Does anyone else feel that their players kinda fetishize Royalty?

[paladinofshojo]

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.

They started a war against the Church of Lathander…. Killing every and any cleric who did not denounce the archbishop and swear fealty to Rupert, even an elderly monk who had trained the Archbishop who would stand proudly and frail, staring down the party and claiming he could not be bullied by “thugs”….

Rupert even ordered the party to parade a priory of nuns naked before the streets of the capitol in a mad display of his power over his subjects…..

What’s even more messed up is that the party’s own cleric worshipped Lathander….and was trained by the Archbishop

[Psyren]

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.

It sounds like you're not just allowing but actively encouraging their baser impulses. If you all are having fun doing that, there's no need to change anything.

[Berenger]

In light of this; I feel your players kinda fetishize Sandor and possibly Gregor Clegane.

[Lord Raziere]

They started a war against the Church of Lathander…. Killing every and any cleric who did not denounce the archbishop and swear fealty to Rupert, even an elderly monk who had trained the Archbishop who would stand proudly and frail, staring down the party and claiming he could not be bullied by “thugs”….

Rupert even ordered the party to parade a priory of nuns naked before the streets of the capitol in a mad display of his power over his subjects…..

Yup, that sounds like a long term dark joke based on being ironically terrible to me. are they being facetious while they state all this, do they crack jokes while they do this, like how non-serious out of character are they about this because if they refer to the king as Prince Joffrey they know what they're jokingly referencing. the question is whether your simply not in on the joke, or whether they are actually taking all this seriously. if they're being dead serious about their belief he is the legitimate ruler without clarifying that they really just like getting into a non-modern mindset or break character to say "this is just my character being lawful evil" or whatever, run.

so above all, get OOC confirmation how serious they are taking all this and what their logic is, don't keep feeding us horror stories, just ask them and have a conversation about what their logic is and how serious they are.

[paladinofshojo]

It sounds like you're not just allowing but actively encouraging their baser impulses. If you all are having fun doing that, there's no need to change anything.

To be fair, Rupert wasn’t supposed to be an obvious Joffrey Baratheon from the start… he was originally charming and dashing, to further drive his manipulative and sociopathic nature home.

As his Uncle (who was the mentor of the party’s Cleric btw) began to make his own bid for the throne… Rupert begins to show his true colors and becomes more and more cruel.

At first I was subtle, having Rupert stare into the fire place with a strange gleam in his eye, but I grow more and more apparent about his madness as the crisis drew out, Rupert ordered all stray cats in the city killed because they were probably “spies” and began to brutalize members of his own court…. Especially the ones who were responsible for “raising him” since his father had lost a war to a coalition of lords and had given Rupert as a hostage to them since he was his third born son.

I was hoping that the party realized that they might have made the wrong choice in an absolute ruler…. But nope, none of the party members seemed to mind the little psychopath enough to do something about him being in charge.

I think they only began to call him “Joffrey” after he became King and now firmly established in power.

[Psyren]

so above all, get OOC confirmation how serious they are taking all this and what their logic is, don't keep feeding us horror stories, just ask them and have a conversation about what their logic is and how serious they are.

I'm starting to think that might be the real point behind the thread, rather than seeking advice.

[paladinofshojo]

I'm starting to think that might be the real point behind the thread, rather than seeking advice.

To be fair, I don’t really mind the group’s peculiarities… I just find it odd since I’ve DMed for a while and I usually get LG/NG parties or CN/CE parties…. I just thought that their behavior is somewhat strange and deserves to be shared.

From what I gather, most people’s parties don’t act like this…


Edit:

But if you guys want I’ll ask them why they play the way they do.

[TheStranger]

But if you guys want I’ll ask them why they play the way they do.

“Hey guys, some people on the internet want to know what the heck is wrong with you.”

If everybody is having fun, don’t rock the boat on our account.

[Batcathat]

“Hey guys, some people on the internet want to know what the heck is wrong with you.”

If everybody is having fun, don’t rock the boat on our account.

True. But I think a nice "What made you decide to act like that?" should leave the boat quite seaworthy. Granted, I don't know anything about the group in question but the fact that paladinofshojo seem to react to the party acting completely opposite of the expected with mild confusion rather than annoyance or stress makes me think they have some pretty good group dynamics.

Personally, I'm mostly curious about whether it was a conscious role play decision by one or more players or some sort of subconscious reaction to perceived legitimate authority.

[Psyren]

My own curiosity ended when I realized there wasn't actually a problem to be solved here. Asked and answered in other words.

[icefractal]

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.

IDK if this is really a factor (they may just enjoy playing LE enforcers regardless), but it might be. Personally, if I joined a game and the premise was "everything is terrible and most people are ****ty", I probably wouldn't play a heroic character. More likely to go amoral than LE personally, but obviously tastes vary.

But isn't a heroic light in the darkness, maintaining their code against all odds, a classic? Yes, but it can also be exhausting. And there's no guarantee of a pay-off either - the GM might very well decide to stay in the gritty-grimdark space and say that all my actions couldn't help in the end, the world remains crap and most people I helped got ****ed over later anyway. And that's not inherently wrong, but personally speaking: no thanks.

Or, I could play a character who doesn't consider the state of the world to be a problem, and then it's a relaxing journey through (hopefully interesting) events. Even if my PC ends up dying horribly - eh, he kind of deserved it, not too depressing.

I realize that from an actor-stance where tragedy and angst are positives, this sounds crazy, like "I figured out how to save time eating - throw 90% of the food away first!" All I can say is that there's a lot of different ways to engage with an RPG.

[TheStranger]

By far the most interesting answer is that this is an epic trolling of the DM by the players, which they’ve somehow managed to avoid giving away at the table.

Sadly, unquestioned loyalty to perceived legitimate authority is by far the most likely (and most boring) answer. Anything else requires the PCs to be acting in concert based on reasoning that they’ve apparently never openly discussed and are actively concealing when the party discusses what to do next. (I assume they’re not beheading people with zero discussion, at least)

[NichG]

Play Tyranny as a Tunon/Kyros loyalist for some inspiration about what sorts of things you could do to play into the concept and make it interesting...

[paladinofshojo]

By far the most interesting answer is that this is an epic trolling of the DM by the players, which they’ve somehow managed to avoid giving away at the table.

That would actually be pretty funny but my current group of players don’t seem like the type to do something like that, they’re all polite and well mannered people.

Sadly, unquestioned loyalty to perceived legitimate authority is by far the most likely (and most boring) answer. Anything else requires the PCs to be acting in concert based on reasoning that they’ve apparently never openly discussed and are actively concealing when the party discusses what to do next. (I assume they’re not beheading people with zero discussion, at least)

I agree with that too…. I also don’t think they actually understand the concept of a “sand box” in where their actions impact the world… or at the very least it hasn’t sunk into their minds yet. Most of the players are only used to structured plots. I also don’t give them too much feedback on what they should or shouldn’t do, at most I just ask “are you sure that’s the action you wish to take” or “why exactly you want to do that again?”

My biggest fear is that I made the world too “boring” for them and they cannot actually engage with anything because they’re not seriously invested into the story.

I am trying to make them think independently and be in charge of their own stories, not be the pawns in someone else’s.

[Faily]

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.

I mean... it kind of sounds like to me that the players are playing exactly to the setting presented to them.

[paladinofshojo]

I mean... it kind of sounds like to me that the players are playing exactly to the setting presented to them.

But they don’t have to…. It’s a sandbox style world where they can play however they want…

[TeChameleon]

But they don’t have to…. It’s a sandbox style world where they can play however they want…

Honestly, from what you've been saying, it sounds like that's pretty much what they're doing.

If you're still unsure, talk to them. Doesn't have to be confrontational, could just be 'hey guys, this is sorta getting outside my comfort zone as a DM, are you enjoying this enough to wanna keep going this way, or could we try something different?', or something of that nature.

Sometimes, people just want to play the bad guys.

... granted, I'm not one of those people, but I'm pretty sure they exist

[Lord Torath]

So... how did Lathandar react to one of his clerics killing his archbishop and torturing his female clerics?
Here I display how much I've forgotten about The Forgotten Realms - Lathandar IS male, right?

[Felhammer]

My group of delightful players always wind up playing very anti-authority type characters, so they go out of their way to not ingratiate themselves into the good graces of powerful people... Often to their own long term detriment

In my Starfinder game, I used the Starfinder Society organization as a narrative tool to help the group as a whole learn the system and provide an easy excuse for the PCs to go off on quick, one shot adventures. The plan was to break away from that narrative device after a few levels, letting the PCs go off on their own and do their own thing. Yeah, no. First conversation in the first session, one of the PCs goes full "Among Us Sus" on the Venture Captain, infuriating the man quite a bit. The party goes on the Captain's quest, which sees them off to a newly discovered world to grab some survey data from a lost Starfinder party. While returning back to the Captain, one of the PCs convinces the party that the Captain is super shady and that it would be better to "sell the data rather than just hand it over to that "obviously evil" Venture Captain. The party agrees, so they copy the survey data. Before giving the data over to the Venture Captain, the PCs leak that they have the data to some underworld people, which causes many corporations and wealthy entrepreneurs to contact the PCs about acquiring the data. The PCs wind up selling the data to a Corporation for a 10 story apartment (with a robot butler), a fast car and an unregistered ship.

Needless to say, that campaign veered off - hard - into a direction I had not envisioned

[paladinofshojo]

So... how did Lathandar react to one of his clerics killing his archbishop and torturing his female clerics?
Here I display how much I've forgotten about The Forgotten Realms - Lathandar IS male, right?

Lathander turned his back on the cleric, as he was now no longer able to cast or prepare any divine spells.

To mitigate this, the cleric begins to proclaim to now worship Amaunator, the Lawful Neutral aspect of the Sun… Since he viewed that Rupert was the legitimate king and his temperament and personality doesn’t change that.

The Cleric also begins to claim that Lathander’s church is a corruption of Amaunator’s older church and that he did nothing wrong for putting a stronger emphasis on law and order over concepts like “mercy” and “kindness”, which is technically correct.

As for the torturing of the nuns, the Cleric claims that it had nothing to do with him. Since technically Rupert did that without the party’s involvement. The whole reason I included that was to make them think that “maybe supporting this kid wasn’t a good idea”…

Honestly, from what you've been saying, it sounds like that's pretty much what they're doing.

If you're still unsure, talk to them. Doesn't have to be confrontational, could just be 'hey guys, this is sorta getting outside my comfort zone as a DM, are you enjoying this enough to wanna keep going this way, or could we try something different?', or something of that nature.

Sometimes, people just want to play the bad guys.

... granted, I'm not one of those people, but I'm pretty sure they exist

My main gripe is that they’re not necessarily doing what they or at least their characters want.. their characters don’t have any goals, dreams, or aspirations in their backstory.

They’re not progressing their own stories, they’re just progressing the agenda of some apathetic noble or some sadistic king. Said characters who are controlled by me, so I feel it kinda breaks the spirit of a sandbox world when they are willingly playing the game as if there is an over-encompassing plot that is completely controlled by me. They’ve literally railroaded the game for themselves

I feel like I can’t tell them that because I’ve already told them that they can play however they want and this is how they like to play, I also don’t want them to try and change the way they enjoy the game to “please me”, so I am trying to gently nudge them to actually develop some sort of individuality and personalities.

[noob]

Who decides what is evil? Heck, one of the more popular gaming settings out there managed to justify the sacrifice of thousands of people daily just for more efficient interstellar travel.

Some people arguably considers that in the world of warhammer 40k all factions are evil (individuals can be not evil but the faction as a whole is an evil thing)

[Hytheter]

But they don’t have to…. It’s a sandbox style world where they can play however they want…

To me it seems like they ARE playing how they want, and the only issue is that they aren't playing how YOU want.

[paladinofshojo]

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

That’s the point…. I am trying to put the idea that “maybe people who’s only qualification is an inbred bloodline aren’t the best rulers”. The kingdom’s royal bureaucracy is ripe with corruption and incompetence seeing as almost everyone in a position of power seems to be there due to nepotism or bribery. This shouldn’t be news to my players but they just don’t care and seem to just shrug and accept it. One of them even said, “well the real world is also like that…. And if we can live and accept that level of systemic corruption, then our characters should be able to cope with that too” which is a fair point, but kinda ignores the fact that said character is a wizard who can shoot fire and lightning out of his hands.

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.

But the obligations aren’t really getting fulfilled, I made sure that there have been famines, food riots, and even necromancers who were able to gain literal armies by promising “the gift of a peaceful death” to masses of starving and desperate villagers.

To me it seems like they ARE playing thow they want, and the only issue is that they aren't playing how YOU want.

That may be, but what’s the point of giving them the freedom to explore a world and make their own adventures when they’re just going to expect me to give them a main quest? I hate being railroaded as a player, and I don’t want to railroad them as a DM.

[Ameraaaaaa]

That may be, but what’s the point of giving them the freedom to explore a world and make their own adventures when they’re just going to expect me to give them a main quest? I hate being railroaded as a player, and I don’t want to railroad them as a DM.

That's what we call a player and gm mismatch. There's 3 solutions. 1 continue as is. 2 adjust as a gm. 3 change groups. The 3rd one is an extreme solution but if you don't want to adjust for your players and you don't want to continue as is then That's your only choice.

4 you can talk to your players which i recommend.

[Quertus]

I usually see the opposite.
No respect at all to nobles or royalty. Which isn't good for the setting.

Especially at higher levels - Why should they respect the king, when they can defeat the king and all his armies easily?

Sounds like the problem with the gods, and why they usually need to be taken down, tbh: why should they respect humanity, when they are able to defeat them all?

[Vinyadan]

To be honest, if the King is loyal towards them, I don't see why they shouldn't roll with it. It sounds like a steady gig. Having a job is the opposite of murderhoboing, you are murderemployed with a murdercareer. The count gives them three times as much, the King can give them three more jobs AND peace of mind.

In other cases, it sounds like maybe you could shove the info a bit better into their faces, like "as you approach the village, the taverns are filled with rumors of the destitution of the town of XXXX. Goblin armed bands have been attacking the men in the fields. Now the peasants don't dare to leave the farmsteads, and the harvest is rotting on the land." And then you can add something like "A message about the situation in town is en route to Lord Questgiver". This would mean that the Lord will know what's up, and react to how the PCs handle the situation: should they assume that he just wants his orders thoughtlessly executed, or that he prefers his town to survive and the goblins to be defeated? And, if they kill everyone and tell him "but you said to do so", should they expect further employment, or will the lord assume they should be discharged, and put around news of how they handled it? Can they deceive the lord and pretend they didn't know about the goblins?

This emphasis on taxes is a bit odd, though. Maybe the PCs all have deadbeat dads in their backstory and really hate people who don't pay their dues?

About the Empress, you may have gone a bit too realistic there: either there is something like Sense Motive, or the setting explains clearly that there is a perfectly good alternative to the Empress, or the characters have good reason to believe that killing her would destroy the fabric of the country and lead to a neverending civil war, which, unless she had a very large bathtub, sounds numerically worse than sacrificing children. Or maybe they just like the idea of a hierarchy they can also ascend.

Actually, it's worth asking: do good rulers get speeches that justify their existence or ascent, like the evil ones do?

[Anonymouswizard]

So... how did Lathandar react to one of his clerics killing his archbishop and torturing his female clerics?
Here I display how much I've forgotten about The Forgotten Realms - Lathandar IS male, right?

Honestly Lathandar's gender identity shouldn't come into it. But yeah, this screams 'fallen Cleric'.

Lathander turned his back on the cleric, as he was now no longer able to cast or prepare any divine spells.

To mitigate this, the cleric begins to proclaim to now worship Amaunator, the Lawful Neutral aspect of the Sun… Since he viewed that Rupert was the legitimate king and his temperament and personality doesn’t change that.

The Cleric also begins to claim that Lathander’s church is a corruption of Amaunator’s older church and that he did nothing wrong for putting a stronger emphasis on law and order over concepts like “mercy” and “kindness”, which is technically correct

Eh, this is just my personal view, but switching deities should not be easy for a Cleric. Especially to a Lawful deity. This Cleric has broken an alliance with Lathandar because they think Amaunator gives them a better deal, but how does Amaunator know they won't jump ship to Asmodeus or whoever when it suits them? Got to resume that divine trust.

Some people arguably considers that in the world of warhammer 40k all factions are evil (individuals can be not evil but the faction as a whole is an evil thing)

Yeah, the discussion ended like two pages back. Again my point want that the sacrifice is moral, it's that the setting manages to justify it (primarily because if Warp heaven becomes harder most hive world's begin to starve and likely riot, putting them blood of potentially quadrillions on your hands).

Although it wouldn't be justified if the Adeptus Mechanicus was less anti-research and had come up with techno-navigators already. So really it's the Omnissiah's fault.

[Lord Torath]

Honestly Lathandar's gender identity shouldn't come into it. But yeah, this screams 'fallen Cleric'.

Lathandar's gender comes into it only insofar as I don't want to misgender him. Or anyone else.

[paladinofshojo]

Eh, this is just my personal view, but switching deities should not be easy for a Cleric. Especially to a Lawful deity. This Cleric has broken an alliance with Lathandar because they think Amaunator gives them a better deal, but how does Amaunator know they won't jump ship to Asmodeus or whoever when it suits them? Got to resume that divine trust

It usually isn’t, however, the crux of his argument here is that Lathander is nothing more but a modern aspect of Amaunator as they are both solar deities, and many regions and scholars within Faerun (and the D&D fandom as a whole) seem to debate over whether they are one in the same, as Amaunator is the sun god of the ancient Netherese civilization who predated modern Faerun by a couple thousand years. With some cultures even using both names interchangeably. So he technically does have a strong case for pulling this….

Honestly, the reason why I allowed this is because it is pretty brilliant and shows that the character and the player are very knowledgeable in the theology and history of the setting.

The cleric even shows some “character growth” as he decides that the Church of Lathander is a “corruption” of Amaunator’s true faith and is now on a personal mission to restore Amaunator’s “true dogma”. Which I view as an improvement as this is the only time any of my players had their characters show any goals or personal quests of their own outside of “whatever the king wants them to do today”.

[Faily]

The wild idea would be to have them be loyal to someone actually nice.

The rightful king with a good claim and all, who is actually just and nice (think noblesse oblige to the extreme I guess). And the ones trying to usurp them actually are the bad guys with less claim to power.

I dunno, just live the fantasy that in a world of powerful mages and interfering gods (Forgotten Realms is full of that) there are nobles and royals who are good and nice, but also competent enough to have stayed in power.