Some people will defend this

This is one of the stupidest things I've ever read. Literally the GM decided the player was having wrong bad fun and thought the best option wasn't to go up to him and say "hey man that isn't really the tone we're going for with this game, could you try things a little differently in the future" like a full grown adult, but to just totally remove all agency from the player and just disappear his character from the game like he's punishing a child. The moral of consequences doesn't even make sense because the action and results have no discernable connection to each other. The GM just got booty blasted and decided to be a passive aggressive faggot.
I'm unnecessarily rustled about this.

L5R 4e core.

> Hey, that doesn't sound bad, having the guards comrades come to back to have the PC face the consequences of his ac....
> "You dead lol!"
Yeah no.

How would they even find out that it was the rogue? The situation doesn't specify witnesses.

Game? So i know what not to buy.
Its terrible.
he could have made the parents of the guard dry themself in search of revenge targeting everything dear to teh characters, adding a nice sub-story.
Could have simply made him invetsigated later for the assassination.
Could have made ANYTHING that resembles real consequences and make the player question his character's morals

Instead, we have "im a fucking retarded asshole and i killed your characters because I felt so"

Im terribly rustled by this and now i need to punch someone

it's L5R. Boycotting it means shit because it's propped up by its card game

I think it isn't from a game, but John Wick's "Play Dirty".

The troll trying to tell you it's L5R, well, "Western-style fantasy".

Why else would he even introduce a story by calling something "Western-style fantasy" if it wasn't from a book about something else?

It's L5R. Page 313.

fuck that player. entitled prick

No, it's from L5R's 4th edition.

pdf-archive.com/2014/06/05/l5r-legend-of-the-five-rings-4e-core-rules/l5r-legend-of-the-five-rings-4e-core-rules.pdf

As the other user said, jump to page 313 of the PDF.

If anything, the screenshot doesn't expose the full stupidity of the process, continuing onwards

>The morals of a society are ultimately made by the people living in it. If you live in a neighborhood where crime is rampant, people do not look down their nose at thievery the way someone in a peaceful suburb might. The PCs, as the "stars" of the story, define and magnify the morality of the game world like no one else (except perhaps the villains). If the PCs do not respect others, this is reflected in the state of the world those PCs live in.

>If the world is crumbling around them, and the PCs choose mercy over vindictive slaughter, their actions can change the world. But if the PCs choose to murder in the name of the Emperor simply because the law says they can, their code of Bushido is meaningless, and Rokugan fills with people who espouse the principle of "Might makes Right." The PCs should slowly and subtly find themselves face to face with NPCs exhibiting behaviors very similar to theirs. When the PCs encounter poor manners and negativity flooding every corner of the Emerald Empire, they may begin to see causality.

tl;dr THE PCS SHOULD HAVE MAGICAL MIND CONTROL INFLUENCE OVER LITERALLY EVERYHTING BECAUSE REASONS!

Yes, it really is from the L5R 4e core book, and the writer was trying to figure out ways to get players into the spirit of playing L5R if they wete used to being total dungeon-crawling munchkin sociopaths. The idea was something akin to The Chicago Way: the NPCs behave honorably as ling as the PCs do, but every time the PCs bend the rules to get their way, the NPCs do the same thing but even worse. It's not a great idea because it treats all the NPCs as a single hive mind, not to mention that it's overkill to kill a PC as a substitute for talking to the player about campaign themes before it starts.

Yeah, he's basically saying games should run on Fable logic or something

>some people will defend this

At least he bothers to say that it's better to just kick the shitty player, but yes Gygax has said some sketchy advice over the years. Even his ideas on good vs evil in terms of mercy are sort of surprising

In his day, they weren't telling a story, they were just playing a fucking game.
Hell, the reason so many powerful NPCs in his campaigns were neutral was just so that the 'board' would get reset over time, so that whoever was winning wouldn't keep winning.

>If a player is being a fuckhead he loses 1 charisma.
I see nothing wrong with this.

Actually, this is fine. It's not so much that the culture is changing, but rather that the players, as they become seedier and seedier, begin dealing with the darker sides of that culture, due to their reputation for being honorless curs, and the fact that the seedier parts of the Empire are the only parts that can help them do what they must. This is just preaching tone matching.

Essentially, it's a logical consequence of murder hoboing. If you act like a murder hobo, eventually the only people willing or able to associate with you will be murder hobos, and you can see how fucking annoying you are you twats.

But that's literally not what was said or even implied by the author's statement. Hell, he even talks about cases where the PCs are acting within the bounds of the law of the society they're in, so can't be facing social censure. He's talking solely in terms of dramatics, that the actions of the PCs influence or even control the moral tone of the society they're part of, without ever really explaining why they should have that kind of effect.

It's from the L5R core book, and it's NOT written by Wick. I've read Play Dirty, and the advice in the book is more about making the players work than about being straight up dicks to them.

Wick wrote L5R, just not sure if that specific version.

I'm pretty sure he left AEG before 4e released. He's not credited as a writer at the very least.

The credits on the PDF mention a "special thanks" to John Wick, but don't list him as an author of the rulebook.

Found the rogue in the example.

If your idea of fun is to be disruptive, please leave the table.

>Rob would like to thank
>John Wick, for creating such an amazing world and game for all of us to play in.
It's basically just an acknowledgement that he created L5R.

That makes no sense. The Rogue kills a guard, sees no consequences, and then has his character brushed away into an alley and vanished without a hint of why or what.

An example of showing consequences would be to have something occur that is very clear and links the two events. Right now, the Rogue has no way of knowing that their character was handwaved out of existence because they killed that guard a few weeks ago.

>kill a guard
>get no consequences
>DM randomly kills your character off weeks later

This is a shitty way to handle it regardless of how disruptive you think killing a guard is. If that's your outlook, then at least kill off his rogue right away and tell him what it's for instead of dawdling for weeks.

Honestly killing someone you interrogated is almost never needless, if you interrogate someone you may as well kill them in most circumstances considering, they can identify you and probably know what your after given the nature of your questions.

if you interrogate a city guard you should kill him since hes going to blow the whistle on any attempts at shenanigans.

>get an item the GM regrets giving you
>it gets stolen in the middle of the night

Can it be done well?

No. Man up and let the PC have something good.

If its a magical item of great renown have the original owner come to retrieve it, they first offer to buy it back from the PC's at a verry generous price, if the PCs refuse a fight breaks out, if they win they deserve to keep the item but it wont be an easy fight, though it needs to be winnable to just make an encounter that cant possibly be beaten.

>enemies who might have had nothing to do with a rando guard kill a PC with no fight off-screen in vengeance

this is bad, at least let him go down fighting if you're gonna punish him. this doesn't teach consequences, this teaches that the dm can be vindictive and kill you off without a roll if he wants to, which doesn't make the players have fun.

I think the most objectionable part there is the "You don't know" bit. It completely violates the basic premise of a roleplaying game, ejecting the player from the game entirely.

Yes, but circumstances matter a lot. If the PC got it entirely on accident, then you can safely have it leave "by accident." If it was a reward/result of PC effort, then you should offer some suitable replacement reward.

Regardless of context, they should be able to investigate and at least try to retrieve the object.

I've had the PCs get something cool, show it off in public, then have a guy come and beat him unconscious before taking his stuff including the item.

Shouldn't have been walking around alone in the part of town where he knew the guards don't go because folks will eat a horse from under you. Also shouldn't have done so much bragging to random people in bars. Also should have bought insurance. Only one PC had ressurection or property insurrance. He's seen the benefits, others have gotten buttmad when they lose shit and it isn't insured.

Consequences of dealing with That GM for sure.

I like it, reminds me of the Batman animated episode The Man Who Killed Batman.

Flaunt that kind of power and people will challenge you.

Sure showed them.

>how could an organization that investigates crimes investigate a crime?

>"investigate a crime" means magically find out the killer and track him down when there were no witnesses to the crime
Fuck off.

If they have magic, sure.

>what is speak with dead

Murdering anyone is really fucking stupid when magic exists in your setting.

They could have had access to 21st century forensic technology too.

If your players decide to murder an NPC, you have NO right to refuse them. Now, I know what you're going to say:
>>B-b-b-but muh morals
>>B-b-b-but muh consequences
>>B-b-b-but mommy, forceful interrogation make me scared
Shut up. You shouldn't be DMing. Your players are trying to make something interesting out of your generic, rational setting, and you're throwing it back in their faces. You have NO right to be DMing - just give your notes to one of your players, they can do a better job than you can.
>TL/DR, if you can't handle a murder in a modern setting, you shouldn't be a DM.

A murder is just an extroverted suicide.

This is true, though.

>implying one out of twenty players will step up
I GM because when I suggest someone else doing it my players fucking recoil at the thought. They don't want to put even minimal work into playing the game. If I have to explain how to calculate a save one more time I'm gonna off one of them.

This.
As the GM your work is to guide and immerse the players in an interesting world where they can do what the fuck they want(hopefully staying true to their characters).

the best thing you can do is putting out something interesting from their actions(like, in this, make some shit like a revenge substory of the guard's friends and parents)and definetely NOT killing the player because you didn't liuke how he plays.

This guys should die and the fact people like him can publish shit like this and make money makes me angry.

its literally everything that's wrong in Bad gming.

>Being passive aggressive as a GM

Nigga, you call out dumb shit. Players are monkeys that need to be taught to play well.

That's not even an example. There was no showing going on. There is no way to connect the disappearance of his character with the murder of the guard earlier. No one learns anything.

I would have also killed the rogue. However I would have had the guards who were the guy he murdered's friends parade him naked through the streets and have rioters throw stones at him. Would have been funny as fuck.

Shitty way to do it. Put him against horrible odds due to his previous choices yes, just randomly off his PC like that? Nah. Result would be the same, but the method is very important.

It wasn't even the guards who killed him though

Quite literally no better than saying "Rocks fall, you die" because a player did something you didn't like.

As a total beginner DM (5e), I once gave my Rogue an item that permanently gave him advantage on all DEX checks, at level 2. To say I had zero foresight would be an euphemism.

Here is what went down:
>[Approach the player in private]
>Hey dude, sorry but you know I'm a newbie at DMing. Turns out I really fucked up the game balance
>I need to nerf that ring you have.
>>"Oh. Well fuck, really?"
>Yeah.
>>[Player does not throw a fit, because I do a little bit of screening to not pick total autists.] "That sucks. You just gave me the ring and I was starting to like it but okay."
>The new effect is that you can add 1d4 to one DEX roll, once per long rest, and it can't stack with other d4 bonuses. But trust me, it should still come in handy.
>>"If you say so."

His character woke up to notice the ring's color had dulled a little. And then the problem was solved. The best way to steal an item from a PC in-game is to not do it at all.

>playing in a new campaign
>roll up a rogue
>mostly generic city campaign, interrogating and killing some guards, creating a riot etc
>play for several weeks, we're having fun
>nearing the end of the campaign
>the DM says my character was pulled into an alley and never heard from again
>have no idea where he's going with this
>pretty bummed
>campaign ended pretty badly because of that
>several years later
>read book written by my DM
>writes that he killed off my character because I killed some random guard in an adventure game
>mfw I have no face

>players complain when stupid shit kills them

I think I've talked about before the time my players while traveling talked about killing a camping hill giant (one that told them he just wanted to be left alone) within earshot of the giant and subsequently had their shit pushed in by him. Killed one of them as an example then continued running to make his escape, going back to an area farther down the road where the terrain was to his advantage. The players followed (for some fucking reason) and he butchered the lot of them.

>without ever really explaining why they should have that kind of effect.
I don't know about L5R, but I know decent level characters in D&D are expected to have an impact on local society. As their power increases, more powerful people notice them, same with their fame or infamy.

The whole example OP shows is poorly worded though, or at least should have more building upon it. Say killing the guard understaffs local law enforcement, and crime rises over several sessions. When the riots break out, a group that sees the PC rogue as a rival in their territory decide to take him out, and he knows in part that he's to blame for these guys to even get as powerful as they did in the city. Hitting PCs with karma is GREAT... if they understand it. Otherwise you just come off as an arbitrary dick.

Sounds like you engineered a scenario where you would definitely get a tpk.

Don't act like it's the players' fault for considering killing an NPC. Every single group ever has discussed fighting when it seems necessary. Saying "OH YOU DIDNT SAY 'I WHISPERED IT', ROLL INITIATIVE" and then acting like they asked for it is bullshit. You're a bullshit dm.

No, because that's solving an OOC problem IC. The better choice is to say after a session "I'm a little worried about I intended it to have but it's having and because of that we aren't really able to do What can we do to ?"

Every time this has come up, the suggestions have been change the effect on the troublesome item or replace it with a more limited item and a sack of gold or smaller item on the side. Which worked great for me because I had buy in.

Secretly, I somewhat hope to someday hear "let's get more stuff that does unintended thing because it's awesome and we want to play in that campaign" but so far the quick, reasonable answer has carried the day. C'est la vie.

Nigga u dumb. It is the players fault to discussing killing an NPC they just met in front of him without even trying to properly hide their intentions, an NPC who hadn't so much as lifted a finger in hostility towards them.

I asked them where they went to talk about it. They moved twenty feet away behind a tree, as a group, right after one of them antagonized the giant (which is why the giant told them he just wanted to be left alone). Of fucking course the giant was trying to listen in, they were acting like a massive group of suspicious fucks and the giant wasn't a retard (hell I even had a full character sheet for him with a part of his backstory involving why he had 12 int, which is extraordinary for a hill giant).

So what? The giant should have just gone "well, they walked 15 feet away and are talking behind a tree right after one of them antagonized me, it's probably nothing, I'll just sit here and not listen in". Even then I told them they could hear the giant moving around his camp and metal clanking while they were talking (he was putting on his gauntlets and helmet to get read for a fight, the players assumed he was messing with his soup pot and didn't even bother to look).

The giant even gave them a second chance by downing one of them before moving on, under the assumption the PCs wouldn't give chase. The PCs followed anyway, dragging a dead body with them, after a guy who just showed he was capable and willing to kill them if need be.

No way do I defend this. Killing off the character rewards the shit player by allowing him to make a fresh one. The PC should have been allowed to continue with a serious permanent handicap, that way he'll never forget.

You engineered and asspulled a situation to fuck over your group. Don't try to justify it. You can't.

>years later
>ambush your DM and pull him into an alley
>put a knife to his throat
>"I'm going to kill you now."
>"W-Why?"
>"You don't know."

Nothing personnel, kid.

Forgetting rule 0 of tabletop gaming: it's about having fun with your friends.

That's the headband of intellect giant right? You are still that guy

reeeeeeeeeeeeeeee why should players receive logical consequences

>"We walk out of earshot to discuss group matters"
>Omg his giant ears heard u with his giant brain. He's giant so he has giant hearing, I wrote it on the sheet, see?! U guys deserve to be tpk'd!

Are you actually unable to hear whispers 20 feet away from you? I have hearing damage and that shit's easy, user.

boards.fireden.net/tg/thread/44523899/#44525272

That was over a year ago and he's still mad players didn't want to roll with his giant character.

Why wouldn't a sizeable town be equipped to take down one murderous adventurer?

Not necessarily disagreeing with you, but this is where game mechanics get in the way of common sense.

That's pretty reasonable.
What isn't is waiting weeks for something to happen to that character, maybe wait a session or two at best.

And you're still a whiny poo baby.

Explain where the asspull is. Explain how being attacked was not their own fault.

No, you can't.

If you can hear it from 20 feet away then it isn't whispering.

I mean you might be able to hear that something is being said, but if it can be parsed from 20 feet away with normal hearing then it not low enough to qualify as whispering, it's just speaking with a lowered voice.

YOU need a headband of intellect because you're a fucking moron.

If you honestly think a 9 Wis monster should be able to automatically hear people whispering out of earshot and behind a tree, then you should have your DMing license revoked. The more details you give, the more you show that you're "that DM".

A -1 modifier to perception rolls would make it pretty hard to pass even a DC 15 check and it shouldn't have been any easier than DC 15. You suck.

You didn't even roll lol.

>20 feet away
>out of earshot
That's not how it works.

>Omg his giant ears heard u with his giant brain. He's giant so he has giant hearing, I wrote it on the sheet, see?! U guys deserve to be tpk'd!
Hearing details of a whispered conversation is DC15. At the distance they were it is DC 17. Hill giants naturally have a +6 to perception before being higher level and further investment. You can retry perception checks as long as the stimuli is still there. This means the giant keeps listening and catches roughly half the conversation. That's EASILY enough.

Base hill giants would have heard them.

Hill Giants have a perception of +6.

Hearing a whispered conversation 20ft away is a DC17, meaning they will hear details on an 11+, or 50% of the time. They have to attempt a perception check each round and can keep doing it to catch details that round (action None + retry rules for perception). So the giant, if he is trying to listen, catches roughly 1/2 the conversation.

You guys are dumb.

>yfw organized crime is the real reason necromancy is illegal

>A -1 modifier to perception rolls would make it pretty hard to pass even a DC 15 check and it shouldn't have been any easier than DC 15. You suck.
Hill giants have a +6 to perception checks.

The majority of the responses in that thread are agreeing with him though. I don't see what your point is.

Nice assumptions there fagtron, I'm not the person you think you're responding to.

Hill giants have 10Wis and +6 to perception, I remember this guy's story, the hill giant was also like a level 3 fighter, so that's even more ranks in perception

Their stats are MUCH worse in 5e and that's what I was referencing. I didn't realize anyone even played Pathfinder anymore. It makes sense to me now why he's a "that gm".

>We want to whisper out of earshot.
>INTENT: Party wants to talk in REALLY, REALLY HUSHED whispers so no one can hear them.
>Obvious outcome: Party talks in barely audible whispers. Giant notices suspicious little men making weird mouth shapes.
>Your shit GMing: Party talks in regular loud whispers everybody can hear, because they're too retarded to know how audible a whisper is, so the giant hears them, roll initiative lol.

When your players do something, and there's a sensible way and a less sensible way to do it, assume it's sensible.
If a character who isn't a literal retard secures his rope to something, don't go "ok, unfortunately you only did a overhand knot and that's not enough". They're adventurers, they know how to fucking whisper silently and how to make simple yet secure fucking knots.

He literally used the rules for hearing whispered conversations. You're saying "the rules shouldn't matter when they hurt PCs".

I'm not a part of that long conversation chain, but I do think whispering is a pretty good example of where rules don't really line of with intent. No matter how high the person you're whispering to's perception is you still set the DC at the same number despite how much more quiet you could have been.
However they already agreed to play a broken game, so whatever

???

He didn't specify a system so I didn't make assumptions. If hill giants do have a fuckmassive bonus to perception in PF then sure, why not, he could conceivably hear whispers this subtle, this far away.
I'd still make him roll, though. And if the players don't know about this ability, also probably give them a chance to notice the giant getting angry. Otherwise that sounds like they're getting dicked over for no conceivable reason. And I think a GM certainly shouldn't punish the players for shit they couldn't have possibly known.

It's more about why does it even need rules?

It's trivial in real life to whisper without someone hearing. It doesn't require skill checks.

So in both cases I specified the players heard the hill giant gearing up and getting ready to fight, and didn't check on what the hill giant was doing. The giant didn't start raging, but started getting dressed (helmet going on, gauntlets going on, etc.). The guy was relatively calm because he was used to folks not taking kindly to giants. I personally thought the PCs would not be shoot first ask questions never on a stranger who didn't so much as try and hurt them.

>If hill giants do have a fuckmassive bonus to perception in PF then sure
They have above average, much better than a human's, but not insane. He could heard bits of the conversation, enough to know he was in danger.

>And I think a GM certainly shouldn't punish the players for shit they couldn't have possibly known.
I am not seeing what information they did not have. They knew the hill giant was a hill giant, they can make knowledge checks to know about hill giants. Heck, they could just try to not immediately act enormously suspicious.

A hill giant's hearing is better than a human's to start (a normal human is gonna have somewhere between -1 and +2 to perception, a hill giant +6, this hill giant +13 because he had full ranks in it). Counting what you can hear vs. what it can is not a fair comparison.

>A hill giant's hearing is better than a human's to start (a normal human is gonna have somewhere between -1 and +2 to perception, a hill giant +6, this hill giant +13 because he had full ranks in it). Counting what you can hear vs. what it can is not a fair comparison.

Then wouldn't that be obvious? Ignore the numbers for a second, think about what the players want to do and what the characters would do. hit the nail on the head.

Overall it sounds like a stupid gotcha. "Haha, you only said you were moving 20 feet away and had but a +4 bonus to your stealth checks! The giant hears you!"

Just tell the goddamn players: "Okay, you want to move far away enough so the giant definitely can't hear you? You do that."

If you still want to keep it mechanical, keep that clear. It doesn't need knowledge checks or anything, just let the players know that whispering so close runs the RISK of the giant hearing. Don't let them do a thing then pull the rug from under them.

And this is one of many reasons I'm glad FFG got L5R away from AEG