On Player Agency, Murder Hoboism, and Campaign Premises

Our group has descended into murder hoboism. A couple of sessions ago, the posse rolled into Silver Town, headquarters of the Black Knights, an evil organization of fallen Templars. The Black Knights also had a black dragon, Spew, as an ally. Spew in turn was allied (or controlled or was controlled by) a human known only as the Acid Queen. This mysterious figure was clad in armor complete with a great helm and rode on the back of the dragon as it terrorized the land.

Based on the character backgrounds I had been given, I decided that the Acid Queen was actually Sarah Li, daughter of Jet Li the kung-fu fighter. During the session, Jet found out about his daughter being the Acid Queen, bringer of death and woe to an entire region of the campaign world. Then, Jet and the posse were captured by the Black Knights and sentenced to death. Just before they were to be executed, the posse convinced the Black Knights to summon the Acid Queen.

Jet and his daughter met. Sarah, the Acid Queen, was young, perhaps 15 years old. One side of her face and body were horribly scarred, perhaps by the dragon's acid. Sarah was not sympathetic to the posse's or her father’s plight. She did say, however that the leader of the Black Knights hated a Templar, Joseph, Marshall of the Temple of Swords. Perhaps if the party killed the Templar, the Black Knights would let the posse members live?

The posse knew that the Templars were working to restore civilization and trying to make the world a better place. Nevertheless, they agreed to kill Joseph to get out of their predicament with the Black Knights. If they failed in their mission, Sarah (a.k.a. the Acid Queen) and her dragon would hunt them down and turn them into steaming piles of goo.

The party drove to the Temple of Swords and promptly killed Joseph. In the ensuing combat, three posse members died. After the session, Jet Li’s player was so appalled by the actions of his fellow players that he retired Jet and created a new character.

After the session, I had a talk with the players and told them that they were on the verge of losing a role-playing game. They had made Hell on Earth even worse. The murder of Joseph the Templar would raise the local Fear Level. Their enemies were now stronger.

The players did not exactly show remorse, but they acknowledged the premise of the campaign world: that they were the good guys fighting against overwhelming evil. Their job was to fight tyranny and injustice, defeat monsters (human and otherwise) and drive back the darkness. Doing so would reduce the Fear Level in a certain area and make the world just a little bit better. This is what they had agreed to when we started the campaign.

It was this premise that influenced my thinking process during the session. I forced the PCs into a difficult situation and then hoped to watch them get out of it. What would they do with a dragon stalking them? This was not really supposed to be a situation were the posse was to make a difficult choice: should they kill a good man to save themselves?

So, we soldiered on for a couple of more sessions. One of the replacement characters had the Wanted Hindrance. We determined that she was wanted by the Law Dogs, another organization doing their best to rebuild civilization and make the world a better place. Her character was wanted by a particular NPC who had been a sheriff before the Boom.

During the last session, I had the posse roll up on a road block. A pack of Law Dogs was stopping traffic and searching for the wanted character. Then the wanted character saw the sheriff, the man who was after her. Naturally, the posse pulled their guns out and starting killing anything that moved. The sheriff and the other Law Dogs went down in a hail of lead.

Once again, I had a discussion with the players that they were losing at a role-playing game. The Fear Level would go up. Their enemies were now stronger. Their actions had cost them the possible aid of another organization. All this, because the players would not accept the premise of the campaign.

Just as before, my discussion with the player was based on the premise of the campaign. The PC's Wanted Hindrance was meant to provide some interesting role-playing and decision making situations. What would the posse do when confronted with a seemingly impossible situation?

During the next week, I was making plans for the next session. I was not certain how to proceed, as the PCs had burned so many bridges. They could continue forward and keep murdering people with reckless abandon. That would be boring, as their would be no justification or motivation to their actions beyond simple bloodlust. I could send legions of Templars and packs of Law Dogs after them, but that would just show the bankruptcy of the campaign premise.

So I decided to end the Hell on Earth campaign.

I Am Not a Horrid GM

In response to a post at Crypt of Rabies:

In Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition group at Facebook Douglass Tanner posted this:

I am a horrid DM.

1. I use a screen.

2. I fudge dice rolls (both in favor and against the characters, to promote more strategy.

3. I don't give them details they did not look for.

4. I use encounters that are under them, over them and in range of them.

5. I give few magic items out, and when I do its random.

6. I give out lots of $ and allow them to try and find an item or buy one. With % roll that it even exists in the city/town they are in.

7. i do not use modules, I use a home made world every time.

I don’t consider myself a horrid GM, but I’ll give a description of my GMing style based on these 7 points.

1. I do not use a screen. I play Savage Worlds and most of the rules are consistent enough to remember. I did use a screen for years and years when I played Dungeons and Dragons. I do sometimes miss having a ready reference to a table or chart right in front of me. If I really wanted, I suppose I could have a screen and just lay it flat on the table, consulting it when necessary.

2. I do not fudge dice rolls. I always roll out in the open. Savage Worlds characters are incredibly robust if the GM (that would be me) is generous with the Bennies. So I do not feel the need to fudge. In addition, rolling in the open takes personalities and emotions out of the equation. If an orc has a chance to attack a PC with 3 Wounds or a PC with no Wounds, I always roll a die with even chances to see which character gets attacked. If the character with 3 Wounds get hit again and goes down, well, them the breaks. Fate is fickle.

3. I do give them details they did not look for. I have tried to move away from asking for a Notice check to notice random details about an area. If the PCs are not under pressure, then, yeah, they’re going to find the tracks or the MacGuffin.

4. I use encounters that are under them, over them, and in range of them. Savage Worlds does not have an official way of measuring the power of NPCs or monsters that are fighting the PCs. I actually like this. There is an element of the unknown and danger whenever the party is about to interact with potentially hostile forces. It opens the players to considerations other than combat. How about diplomacy, or sneaking, or simply going the long way around, instead?

5. I give out very few magic items. Savage Worlds operates under a different paradigm than D&D and magic items are not quite as necessary or expected.

6. I don’t care about $. By extension, the PCs don’t either. I allow the party to try and find any item or buy one. I sometimes use a Streetwise roll to see if it even exists in the city/town they are in.

7. I do not use modules. I do use published settings for Savage Worlds. I will scavenge ideas, maps, cool locations, interesting NPCs, etc., from all sorts of published materials to use. Most Savage Worlds settings have savage tales (a brief synopsis of an adventure) or a plot point campaign (a list of savage tales united by a common enemy, overarching story, theme, goal, etc.).