This is HIGHLY circumstantial and certainly doesn't apply to just about ANY setting, any scenario, any group, but as observed in entirely different discussion featuring yours truly, the majority of plans suggested lately by PCs I control, consists of some mix of NPC abduction, arson (diversion) and similar atrocities, with more saner solutions like diplomacy being usually considered "the last resort". Now, I don't want it to sound pretentious, edgy, or something, it's just that I perceive complication and getting into even more troubles far superior to merely solving the puzzle, surviving the scenario, saving the world and such. It's also not that said plans are usually accepted by the rest of the group - I (as in "my PC") rarely defend them to the last drop of blood.

It's just that when we gather and attempt to form a plan, I'm gonna probably suggest something dangerous, challenging, but - in my opinion - leading to more entertainment, rather than something that allows us to "solve" it and move on to either next stage or next session.

I'm sure pretty much everyone did the same at some point at least once, so it's not I'm reinventing the wheel.

Yet, I'm curious, how things look like in your groups? If you were to specify some vague "reasonable plans" to "brace for troubles, guys" ratio, as presented by your gaming group(s), what would it be? If you care to answer, please provide the game/setting you're playing the most (assuming it applies).

Thanks.

I'll take a shot at this.

As a GM, (for MOST games I run) I tend to wince if every session seems to come down to the players concocting plans to murder, abduct, and burn. My gut reaction is, "They are treating this like a game in which none of the lives are real, and neither are the consequences of their actions." And of course they would be completely correct on both counts... but that doesn't mean I want to play a game in which that is how people play their characters at every turn.

As a player on the other hand? Last campaign I was in was Call Of Cthulhu, and I felt my character was a pretty decent dude. But let me tell you, I burned down a LOT of houses, and did a fair amount of nasty killing. And at one point the GM was like, "Wow you are being really ruthless," but it's like, look, we are fighting a cult of cannibalistic murderers. Before that it was a guy who wanted to raise the dead for Azathoth. What are we supposed to do? If the opposition is always pure evil (or faceless cardboard mooks) you are going to get a lot of murder-box plans.

So basically, I think it depends on the style of campaign, as well as GM and player style, but I tend to judge a game as being more successful and affecting when the "let's do crazy shit for entertainment" moments are few and far between.

Quote from: JesterRaiin;909468It's just that when we gather and attempt to form a plan, I'm gonna probably suggest something dangerous, challenging, but - in my opinion - leading to more entertainment, rather than something that allows us to "solve" it and move on to either next stage or next session.

This is actually very common when the objective of play is to create a cool collaborative story instead of role playing a character as if he/she were actually in a given situation unless such characters are psychotic of course. When decisions in play are made because they would be a cool complication for the narrative instead of what makes the most sense for the character, then role playing has given way to collaborative storytelling.

Playing deranged characters can be great fun but like anything else done exclusively and to the extreme, it can get tiring. A challenging scenario can be full of surprises and unexpected complications even if approached in a sane rational manner. Besides that, turning up the full on crazy to eleven all the time will make it seem rather hum drum and normal. After all, in a typical campaign if the crazy is always cranked up, where can you go from there?

Nowhere.

I would much prefer complication over solution when I run a campaign, but sometimes I get "brain freeze" and can't come up with a decent complication. :-(

Violence is often a pretty good solution to problems. But violence generally has consequences that are unpleasant.

Which is tricky to GM. If you actually try to enforce consequences in the game, you risk killing off all your PCs which results in starting over. Or pissing off the players. But if you let them do what they want without consequences, they keep doing dumber and more dangerous things and yet never feel like they will face the consequences of doing something stupid. And that ends up being pretty boring.

As I mostly DM D&D, I have no qualms about killing characters, since there is resurrection and such. That costs the character gold and probably a constitution point. Or if you are really annoyed, you can have him reincarnated.  Once someone had to play a badger for a while (eventually changed back thanks to a wish), which was a pretty good lesson in caution - there can be things worse than death.

Quote from: Manzanaro;909469So basically, I think it depends on the style of campaign, as well as GM and player style, but I tend to judge a game as being more successful and affecting when the "let's do crazy shit for entertainment" moments are few and far between.

I'm not sure I got that right, so an additional question. How much the sophistication of the plan does influence your judgement?

Quote from: Exploderwizard;909470Playing deranged characters can be great fun but like anything else done exclusively and to the extreme, it can get tiring.

No question about that.

However, I'm thinking "let's put ourselves in potentially problematic situation" rather than "murderhobo mode:on, rrrrrrrarrrrrrgh!". Think "oh, let's set the fire to stables, perhaps this is gonna attract the attention of soldiers and allow us to slip into the citadel", rather than "let's wait for a proper moment, then rely on Silent Movement, Hide in Shadows & other skill checks to make our way into the citadel".

Quote from: finarvyn;909472I would much prefer complication over solution when I run a campaign, but sometimes I get "brain freeze" and can't come up with a decent complication. :-(

I consider myself highly uncreative and rather than suffering from occasional "brain stops", I find myself in the opposite situation - my brain sometimes works quite well.

That's why I rely on other players. I simply throw an idea (usually involving fire if the abduction isn't applicable) like a grenade, and sometimes they follow it. Usually it turns pretty good. I mean, heck, not that long ago we started as small time crooks and we ended owing a favor to local drug lord, being accused of a murderer we didn't commit and we made a sworn enemy from a witches' coven.

Yes. There was an abduction involved.

Quote from: JeremyR;909475Violence is often a pretty good solution to problems. But violence generally has consequences that are unpleasant. (...)

I agree.

I'd like to make an observation, though. See, when players get in the troubles, courtesy of their actions and choices, the GM is free to steal the initiative. Suddenly there are people, groups, organizations chasing them, their options are limited and they have no longer the privilege to pick their own goals. They aren't in control and certainly not neutral.

Good GM might exploit this situation by "punishing" them way harder than any judge, any courthouse might. Aren't those nice consequences for the naughty ones?

Quote from: JesterRaiin;909468as observed in entirely different discussion featuring yours truly, the majority of plans suggested lately by PCs I control, consists of some mix of NPC abduction, arson (diversion) and similar atrocities, with more saner solutions like diplomacy being usually considered "the last resort".

Same GM or different GMs?  I wonder because you say "lately", which means you're kind of on this kick for some reason.  Is play too simplistic, where the sane choice is too sedate and obvious?  Is diplomacy a non-starter or unsatisfying because the GM is too much of a hardass or a candyass?  Is there always a non-violent Picard solution even where there really shouldn't be one?  Just bored in general with the campaign?  Something in life prompting the "kicking it up a notch" in your entertainment?

To answer your question, no, not in a campaign I really enjoy.  Usually if the campaign is engaging enough the GM is on the ball, then shit will probably go sideways as a result, especially since some groups tend to be less planners than others.  Roleplay is always the primary motivator, if I'm looking to a third-person motivation, then that means I'm not engaged in the character.  However, a diplomatic solution might get us in the gate, but a stable on fire as a distraction gets us in the gate unnoticed.  It's one thing to deliver a message to a king, it's something else to deliver the message making sure the Evil Hidden Fuck's (whoever that happens to be) eyes and ears don't get word of it.  So depending on the character, sometimes the complication IS the solution.

In the real world, the clean, elegant, simple solution often is the best.  Most investigation/hacking/negotiation IRL is tedious as fuck, but it works.  It just isn't very exciting.  Pure physics sim game engines are going to encourage the dull solution because flamboyant solutions are often suboptimal. (People in medieval buildings had a deathly fear of fire; realistically, anyone suggesting setting the stables on fire as a distraction would be treated like Sean Bean's character in Ronin.)

The game engine can certainly direct this, though.  For instance, the Smallville RPG's game engine only allows you to improve your stats by getting in conflicts with other players, losing, and then getting patched up afterwards.  Which means that unless you're actively resisting the reward mechanism built into the game, you're going to play the genre conventions.

My general solution is to have PCs primarily grow in power through the connections and alliances they make. Mind you, I mostly play "real world ish" games, so I'm not dealing with PC's who are going to be become physical gods like DnD. When the peak of your PCs is "really awesome human", then if they want to really have agency they need friends. This allows you to channel them into the political world, where randomly killing people is a great way to spoil alliances. Having player power be directly based on their connections and alliances forces PC's to think more about the consequences of their actions. You can't take skill points away from someone, but having the armor battalion they used to be able to call on go away stings as well.

I also suggest that you take a look at how computer RPGs have funneled players towards less fun, but more realistic non violent solutions. In general, the peaceful solution there is more rewarding, especially in XP and unique equipment. Shadowrun, IIRC, used to have a similar focus, with its "good karma" system. I'd lock away the best toys and equipment for players behind a more cooperative, less berserk approach, as well as some of the best side quests. If your players act in ways that should alienate everyone in town, that should mean that they exhaust the story material for that town. This is easily combined with Jester's option of taking away player initiative.

The final, and in my view, most powerful option, is negative effects on NPCs the party loves. However, this requires them to at least put some effort into playing characters in the first place. However, if they do, then having a particularly cool NPC get shafted because of the party's actions is usually a great way to remind them of the consequences of their actions.

Quote from: JesterRaiin;909468This is HIGHLY circumstantial and certainly doesn't apply to just about ANY setting, any scenario, any group, but as observed in entirely different discussion featuring yours truly, the majority of plans suggested lately by PCs I control, consists of some mix of NPC abduction, arson (diversion) and similar atrocities, with more saner solutions like diplomacy being usually considered "the last resort". Now, I don't want it to sound pretentious, edgy, or something, it's just that I perceive complication and getting into even more troubles far superior to merely solving the puzzle, surviving the scenario, saving the world and such. It's also not that said plans are usually accepted by the rest of the group - I (as in "my PC") rarely defend them to the last drop of blood.

It's just that when we gather and attempt to form a plan, I'm gonna probably suggest something dangerous, challenging, but - in my opinion - leading to more entertainment, rather than something that allows us to "solve" it and move on to either next stage or next session.

I'm sure pretty much everyone did the same at some point at least once, so it's not I'm reinventing the wheel.

Yet, I'm curious, how things look like in your groups? If you were to specify some vague "reasonable plans" to "brace for troubles, guys" ratio, as presented by your gaming group(s), what would it be? If you care to answer, please provide the game/setting you're playing the most (assuming it applies).

Thanks.

I don' think these things are always mutually exclusive. I have a lot of players who are reckless in their attempts to find solutions, and won't hesitate to maximize the human cost, but are still genuinely trying to solve challenges. You can meet challenges and also welcome complications when they arise.

That said, if I had to give it a hard number, I'd say it is probably 80% reasonable planners and 20% brace-for-troubles planners.

Alright, for openers, as many of you know, I GM GURPS.  As such, my groups know better than to use violence as a reflexive answer to everything.  They're far readier to come up with alternatives.

As a player, I VERY strongly prefer not to use violence as the solution, even when I'm playing a strong combat character.  It's just too easy and not elegant.

I would much rather engineer a solution that -- without a drop of blood being spilled -- encompasses the complete and irrevocable ruin of the Big Bad.  Which, of course, ends with him groveling at my feet, penniless and powerless, deserted by everyone he trusted or loved, and begging for a clean, quick death.  I will, in my magnanimity, spare him ‡ to pass his remaining days in squalor and in the gutter, so he can be a living object lesson to any other NPC who might possibly be stupid or unhinged enough to fuck with me.

There.  That's my preferred solution.


‡ - Provided he never went after any of my DNPCs.  If that happened, his torment will be prolonged for weeks, until he is no longer able to scream, so that his fate is whispered as a horror tale around campfires a thousand years later.

I find it varies substantially by player.

Close to 10 years back, I ran an adventure that took about a year of playing to complete, and it was for a very large group, 11 players I think. And over the course of time, you could see the different ways players took to problem-solving, and they almost sat physically in the room according to their place on the spectrum. The left side of the room was highly impulsive, combat-oriented, and tended to go the complications route. This wasn't because they were looking to add a new twist to the story. It's more because they wanted to make the story their bitch. They seemed almost paranoid about twists.

Then you had the right side of the room. More soft-spoken and sensible. They were happy engaging in the problems presented. Maybe about 60% of the time, they would want to engage a problem in the way in which it was clearly meant to be engaged. And 40% of the time, they actually did delight in coming up with clever solutions that handled things neatly and succinctly. Obviously the two sides of the room would often disagree on what they should do. What made this side of the room clearly the more sensible side was a mantra that came out of one of the players, almost as a complaint against the other side of the room, which was "Before we go deciding to do something that can't be undone, can we first at least try the ideas that won't leave us worse off if they fail?"

Quote from: daniel_ream;909507(People in medieval buildings had a deathly fear of fire; realistically, anyone suggesting setting the stables on fire as a distraction would be treated like Sean Bean's character in Ronin.)

Worse, I'd expect.

Bit of coincidence. I was looking at some articles about tracking Reputation in RPGs and I noticed these guidelines (some ways down in this from Stack Exchange):

Example Faction adjustments:
-6  | Murder/Treason/Sacrilege
-4  | Arson
-3  | Theft
+1 | Recovering stolen goods/prisoners
+2 | Eliminating enemies

It seemed wrong that the reputation hit from arson is closer simple theft than to murder. In medieval towns or early modern cities fire is huge danger. I'd expect that the reputation hit would be more like: Treason > Arson > Murder > Theft.

   Do any of the historians or legal scholars here have some citations of actual law or practice regarding punishments for arson vs. murder?

Tangentially, I don't see Sacrilege in a fixed position. In some cultures (God Kings, Priest-Kings, Divine Right of Kings) treason and sacrilege are kind of the same thing. I think that where treason and sacrilege are not synonymous, treason > sacrilege.

Quote from: Bren;909544Tangentially, I don’t see Sacrilege in a fixed position. In some cultures (God Kings, Priest-Kings, Divine Right of Kings) treason and sacrilege are kind of the same thing. I think that where treason and sacrilege are not synonymous, treason > sacrilege.

It's not just cultures where the Monarch's authority stems from divine right. In Medieval Europe, belonging to the Catholic church, or Christendom" was basically a form of proto-nationalism. Same goes for the Byzantines, who's very reason for existence was defined by their belonging and protection of the Orthodox church. It's why the inquisition was so prominent, as protection of the faith was seen as synonymous with loyalty to the Spanish crown. Progress into the era of the Protestant Reformation, and the sects of Christianity aren't really a matter of theology so much as a fashion to bind together princedoms into larger alliances. The same goes for the Islamic world, where your adherence to the different Sunni or Shia sects played a large role in the larger group you identified yourself with.

To sum up, up until the rebirth of ethnic nationalism, religious identity was the way people defined themselves as part of larger groups, besides the normal ties of patronage, so sacrilege or conversion was very much treason in much of the world, a rough equivalent to how we would perceive an American declaring his affiliation with the Nazi party during World War 2.

EDIT: There is an exception for large chunks of the Islamic world, but even then that ebbed and flowed depending on the dynasty or sultan in power at the time. I would argue that this was because of the Islamic empires having an additional level of group that Christendom somewhat lacked. Example: Ottoman sultan-religious/ethnic subgroup-patronage within that subgroup, while Christendom lacked that overarching Ottoman sultan role. The pope came kind of close, but even then never had the true ties of power to pull off that level of authority. So basically, you'd be committing treason against your ethnic subgroup, which would be the rough equivelant of a Christian kingdom or monarch, while retaining your loyalty to the overarching group.

Quote from: JesterRaiin;909495I'm not sure I got that right, so an additional question. How much the sophistication of the plan does influence your judgement?

Sophistication is fine, other than some possible outlier cases I suppose. My problem isn't with complexity (is that what you mean by sophistication?), but with players playing their characters as sociopaths/psychopaths because it is just a game. And then not expecting to be treated as sociopaths/psychopaths by the rest of the (game)world.