via the creeping fog:

The woods are quiet this night, and the air grows chill. Your fire sputters as a low mist gathers around the edges of your camp, growing closer as the night wears on. By morning, the fog hangs thick in the air, turning the trees around you into gray ghosts. Then you notice these aren't the same trees that surrounded you the night before.

Nothing changes, your possessions are not removed, there are no rules in the module for what you can and can't bring. Just you camp, fog rolls in, welcome to Estalia Barovia gentlemen.
YMMV, but if a player quoted text from the module I would ask them to leave. Players do not read the module. They do not know what’s in the module. They, as a rule, do not get to know what the DM took license to embellish, improvise, or expand on. The game does not work if the DM blindly follows a book that the players already know front to back, because prewritten books will not adapt to your players.

Barovia is a cursed realm that Strahd has absolute control over. If Strahd wants the mists to separate the adventurers from their cart, that cart is gone. Is it advisable? Probably not, but it is not entirely unjustifiable.

GloatingSwine
2022-07-14, 05:26 AM
YMMV, but if a player quoted text from the module I would ask them to leave. Players do not read the module. They do not know what’s in the module. They, as a rule, do not get to know what the DM took license to embellish, improvise, or expand on. The game does not work if the DM blindly follows a book that the players already know front to back, because prewritten books will not adapt to your players.

Barovia is a cursed realm that Strahd has absolute control over. If Strahd wants the mists to separate the adventurers from their cart, that cart is gone. Is it advisable? Probably not, but it is not entirely unjustifiable.

There's no milage here at all. We're not players at this game, we're critiquing decisions from our ivory towers.

And I'm doing that from the doylist perspective. Strahd isn't real, he has no control over anything, the DM is real and does and to me the DM made a bad call here (because they made it too late and should have had to cope with the pumpkin shaped consequences of their previous calls).

Morgaln
2022-07-14, 06:58 AM
YMMV, but if a player quoted text from the module I would ask them to leave. Players do not read the module. They do not know what’s in the module. They, as a rule, do not get to know what the DM took license to embellish, improvise, or expand on. The game does not work if the DM blindly follows a book that the players already know front to back, because prewritten books will not adapt to your players.

Barovia is a cursed realm that Strahd has absolute control over. If Strahd wants the mists to separate the adventurers from their cart, that cart is gone. Is it advisable? Probably not, but it is not entirely unjustifiable.

So does that mean that anyone who is a GM themselves is not welcome at your table, because they might have read a module you're planning to run?
I could understand if it was "my game, my interpretation, if you know the wording, be aware that I might change it." But outright telling them to leave because they are a GM that also wants to play occasionally seems... overly harsh.

Kvess
2022-07-14, 07:38 AM
My rule at my table is players don’t read the module. And if you did happen to read the module years ago before deciding that you wanted to play in the adventure: no, you didn’t. You have no memory of what you read and will not use that knowledge to your advantage or to argue with the DM. Nothing will annoy me more than a player quoting text that they shouldn’t have seen.

YMMV at your table, but I don’t think this is an uncommon requirement.

Mastikator
2022-07-14, 08:28 AM
There's no milage here at all. We're not players at this game, we're critiquing decisions from our ivory towers.

And I'm doing that from the doylist perspective. Strahd isn't real, he has no control over anything, the DM is real and does and to me the DM made a bad call here (because they made it too late and should have had to cope with the pumpkin shaped consequences of their previous calls).

You're taking it for granted that the DM is in the wrong. It's entirely possible to view the pumpkin tycoon thing as a disruptive course of action and the DM was not only right in squashing it immediately, but merciful for not reminding them that playing merchant is in fact not what anyone signed up for.

The DM made a good call here. It's not the fact that the players have any right to be salty, it's the DM who should be salty for putting in so much money, time and energy into running a game only to have it blatantly disrespected by a player trying to run pumpkin merchant.

GloatingSwine
2022-07-14, 08:57 AM
You're taking it for granted that the DM is in the wrong. It's entirely possible to view the pumpkin tycoon thing as a disruptive course of action and the DM was not only right in squashing it immediately, but merciful for not reminding them that playing merchant is in fact not what anyone signed up for.

The DM made a good call here. It's not the fact that the players have any right to be salty, it's the DM who should be salty for putting in so much money, time and energy into running a game only to have it blatantly disrespected by a player trying to run pumpkin merchant.

I'm saying the DM didn't squash it quickly *enough*. If the DM doesn't want the player to have pumpkins don't sell them any! The DM decides what's in the world for them to buy, or who is in the world for them to sell a plot coupon to. They had two different opportunities to nip this in the bud before it got this far and took neither. *That* is what makes it a bad call to yoink the goods now.

If the necklace had been impossible to sell, that's a good call. If there just wasn't a cartload of produce available to buy and they can't convert the money into perishable goods and have to wait to spend it later that's *also* a good call. Waiting until there's already a cartload of pumpkins and *then* deciding they don't like it and want it to be different, that's not.

Not having a conversation between all the players about what game you were intending to play isn't "merciful" because the DM has no power to grant or withold mercy, it's just a way to fall into another mismatch later.

Batcathat
2022-07-14, 09:06 AM
If the necklace had been impossible to sell, that's a good call.

Depends on the reason for it, I think. If it's because it makes sense for no one in the area to have enough cash (or pumpkins) to pay for it, then sure. If it's only because the GM wants to force them to keep it, it's not. Just as I'm fine with the pumpkins disappearing if there was a good in-universe reason for it, but not if it was just the GM wanting to get rid of the pumpkins.

Dr.Samurai
2022-07-14, 09:09 AM
But remember the DM doesn't know at time of "sells necklace" that the players are going to buy a cart of pumpkins.

He allows them to sell a necklace. He allows them to peruse the market. He allows them to buy a cart. Oh, and now they want all those pumpkins he described as background setting. Well, he's allowed them to do everything up to this point so... sure, buy the pumpkins. Better that than the weird scenario where everything has been permitted up until now and then suddenly the DM says "No, you can't buy these pumpkins I described as being on display for sale...".

But really the main point is that in all the things in life to get bent out of shape over, this isn't one of them. This can be easily let go.

GloatingSwine
2022-07-14, 09:10 AM
Depends on the reason for it, I think. If it's because it makes sense for no one in the area to have enough cash (or pumpkins) to pay for it, then sure. If it's only because the GM wants to force them to keep it, it's not. Just as I'm fine with the pumpkins disappearing if there was a good in-universe reason for it, but not if it was just the GM wanting to get rid of the pumpkins.

The reason for it will determine how well the players accept the idea they can't sell it. It was a personal item of a local noblewoman, a good explanation would be "the person you're trying to sell it to recognises who it came from and says nobody near here would risk buying it". The players can then think "okay we'll hold onto it and sell it when we've moved far enough away", and in this case "far enough away" is Barovia where everyone's poorer than the poorest dirt they ever met (or far more interested in what's in a neck than on it) and before they find someone to buy it whatever plot coupon reason it was given for has triggered anyway.

kyoryu
2022-07-14, 09:36 AM
You're taking it for granted that the DM is in the wrong. It's entirely possible to view the pumpkin tycoon thing as a disruptive course of action and the DM was not only right in squashing it immediately, but merciful for not reminding them that playing merchant is in fact not what anyone signed up for.

The DM made a good call here. It's not the fact that the players have any right to be salty, it's the DM who should be salty for putting in so much money, time and energy into running a game only to have it blatantly disrespected by a player trying to run pumpkin merchant.

Nah, the GM may have been right in the large ("this isn't Pumpkin Tycoon") but I think they were wrong in how they handled it.

Ultimately, misalignment on game expectations is an out-of-game problem. What the characters did was reasonable in game. Slightly weird maybe, but certainly nothing wrong. If it violated basic expectations of the campaign ("we're adventurers, not pumpkin merchants") then it should be handled out of game. At the time would have been best, but at any point would have been fine - "Hey, guys, we're running D&D. I'm really not interested in running a game about being pumpkin merchants, so I'm not sure where you're going with this. Let's make sure we're on the same page."

Don't solve out-of-game problems in-game.

Trafalgar
2022-07-14, 05:32 PM
Nah, the GM may have been right in the large ("this isn't Pumpkin Tycoon") but I think they were wrong in how they handled it.

Ultimately, misalignment on game expectations is an out-of-game problem. What the characters did was reasonable in game. Slightly weird maybe, but certainly nothing wrong. If it violated basic expectations of the campaign ("we're adventurers, not pumpkin merchants") then it should be handled out of game. At the time would have been best, but at any point would have been fine - "Hey, guys, we're running D&D. I'm really not interested in running a game about being pumpkin merchants, so I'm not sure where you're going with this. Let's make sure we're on the same page."

Don't solve out-of-game problems in-game.

I disagree. The players knew they were playing "Dungeons and Dragons" but decided to buy a bunch of pumpkins, something pretty much useless in game. I think the DM should have done something else to get rid of the pumpkins than just have them disappear. I would have let them bring the pumpkins with them to Barovia. But the PCs would discover that pumpkins are a common commodity in Barovia and they were unable to sell the pumpkins at a profit. Or, that the Barovian peasants interested in buying the pumpkins are dirt poor and can't afford to pay what the PCs are asking. I mean, Strahd doesn't have a use for pumpkins. Let the players choose between getting back 25 to 50 gp of the 100gp they spent or letting the pumpkins rot in the cart.

A player making a bad "in game" decision should have to deal with the consequences "in game".

Pex
2022-07-14, 06:52 PM
If only the players bought cabbages instead of pumpkins then everyone would be right.

Pauly
2022-07-14, 11:28 PM
You're taking it for granted that the DM is in the wrong. It's entirely possible to view the pumpkin tycoon thing as a disruptive course of action and the DM was not only right in squashing it immediately, but merciful for not reminding them that playing merchant is in fact not what anyone signed up for.
.

I see what you did there :smallwink:

kyoryu
2022-07-15, 11:50 AM
I disagree. The players knew they were playing "Dungeons and Dragons" but decided to buy a bunch of pumpkins, something pretty much useless in game. I think the DM should have done something else to get rid of the pumpkins than just have them disappear. I would have let them bring the pumpkins with them to Barovia. But the PCs would discover that pumpkins are a common commodity in Barovia and they were unable to sell the pumpkins at a profit. Or, that the Barovian peasants interested in buying the pumpkins are dirt poor and can't afford to pay what the PCs are asking. I mean, Strahd doesn't have a use for pumpkins. Let the players choose between getting back 25 to 50 gp of the 100gp they spent or letting the pumpkins rot in the cart.

A player making a bad "in game" decision should have to deal with the consequences "in game".

"PLaying Dungeons & Dragons" is an out-of-game concept. The characters don't know that.

The pumpkins being useless is very definitely a table culture thing - at some tables, going into pumpkin selling is absolutely something that would be embraced by the table as a whole. So that difference in expectations is absolutely an out-of-character concept.

Kvess
2022-07-19, 09:10 AM
That’s not an argument that I’d buy as a DM. The characters don’t understand the meta-concept of being in a Dungeons & Dragons game, but the players do — and players are responsible for their conduct at the table. If you build and play a character that isn’t a good fit for the tone and theme of the game, you, as a human being who is playing Dungeons & Dragons, know exactly what you are doing.

And at some tables that’s okay. I embrace players being a bit rowdy, going off on tangents, trying to interact with elements of the world that aren’t covered in the book, clashing with the adventure’s theme and tone — and I take it as a challenge to reconcile it all. But for some tables, it could really kill the vibe.

It’s always worth talking to your players, the real human beings at your table, about what sort of game you’re collectively interested in playing. You can get further by getting their buy-in above the table than by teleporting their characters to the top of a mountain, naked and without their equipment or pumpkins.

KorvinStarmast
2022-07-19, 09:16 AM
It’s always worth talking to your players, the real human beings at your table, about what sort of game you’re collectively interested in playing. You can get further by getting their buy-in above the table than by teleporting their characters to the top of a mountain, naked and without their equipment or pumpkins. If I may refer back to the OP and about being salty: whenever we got a pumpkin or two at Halloween for the kids to carve, my wife and I would keep the seeds, salt them, and roast them. They are an OK snack, and of late my wife makes me eat a couple of handfuls a week for her usual "it's healthy for you!" reasons.

If one is to be salty, apply the salt to the pumpkin seeds. :smallsmile:

Easy e
2022-07-19, 09:20 AM
If I may refer back to the OP and about being salty: whenever we got a pumpkin or two at Halloween for the kids to carve, my wife and I would keep the seeds, salt them, and roast them. They are an OK snack, and of late my wife makes me eat a couple of handfuls a week for her usual "it's healthy for you!" reasons.

If one is to be salty, apply the salt to the pumpkin seeds. :smallsmile:

Indeed. Roasted pumpkin seeds rule!

KorvinStarmast
2022-07-20, 01:30 PM
Indeed. Roasted pumpkin seeds rule!
When she's not watching I'll occasionally wash them down with beer. :smallsmile:

Mastikator
2022-07-20, 03:09 PM
"PLaying Dungeons & Dragons" is an out-of-game concept. The characters don't know that.

The pumpkins being useless is very definitely a table culture thing - at some tables, going into pumpkin selling is absolutely something that would be embraced by the table as a whole. So that difference in expectations is absolutely an out-of-character concept.

Unless all the player characters took the merchant background I'd say it's a silly move in-character. If I'm a heroic adventurer and I get my hands some gold then I'd rather spend it on heroic adventuring items, like rope and swords. The cart and horse was a smart move for sure, easier to haul more loot. But filling said cart with pumpkins? That's more of a lol-random-pumpkin-tychoon move. It's out of character, disruptive.

The DM should've whacked the players with the CoS book over the head. That was his only mistake, I'm willing to chalk it up to "mercy" and forgive the DM :smallwink:

Kardwill
2022-07-21, 11:13 AM
I'll suggest that the Dark Powers can delegate that to any number of denizens of Barovia; they've got minions to handle their light work. :smallwink:
I just ran that campaign, and I can think of a number of creatures in Barovia that would be interested in those pumpkins for some sinister, theme-appropriate stuff


Old Morganthe would just LOVE to get some more stuff to put into her pies. And Baba lysaga would do some pretty halloween-themed scarecrows, especially since she is fond of plant-magic. Wouldn't the players be THRILLED with the idea of helping out those 2 nice old ladies? :)

Sapphire Guard
2022-07-22, 11:03 AM
It's pumpkins and wheat. Stopping them from buying pumpkins just leads to the player buying something else, and if that is blocked as well, then at some point it turns into 'wait, no one is selling food at this food market'

Like every similar problem, it's hard to tell out of context, but If I was laying odds I would say that buying the cart of produce in the first place is intentionally being disruptive. In or out of character, that is a strange decision. It skews every encounter from then on, because they party now has to worry about who is guarding the cart and its very vulnerable produce, doubling as a 'the mists are not nice, you're going to have to take this seriously' wake up call.

RedWarlock
2022-07-22, 08:49 PM
Yeah, I don't think it's fair to use the Thermian argument against the GM, ("Strahd isn't a real person, he can't make excuses!") but exempt the players from it ("The players' characters don't know they're in a game of D&D!") Everyone needs to be on board with the game being played at the table, and structure their fiction (player's character and GM's world) to support it, not fight it.

The trinket was totally a macguffin, but not of the magical world, but the high-society courtier's world. That trinket was meant to be a signifier of the Duchess's favor, given to the high-society character who should know better about what it means, to be used when the time was right. It was a physical token of social power and influence. 300gp was probably the pawnshop value of the materials, but the actual social influence could've been curried into so much more.

Court politics should really be mechanized and itemized into its own subgame, maybe that would help players understand it better. (Note to self, for my own homebrew...)

I also agree that the DM had no way to know the player was selling the trinket for pumpkins unless he was stating the whole transaction in one sentence and never announced his intentions beforehand. Plenty of players break their actions down into lesser, oblique steps without consulting the DM first on the whole end-goal. (Which is a shame, because that would be another area where players could direct their experience gain by creating their own quests more formally, and thus know the DM has bought in to that suggested plot-thread.)

Satinavian
2022-07-23, 02:34 AM
The trinket was totally a macguffin, but not of the magical world, but the high-society courtier's world. That trinket was meant to be a signifier of the Duchess's favor, given to the high-society character who should know better about what it means, to be used when the time was right. It was a physical token of social power and influence. 300gp was probably the pawnshop value of the materials, but the actual social influence could've been curried into so much more.
Maybe, maybe not.

The group was about to leave the area to go into Strahds domain and we don't know whether the players expected to ever again be in an area where anyone even knows the duchess' name. And we don't know about the PCs plans or the DMs plans either.


It is certainly a boorish move to pawn the thing off and might be an insult if the duchess ever learns about it. But that does not automatically mean that the item was a MgGuffin or that the duchess or even her influence was ever expected to play a role again.