PCs threatening Merchants

[pasko77]

Hi all,
i just found myself in an awkward situation with my players.
Dealing with a merchant, one of the players commented on a magic item: "it better work, or we kill you".
Since it is a "all green" campaign in a warhammer(ish) world, with orcs and goblins as characters, and they all have animosity, i just assumed this is the normal way greenskins communicate, so i let the merchant shrug and say "you can try the items, no problem".
Moreover i was selling, well...., a four-leaf clover (magic effect, obviously, it boosts luck), so the "does it REALLY work?" comment is not totally out of context :)

So, cutting short, the merchant was nice and took no offense.

The question arisen in mind, though, is: how do you fellow DMs behave when PCs threaten your item-dealing otherwise-transparent nameless merchant (i mean nameless because there should be none, i invented him on the spot)?

Further, what if PCs try and kill/steal from/blackmail said characters?

My obvious responses are:

1) Morrowind's invincible police: you send them a nigh-unbeatable entity to kill/stop/imprison/spank them. But it is unrealistic.

2) Let them do it, since they are likely the strongest beings in the place, send them token resistance and surrender.

3) Out of game - ask not to do... yawn.

4) Let the whole village start an angry mob reprisal, somewhat unrealistic, but better than 1).

Options?

[HMS Invincible]

Standard answer is the merchant has been doing this for a while and has insurance by sending in either a powerful retainer or has guards/traps that are strong enough to kill party members.

[Zergrusheddie]

It really depends on what kind of things they are trying to buy. Trying to buy a Greastword from the 2nd level Commoner and the Commoner will likely just shrug it off. Now if the Merchant is selling a magic item and is threatened, well then the Wizard who made the item and is having the merchants sell it for him (expanding his business if you will) is going to be a little annoyed and probably take his matters into his own hands.

Having a nigh-impossible taskforce is not really that insane. If I was a serial asshat and was threatening the gas station attendant that "This candy better be good or I'm gonna kill you!", well the Police with their tasers are going to have a little chat with me.

Best of luck
-Eddie

[Shademan]

well since it is warhammer orks:
LETS DOOOO THIIIIS! the merchant throws a kettle at one of them but misses and hit some other orc. huge brawl ensues.
warhammer orcs are so ...well...ORCY! thats what they do! just roll with it, I say. improvise!

ever read the comic "deff skvadron"? granted it is 40k orks, but it gives a nice picture of orcish heroes.



if they where regular adventurers however, i would have the merchant employ some bodyguards that would prove a DECENT challenge.

[Saph]

I usually do shopping off-screen or between sessions. It's assumed that to buy a specific magic item the PC has spent a couple of hours going from merchant to merchant.

There's a sort of gentleman's agreement that players get the gold value for their items, no more, no less. They don't try and rob the merchants, and in exchange I don't rip them off or tell them they can't find anything. Not exactly realistic, but it works.

- Saph

[pasko77]

Standard answer is the merchant has been doing this for a while and has insurance by sending in either a powerful retainer or has guards/traps that are strong enough to kill party members.

But this falls under number one option.
I think it is unrealistic because
1) such powerful beings should be rare
2) if such people were always there, why didn't THEY solve your quest? I mean, in Morrowind (if you know the game) those f..king guards are beatable only around level 40, and you completed the main quest by then. So why they just did not send the guards to kill all the demons?

[pasko77]

well since it is warhammer orks:
LETS DOOOO THIIIIS! the merchant throws a kettle at one of them but misses and hit some other orc. huge brawl ensues.

I'm totally doing this next time!!! :)
Thanks for the idea! :)

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Other merchants hear about it and nobody wants to do business with the PCs any more. Maybe even the one who was threatened reports them to some kind of merchant information network or guild, and they get a one month ban for it. They're forced to go to the shadier merchants whose items are even less likely to be genuine, plus they get charged twice as much for them. The players would probably learn quickly not to try anything like that again.

[Xefas]

Let it drive the plot.

Don't send an unbeatable police entity at them. That's super lame.
Don't just give in and let them have anything they want without resistance.
Don't send token resistance that'll be just another encounter so you can all get to gettin' (though its better than the above).

Don't punish the players in a metagame sort of way for making purely in character decisions in the game world. Work with their decisions.

Players kill a merchant and take his stuff? The logical next step is the authorities show up to apprehend them, who are appropriate to the level of the city the PCs are in. If this is a one horse town out in the boondocks, they're probably only a ragtag militia of 1st-2nd level Warriors, more farmer than fighting man.

Doesn't matter if the PCs are level 15 or not and can kill them trivially. Let them decide that. Do they go through due judicial process? Make amends and take some jail time if they lose the case? Do they run from the lowbies and become outlaws? Do they murder a bunch of innocent guards?

Each of these things can lead to interesting plot events. Say they murder the guards for doing their jobs. Next, maybe some low level adventurers show up to collect a bounty, which the high level PCs will mop up with ease, possibly choosing to kill them too.

Then maybe some Clerics and Crusaders from a Temple of Heironeous come to enact holy retribution on the PCs. Can the PCs bring themselves to kill holymen? If they do, that's a big black mark on them. Not metaphorical. Say the next night a Harvester Devil (Fiendish Codex II) visits them, chats them up, remarks how cold blooded sleazy bastards they are. Maybe they'd like to work for Mammon, Archduke of the Third Hell? He has some business in Sigil, the Planar City of Doors, that needs conducting, and some muscle wound not go amiss.

The PCs show up to be bodyguards, but it turns out that Mammon's men are dead when they get there, along with the Yugoloths they were going to trade with. Now the Mercykillers Faction would like to speak with the party, who already have a mystery on their hands; namely, where are the Archduke's goods? You don't go back to someone who rules a Layer of Hell and tell them you lost their goods. What do they do now?

[ImmortalAer]

But this falls under number one option.
I think it is unrealistic because
1) such powerful beings should be rare
2) if such people were always there, why didn't THEY solve your quest? I mean, in Morrowind (if you know the game) those f..king guards are beatable only around level 40, and you completed the main quest by then. So why they just did not send the guards to kill all the demons?

You can actually kill them around level 15-20 with a bit of optimization.

Being a Redguard+Adrenaline Rush+Health Potion Pile usually helps.

Or instead of powerful guards, maybe a large group of them? And if they kill guards, then you have an excuse for bigger reprisals.

[Swordguy]

This is a really good reason to have merchant's guilds exist. Mutual defense. Somebody messes with a Guild-chartered merchant, and the Guild finds out? They hire high-level adventurers to go take out the offenders. If the offenders are powerful enough, they can go to kings, who very definitely have the resources to make a PC's life difficult.

To say nothing of the fact that PCs who routinely rob or kill merchants are no longer "good", and thus viable targets for lots of good-aligned clerics/paladins who can call upon divine help. Yeah, you've got a Batman wizard20. Oooh...scary - the cleric points out to his god that this guy is literally a threat to existence and you get 50 Solars dropped on you.

Messing with the economy is a really good way to get everybody mad at you, and they can and will band together to take you down. Do not screw with merchants.

[pasko77]

You can actually kill them around level 15-20 with a bit of optimization.

Really?
Remarkable.
The lowest I ended the game was about 30, and by that time i was Pavlov-instructed not to touch the guards. :)
Anyway they are insanely powerful :)

[Sliver]

If the merchant is selling magic items, then he should have UMD high enough to use most of his stuff. You won't threaten a merchant in his gun shop right?
And if someone strong enough made the stuff the PCs want, then he is strong enough to pose them a challange, and if they kill him for some stuff, they hurt themselves in the proccess. not only economy damage, but that was a powerful being, something that will a kindom would want to evenge.
If its just normal mundane stuff, then the PCs are just.. threatening a mercant to keep a few GP? You shouldn't care to make him the ultimate unbeatable NPC and if the PCs get caught, minor trouble that can evolve into bigger if poorly handled..

[Riffington]

I definitely agree that, because it's orcs, violence should be the answer.

For the nonorc answer: if the PCs are collectively more powerful than the town guard, then merchants should not be selling powerful magic items. After all: if they can afford to have an item worth more than an entire town and just let it sit waiting for a buyer, then they are a fantastically rich noble and should act like one rather than like a grubby shopkeeper.

If you are buying a sword +3, then you are finding a bard who knows that a Prince three kingdoms over is fabled to have such a sword and sending an agent to negotiate a trade with him. If you cheat him on such a trade, he may have the might to respond in some way.

[pasko77]

Let it drive the plot.

Don't send an unbeatable police entity at them. That's super lame.
Don't just give in and let them have anything they want without resistance.
Don't send token resistance that'll be just another encounter so you can all get to gettin' (though its better than the above).

Don't punish the players in a metagame sort of way for making purely in character decisions in the game world. Work with their decisions.

Players kill a merchant and take his stuff? The logical next step is the authorities show up to apprehend them, who are appropriate to the level of the city the PCs are in. If this is a one horse town out in the boondocks, they're probably only a ragtag militia of 1st-2nd level Warriors, more farmer than fighting man.

Doesn't matter if the PCs are level 15 or not and can kill them trivially. Let them decide that. Do they go through due judicial process? Make amends and take some jail time if they lose the case? Do they run from the lowbies and become outlaws? Do they murder a bunch of innocent guards?

Each of these things can lead to interesting plot events. Say they murder the guards for doing their jobs. Next, maybe some low level adventurers show up to collect a bounty, which the high level PCs will mop up with ease, possibly choosing to kill them too.

Then maybe some Clerics and Crusaders from a Temple of Heironeous come to enact holy retribution on the PCs. Can the PCs bring themselves to kill holymen? If they do, that's a big black mark on them. Not metaphorical. Say the next night a Harvester Devil (Fiendish Codex II) visits them, chats them up, remarks how cold blooded sleazy bastards they are. Maybe they'd like to work for Mammon, Archduke of the Third Hell? He has some business in Sigil, the Planar City of Doors, that needs conducting, and some muscle wound not go amiss.

The PCs show up to be bodyguards, but it turns out that Mammon's men are dead when they get there, along with the Yugoloths they were going to trade with. Now the Mercykillers Faction would like to speak with the party, who already have a mystery on their hands; namely, where are the Archduke's goods? You don't go back to someone who rules a Layer of Hell and tell them you lost their goods. What do they do now?

That's very interesting. I will try something like that, sooner or later (not in an orc campaign, i think there are no such organisations, and orc gods are all about war and savagery), though it is far more complicated than what i'm used to.
Thanks.

[Ianuagonde]

I use the same method as Saph: the players don't try to be smart, the DM doesn't try to be mean. Everybody happy.

But I agree, it isn't very realistic. Someone who has lots of magic items, and has enough cash on hand to buy the items of the PC's has either a lot of guards or powerfull connections. Perhaps a merchant's guild? Or, in more civilised areas, the merchant can report them to the town guard...

PC's: "Finally, civilization. Time for beer and shopping."
Guard: "You are under arrest. The charges are intimidation and attempted extortion. That new sword is confiscated as evidence until the trial is over."

[Killer Angel]

Other merchants hear about it and nobody wants to do business with the PCs any more. Maybe even the one who was threatened reports them to some kind of merchant information network or guild, and they get a one month ban for it.

Not only this, but who said that only the guild will react?
Merchants who deal in magic items, are not so common: are very few the ones who can afford to buy magic items, so you can turn the perspective.
Imagine you are a group of strong adventurers, or a warlord, or a commander of some army.
Suddenly, you discover that your almost-friend Hagar the magic-seller (the only one magic seller in a 50 miles radius), was robbed (or threaten, or killed).
How do you react?

[pasko77]

So, general consensus is: let them do the deed, and retaliate.
You are very bad people, i like it

Anyway, i get the idea :)

[kamikasei]

So, general consensus is: let them do the deed, and retaliate.

Actually, my preference would be to a) work out the in-game consequences and then b) advise the characters, in game, and the players, out of game, of those consequences. In the real world, people don't have to try robbing a bank first before they learn it's a bad idea that makes trouble for them. In the game, the characters are presumably conscious of how much of a mess they'd stir up if they tried petty theft from people with both wealth and magic.

That way, you avoid derailing the game entirely into Reservoir Adventurers - well, unless you want to.

[Xefas]

That way, you avoid derailing the game entirely into Reservoir Adventurers - well, unless you want to.

You can only derail a game that's on rails in the first place.

I think that giving PCs more freedom in maneuvering the plot can only be a good thing. Even if, to bring up a common fantasy plot and very 'railroad' prone premise, the PCs are the destined heroes, who are the only ones capable of saving the world from some ancient evil awakening and killing everything.

Then they kill a merchant. Local authorities go after them, churchs go after them, guilds go after them, etc. The PCs are now not capable of completing the plot and saving the world because they have all of these other distractions that they brought on themselves.

That's some awesome drama. They have to live with their problems. Doomsday approaches, the skies grow dark, and the PCs look on with horror. They know the consequences of what they did now. Do they try to repent in their last moments for dooming the world? Do they make a last attempt to save their skin and make it off the plane in time?

If the latter, that's adventure gold. The Prime Material plane is now a festering wound in the Great Wheel. Everyone is upset. The Outer Planes no longer have a way of taking in more souls. The Blood War just got more costly. The forces of Good are stretched even farther. Things aren't looking as eternal as they did before. Gods have lost all their worshipers. What happens to them?

Everything has been shook up. That's epic.

EDIT: And yes, I'm saying you could alter the course of the entirety of time, space, and existence itself by killing a random merchant. But the point is, the game goes on.

[Tyrmatt]

In a Warhammer world, this would be how greenskins communicate amongst one another. However, a Gretchen/Gobbo merchant would have some serious backup on retainer, something equivalent to a Nob or one of the larger MekBoyz who was actually making the gear and bullying the gretchen into selling it for him. Apologies for the 40k terminology but it has been over 7 years since I last got anywhere near fantasy Warhammer, much to my chagrin.
So yeah, in the back of the shop there is a MekBoy or Shaman/Witch Doc who has naturally kept the best gear for himself and can easily go toe to toe with the PCs. Have him knock them about a bit and then retire when they've had a sound beating. The natural power structure of orc survival is that you don't screw with those much stronger than you and the characters should be instinctively aware of this. There's a reason orcs grow throughout their entire lifespan and their kings in times of peace are often fairly long lived. Y'know comparatively.

[kamikasei]

You can only derail a game that's on rails in the first place.

Well, no. Not in the sense of "our DM is railroading us, waaaah!". Chances are the DM had a general plot in mind. Chances are the players had directions they wanted to take their characters. Chances are there was an overall tone and direction for the game agreed when the campaign started. Chances are swerving abruptly off into an escalating flight from the law across the multiverse will not make any of that more achievable or more fun.

A totally open sandbox game has its place, but in any game both players and DM act to shine the spotlight on some parts of the story that interest them and gloss over or steer away from others. Why PCs don't usually steal from merchants and what happens if they try is almost certainly a distraction from whatever brought the players to the table in the first place and shouldn't be allowed to snowball until it absorbs all of the play time and in-game action, not unless the players are totally fine with abandoning what they were after in the first place.

[Xefas]

Well, no. Not in the sense of "our DM is railroading us, waaaah!". Chances are the DM had a general plot in mind. Chances are the players had directions they wanted to take their characters. Chances are there was an overall tone and direction for the game agreed when the campaign started. Chances are swerving abruptly off into an escalating flight from the law across the multiverse will not make any of that more achievable or more fun.

A totally open sandbox game has its place, but in any game both players and DM act to shine the spotlight on some parts of the story that interest them and gloss over or steer away from others. Why PCs don't usually steal from merchants and what happens if they try is almost certainly a distraction from whatever brought the players to the table in the first place and shouldn't be allowed to snowball until it absorbs all of the play time and in-game action, not unless the players are totally fine with abandoning what they were after in the first place.

You make it sound like players are constantly struggling against...themselves? The story follows the players. It's not some separate thing that would keep going on if they weren't around. If the players kill a merchant, then they decided to take that action. They obviously wanted the story to go that way, because that's the course of action they chose. If there was some completely different thing they wanted to do that killing a merchant would get in the way of, then they wouldn't do it in the first place.

The PCs can't 'thwart' the plot or the tone or the story. Because they 'are' the plot and story. They decide what actions to take which make the tone.

If you were in a horror campaign for 4 or 5 sessions, for instance, and then the party starts cracking jokes and being light-hearted, then there's absolutely no reason to not let it happen. They chose to take the tone and plot and story that way, so run with it. You won't hurt the game's feelings if you do a complete 180 and do something else. You have no obligation to some all-important plot that needs fulfilling if your group would have more fun killing merchants and having wacky misadventures because of it.

[Gnaeus]

Most games that I have been in allow a diplomacy (or sometimes bluff or profession merchant) check to buy or sell items at a slight discount.

So mechanically, if the PC threatens a merchant roll (intimidate v d20+merchant level +merchant wis). Success means discounted goods, but with repercussions (merchant hires more guards for later, or stops selling magic items. PC reputation suffers. Maybe police action.) Failure could make merchant raise prices, or refuse to deal with PCs altogether.

[kamikasei]

You make it sound like players are constantly struggling against...themselves?

Eh? Do you mean that I think a group of people engaged in a collective activity occasionally have to catch themselves when they get sidetracked and restore their focus? I don't think that amounts to "struggling against themselves", it's simply the universal refrain of "heh, yeah... well, anyway, as we were saying...".

If you were in a horror campaign for 4 or 5 sessions, for instance, and then the party starts cracking jokes and being light-hearted, then there's absolutely no reason to not let it happen.

Uh, yes there is. You got together to play a horror campaign. If you have lost interest in it and want to stop playing that and transition to something else, fine, but if you're just blowing off steam or cracking a joke then you do so, let it pass, and try to restore the atmosphere. Basically, what you're interpreting as "railroading" I would call "setting out on a journey and trying to keep in one general direction, instead of staring at your feet and taking whatever twisting, circling, going-nowhere path you get steered in to by every gust of wind or change in the lay of the land".

They chose to take the tone and plot and story that way, so run with it. You won't hurt the game's feelings if you do a complete 180 and do something else. You have no obligation to some all-important plot that needs fulfilling if your group would have more fun killing merchants and having wacky misadventures because of it.

You're assuming that the group would have more fun that way. There's no reason to think so. That the players may joke around about doing this or that thing that doesn't fit the tone of the game is not a signal that you should therefore alter the tone of the game. It just means they're joking around, you indulge the digression a little, and you get back to the game proper.

Part of the DM's job at the table is to manage expectations, atmosphere, and focus. The players will run off in all kinds of different directions at once and you have to try to make that add up to some kind of actual progress.

[Xefas]

Post

This all seems very condescending to your players. You're playing a game, and the point of a game is to have fun. If the players would have more fun doing something else, then why not let them?

The way you make it sound is that D&D players are like hyperactive children, the game D&D is a chore they have to perform, and the DM is babysitting them all, 'focusing' them into doing that chore whenever they deviate from it.

If they deviate, they're deviating for a reason. You don't need to 'focus' grown people into doing a leisure activity. If I announce I'm challenging myself to drink 45 Dr. Peppers by the end of the day just for the hell of it. And around number 6, I get tired of them and decide to spend my time drinking 7up instead, there should not be a person there to slap my wrist and tell me 'your self-appointed goal is more important than doing what you enjoy, now back to the Dr.Pepper'. I'm perfectly capable of choosing which drink makes me happier.

The 'plot' of a D&D is just like that challenge. It's a self-appointed goal. If you get tired of it, and want to do something else, then why would the DM's job be to stop you? If the players sidetrack for a short time, and then say "heh, well, back to the main thing we wanted to do", then the main thing is what they actually wanted to do. That's fine. They don't need a DM to tell them what they want to do. If they keep going on that sidetrack and it becomes the new main thing they're doing, who is the DM to tell them they can't and try to reign them back into something else? The DM is just another player in the game.

[pasko77]

I will agree with Kamikasei, that the definition of "railroad" is broad and while i have a general idea in mind, turning the story in a war against merchant guilds may at the very least piss ME off, because it would trash all my preparation.

But at the same time i realized that my players like more a chaotic course of action, and being orcs helps the feeling. Therefore i'm starting to think i should change the story itself, centering it more about personal power rather than on a holy war.
In that sense, i think i will do some change to the backstory to tune it with the group's mood, as Xefas suggests.

The question is interesting, wheter to keep a main plot going (as in a epic) or to change it, even significantly, on the whim of the players. I understand that, even in the latter, the main plot should still exist, but the players might screw it so badly that it simply ceases.

For instance, in my case, the PC are to start a WAAAGH against the humans. If they simply stop it and start warring with merchants, the main plot dies, does it not?

[kamikasei]

You don't need to 'focus' grown people into doing a leisure activity.

We must live in different worlds. In my world people crack jokes or get in to side discussions that do not suddenly mean they want to abandon whatever they were already in the middle of. I don't think it's condescension or treating the players like children to recognize that even while they are invested in the game they will not at all times be fully and perfectly immersed, and that the table discussion will at times wander off in random directions and have to be brought back to the game once it's run its course. That doesn't just apply to out-of-character or non-game-related stuff, either - players have a remarkable ability to focus intently on one particular detail or problem out of all proportion to its importance, and do occasionally have to be reminded that "guys, it doesn't really matter at the moment whether you could in principle build a bridge across the chasm using only your firewood and a fabricate spell, because the orcish raiding party will reach you before that, and you should probably focus on them rather than on civic engineering".

I should also point out that all of this is really beside my original point anyway, where I was saying that there's no need to make the game about player-on-merchant violence when you can just point out the consequences of such to the players as something their characters could reasonably be expected to already know.

But at the same time i realized that my players like more a chaotic course of action, and being orcs helps the feeling.

I keep forgetting that you're not playing as standard D&D adventurers, but as Warhammer orks (or is it orcs? Is it different between the fantasy and 40k versions?). Given that I'd be inclined to just be lighter-handed about the tone of the game and give ample opportunity for the players to do silly, disruptive things without necessarily having to deal with all the realistic consequences of such. If they want to bust up a shop, let them, set the Guild on them, but give it a (perhaps absurd) resolution within a session or two.

[hewhosaysfish]

Eh? Do you mean that I think a group of people engaged in a collective activity occasionally have to catch themselves when they get sidetracked and restore their focus? I don't think that amounts to "struggling against themselves", it's simply the universal refrain of "heh, yeah... well, anyway, as we were saying...".

See also: most of the threads on this forum.

[Jayabalard]

Options?

Negative reputation; word gets around that these people are bad news, so people become more and more unhelpful.

You don't need to 'focus' grown people into doing a leisure activity.

That really depends on the particular leisure activity and the particular people involved.