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linklele
2008-06-30, 05:55 PM
Hi guys! I need an advice about the behavior of my player... i'll explain:
they were supposed to rescue a princess from the usual bad-guy, ok.
At a certain point the bad-guy was threatening the party to kill his hostage (the princess of course), but they didn't care and let him kill her and they didn't even tried to help her saying: "who cares, some cleric in the city will resurrrect her".(and there are no divine spellcaster in the group)
I fear every next rescue mission i'll give them in future will be only a recover-the-corpse-to-gain-the-loot mission.
What can i do?

Just Alex
2008-06-30, 06:04 PM
Gold for the diamond dust comes out of party's expenses. Then, now deceased character doesn't resurrect, either because they refuse or because of divine/demonic/devilish influence. Party must deal with irate king. Also, consider the princess is likely to lose 2 con if she does resurrect. I'm sure the king will be displeased at that also.

mostlyharmful
2008-06-30, 06:05 PM
Cleric: Well I'm sorry gentlemen, it seems as though your "princess" isn't interested in returning to a life of forced marriges, lead-based face paint, eye-watering embroidery and mysogenistic patriarcal authoritarianism. Turns out spending eternity in a blissful state of perfection seems preferrable to someone who lacks a strong motivation to return to this imperfect realm.

PCs: Well.... Crap....:smallfrown:

Cleric: Oh, and that'll be ten thousand gold pieces if you please.. also note the large well armed templars standing behind me

PCs: Well.... Ummm.... Errr...

Cleric: If you want you can pay on an instalement plan but until you fulfill your debt I'm afraid it's standerd practice for me to take temporary possesion of your immortal souls.

PCs: Errrr......:smalleek:

batsofchaos
2008-06-30, 06:06 PM
Upon resurrection, the "rescued" damsel in distress is going to be quite uppity about the player's behavior. The least of this should be the price of the resurrection coming out of the reward, and if it wasn't a true resurrection a hefty fine representing the level lost. They might even refuse to pay the PCs for such a "shameful disregard for the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of the very person they were hired to save." The NPC might refuse to work with the party, and attempt to damage their reputation.

This might seem like railroading to get the players to "behave how you want," but it's the fair consequences of their actions. If they tried to save her and failed, but recovered her body so she could be brought back that's one thing. Encouraging her death knowing she can just be raised later is callous and offensive to those who hired the party.

Guildorn Tanaleth
2008-06-30, 06:07 PM
Threaten to change their alignments to neutral-going-on-evil if they don't change their ways.

If they have a cleric in the party, his god probably wouldn't want him to have spells for a while after doing something like that.

The king will be considerably less willing to pay their reward for rescuing his daughter once he finds out that they let her die. In a similar vein, once word gets around that they failed to rescue someone properly, nearby kings will be hiring different adventuring groups to rescue their daughters, limiting your players' work opportunities.

If all else fails, just sic an inevitable (a kolyarut?) on them. (I assume that's what you meant to refer to in the title.)

Tsotha-lanti
2008-06-30, 06:13 PM
If the PCs were sent to rescue someone alive, I don't see why they'd be rewarded for bringing them back dead. If the person was important, the PCs will probably be treated as criminals or traitors.

Arokh
2008-06-30, 06:15 PM
Hmm...
An idea would be to give have the next badguy capture <plot-relevant person> in order to sacrifice her to some king of otherworldly being that would be able to wipe the floor with the party easily.
If the heroes decide to let <plot-relevant person> get killed in order to simply raise her/him later, let the outsider possess and/or transform the corpse, and attack the heroes, making sure the party understands this could have been prevented by rescuing the <plot-relevant person>.

Another idea would be to trap the <plot-relevant person>'s soul in some kind of device that prevents it from returning to its body, thereby negation the possibility of raising the <plot-relevant person>.

This can be combined with linking the return of the <plot-relevant person> to their own well-being.[e.g. let the leader of a powerful organisation threaten to kill them if they do not manage to return his <plot-relevat person>].
Therefore them might try to
a.) save the <plot-relevant person> from death right from the start
b.) gain control of the device to save their own hides.
[An almost perfect initial situation for a recurring, yet always narrowly escaping villain.]

I am not sure whether these idea work or not, they might be worth a try.

So long, Arokh

holywhippet
2008-06-30, 06:22 PM
Have the BBEG bring her back as a powerful undead who seeks revenge on them for failing to save her. Not only have they failed to rescue her, they have a high level undead (vampire maybe?) on their backs.

ColonelFuster
2008-06-30, 06:52 PM
Mostly Harful is spot-on in this one. Have the girl refuse to be rezzed- it's the most potent weapon you may have. Maybe she does hate her family. Maybe she's a Ghost. Maybe she's the property of an archdevil now, because the bbeg killed her in a temple to BLAHDEVILTHULU or something.

So, what is/what was the alignment spectrum of this party that was sent to get Princess Lazarus?

@Bats: Coincidentally, it IS railroading. And it's perfectly acceptable. If the heroes are good, then there are consequences to not acting good. But if they aren't good, then the bbeg made a fatal mistake in overestimating their moral ground and got what was coming to him.

batsofchaos
2008-06-30, 07:03 PM
While we are in agreement on it being perfectly acceptable, I must disagree and say that it's not railroading. If the king didn't say anything and paid them their fee, would that be considered railroading? Not by any reasonable definition I've heard. I've encountered the occasional "any time anything remotely out of the players control happens ever it's railroading!" argument, but I think we can discount that as being delusional.

Having the PCs do something and then face consequences, whether positive or negative, for their actions is not railroading, ever.

erikun
2008-06-30, 07:28 PM
Well, it looks like you have a few options here.

First, it really shouldn't be a suprise to anyone that they need to resurrect the ex-hostage - that money is coming out of the reward. From there, you end up with three basic choices.

One, the resurrection could fail. Either the ex-hostage doesn't want to be brought back to life, is afraid of what the party will do, or just can't for some reason. Either way, there will probably be some kind of divination (Speak with Dead) to find out what happened. The cost of the divination, of course, is coming out of the reward, too. Once they find out what actually happened, expect the remainder of the reward money to be cut in half and given to the party for a "valiant attempt at a rescue". Needless to say, nobody will be offering the PC's another rescue mission.

As a side note, I suppose the kidnapper could've put a curse on the ex-hostage that's preventing the resurrection. In that case, nobody would know what the PC's did, but the PC's will need to release the curse before they're paid. :smalltongue:

Another possibility is that the resurrection worked, and the ex-hostage spilled the beans over what exactly happened. In that case, the reward money (minus the resurrection) should be split in half and given to the party... and from now on, that family will probably look at the PC's as murderous scoundrels, possibly working with the kidnappers. They can't prove anything solid, so they'll likely hire people from a local thieves guild to start stalking the PC's, stealing their stuff to see if they can prove anything, etc. Having a governing organization after you is always fun!

The third possibility is that the resurrection worked, but the ex-hostage keeps her mouth zipped. In which case, nobody would know at first... but the ex-hostage would reguard the PC's as assassins, and would take it into her own hands to finish them off. Hiring her own assassins, paying people to give the PC's false information or dangerous quests, hiring someone to break into the PC's home and steal from them... all fun consequences for such callous treatment to a hostage! :smallbiggrin: Of course, if the PC's object, nobody will believe them - the mayor's daughter, head of an assassins' guild? That's a bit farfetched, after all.

So don't look at this as a problem for you to fix; look at it as an opportunity to cause problems for the PC's to fix!

chiasaur11
2008-06-30, 10:18 PM
Hmm..
They do need to pay for it, obviously, but, considering the world, it's a good way to deal with stupid hostage takers. I'd do the cut the reward both on principle and to pay for a true rez, but the extra penalties (other than distrust and decreased job opportunites, which make sense) feel like a penalty beyond the logical for a little out of the box.

Obviously, however, it shouldn't work twice.

EvilElitest
2008-06-30, 10:25 PM
Remember, when she comes back, her father is going to ask her how she died and she is going to tell them that the PCs didn't even attempt to help them. Now if i was king, and i knew the adventures i payed to handle a hostage situation simply let her die, i wouldn't be happy
from
EE

d12
2008-07-01, 01:12 AM
I gotta say, I kinda wish the group I game with would do something in a manner like that. Makes games more interesting when standard threats like that actually don't work. It could even qualify as either brilliant or just humorous depending on the circumstances. Maybe you could even finagle a surprise round out of the DM due to dumbstruck astonishment on the part of the baddie if you want to attempt to adopt a "shoot the hostage" approach. Could even make for good exercise for a resident legalistic argument junkie if somebody wants to try making trouble later. "Hey, nobody ever said she had to be alive at the time of rescue." They got her back, right? And if this princess had any remote shot at gaining any kind of power at all in the future (if she didn't possess any already, depending on exact social/government setup), she would have to figure that as an individual of such standing/influence/power/etc at some point she may need to face the possibility of being assassinated and possibly resurrected. So it's not like such a course of action would seem totally alien to her. As far as refusing rez goes, that's on her. Nobody said the group had to convince her to go on with life either.

As far as the party incurring any expenses associated with the rez goes, perhaps, if they were stupid enough to explicitly agree to ensure she would be alive (not to mention possibly being really screwed in a refused-rez scenario). If you can't absolutely guarantee the hostage will come out completely unharmed, just say you'll do your best. If they balk, walk. If they start making noise about finding a better group, good for them. If they want to start sending their level 20 doom legions after the party because things don't work out exactly the way they want, hey, why not send those doom legions to get the princess in the first place instead of hiring a bunch of wandering mercenaries? I mean, they apparently have nothing better to do than scour the countryside for 4-6 random individuals, so they obviously are free enough to take care of the equivalent of a national emergency. Bonus: the doom legions' members and leadership are directly accountable for screwing anything up and are already a factored expense in the budget. If they want to start hiring random thugs/cutpurses/the like to harass the group just out of a desire for petty revenge, the kingdom obviously isn't hurting for discretionary income, and such a rez is hardly going to put the realm into hock.

Getting into the princess-rescuing business is fraught with its own dangers, and just throwing oneself into those situations willy-nilly, making big promises and such, is not doing oneself any favors. Learning to overcome the knee-jerk impulse toward empty-headed heroic babble is essential. And since, as a couple posters pointed out, any hostage-taker with any kind of knowledge of the existence of resurrection magic just might try to resort to countermeasures if he does indeed intend to use her life as a threat, you're really digging yourself a grave if you make such big promises unconditionally.

On the whole though, the party's actions actually seem to me to be a clever detour around a baddie who didn't think his cunning plan all the way through. If it really bothers you, I'd just give this one a pass and just make the next baddie a bit more genre savvy. Of course, actually talking to players might help too. At least they (players or characters) will be able to sit around and talk about the time they dealt with a villain who forgot that death is only a temporary condition under the right circumstances. Shoot, you just might find someone interested enough to write a saga about how cleverly they outwitted their foe. Such a twist on a fairly standard plot device can be a refreshing change of pace. I've been having quite a bit of fun thinking about various permutations of such a scenario. :smalltongue:

Xuincherguixe
2008-07-01, 01:12 AM
I'm not quite sure how to handle this one. In a world where cheating death is easy, it's a pretty reasonable thing to do. And, it also kills any idea of that people are in real threat.

I'm a fan of bastard parties. Not necessarily evil, but "practical" sorts of people, looking out for themselves, seeing situations for how they are, and taking advantage of them.

That could be a fun way of playing the game. And if that's how your players are, I say change the game appropriately. New encounters can be solved by being bastards.


Something still doesn't sit right with me about this though. At the very least, getting stabbed (or pushed off the ledge, or whatever) hurt, and going to and from the afterlife has got to be a harrowing ordeal.

If I felt like punishing the PCs though... they have to pay 10,000 gold for the diamonds and then, the Priest calls upon his god to transfer one level from each of them to the princess. They also receive no reward. That's about as heavy handed as it would get.

But, again, I might endorse the party being bastards. In which case the princess decides she doesn't want to be brought back to life, and the nobility sends some hit squads and such which are worth standard wealth and experience. With a note that the only one really being punished is the establishment for relying on them, and bearing a grudge which results in a lot of dead guards. (It might end in a revolution, and then democracy being formed. Which proceeds to collapse into a new Monarchy very quickly as it gets subverted.)

... This seems like a good idea for if I do that farce campaign.

Sahune
2008-07-01, 12:00 PM
If I felt like punishing the PCs though... they have to pay 10,000 gold for the diamonds and then, the Priest calls upon his god to transfer one level from each of them to the princess. They also receive no reward. That's about as heavy handed as it would get.

Heh. I like that one.

You can talk to the players about these sorts of situations out of game about this sort of thing. Getting people killed is certainly not a Good act, so a DM warning is certainly called for there regardless of later consequences. In my campaigns I limit raising and resurrections because people tend not to care about personal safety, which is frankly silly. In any case, the players were looking to win and found a loophole. This doesn't necessarily need to be closed in-game, since it can promote an ideas race between you and the players. However, should the hostage be at the rim of a volcano and gently nudged then odds of recovery and raising are slim indeed.

But talk to the players first, and find out what they want from the game. It's likely they just came up with a good idea and ran with it.

HidaTsuzua
2008-07-01, 01:29 PM
I would just say charge them for a true resurrection. 25,000gp should be enough discouragement (or more if the PCs can't cast it).

Mewtarthio
2008-07-01, 01:55 PM
If I felt like punishing the PCs though... they have to pay 10,000 gold for the diamonds and then, the Priest calls upon his god to transfer one level from each of them to the princess. They also receive no reward. That's about as heavy handed as it would get.


I would just say charge them for a true resurrection. 25,000gp should be enough discouragement (or more if the PCs can't cast it).

Bear in mind, the PCs still need a reward of some kind. Otherwise, they'll simply refuse to pay. The penalty should be a reduced reward, which will discourage such actions in the future (since nobody wants their daughters to suffer the pain of death and level/Con loss).

Kiara LeSabre
2008-07-01, 02:05 PM
I gotta say, I kinda wish the group I game with would do something in a manner like that. Makes games more interesting when standard threats like that actually don't work. It could even qualify as either brilliant or just humorous depending on the circumstances. Maybe you could even finagle a surprise round out of the DM due to dumbstruck astonishment on the part of the baddie if you want to attempt to adopt a "shoot the hostage" approach. Could even make for good exercise for a resident legalistic argument junkie if somebody wants to try making trouble later. "Hey, nobody ever said she had to be alive at the time of rescue." They got her back, right? And if this princess had any remote shot at gaining any kind of power at all in the future (if she didn't possess any already, depending on exact social/government setup), she would have to figure that as an individual of such standing/influence/power/etc at some point she may need to face the possibility of being assassinated and possibly resurrected. So it's not like such a course of action would seem totally alien to her. As far as refusing rez goes, that's on her. Nobody said the group had to convince her to go on with life either.

As far as the party incurring any expenses associated with the rez goes, perhaps, if they were stupid enough to explicitly agree to ensure she would be alive (not to mention possibly being really screwed in a refused-rez scenario). If you can't absolutely guarantee the hostage will come out completely unharmed, just say you'll do your best. If they balk, walk. If they start making noise about finding a better group, good for them. If they want to start sending their level 20 doom legions after the party because things don't work out exactly the way they want, hey, why not send those doom legions to get the princess in the first place instead of hiring a bunch of wandering mercenaries? I mean, they apparently have nothing better to do than scour the countryside for 4-6 random individuals, so they obviously are free enough to take care of the equivalent of a national emergency. Bonus: the doom legions' members and leadership are directly accountable for screwing anything up and are already a factored expense in the budget. If they want to start hiring random thugs/cutpurses/the like to harass the group just out of a desire for petty revenge, the kingdom obviously isn't hurting for discretionary income, and such a rez is hardly going to put the realm into hock.

Getting into the princess-rescuing business is fraught with its own dangers, and just throwing oneself into those situations willy-nilly, making big promises and such, is not doing oneself any favors. Learning to overcome the knee-jerk impulse toward empty-headed heroic babble is essential. And since, as a couple posters pointed out, any hostage-taker with any kind of knowledge of the existence of resurrection magic just might try to resort to countermeasures if he does indeed intend to use her life as a threat, you're really digging yourself a grave if you make such big promises unconditionally.

On the whole though, the party's actions actually seem to me to be a clever detour around a baddie who didn't think his cunning plan all the way through. If it really bothers you, I'd just give this one a pass and just make the next baddie a bit more genre savvy. Of course, actually talking to players might help too. At least they (players or characters) will be able to sit around and talk about the time they dealt with a villain who forgot that death is only a temporary condition under the right circumstances. Shoot, you just might find someone interested enough to write a saga about how cleverly they outwitted their foe. Such a twist on a fairly standard plot device can be a refreshing change of pace. I've been having quite a bit of fun thinking about various permutations of such a scenario. :smalltongue:

This is by far the best response.

Look, linklele, and most of the rest of you as well -- you're thinking about this from the wrong angle. What you need to be asking yourself instead is, "What's my real concern here?"

Is it that resurrection magic exists and is so easy to come by? Then either remove it or make it much more costly. In this case, the magic is the problem, not the fact that the players are aware of it and using it. In fact, being aware of it and deliberately not using it the way it could obviously be used is arguably a form of metagaming.

Is it that the PCs were a little callous? That's an alignment issue at most, or it might carry over as a severely peeved princess, but she and her father really have only so much coming in the way of legitimate complaining given she got rescued in any case, even if it wasn't entirely painless. Part of the end result depends on how peeved she/they are, what exactly the PCs agreed to, and how big their employer is on sticking to the contract as arranged.

Is it that your PCs were creative and thought outside of the box, surprising you with something you weren't prepared for? ... but even if it makes you have to adapt to the unexpected once in a while, isn't that a good thing ...?

SadisticFishing
2008-07-01, 02:09 PM
I believe he's saying that he dislikes that...

The PC's let her get killed and DIDN'T CARE.

It wasn't thinking outside the box, it was treating NPCs as if they didn't exist - and at that point, there is absolutely no reason to play D&D. Go play video games.

mikeejimbo
2008-07-01, 02:23 PM
I believe he's saying that he dislikes that...

The PC's let her get killed and DIDN'T CARE.

It wasn't thinking outside the box, it was treating NPCs as if they didn't exist - and at that point, there is absolutely no reason to play D&D. Go play video games.

It's more like treating her like they don't care about her.

linklele
2008-07-01, 02:23 PM
Thanks to you all for your advice.
In fact the real problem with my party is they do LOT of matagaming, also, i think they are too influenced by videogames (Wow in particular).
Even if i try to dissuade them they realized they can actually do everything with force. And I cannot let every time a troup of Lv 20 guard kick their asses just for punish them...

Lochar
2008-07-01, 02:26 PM
If they choose to do everything by force, why not use that against them? How much research and whatnot do they do before going out on a mission?


The king, after forking over 25k worth of diamonds for a True Rez for his daughter, isn't very happy but doesn't say so. Instead, he commisions them for another mission.

The mission, on the surface, looks to be a basic slash and dash. The problem? It's against a group of enemies 10-12 levels higher than them, but they don't look it. If they don't research it, they'll get eaten alive. If they research it and refuse, the king has them banished from the kingdom.

--Edit
The best way to do this, with metagamers, is to throw a dragon at them, fairly young so it is only medium or large sized. And then pile on the class levels.

They'll look at it and go "Oh, a green dragon the size of a human? That's a medium size, so no worse than a Young Dragon. Sure, we'll take it."

And then the dragon has a bunch of class levels, which are not RHD, so it does not increase it's size.

Roderick_BR
2008-07-01, 08:33 PM
While we are in agreement on it being perfectly acceptable, I must disagree and say that it's not railroading. If the king didn't say anything and paid them their fee, would that be considered railroading? Not by any reasonable definition I've heard. I've encountered the occasional "any time anything remotely out of the players control happens ever it's railroading!" argument, but I think we can discount that as being delusional.

Having the PCs do something and then face consequences, whether positive or negative, for their actions is not railroading, ever.
I'll have to agree with Bats here. Railroad is when you try to control the players, and don't give them options. Direct results of their ill planned actions is a completely different thing. They choose their course of action, they pay the consequences.

Jade_Tarem
2008-07-01, 08:46 PM
Thanks to you all for your advice.
In fact the real problem with my party is they do LOT of matagaming, also, i think they are too influenced by videogames (Wow in particular).
Even if i try to dissuade them they realized they can actually do everything with force. And I cannot let every time a troup of Lv 20 guard kick their asses just for punish them...

You don't need epic NPC's to drop down and deliver the smackdown every time your PC's don't behave.

There just need to be preplanned consequences for failure when they decide to throw money at a problem rather than solve it with ingenuity.

Your statement here makes me think that your players are confusing WoW and DnD. 4e cracks aside, they're not the same and they never will be. Chances are that your playes are playing it like WoW, which will never work.

See, in WoW, failure of objectives (if it's even possible to fail a mission, and for most missions it isn't) is a minor inconvenience, where you simply go and pick up the quest again. Did the princess die? We're still good: she respawns. The player's death is more inconvenient than anything else - because its a waste of time and damages your equipment. Also, the power creep that WoW has undergone means that if a given creature can't shoot lightning bolts from it's crotch for quadruple digit damage, you probably shouldn't even bother with killing it - violence being the only available response to most adversity in the game. NPCs exist either to be killed or to help you ride your rocket to glory and level 70, which are synonymous in this case.

Any DnD game with a claim to versimilitude tries to avoid this. Even the DMG has suggestions. If the PCs start to feel that the rules no longer apply to them because they're ludicrously rich and powerful, then have a pooling of resources among NPCs. It's the law of the world - there's always something out there that can beat you, and if enough kingdoms/towns/people throw in together, they can triumph over even the high and mighty, or else hire someone who can. Have the hired guns jump in, neutralize the PCs, take their stuff and imprison them. Make sure that the hired guns announce to the PCs (after they take the PCs down by sneak attack) why they were hired to do this. Then the (whoever they were turned over to) can either keep them imprisoned (ending the game) or else put them under geas or some such in order to keep them in line. Ok, so that actually was having high level NPCs come in to stomp the party, but I'm trying to make a point here.

Also, enough low-level NPCs can take down the PCs. Or even slightly lower level NPCs with enough preparation. An antimagic sphere and a bunch of justicars can probablly take down even a high level party. Say it with me: "Even if we fall, our numbers are many. You will be overwhelmed."

Sadly, however, I find that generally if these measures were effective, they wouldn't be needed in the first place, because it is at about this point that Players change tactics, and begin thinking, at least subconciously, that they are immune to the rules of reality just because they are the PCs. Again, 4e criticism not withstanding, this isn't correct, and you should point out that the only reasonable response to the party's behavior was to take the course that you did. Make sure that they understand that their bad behavior caused the railroad to form, not your spite.

This is all the worst case scenario to a party that gets out of control, though. Others have posted here with great ideas on how to handle the princess thing. A simple rule of thumb to go by - what would people do? How would they react? The king is not going to lie down and take it from the PCs because he's an NPC and less important than they are by default - he has no idea that he isn't real, and will act accordingly. Everyone should react to everything the PCs do in this manner, by the way - they should react how a person would react in that situation. Look at how Lord Shojo treats Roy in OOTS for a good example - and that's one NPC who is aware of his status as such! He doesn't care that Roy is capable of killing him in one or two rounds - he's Lord Freakin' Shojo, and he isn't going to take any garbage from this bald-headed mercenary from the North! Have your king act the same way - levels are an unknown quantity - but he has legal power that the PCs will never have. Don't be afraid to have an angry king lash out at them like that. Or even an angry resurrected princess - you're writing your own story, perhaps your faux-medieval fantasy land has equal rights between men and women?

If your players still object, you need to point out that they aren't supposed to be trying to beat the game. This isn't players vs. DM with handicaps, this is Dungeons and Dragons. If they still object after that, you might want to find some new players.