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This is why you don't murderhobo
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this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2023
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Hot take : this idea isn't a good choice.
And here is why. If you are using ingame tactics to discourage murderhoboing, then there is a chance to learn and not be a rotten core of a player. So, there is a chance to learn it ingame from it. Otherwise it's a waste of time and you should ask them to join a table that they would fit if such exists.
Now, if you're teaching something and use the good old dragon in human form once they start to push around, you better be doing it in a place that would fit before they even attempt it.
Because if you don't, then you teach them that at any point, anywhere, there could be a dragon under disguise.
Hilarious as fuck for veteran players to play around with, as such ideas go. But teaching them this means that at any point there could be an overpowered, wise and objectively good morals anywhere.
Besides the huge problems this causes since it's the guards-are-not-competent paradox of games but on steroids (if guards would be competent, then most adventures wouldn't exist, especially at early levels), it also means that they are nothing and have no chance into moving the adventure one way or another. It would be like fighting a hurricane with a bug squasher.
Which is why, my personnal 2 cents is to have something that keeps your players in check but that could be part of the scenario. Kill an isolated merchand ? He has time to use Sending to a guard he knows well. Tries to be an ass to a waitress ? Get throwned out. Resists ? Local guard being called up.
If you make it realist and part of your world as it should be, you will then be teaching a solid lesson and keep your world coherent and consequence-FULL.
If you have read this until here, first thank you, and second I know this meme is mostly a running joke about improvised murderhobo-type players, but as someone that actually used it a few times you have to be careful when using disguised entities when doing it for reals. It's the scenarist equivalent of juggling dynamite.
I really like your text but I just want to offer different view on the guards-are-not-competent paradox of games but on steroids.
Among the adventurers there is a sea of dead people trying to be something. But forgotten and killed by the most pathetic of monsters.
Why not take a cosy job guarding city just taking care of what really needs taken care of?
You have a job, home and you get live in end of the day.
Gigantic rats in basement of the local bar? Why risk your life when you can pay for some smucks to risk their life.
Their is underground cult? Tell the barman to pass around rumors and hope someone else wants investigate.
Instead stand around waving your fancy weapons and trinkets bought from nearby magic shop (probably just general store where heroes dumps their trash).
Well I mean then you are a corrupt guard, willing to send other do your job for a pay you yourself provide.
If its from the guards as a whole then they suck in general. Imagine a cop paying a young adult to deal with a rabbit dog. That doesnt make sense does it ? Or paying someone to go into a dark alleyway as there are rumors of people disappearing ?
The guards-are-incompetent is the nicest paradox name. It could also be named guards-are-lazy-cowards or also guards-are-corrupted but this then changes the context of the quests, no ? Which is why being incompetent remains the best worst kind of guards IMO.
I would not call it corrupt. I see it more as a guard job is to keep the common day peace.
But don’t cops lay off work to contractors? The average cop is not going to go down to deal with rabid wolf that terrorizes people. No they send animal control.
Or how in western movies how they put bounties on infamous gangs?
Or private detectives chasing down hard solved crimes.
Or private security firms?
Why would that be different to lay of work to a group that are more suited for that kinda work?
Depends to what you are comparing to. Sure, in old times they offered up bounties seriously to people around, and pest control is a thing. But half of most quests in early level would normally be dealt with with the equivalent of the cops and the army before they ever reach up to the public to ask for help.
When you put a bounty in the public, you are also saying : we can't be bothered to do it ourselves, so yeah, if you do it we'll give you money. That's your image that is tarnished if you are supposed to be powerful and dangerous.
Another problem of a lawless land that employs bounty hunters ? There's not a lot of cops or guards to deal with your players too. It's the opposite situation of the silver dragon under disguise : not ENOUGH consequences to the players.
In the old west, sure there were bounties, but there were also posses ? When the sheriff, the only representation of the law, gathered people to deal with a bigger problem. Now THAT could work in a game : I'm a guard but I'm also the only guard around cause we're lost as fuck and I need help please. That would totally work.
See, I think that even asking for help induces things in your world. And if you can make them fit into your narrative it's cheff kiss good planifications. But sometimes, you just need guards to be incompetent and to bullshit a reason as to why for an adventure to even exist.
Because now it's more a problem of having to prep reasons for the authorities NOT to deal with the problem at hand, everytime. It can be tiredsome to prepare for the DM. Hence the guards-are-incompetent unwritten contract between players and GM : we don't go ask for help everytime because it's a game and we're the ones having fun.
Remember the time Tiberius wanted to call for an army to deal with another player's backstory ? Yeah like that.
Sometimes I wonder if I run dnd "wrong".
My players would castrate me if they went up to the guards and they where met by incompetence and I would just hand weave oh the guard won't help you because they are just static images.
I don't who Tiberius is, but if he was at my table and wanted to call the army and had established strong bands to governing force. But we assume he would not have a valid cause where the governing force would go of course here is army to protect the land.
With good enough persuasion and paying for the cost for the conscription I would let him.
Why would you not do this?
I don't get why it would not be enough consequences. The party would fight all over the world against different adventure party's that dying to be heroes. Every time they entering new town they have to hope the inn don't have two or more adventure party's.
Tiberius wanted to call his daddy the king for an army against bad guys to resolve the situation in a few shakes. The daddy, aka the DM, said politely to fuck off.
This was in Critical Roll.
Welp, what happens when your players have a side quest to do, for example finding a young girl, and go straight to the guards ? Not A guard, I mean the whole department of the guards. What then ?
Can I say that sounds like cop-out? If rest of party agree and wants to around collect peasants and knights to create an huge army I would let them. If daddy king have standing army that can solve it. Solve it. Don't make a dnd a freaking Marvel movie where only those 5 are heroes if they don't want it.
But to your guard question
The guards will first ask why the players have come to them as it is clearly something either sensitive as quest giver went to players instead of guards, it is extremely dangerous as their quest giver hired a mercenary instead of the guard or simple something that she normally do and why guards would not do it.
Guards finds who gave them their quest tells them to hire a better adventuring party because again why not go to guard in first place if not?
But lets ignore you said straight to the guards. The players have found a cult but they feel out matched. I would have the guards join them against the cult if the party split to pay. Reason why they need to be payed is because party got hired to deal with something.
If players say here is cult they have girl deal with it. Guards will deal with it either by doing it self or lay out the work to more competent party
Kinda. It's kinda of a cop-out. Which is a nice pun since we're talking about talking to cops of the medieval world.
In the end, it's about preps. If I prepare an adventure, I will not prep it with and without guards just in case they go and convince a department to come down the sewers to stop the cult with them. I'll only prepare one of them. If they go for the other, then I have to refuse for some reason or to redoe my preps, sometimes in the middle of the session. That, or you make the contribution insignificant. If you go down the sewers with the guards, then I would make them fight some cultists in the background while they fight the encounters I prepared for this number of combattants of this level.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying : I refuse anything that wasn't prepped in advance. Because of course I don't do that, that would be railroading. But at the same time, we all mostly agree in the TTRPG circles that it's a douche move to not do what the DM prepared for that session. The classic example is having Dracula's castle right there, but the players decide to go in the forest instead for no ingame reason. Should the DM improvise an entire other adventure for them right there and then ? Should he tell them there's nothing in there ? Should he let them wander off for no reasons ?
I think the sweet spot is between these 2. Between the players wanting to go randomly in the forest and the DM refusing to budge from his preps. You should devide where you wanna go and why as the players AND respect the preps the DM actually did. If you go off the preps, don't expect anything of quality already good to go. And as a DM, you should allow players to do stuff outside your preps as long as it fits your improvising skill and enjoyment and (ideally) doesn't make you waste hours of work. Because that stings so bad it takes away my will to even begin those preps.
And for me, calling the guards to your help when the quest never mentionned them or even needed them in the first place is big. Really big. Should you make guards with shitty blockstats to let the players shine and be cool ? Should they be overpowered and deal with the situation without help ? Should they be as good as the players and put in question why they are even needed ?
Lots of questions that I don't really have fun answering live during a game.
I'm curious for your example thought : Guards finds who gave them their quest tells them to hire a better adventuring party because again why not go to guard in first place if not?
Well, why not go to the guards in the first place then ? The answer out of game is obvious : the fun is having a quest be done by the players. Ingame, it would be a reason that the person cannot go to the guards. Which sure, you can plan ahead in case your players have the very bad habit to go and get help everytime they have a challenge to do. But it's more work. More work for the DM already doing so much for everyone's fun, including his own.
So you are correct. It's a cop-out. But if I were to always plan everything all the time just in case my players went to the guards, I'd probably eventually just say fuck it, and tell my players guards will not help you solve quests because I do not want to keep doing this.
And I think calling upon the guards is like going into a forest randomly. And that how YOU deal with this at YOUR table with YOUR players are 3 things that will make the answer to : what do you do when this happen ? very differents. My players, at my table, will be dealt a certain way with these things that will not work elsewhere. Because it's tailored made for them.
In the end, remember. If you're not having fun doing something, don't do it. Even if that thing is always having to find a reason for why guards won't help you.
Haha yeah it was good pun.
This is often a problem with dnd discussion that can create discourse. Based on how different we run our table and worlds.
In my world the guards are the patrolling force of city. They are there to create connections local people, throw out Barthus when she has drank to much. To collect information about Grazth boy that run away for the third time and bring her home from drydock. To deter people from trouble. But when it it looks like shit is about hit the fan, Ozloth comes in bloody claiming he saw Kobols in the pasture.
They call in cavalry that are adventure partys.
this loud bunch that came in to town with weapons, armor and training.
Because they expect adventure to be the swat team of my world.
Because you lose two guards because you want to seems big and scary is that really more intimating? Then having money to splurge to get adventure party to wipe out the bandit camp and still have your guards?
now to our sudden drop of department in our supposedly deadly fight against demon Morlucka the swamp king.
I would be weird but I would let them use all the power. If they convinced the department to come down and now they are 35 vs my 9 cultist that is how it is. I think it is a good win for them and I think the player would just think it a cool moment when they "tricked" the GM.
I don't think would be worth prepping for stuff like that. I would just grab my guard stat block and just roll with it. But I understand completely for someone who prefer more prepare that would not be fun answering all the less fun questions.
To be fair, if I had a week of preps between them making the king agree to send his forces with them against the cult in the woods and the actually woods themselves, I would be more opened to allow it to happen than if the session STARTED with this and then straight to the woods.
It might be actually the deal breaker/maker. When do they do this in the session, as arbitrary as it sounds. Do they give me time to plan this ? My answer to them will probably follow the answer to this question.
Absolutely. That’s why I love when big decisions happens at end of session. Okay you figure out now what I prep to next week.
Instead 10 minutes into session what if we just burn down the whole forest? and all you do lay down screaming when instead of choosing 3 boxes they decided for 6th box.
I think that’s justified to murder them then.
Indeed. Glad we agree. Recently they were making their way into an undead-assieged town and I straight up asked them : ok, where exactly to you go next ? And I just draw a line following their saying and I knew exactly what to prep. If the next time they would tell me : hey, we changed our minds, then my answer would be : ok no probs but I have zero preps. Enjoy your theater of the mind.
To be explicit, I never meant : never go talk to the guards, ever. What I mean is that using the authorities as a magic button to solve problems is bad.
What is GOOD is using authorities to create adventures. If for example, you want the guards to raid a bandit camp that is currently the objective of the quest, then convincing them to do so should be as hard and as fun as raiding the camp itself.
But decent guards wouldn't need convincing. They would at least check it out. Unless they suck as guards, or are bad guys's guards. So either they have no reason to refuse straight up "until you convince us tee hee hee", or they are incompetent, or they are the bad guys.
This is a blanket statement btw, I'm sure it's possible to do something that proves me wrong. But we're talking generalities here, not exceptions.
I'll end by saying that even thought players can always go talk to the guards and get help from them, there is an unwritten rule that if the DM gives a task to the players to do, they aren't really supposed to ship it to the guards and call it a day. There has to be something done by the players that makes the session fun and adventurous.