Dearest Veeky Forums

Dearest Veeky Forums,
hear me out for just a moment as there's a moral/ethical dilemma currently dividing the party I'm currently dming that I would like an outsiders/meta opinion on:

>Low-level party manages to prevent a local gang of Ogres from utterly raiding and raping a town.
>The town has no money, but the local lord has 1 very special item he gave the party as a reward: a VHS tape.
>Anachronistic Items can potentially be worth THOUSANDS of gold pieces and the party is thrilled to receive the item.
>It takes 2 in-game weeks, but eventually the party finds an appraiser in a large city who's actually capable of playing the VHS tape and seeing if it's worth a lot or A LOT.

>The VHS tape is the video diary of a child: recording their dreams, aspirations, & hopes, for their future/grown up self.
>Appraiser says the content of the tape is itself worthless, but he can record over the tape, sell it as new, and split the generous profits.

Cue MILDLY massive fucking debate:
-One player thinks while it isn't "100% evil, it is 100% a cock move" to just sell someone's -let alone a child's- diary and private property. Thinks they should at least TRY to find the owners time-period relative before pawning it off.
-One player is offended they're even having this discussion and just wants the money. Kid could be from 200 years or 1,000 years in the future- it might even be from the PAST, they don't know; it's high-effort, low reward.
-Third player is on the fence. Just wants to adventure, etc.

You've been caught up.
Thoughts?

Your game sounds stupid and boring. If you want to take a philosophy class, do that and leave my hobby alone.

Sell it for profit. Its worthless to the extreme relatives and the childs dreams can live on with me.

...

You know.... technically trash on the street is private property and if picked up (and thrown away) is theft.

Your group needs to drop out of college (or at least ignore their social studies).

As a player? I'd be interested in finding out more about it before selling it off, since it seems like a cool plotline to follow. Realistically the chances of actually finding any info is probably close to 0, and there's no guarantee of reward, but actually following up just sounds way cooler to do as an adventurer.

Record over or destroy it. If it's really from the future it could cause a universe-destroying paradox someday. Best not to take the chance

It obviously a plot hook. Deliver the tape to the child for grand reward, adventurer!

What I'd do is just sit back and let the players argue about it. Maybe have the buyer round up a few of his minions because he doesn't want the argument getting violent in his shop. Then I'd have him say something like:
> I've had trouble with adventures stealing back stuff they sold me before, so I'm not willing to buy this from you unless you all agree to sell it.

Then I'd sit back and let the players argue it out.

Maybe have the buyer ask the players how they intend to start looking and pointing out:
- How their plans are likely to fail.
- That the VHS tape risks being damaged if they carry it around with them.

Whatever the players agree upon I'd go with. If they sell it, they get the gold. If they keep it, expect them to be frustrated.

You have no particular reason to try to track down where the tape originated, so selling it is a-okay. What the new owner does it is not your responsibility.

Fuck, I might steal that.
They'll hate that, but in the good way.

Finding the owner sounds pointless to me, and trying to track down a living relative even more so.

The child's privacy seems meaningless considering they're not even from the same time period, so personally I'd have no objections to selling the tape. But of course it also depends on the characters. If the characters have objections to violating the priacy of someone who in all likelihood doen't even exist yet and won't for hundreds of years, can't they just make sure that the appraiser tapes over the recording right away instead of watching it first?

>The child's privacy seems meaningless
You know the best way to respect the childs privacy ?

Turn off the tape the moment they realize it's a private diary. Not go around looking to show it to the kids family

That's a good point as well.

Go right ahead. Personally I like it when players get into arguments, as that eats up session time without using stuff I've planned. So I don't have to plan as much for the next session.

Another option: The buyer is lying about the value of the recording. He wants the recording for himself for some reason. For example, he knows that the child grew into someone of importance and wants to use the recording for blackmail. So he will not be happy with the PCs keeping the tape.

What I want to know is, what kind of setting is this that allows shit from the *future* to be in the past? Wouldn't that cause all sorts of time paradoxes?

Write the diary down on paper or plastic, or whatever is used in the world for writing things down. You of course won't be able to save it 100% but this will be at least something.

Sell the tape.

This way you save the information (mostly) and get the money.

Who said it was set in the past ?

It wouldn't be the first post-apocalyptic future with fantasy races I've seen.

Why would you want to save the information? It's some kid's diary.

>Why would you want to save the information? It's some kid's diary.

Maybe not the kid's diary itself, but any contextual information or whatever that could help find the kid or ancestor/predecessor: name, maybe any location visible, etc.

Dunno, that's what I'd figure at least.
Maybe a transcript of what he said- never know what could be weirdly important.

There is always a chance that kid is now an evil immortal cyborg pirate overlord and diary may help to stay alive a little longer after you meet him.

>Another option: The buyer is lying about the value of the recording. He wants the recording for himself for some reason. For example, he knows that the child grew into someone of importance and wants to use the recording for blackmail. So he will not be happy with the PCs keeping the tape.

That is also an extremely useful idea and wouldn't be terribly out of character for the buyer in the first place.

I'm pretty sappy and even I think that the discussion is retarded. Who gives a shit? The kid doesn't. The relatives don't. The buyer? Obviosuly not.

Sell that shit.

Recording over it seems utterly heartless. I'd keep it, try to find the child's relatives or descendants or something. You can always get more money elsewhere.

Would they want the diary if the kid on the tape died before they were born ?

Would they be willing to pay for it ?

Can they even view it ?

It's just a diary. If they lost it they obviously didn't care enough about it.

If it was the diary/magic tome/book of shadows of a spellcaster, your party would have no problem whatsoever using or selling it for power and money.

Be cheap, look at the vid (because what if there's a plothook hidden in the diary, and the kid is now a lich or something?), make a duplicate, not in a VHS but as an illusion or whatever works in your world, and then sell it.

>just a diary
>JUST
Collectionists or archeologists would probably pay absurd amounts of money for it anyway, not because it's a diary but for the contextual information about the time-period.
Do not destroy the info!

>Collectionists or archeologists would probably pay absurd amounts of money for it anyway
If there are any with enough money to spend.

Try turning it into a plot hook.

If they wipe the video, then have it so it's impossible to wipe the video. Regardless of what they do, the VHS will Always have the message. The VHS also has an odd habit of rewinding itself and repairing itself. It seems to be in an almost pristine condition like a temporal field is always active around it. This is why its in such good conditions.

So sell it to them, then.

Post apocalyptic settings.
The favorite setting to justify player indiscriminate mass murder aside from fantasy.

fuck off retard

If you can find them.

>Who said it was set in the past ?
>Kid could be from 200 years or 1,000 years in the future- it might even be from the PAST, they don't know

>it might even be from the PAST, they don't know
so you're agreeing with him

>Tape is from the distant past
>Kid is now a powerful evil lich
>Delivering it causes him to remember his millenia old dream of becoming a good guy/hero like his soldier daddy
>He changes his ways and starts helping the world with his undead army and magic
I'm just saying, it's not impossible.

>so you're agreeing with him
Yes?

Not every post on Veeky Forums is out to get you, user.

hi

This. Your game sounds dumb. Just fucking shack up in the village for a bit and move on. Nobody gives a shit.

Let your playgroup decide on what they want to do. Take votes. Go with the majority's decision. If it's a tie, then roll a die to give the deciding factor to one the player's. They decide what to do with it.

If they choose to follow after the lead, then adventures ensue.

If they choose to erase the contect and hock off tape, then have negative effects starting to happen to the viewers of said content. Maybe slowly mutating into a deformity day by day. And they have to find out how to break the curse.

Adventure ensues either way.

OP, I have to ask - did you intend anything to come of that tape?

cowboy bepop

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fuck off tripfag

Dude, if he isn't attention whoring ,just SHUT THE FUCK UP, you're not contributing and bitching about something that doesn't FUCKING MATTER.

>OP, I have to ask - did you intend anything to come of that tape?

Would you believe me if I told you I in no way thought this would happen?

I have a roll-table specifically for old VHS tapes (a common anachronistic item) content and what I rolled for the tape was, "home movie", so I just improvised there and then....The next closest roles were: "Comedy sitcom(think Seinfeld), and "not Disney film".

Yeah!

>replying to tripfags
>calling attention to tripfags
It's almost as if you're feeding the sense of recognition that makes them do it.

What kind of hero deletes a kid's diary? Fucking keep it, you mindless nerds.

What kind of shit story are you playing that you'd even consider throwing something like that away?

These guys fucking get it.
Most people on the thread don't.

It's inherently attention whoring, genius.

Why not just take a letter of everything the tape said, possibly pay an artist to take a good sketch of the kid in the tape as well?

Then you have all the info on the tape assuming you ever find anyone that the info is valuable too, and can tape over it safely.

Bumpin' the thread while I read it.