Does anyone else feel that their players kinda fetishize Royalty?

[paladinofshojo]

Already told you. Lawful Evil people do that. Excusing social misery by social stability, prioritizing the right sort of people over the right sort of behaviours - they're a textbook case.

So maybe it isn't what you expected. Maybe you expected them to be goody-two-shoes who prioritize elimination of suffering and happiness for all the people, or chaotic folks who prioritize their individual sense of morality over social stability, or egoist mofos who only chase short term gains for their own selves. So? There doesn't seem to be any actual problem here. As far as I can tell, your players happy little Stormtroopers batting for Team Empire. Do you need them to change?

I mean… it does make it hard for me to come up with decent world building or even character development if all they do is side with one royal family/ ruler over and over again… Like how am I supposed to flesh out villains, side characters, or settings if my party seems to operate on such a black and white level of who is and isn’t worthy to live?

[Vahnavoi]

Based on your examples, it sounds to me you haven't actually had that problem. You have fleshed out your settings, side characters and villains just fine. It's your players who have become unable to break from type, but in your examples you didn't really have any problem adjusting to their behaviours and keeping on adjucating the game.

If there's one change I could recommend, it's embracing the fact that your players are playing the villains. Actually point out to them that they are functionally playing Lawful Evil. If they keep doing their thing, show some public outcry against them. Have villagers pool their wealth to hire adventurers to protect them from the "King's evil enforcers". Instead of villains, start fleshing out heroes who wish to challenge and destroy the player characters and the monarchs they serve.

Maybe it will change nothing. Again, your players look to me like happy little Stormtroopers, I'm not sure if merely pointing that fact out to them will make them unhappy about it. I mean, if I was deliberately playing a religious zealot doing atrocities for King and country, I would not react to someone crying in horror "You are playing a religious zealot doing atrocities for King and country!" with "Oh no, I must change my character", I would react with a satisfied "great, you noticed, I'm doing my job right then!".

[Hytheter]

Warhammer 40K I believe

I am assuming they are referring that to keep the comatose Emperor alive and able to hold up the psychic interstellar webway which allows them to use “hyper space” to travel the universe….. that they have to sacrifice millions of psychic humans to the machine keeping the Emperor alive.

I did think of 40k, but the comment I replied to seemed to suggest a setting that was not perceived as evil. 40k is 100% evil and that's kinda the point.

[Satinavian]

Ohh another point, the party had at one point ended a civil war against the “rightful” king who basically acted like Joffrey from Game of Thrones….. against his uncle who actually had the best interests of the people in mind and a member of the Lawful Good clergy.

They sided with the tyrant because his claim was “more legitimate” never mind the fact that he was starving the peasants and unjustly executing members of his court on a whim.

Like who does that? I thought it would be a nice deconstruction of the “rightful king” trope but all it did was shown that my party simply double downed on their character’s beliefs in monarchy.

Someone who defends the monarch because of legitimacy won't be convinced with the monarch being an unpleasent or inept person. After all, they do it for the institution not for the individual.

Also trying to push the group to go against their preferrence does regularly fail. No surprise by the doubling down here.

Hell, in another adventure, a king hired them to hunt down a group of “disloyal nobles” who in reality were tired of unjust taxes and had sent the King a Magna Carta Charter. Once the Party met with the leader of this Rebellion, they were given the choice to join them, the party refused and at the end of the adventure, they killed all the nobles and presented their heads to the king who rewarded them with all the titles and lands of the nobles they vanquished.

Don't see any problem with that.


On the whole, stop pushing your players to be rebels. They obviously don't want to. And if you are really running a sandbox, such heavy preferrence for whom they should side with is not good.

I mean… it does make it hard for me to come up with decent world building or even character development if all they do is side with one royal family/ ruler over and over again… Like how am I supposed to flesh out villains, side characters, or settings if my party seems to operate on such a black and white level of who is and isn’t worthy to live?

But you could present your players more with monarchies that explicitely are less absolute. Where people can point to laws, traditions and established explicit limits of royal rule when they complain about the king.

Or, if you could do an elective monarchy for a change. Have a king or emporer and either make the important dukes electors like in the HRE or go even with the Polish model. Then have a king die and the PCs be involved with deciding the next one and lobbying for them. Let them experience the difficult mix of things people want the next king to be (strong enough to rule and get things done, not strong enough to centralize power, from an important and respected family, ideally related to the last king, not related to the most poferful duke to avoid his duchy getting prefferential treatment, related to the voter in question, old enough, not too old, vituous and with a good character, but not someone who financially ruin the country to give to the poor/to the church, someone willing and able to lead the countries in wars and win, but not someone likely to get into too many wars)

Or instead of making the king just evil and corrupt, you could e.g. make him indecisive and timid so that all the important things are actually run by his various advisors. Which should be an acceptable target for your players.

What might be another good way would be to make your PCs direct retainers of the king or landed nobles if they like playing support so much. And then have the king load off his huge problems to them without telling them how to solve those. Let them indirectly do at least part of the "ruling a country" stuff and make the necessary compromises, knowig full well that if they fail, weaken the crown or make people unhappy, it will threaten the king.

[Berenger]

I feel like it’s kinda the opposite here, my players seem to justify their actions with the Disney concept that the “rightful king deserves to rule” when I try to put them in a world where the “rightful” monarchs don’t always have the best interests of their people at heart…. I kinda want them to rebel against monarchy or at least advocate for someone morally deserving instead of whoever has the right bloodline.

But "the rightful king deserves to rule" isn't a "Disney" concept. It's the most plausible and valid conviction for the vast majority of characters born and raised in a society whose politics and history are rooted in monarchy. Because, of course it is, without broad buy-in (and adherence to the law and custom) of the people the monarch wouldn't be perceived as rightful (or even as a monarch).

Rulers not always having the best interests of all their people at heart in any given moment is, to be honest, perfectly normal for all types of government, even without any incompetence or malice involved. Managing the needs, expectations and desires of a society is kind of hard, after all, and often quite subjective business. Even the best guy imaginable on the throne will ultimately have to make sacrifices that will make someone unhappy. Circumstances have to be extremely bad to justify regicide or rebellion, not just because of the personal risk for the perpetrators (and their families, friends and allies) but because the resulting chaos, upheaval and civil war have the potential to muck up the country as a whole far worse than a few more years of rule by a subpar king or queen.

I mean… it does make it hard for me to come up with decent world building or even character development if all they do is side with one royal family/ ruler over and over again… Like how am I supposed to flesh out villains, side characters, or settings if my party seems to operate on such a black and white level of who is and isn’t worthy to live?

I don't really get your problem here - as in, why is this problematic for your world building? I do get why this would impact your ability to make varied plots and storylines. Character development sounds more like a job for the players than a GM responsibility, anyway.

That said - exactly how do you promote your campaigns before character creation? Do you present them as sandboxes and accept any character your players come up with? Do you give guidelines for suitable classes, alignments, motivations or factions the characters should belong to? For example, when our group does Star Wars, we decide in advance whether this will be a jedi / smuggler / rebel / empire / bounty hunter / pirate campaign and whether light side / neutral / dark side concepts are appropriate (instead of everyone showing up with a random character). Did you, at any point, straight up ask your players to make characters with backgrounds and motivations suited for the campaign you imagine? If so, what were their reactions?

[Altheus]

I think you have a case of "This is what the GM has prepared so this is what we are going to do". They expect a story to develop and don't want to derail it.

Also, players seem to do what the most powerful person in the environment tells them to do, very rarely do they push back on moral grounds usually because that results in bad things happening to them.

[Anonymouswizard]

Most people who play in that setting are perfectly fine with saying that in the grim darkness of the far future, there are only bad guys.

Don't say that to Tau fans although to be fair, a lot of them about that they look like good guys in comparison, rather than just being straight up good.

In all seriousness though, the are good guys. It's just that anybody with any actual power is at best ruthlessly pragmatic.

Warhammer 40K I believe

I am assuming they are referring that to keep the comatose Emperor alive and able to hold up the psychic interstellar webway which allows them to use “hyper space” to travel the universe….. that they have to sacrifice millions of psychic humans to the machine keeping the Emperor alive.

The astronomicom that allows them to use the Warp for more reliable travel. The Imperial Ernest project got permanently put on hold due to a minute rebellion.

I did think of 40k, but the comment I replied to seemed to suggest a setting that was not perceived as evil. 40k is 100% evil and that's kinda the point.

It's also a comedy setting. Many people seem to forget that.

But that was more about justification than morality. The Imperium has managed to bodge itself into a position where many of it's horrific actress, including the routine sacrifice of thousands of psykers per day and the relatively common use of Exterminatus. The Imperium is evil, but it can make a legitimate case for being the slightly lighter shade of black.

[Vahnavoi]

Don't say that to Tau fans

I said "most people". Tau fans aren't people.

*insert WH40k meme image of your choice here*

[Xervous]

I said "most people". Tau fans aren't people.

*insert WH40k meme image of your choice here*

I was going to go with Tau rhymes with [something that has one less syllable than Meow]


I’ll echo the question of what’s the pitch. If I join a campaign with a hard premise you’ve got my expectations and world view aligned. If I join a sandbox and the GM starts presenting situations that should be solved a certain way according to [worldview] that few or no characters hold, then I will feel lied to. We the players showed out desires with this ‘good deeds wherever there’s coin’ party. We dismantled the bandit slave mining operation because that got us the mine. I’m not running off to find some peasant’s lost boyfriend, I don’t care about the penniless sob stories for this character. No, stop shoving it in front of me, I won’t eat it... NO, “here comes the airplane” won’t work!

[paladinofshojo]

I don't really get your problem here - as in, why is this problematic for your world building? I do get why this would impact your ability to make varied plots and storylines. Character development sounds more like a job for the players than a GM responsibility, anyway.

That said - exactly how do you promote your campaigns before character creation? Do you present them as sandboxes and accept any character your players come up with? Do you give guidelines for suitable classes, alignments, motivations or factions the characters should belong to? For example, when our group does Star Wars, we decide in advance whether this will be a jedi / smuggler / rebel / empire / bounty hunter / pirate campaign and whether light side / neutral / dark side concepts are appropriate (instead of everyone showing up with a random character). Did you, at any point, straight up ask your players to make characters with backgrounds and motivations suited for the campaign you imagine? If so, what were their reactions?

My main problem is that they will kill indiscriminately anything that someone with authority tells them to, without even trying to think through of any less hostile way to settle disputes.

For instance, in the middle of a war, a town has not paid taxes for almost three months and the lord of the region assumes that they had defected to the enemy and orders the party to exterminate them.

When they get to the town, I make a GREAT EMPHASIS to show how the town already looks war torn and destitute, if they bothered to ask any of the dozen unique NPCs I created in this village they’d know that a band of hobgoblins had been raiding their harvest.

The party didn’t seem to notice and slaughtered the entire town, down to the last man. I am not even sure that the players knew about the hobgoblins.

As for my expectations as a DM, I consider myself very lax in that as long as you don’t cheat, follow the majority of the rules pertaining to your class (I do allow homebrew so long as it’s not too game breaking) or make any one else uncomfortable then you can pretty much do whatever you want, hell, I don’t mind the way they play, I just don’t get why they do it. I mean, if they are going to play evilly why not be psychotic murderhobos instead? At least that way the campaign adventure would be more interesting right?

I think you have a case of "This is what the GM has prepared so this is what we are going to do". They expect a story to develop and don't want to derail it.

I am more of a sandbox DM, the only reason that my party seems to end up becoming feudalism enforcers is that as soon as they find an opportunity, they ingratiate themselves with the lords or king by doing their dirty work…

Also, players seem to do what the most powerful person in the environment tells them to do, very rarely do they push back on moral grounds usually because that results in bad things happening to them.

Technically I’ve never had a king who could physically pose much of a threat…. Of my adventures I’ve run, the first king was a paranoid old man and the second one is a literal knockoff of Joffrey Baratheon…

And given the party’s lack of imagination it seems pretty clear that they’d probably keep on serving whoever is “legitimate” even at their high levels.

I’ll echo the question of what’s the pitch. If I join a campaign with a hard premise you’ve got my expectations and world view aligned. If I join a sandbox and the GM starts presenting situations that should be solved a certain way according to [worldview] that few or no characters hold, then I will feel lied to. We the players showed out desires with this ‘good deeds wherever there’s coin’ party. We dismantled the bandit slave mining operation because that got us the mine. I’m not running off to find some peasant’s lost boyfriend, I don’t care about the penniless sob stories for this character. No, stop shoving it in front of me, I won’t eat it... NO, “here comes the airplane” won’t work!

Actually, I’d prefer players who are willing to work exclusively for coin. My party never once accepted a bribe from anyone, and I’ve tried bribing them, A LOT… The most “greedy” thing I’ve ever seen any of them do is to take possession of a fallen enemy’s home and lands, and even then they asked for permission from the lord they were serving.

Their characters seem to legitimately believe that the awful people they serve are entitled to their loyalty because of feudalism.

[Batcathat]

As for my expectations as a DM, I consider myself very lax in that as long as you don’t cheat, follow the majority of the rules pertaining to your class (I do allow homebrew so long as it’s not too game breaking) or make any one else uncomfortable then you can pretty much do whatever you want, hell, I don’t mind the way they play, I just don’t get why they do it. I mean, if they are going to play evilly why not be psychotic murderhobos instead? At least that way the campaign adventure would be more interesting right?

I suppose it's a matter of taste, but in my opinion it sounds like your players have — intentionally or not — found a way to portray non-conventional (from an IRL perspective) morality without going the exaggerated murderhobo route. As has already been pointed out, obeying the local monarch can make sense from both an ideological and/or a pragmatic point of view. I agree that your players' behavior does seem rather odd, but not really in a bad way.

(Granted, my approval is probably at least partly because I tend to prefer pretty much anything of the traditional knights in shining armor heroes).

[Lord Raziere]

Warhammer 40K I believe

I am assuming they are referring that to keep the comatose Emperor alive and able to hold up the psychic interstellar webway which allows them to use “hyper space” to travel the universe….. that they have to sacrifice millions of psychic humans to the machine keeping the Emperor alive.

See, your PC's character behavior almost wouldn't be out of place for WH40k.....except for the parts where they get diplomatic with people outside of the kingdom. I think your players just really don't want to involve modern morality in their games. You've found a group willing to engage with the culture and respect authority, right or wrongly.

so here is what you do: stop caring about their morality. care only about what their rulers morality is supposed to be regardless of what they do. don't adjust the rulers behavior thats reacting to them not being good guys. instead if the ruler is intended to be evil let them naturally be evil according to the rulers own rules and if the ruler eventually screws them over sooner or later because of that natural course of them doing evil, well the PC's will have no one to blame but themselves and if the ruler doesn't screw them over, they don't. they've seen the warning flags and have disregarded them, so whatever results of them obeying being evil people you've originally designed to screw people over because they're evil (not suddenly adjusted to screw people over because you didn't like how they roleplay) is what results.

[Psyren]

Okay so I have been DMing for almost a decade now and I seem to notice that whenever the party is introduced a king/queen then they immediately grant them more leeway, is that normal for most gaming groups or is it just mine?

Several examples include the following:

1) My party had killed many a Robin Hood type thief in at least four different settings that I remember, two of the times they didn’t even do it for a reward but rather to “restore order”

2) I’ve once had one campaign where the main antagonist was an Evil Empress who bathed in the blood of children and made pacts with demons. When they finally confronted said Empress, she would give the usual “evil villain monologue” about her “divine right to rule” and how without her, her “Empire will fall apart” and off about social order and the need for a class hierarchy. Keep in mind, this sorceress consorted with devils and BATHES IN THE BLOOD OF CHILDREN, but after she “explained herself” everyone but the Paladin were tempted to take her side, and I am pretty sure that the Paladin player would have tried to join her too if I didn’t threaten him with an automatic fall.

3) On two separate occasions, my party had absolutely no problem on destroying entire communities of peasants if a king told them to, they literally killed women and children because they refused to pay taxes/harboring magic users. I was once planning on starting a campaign loosely based on the American Revolution or the German Peasant’s War but I decided against it because I feel like I know which side my players will lean towards.

4) There was one encounter where a King once had my party “deal with” a Count who refused to pay his taxes… This Count was objectively richer than anyone else in the Kingdom due to literally having a goldmine on his land, when the party confronted said Count, he offered to pay triple what the King was offering if they spared him, but nope… they didn’t even humor the Count, they decapitated him and offered his head to the King.

There are a couple more examples I can name, but you guys can get the gist right? Is this normal behavior? Granted my players are pretty normal in their lives and they never act like sociopaths whenever they are fighting regular monsters. But for some reason whenever I introduce a concept of a feudal social order to the game they will immediately throw all morality out the window in the name of the King.

I can't speak to what's "normal" as I haven't done any polls, I can only speak to my own groups. But your players definitely seem a bit too willing to leverage any semblance of authority they can in order to murderhobo.

If you want them to cut back on that, you need a few more consequences for their actions in going this route (say, that empress who consorts with demons ends up betraying them in some way), and a few more rewards for not making violence the first resort (say, making it clear that convincing the greedy Count to pay his fair share instead of killing him is an option, and hint that that route might lead to better rewards or more sidehooks while still giving all the XP killing him would have.)

Alternatively, they might just want to be Knights Templar, LN/LE my-country-right-or-wrong this campaign. Consider tailoring the campaign to their actions if so, and have the ultimate "big bad" be the resistance movement that their participation in the system of oppression helps to spawn.

[paladinofshojo]

I can't speak to what's "normal" as I haven't done any polls, I can only speak to my own groups. But your players definitely seem a bit too willing to leverage any semblance of authority they can in order to murderhobo.

That’s what I thought too…. However they don’t really do much “murderhoboing” unless sanctioned by someone of authority.

Even when the party lead gets ennobled he doesn’t use it as an excuse to loot and pillage with impunity as killing a serf of another lord’s lands would cause a war.

I am kinda surprised how they understand that there are consequences for their actions but so callous in the act of killing innocent people for their own convenience at the same time…. As you would expect parties to either be one or the other, not both.

[Vahnavoi]

My main problem is that they will kill indiscriminately anything that someone with authority tells them to, without even trying to think through of any less hostile way to settle disputes.

Ummm... you play these authority figures, don't you?

So, have you tried an authority figure:

1) ordering less than lethal measures towards rebel peasants and what have you?

2) ordering lethal measures, but then getting horrified when they are actually executed, because the authority figure didn't think it through and seeing the massacre makes them visibly regret giving the order?

3) ordering lethal measures, then when there's predictable public outcry, scapegoating and ordering lethal measures towards the player characters?

4) being indecisive and flip-flopping between lethal and merciful solutions?

You might not be able to make your players act less predictably Lawful Evil, you can at least make their kings act less predictably Lawful Evil.

EDIT:

I am kinda surprised how they understand that there are consequences for their actions but so callous in the act of killing innocent people for their own convenience at the same time…. As you would expect parties to either be one or the other, not both.

You really seem to have some trouble wrapping your head around this "Lawful Evil" thing.

[paladinofshojo]

Ummm... you play these authority figures, don't you?

So, have you tried an authority figure:

1) ordering less than lethal measures towards rebel peasants and what have you?

2) ordering lethal measures, but then getting horrified when they are actually executed, because the authority figure didn't think it through and seeing the massacre makes them visibly regret giving the order?

3) ordering lethal measures, then when there's predictable public outcry, scapegoating and ordering lethal measures towards the player characters?

4) being indecisive and flip-flopping between lethal and merciful solutions?

You might not be able to make your players act less predictably Lawful Evil, you can at least make their kings act less predictably Lawful Evil.

I mean I was initially hoping that the party would act more independently when they are ordered to brutalize peasants in the name of their feudal lords.

You really seem to have some trouble wrapping your head around this "Lawful Evil" thing.

I honestly never thought that players would be interested in playing that alignment….

[Lord Raziere]

I mean I was initially hoping that the party would act more independently when they are ordered to brutalize peasants in the name of their feudal lords.



I honestly never thought that players would be interested in playing that alignment….

Okay, did you originally specifically INTEND a "lets take down evil nobility" campaign and got the most lawful evil party by bad luck or did you intend something more general?

either way let them know how uncomfortable you are with this out of character at the very least, this is probably a communication issue.

[paladinofshojo]

Okay, did you originally specifically INTEND a "lets take down evil nobility" campaign and got the most lawful evil party by bad luck or did you intend something more general?

either way let them know how uncomfortable you are with this out of character at the very least, this is probably a communication issue.

Well I was originally wondering what they would do. I made the world as terrible as I can, with roving bandits and mercenaries stalking the roads, Orcs and hobgoblins in the woods, and the Royals and nobles too busy with their own power plays and wars with each other and other kingdoms to do anything about it. Kinda like Game of Thrones or Berserk.

I was sort of expecting the party to be disillusioned with the King after forced to commit war crimes and head off to do more “party specific” adventures but nope…. They are perfectly okay with being enforcers.

[Easy e]

Spitballing here..... but have the king ask the PCs to delicately handle a matter that actually puts the Kings bloodline to rule in question or expose that the King is outright illegitimate. I.e. handle some documents, kill witnesses, eliminate a child that is the actual king, etc.

It could start with small stuff like burning documents and destroying records. As the PCs accomplish the easy stuff, the King has them ramp up their campaign to murdering actual members of the royal family. This culminates in the King eventually asking them to kill either the rightful heir and prince, or some small innocent child that does not know he is the "true" king of the land. By then, they will have to decide where their loyalty lies.

That will force them to put their conviction about Monarchy and who has the right to rule to the test.

[TheStranger]

I mean I was initially hoping that the party would act more independently when they are ordered to brutalize peasants in the name of their feudal lords.

Well there’s your problem. Your party, for whatever reason, has great respect for the feudal hierarchy. Which is maybe a little unusual but not totally unreasonable. Either way, it’s clear at this point that your players are going to defer to what they see as rightful authority, and any adventure ideas that rely on them questioning or opposing that authority are doomed to fail.

So there’s a few ways you can play this. You could make authority figures mostly-benign questgivers, so that your players do what they want and mostly have a positive impact on the world. There’s nothing wrong with playing the tropes straight sometimes.

Or you can lean into their evil, as suggested above. Whether they think they’re doing good or bad, make them basically the Sheriff of Nottingham in-world.

Or have the authority figures realize that the PCs would make excellent minions in any number of schemes, since they can apparently be relied on to accept everything at face value and do what they’re told. This makes them valuable as both enforcers and patsies, depending on the needs of the nobility in question.

Or you can try to force your players away from blind obedience by not giving them the authority figures they want. Make it clear that all of the various factions have a plausible claim to legitimacy, but also that none of them actually care about that. After they do horrible things for the apparent authority, reveal that that person was relying on a false claim, and have the rightful ruler horrified by their actions. Basically, keep jerking them around until they give up on trusting or obeying anybody and choose something for themselves. Note that this may have unintended consequences next time you want the players to respect an authority figure.

Probably the thing to do is have an OOC conversation about what the players want from the game. Obviously they want to uphold law and order. Do they have preferences for whether that results in peace and prosperity? Do they want complicated, morally-gray scenarios, or do they want a more straightforward setting? Do they care whether they’re heroes or villains in the eyes of the people?

[Xervous]

Or you can try to force your players away from blind obedience by not giving them the authority figures they want. Make it clear that all of the various factions have a plausible claim to legitimacy, but also that none of them actually care about that. After they do horrible things for the apparent authority, reveal that that person was relying on a false claim, and have the rightful ruler horrified by their actions. Basically, keep jerking them around until they give up on trusting or obeying anybody and choose something for themselves. Note that this may have unintended consequences next time you want the players to respect an authority figure.

Not discussing the matter with players beforehand can have this tactic lead to horror stories. Are the players on board with what the GM is trying to do? Forcing reactions and worldviews in something billed as an open sandbox will strike some players as false advertising.

[Psyren]

That’s what I thought too…. However they don’t really do much “murderhoboing” unless sanctioned by someone of authority.

Even if they don't really do it unless they have a (paper-thin) excuse, they're still doing it. Like come on, a noble not paying his taxes is not a capital offense, nor even is attempting to bribe the guys who come to sanction him over it. That was an opportunity for you, acting as the king, to lay into them with a What The Hell Hero speech and show IC how their actions will have destabilized the region - a bloody succession, organized crime or monsters seizing the mine, more suffering for the townsfolk etc.

My point is that if you want to discourage this kind of behavior you need to actually discourage it. Alternatively, if you're okay with the darker routes they're taking, lean into it and make the campaign about that.

Also, the paladin doing nothing while his compatriots decapitate the guy - or worse, actively participating - is likely fall-worthy.

[TheStranger]

Not discussing the matter with players beforehand can have this tactic lead to horror stories. Are the players on board with what the GM is trying to do? Forcing reactions and worldviews in something billed as an open sandbox will strike some players as false advertising.

I agree. The next paragraph of my post suggested an OOC discussion about what the players want out of the campaign.

[Berenger]

My main problem is that they will kill indiscriminately anything that someone with authority tells them to, without even trying to think through of any less hostile way to settle disputes.

For instance, in the middle of a war, a town has not paid taxes for almost three months and the lord of the region assumes that they had defected to the enemy and orders the party to exterminate them.

When they get to the town, I make a GREAT EMPHASIS to show how the town already looks war torn and destitute, if they bothered to ask any of the dozen unique NPCs I created in this village they’d know that a band of hobgoblins had been raiding their harvest.

The party didn’t seem to notice and slaughtered the entire town, down to the last man. I am not even sure that the players knew about the hobgoblins.

The only thing I found really strange in that example is that the lord ordered them to eradicate an entire town based on a mere assumption. I mean, that's not evil or ruthless but plain paranoid and stupid; he just deprived himself of a major source of revenue because he neglected to take into account the very obvious possibility that there are complications with the payment due to the war. Telling the characters to investigate and act based on their findings would thus have been the rational course of action for any competent lord, irrespective good or evil alignment.

So here is an angle you might be able to leverage: vassalage means you are obligated to aid your liege lord with deeds and counsel. That last bit is actually a vital part of the feudal system, formally recognized in oaths and such. This means that that truly loyal characters of a certain social standing are allowed and expected to speak up (in a face-saving manner, of course, depending on the cultures etiquette) if they are sent to carry out some ill-conceived stupid evil scheme to which there are clearly superior options. Of course, this assumes that your players are more interested in roleplaying being loyal vassals than in meting out sadistic violence under the guise of faithful service.

Their characters seem to legitimately believe that the awful people they serve are entitled to their loyalty because of feudalism.

The thing is, as long as the king or lord fulfills his own obligations towards the characters as his vassals, he totally is entitled to their loyalty because of feudalism. This is just how that system works, after all. The only honorable way out of this bond is when said awful people violate it first. Maybe a quite shaky point could be made that this is the case as soon as the characters are asked to clearly besmirch their own honor by acts way outside the accepted mores of their shared culture and religion, but razing a city and putting everybody inside to the sword might very well not suffice for that, despite being a war crime from a modern point of view.

[Telok]

Replace the king with a doppleganger or other shapeshifter that can manage the drception.

[Batcathat]

It could start with small stuff like burning documents and destroying records. As the PCs accomplish the easy stuff, the King has them ramp up their campaign to murdering actual members of the royal family. This culminates in the King eventually asking them to kill either the rightful heir and prince, or some small innocent child that does not know he is the "true" king of the land. By then, they will have to decide where their loyalty lies.

That will force them to put their conviction about Monarchy and who has the right to rule to the test.

Would it? Because it sounds like that king would be neither a good king nor the rightful king, thus enforcing the whole mentality that a "rightful" king is the optimal choice.

If it were me, I'd do the complete opposite and have the rightful king be the worst sort of tyrant and an aspiring usurper be a much more skilled and just ruler. That should test their convictions.

[Easy e]

Would it? Because it sounds like that king would be neither a good king nor the rightful king, thus enforcing the whole mentality that a "rightful" king is the optimal choice.

If it were me, I'd do the complete opposite and have the rightful king be the worst sort of tyrant and an aspiring usurper be a much more skilled and just ruler. That should test their convictions.

He tried that, and they killed the Usurper without hesitation.

[paladinofshojo]

Would it? Because it sounds like that king would be neither a good king nor the rightful king, thus enforcing the whole mentality that a "rightful" king is the optimal choice.

If it were me, I'd do the complete opposite and have the rightful king be the worst sort of tyrant and an aspiring usurper be a much more skilled and just ruler. That should test their convictions.

Already tried that… during the crisis… the party would crown the 15 year old King Rupert VI to the throne… whom the players affectionately named “Prince Joffrey” for unfortunate reasons…. Rupert’s claim is that he is the son of the last king whereas his Uncle, the Archbishop Constantius, was the bastard half brother of the Last King. Constantius’s mother was a common woman whom the Late King had taken “liberties” with, which had never sat well with him seeing as he seemed to have some moral compass unlike the rest of his kin.

My players decided that “Rupert is more legitimate” after which, the party was turned into the boy King’s personal enforcer’s and made to hunt down any of his Uncle’s supporters. Constantius’s head would eventually be dipped in tar and presented to Rupert who laughed gleefully.

[Batcathat]

Accept he tried that, and they killed the Usurper without hesitation.

Ah, right. I thought I read something about that but only went back to the first post and figured I misremembered the part about the rich count. Still, I don't see how your suggestion would make them question anything, since it just plays into their seeming conviction that the most legitimate should rule.

[Lord Raziere]

Already tried that… during the crisis… the party would crown the 15 year old King Rupert VI to the throne… whom the players affectionately named “Prince Joffrey” for unfortunate reasons…. Rupert’s only claim is that he is the son of the last king whereas his Uncle, the Archbishop Constantius, was the bastard half brother of the Last King. Constantius’s mother was a common woman whom the Late King had taken “liberties” with, which had never sat well with him seeing as he seemed to have some moral compass unlike the rest of his kin.

My players decided that “Rupert is more legitimate” after which, the party was turned into the boy King’s personal enforcer’s and made to hunt down any of his Uncle’s supporters. Constantius’s head would eventually be dipped in tar and presented to Rupert who laughed gleefully.

I think they're having a laugh at you. This behavior reminds me of modern ironic humor: they're being ironically terrible by going "hm, what would an ACTUAL feudal servant do?" and reveling in the dark comedy of it.