Player is set on doing something MASASIVELY stupid, needs to feel consequences

[FoxWolFrostFire]

Long story short, A level 6(2Cleric/4 Sorc) Star elf (Sea elf stats) Just got back from the Underdark with his party so he KNOWS how dangerous it is down there figured he didn't get to meet any Drow. So now during down time he wants to go back there BY HIM SELF. To find and say hello to the Drow. Which I made very clear In character and out that the Drow are NOT friendly in any way shape or form.

So outside of overwhelming him with Drow spell casters and soldiers to for ever enslave his character, what else drow like stuff can I use to confirm a just punishment

PS, he believes he has a way to escape...As the dungeon master I highly doubt a level six multi classier can escape from a Drow city, in anyway shape or form. Again I want a punishment that'll stick

Update: He didn't do it. I throw some stuff at him that was more interesting to his character, and I was able to search my cities and find a surface Drow for him to meet...Now he just wants to say hello to a Drider next time he gets a chance. Oooooh. Yeah.

[CapnWildefyr]

If this is 'downtime' and not being roleplayed: ask if the pc insists on going. "Yes, i do." Then just ask "what OTHER character will you be bringing into my next adventure?" No dice no talk, just whats the next character. That ought to be a wakeup call. Hopefully the player will say "OK then I don't go."

[Trandir]

My idea (and probably not that good):
Overwhelm and capture him;
Prive him of all his gear and give him a slave's collar/mark that impose -X to Wis, Cha and Int;
If he manage to pull off the stunt and escape he gets a nice souvenir that will require a quest to get rid of otherwise give him a new character sheet.

The drows would probably kill him or still do something that end up with him making a new PC. If you want him to survive throw monster, or many, at him in the middle of the road, too strong to be dealt with alone and too big to pass by but also too slow to effectively chase him.

[FoxWolFrostFire]

He is HEAVILY! Wanting to get some type of detailed roleplay interaction from this. But I like the idea of just saying nope. Your character ****ed up you don't get a save for this one...But that'll cause too much drama and bitching for my already taxed DM psyicy to take.

[Waazraath]

I'd ask more info. Maybe he wants to do something massively stupid, like just walking in and see what happens; or maybe he'll come up with an idea that allows him to see few drow and leave without too much danger. For instance, join a trade caravan that's on its way to trade with a small drow outpost, as a mercenary (legit way to spend downtime to keep up a certain standard of living, or even earn some gc, afaic). Drow are intelligent creatures, and although completely evil, they do trade sometimes with other races as far as I'm aware (ymmv per campaign of course).

If the player just walks in, you can simply have him roll a new one, and if he does something smart, he might auto-succeed, and for anything in between, you can have him roll some skills (bluff and disguise kit ability checks when going in disguised, for example), with outcomes variying depending on how good the idea was.

But just deceiding that the player needs to be 'punished' without going into more detail seems needlessly antagonistic and DM vs player.

[FoxWolFrostFire]

I'd ask more info. Maybe he wants to do something massively stupid, like just walking in and see what happens; or maybe he'll come up with an idea that allows him to see few drow and leave without too much danger. For instance, join a trade caravan that's on its way to trade with a small drow outpost, as a mercenary (legit way to spend downtime to keep up a certain standard of living, or even earn some gc, afaic). Drow are intelligent creatures, and although completely evil, they do trade sometimes with other races as far as I'm aware (ymmv per campaign of course).

If the player just walks in, you can simply have him roll a new one, and if he does something smart, he might auto-succeed, and for anything in between, you can have him roll some skills (bluff and disguise kit ability checks when going in disguised, for example), with outcomes variying depending on how good the idea was.

But just deceiding that the player needs to be 'punished' without going into more detail seems needlessly antagonistic and DM vs player.

I should have been more clear. I have warned him many, many, times this was a stupid idea. I've already asked him his plans and it seems it is as simple as just walking into a Drow city all by him self.

[Waazraath]

I've already asked him his plans and it seems it is as simple as just walking into a Drow city all by him self.

....

maybe help him by asking a few questions? "how are you going to do that?" "how do you prevent they just going to shoot you?" "do you realize they have 120ft darkvision and you probably will get shot in the dark before you even see a drow?" "are you SURE you don't want to disguise yourself as a drow, or take any other precautions"?

Maybe mention out of character to the player that downtime isn't meant for detailed RP as well.

If all of this doesn't help and he still walks in alone, I'd go with CapnWildefyr's solution. Or, if you really want to be nice, make a d100 table:
1-94: dead or mia, new character
95-99: returns with random lingering injury
100: miraculously survives.

[MoiMagnus]

Long story short, A level 6(2Cleric/4 Sorc) Star elf (Sea elf stats) Just got back from the Underdark with his party so he KNOWS how dangerous it is down there figured he didn't get to meet any Drow. So now during down time he wants to go back there BY HIM SELF. To find and say hello to the Drow. Which I made very clear In character and out that the Drow are NOT friendly in any way shape or form.

So outside of overwhelming him with Drow spell casters and soldiers to for ever enslave his character, what else drow like stuff can I use to confirm a just punishment

PS, he believes he has a way to escape...As the dungeon master I highly doubt a level six multi classier can escape from a Drow city, in anyway shape or form. Again I want a punishment that'll stick

I feel like there is a miscommunication between you and him on one point: you're not the kind of DM that will create a balance sequence of encounters whatever the context.
(I mean, I've encountered DM that would make it as easy to sneak in the castle of the local lord, sneak in the Drow city, or sneak in an infernal city. And the difficulty would be "whatever is the standard difficulty for the level and number of characters".)

This, or it is the kind of player that expect to make a daring escape like Jack Sparrow, counting on the fact that fate (i.e you, the DM) will arrange stuff to make things possible (by having incompetent guards, for example).

[Ganryu]

Do the logical thing. Throw an encounter at him, kill his character. Don't hold back. At all.

1 Drider with darkness up focused on one of his items should do it. 3 drow priestesses as well, one will eventually summon a demon, other two can overwhelm him with spiders.

If his party was having trouble, he'll sure as hell regret it.

[Themrys]

Do you know this guy well?

He sounds like he's either the kind of player who does random **** to see what the consequences will be, or a masochist who hopes for some detailed torture descriptions.

Describe to him how he's captured by extremely unsexy and boring Drow and made to do some extremely boring, but neither humiliating nor painful work, and have him escape without his gear.

(If he tries to provoke punishment, just have the Drow kill him. You made it clear enough they're dangerous. And he walked in there of his own accord, so it is not like they invested any resources to get him ..)


The slave collar idea I would only employ if he is the classic "I want to do random ****" guy. If there's any risk he is into this sort of thing ... don't. (In fact, if I was you, if he gives off masochist vibes and tries to involve you in that sort of thing, I would kick him.)


In any case, it is clear this annoys you, so keep it short and boring, and make it clear that the next random nonsense thing he does will also get a boring result, and that if he wants detailed roleplay, he has to act like a reasonable human elvish being ingame.

[JellyPooga]

I feel like there is a miscommunication

Yeah. This.

Your player obviously underestimates exactly what they're doing compared to the outcome you, the GM, foresee.

Your player expects not only to survive, but be successful in "meeting a drow" (as moronic a goal as that might be). Frankly, if they persist in pursuing suicide, let them. Don't roll dice, don't let them roll dice; just describe how their character dies lost, cold and alone in the darkness of the depths of the world, faced with the endless horrors of the Underdark, they didn't even fulfil their dream of meeting one of their evil cousins, let alone see their fabled cities. New character and a more sensible player....or you retcon the whole thing after giving that outcome and ask them what they want to do instead.

Stupidity should be rewarded appropriately. If they're expecting anything but a new character out of it, convince them otherwise.

[HappyDaze]

For one thing, the Drow are not really all that accessible. It's not like he can just hop in an elevator and thumb the "Sub-Basement U13" button, wait through some uncomfortable moments with the others in the elevator, and step out into the Underdark. Access points are typically remote and may involve weeks or months of travel just to get to a point where you start going down under. Even then, not every part of the Underdark has access to every other part. The one they were in previously doesn't appear to link up with Drowland, so that might just be a bust. Even if he finds an access point that leads to Drowland, it might take a few more weeks of tunnel crawling to get down there. So, just how much downtime is he expecting to have?

Regardless, just tell him that what he's planning is not even remotely downtime activity; it's an adventure. If everybody is planning to go adventuring together, great. If not, he's writing his character out of the game and needs to make a new character unless you want to run a solo game for him.

[StoicLeaf]

You could start off with a warning fight as he descends into the underdark.
Give him something CR appropriate but make it a hard fight.
Should he somehow survive and still insist upon continuing ..

He runs into a drow patrol, they take him captive.
He ends up a slave for house XXX.
Game over, he's now an NPC.

[Nhorianscum]

Is this objectively suicidal in world?

Yes.

Is this obscenely entertaining?

Ohgodyes.

I'd say shove a standard issue drow patrol (2-3 warriors, a drow mage and a handful of standard issue drow NPC blocks) in the underdark and let the player have their fun if they can pull it out? Awsome moment. If they fail? Awsome moment.

Regardless of the outcome let the player have their interaction and play it totally above board and straight.

Worst case the player gets to see their PC later as a nice cameo.

It may not even be full on suicidal. A cleric/sorc has quite a few tricks and depending on skills/languages the player may just pull it off.

Example: Going in with expertise history/religion, prof deception/persuasion, disguise self and subtle suggestion the player really can just bull**** out a meeting.

[Chad.e.clark]

Has much experience with DnD does this player have, does the player know what the typical Drow society is like, both in general and in your world? What is he expecting to happen with the Drow when he finds them?

I would find this out, gently try and re-dirext him, but if he insists, I do love the phrase "play stupid games, win stupid prizes."

[MarkVIIIMarc]

Is this objectively suicidal in world?

Yes.

Is this obscenely entertaining?

Ohgodyes.

I'd say shove a standard issue drow patrol (2-3 warriors, a drow mage and a handful of standard issue drow NPC blocks) in the underdark and let the player have their fun if they can pull it out? Awsome moment. If they fail? Awsome moment.

Regardless of the outcome let the player have their interaction and play it totally above board and straight.

Worst case the player gets to see their PC later as a nice cameo.

It may not even be full on suicidal. A cleric/sorc has quite a few tricks and depending on skills/languages the player may just pull it off.

There is a player in a game I DM who likes more detail than the rest of the party. Every so often it comes up and I give him some.

If you can find the time to do this via phone or text even away from the table it might be cool.

Oh yeah, read the Quaggoth fluff in thd Monster Manual. You can have a few Drow man slave/workers with their slave Quaggoths be a draining encounter which alerts the Driders or actual guards just to warn the fellow. A couple 4 on 1 fights just may satisfy or scare your player off.

[Randomthom]

Since this is "downtime" activity but sounds an awful lot like roleplaying I think you'll need to take the following steps;
1. Explain to him that downtime isn't meant to be doing adventuring. Explain that you're not saying no but to be fair to the other players, you won't be devoting lots of time to one-PC-one-DM roleplaying while they wait.
2. Set it up like a Matt Colville skill challenge* but with only one participating character.
3. Have a list of possible outcomes based on how many successes he gets before getting 3 failures.

*Basic rules are;
Players must reach X successful skill checks before reaching 3 failed skill checks. The higher X is, the more difficult the skill challenge is overall.
No skill can be used untrained.**
No skill can be used by one player more than once.**
Skills that aren't obviously beneficial must be justified by the players with some level of detail. e.g. History in a stealth challenge doesn't apply unless the PC can give avery good reason why it might.

**You'll likely need to waive one of these two things for a solo player challenge. I'd recommend the "no skill can be used untrained" rather than the other.

He explains it better himself;
youtube.com / watch?v=GvOeqDpkBm8

What he is trying to do isn't impossible, just very difficult. It might require maybe 8 successes (you set the DC depending on what the skill/description of it's use is).

[CapnWildefyr]

Lots of good suggestions. It really depends on if you want to roleplay and if so, how much? Personally I would avoid any role playing. However you could have this character meet a caravan leader who describes what happened to some other guy who brought a surface elf his HIS caravan. That is, how the drow killed them all and how that guy really hates being a slave.

Or, just say that you are not DM'ing in that direction now. You have other adventures planned, and if this character is dead set on going, then the player needs a new PC. Be nice, but point out you don't have unlimited time to write adventures for just one player in the group. Maybe the elf becomes an NPC (with player permission) or maybe never gets used again. Even with the best player motives, DMs are not bound to follow that adventuring path.

[False God]

In fairness to the PC, he doesn't need to go to Menzoberranzan to find Drow, he just needs to get into Drow territory, run into a patrol, have them try to murder him, and run away.

That's as far as I'd go. Something simple, a couple spelunking checks, runs into a party of Drow, the Drow try to kill him. If he does, game over man. If he runs away, some chase checks, if he gets away, good for him. If he doesn't, game over man. If he gets captured, game over man.

No grand escape from prison. Capture is character death. Go make a new one.

Oh yeah, and no XP for any of this. Wasting the DM's time is a -XP venture.

[Eldariel]

If possible, I'd 100 % run a between games single player session for his little venture and see what happens. It might be entertaining and it would certainly be awesome.

[diplomancer]

Well, a cleric/sorcerer multiclass is not particularly good, so I guess the player realized that and it is just suicide-by-drow.

Seriously, talk to your player. Ask him if he's satisfied with his character and wants to keep playing him. If yes, explain to him how, if he does go through with it, he's dead. This is the equivalent of saying "I want to jump in the volcano and I want you to give me a chance of getting out". Things just don't work that way, the rules state clearly that you don't play dice if the outcome is clear.

If, however, he is not happy with his character, wants to have a new one, and that's how he wants the character to die, that's fine. Give it a short narrative about what happened to him and move on to the next character.

[Nhorianscum]

There is a player in a game I DM who likes more detail than the rest of the party. Every so often it comes up and I give him some.

If you can find the time to do this via phone or text even away from the table it might be cool.

Oh yeah, read the Quaggoth fluff in thd Monster Manual. You can have a few Drow man slave/workers with their slave Quaggoths be a draining encounter which alerts the Driders or actual guards just to warn the fellow. A couple 4 on 1 fights just may satisfy or scare your player off.

I like this as a less-player-killy approach.

I personally enjoy letting players like this do their thing at the table proper (within reason and with restraint). It gives everyone a laugh if it goes wrong and if it goes right it's awsome and encourages other players to interact with the world.

[Shabbazar]

Maybe mention out of character to the player that downtime isn't meant for detailed RP as well.

I wouldn't allow it based on this ^^.

Although I disagree with a lot of the downtime concept. I prefer in my campaigns and the campaigns I play in to actually RP out the downtime activity. That's gonna change from group to group obviously, but I think reducing downtime to an OOC experience is a waste of a good RP opportunity. It's also a way to pass a large amount of playtime without getting experience, thus spending more time in the 5-10 range that most people enjoy the most. Obviously this is hugely variant on your style of play.

Another option would be to let him come 15 minutes early and play it out. Let him get captured and enslaved. Then the party's next adventure can be rescuing him. He'll just be stuck in a cage or something and unable to participate for a couple sessions. That beats him up a little without killing the character.

[patchyman]

This is how I would run it. First, I would lay down some ground rules:
1. What the player is asking for is an adventure in itself. The only way it is fair to the other players is to run it as a skill challenge;
2. The player is forewarned that the character may die or be enslaved. The dice will fall where they may;
3. As a corollary to the previous point, the player must show up at the game with a backup character, in case his character dies or is enslaved;
4. Ideally, the player will show up 30 min early so you can run this without slowing the game down for the others;
5. You will allow the player to describe his preparation for the trip. You will adjudicate how much the prep costs. The player will be warned that prep will only count for a small flat bonus on a single roll as the DM decides;
6. Since this is a skill challenge, each roll stands in for dozens of similar rolls over several days. As such, Guidance, Divine Favor, and Lucky are not available (in the alternative, you can make each one available once and increase the DCs as a consequence). You will advise the player of this ahead of time.
7. You will tell the player that he can abandon his quest at any point. To do so, he must make a single Survival check. As a special circumstance, apply -X to the roll, where X is the number of failed skill rolls. Prepare a table with the results including Killed, Enslaved, Lost in the Underdark, Survives by the skin of his teeth (lose all equipment), Successfully retreats, and one positive outcome (gains knowledge or an ally)

For the skill challenge itself, it should use a variety of skills, but should mostly be navigating the Underdark and locating an outpost. Only the last roll should be something like Persuasion for dealing with drow. All rolls should be Hard or Very Hard DCs. You should think of ways for the character to fail forward while incurring consequences for his actions (failed Athletics means he doesn’t fall in the chasm, but all his gear does).

Stuff like Survival, Nature, Athletics, Perception, Stealth, Animal Handling, Intimidation and Persuasion would be appropriate skills.

The outcome should be based on the number of successes.

0-1 Different Flavours of Dead
2-3 Enslaved
4 Lost in the Underdark
5 Escapes by Skin of teeth, loses all equipment,
6 Fights Drow, recognized by non-drow as a hero and expert
7 Meets Drow,, gets to say his piece, make a Drow contact
8 Allies with a Drow House. Player is recognized as a god by his peers.

[Yunru]

I wouldn't allow it based on this ^^.

Although I disagree with a lot of the downtime concept. I prefer in my campaigns and the campaigns I play in to actually RP out the downtime activity. That's gonna change from group to group obviously, but I think reducing downtime to an OOC experience is a waste of a good RP opportunity. It's also a way to pass a large amount of playtime without getting experience, thus spending more time in the 5-10 range that most people enjoy the most. Obviously this is hugely variant on your style of play.

One of the biggest joys of playing by post is the ability to sit and think about what you're going to do and how to describe it. I just don't have time to be eloquent at the table.

[Cygnia]

Then the party's next adventure can be rescuing him.

See, if I was another player in this group, I'd resent being railroaded into saving an idiot from his own stupid consequences.

[Nhorianscum]

See, if I was another player in this group, I'd resent being railroaded into saving an idiot from his own stupid consequences.

Counterpoint. I'd be super into it and crylaugh half the rescue attempt.

[Shabbazar]

See, if I was another player in this group, I'd resent being railroaded into saving an idiot from his own stupid consequences.

Oh I'm with you there. I have a HUGE aversion to railroading. My view so embraces the neutral DM that I don't think DMs should make NPCs that break the rules for what PCs can do. With that in mind, as DM I would be perfectly fine with the characters saying "Bob is an idiot. &#^@ him." And then bailing on the rescue idea and leaving him to his fate.

[Randomthom]

Oh I'm with you there. I have a HUGE aversion to railroading. My view so embraces the neutral DM that I don't think DMs should make NPCs that break the rules for what PCs can do. With that in mind, as DM I would be perfectly fine with the characters saying "Bob is an idiot. &#^@ him." And then bailing on the rescue idea and leaving him to his fate.

But if the DM allowed the player to do this, clearly he isn't railroading. Surely though the same should apply to the rest of the party...

"You must rescue your comrade"
"nah, moron is probably dead, no sense in us getting dead over it too"
"ok"

:P

[Callin]

Skill Challenge. Make a series of Skill Challenges for him to succeed at to RP the trip. IF he passes his checks he makes it to the next set of checks. IF he fails he suffers a consequence. Maybe a minus to his next check or he starves to death even just traveling into the depths if he fails enough checks.

Plan on his capture in the skill checks and have another to break free. ALL in all if done right it could make a for a very memorable trip and story for his character. No combat. JUST Skill DCs. Range from Easy to Hard depending on how bad he messes up. It wont take up all of the next sessions time. Can be rolled between sessions even if yall wanted.