Hi Veeky Forums

Fuck with them. Seriously.

Send a rust monster their way. Have someone steal their stuff. Have another would be warlord try to encroach on their turf.

OP, did you sit down with the players and discuss what kind of campaign you were trying to run?
You said you had new players, did you tell them the nature/tone/theme of the game, or did you just tell them to make characters?

Google Pablo Escobar Search Bloc and Los Pepes

Pablo Escobar thought he was untouchable until all the people he fucked over united.

Maybe your PCs need that.

>OP, did you sit down with the players and discuss what kind of campaign you were trying to run?
Somewhat but probably not explicitly enough, which I'm rectifying now of course. I had strongly encouraged the majority of people to make characters towards the LG end but half of them nodded and wrote 'neutral'.

>played RPG's for 11 years
Holy fuck, are you trying to boast credentials over playing RPGs on Veeky Forums? Many of us have played for almost a decade or more.
The simple fact is that it's a matter of players. I have a group that likes interesting character arcs>overarching plot>>Combat>Setting. They honestly don't care about the settings I make in the slightest (a slight bummer), but seem to get really hooked by solid NPCs and aiding them in their quests, or when their own characters have major development or even a cool or fitting end.

I mean sure; but it's not something I find particularly enjoyable from the player side. It really limits player agency.

Honestly? When they get bad have a rival but good aligned adventuring party come after them.

Play them like fantasy swat. Research done to track the party of murder hobo's down.

1. Follow the trail of corpses!

Paladin leader who organizes the others, monk second as dedicated mage killer and secondary moral compass, cleric third of the god of healing for when your murder hobo's get a swing in, only to see it disappear, and a bard fourth, because charming the fighter into fighting against his "friends" is a classic.

Utilize heavy CC, maximize your spells, and really illustrate the mileage the paladin is getting as he smites party members for their evil deeds.

Bonus points if you can drop one or more PC's in the opening volley.

If they fail to escape rp the court scene as you trot out their various villainies for the world to see. Everything they've done that may have been recorded/divined.

Make them respond in a zone of truth spell. No lies, correct them immediately if they try to tell a lie, punish them for it.

Then when the summary order for execution is given and they are trotted out to the headsmen, have the paladin plead for mercy on their part. perhaps they have done SOME good in the world, and perhaps they will do some good again.

Hard labour on monster island for these motherfuckers then.

Now they have to escape monster island without equipment or the idle trust of shit eating peasants to give them the opening shot.

If they don't like it? Fuckin leave. I've played with groups that just want to murder hobo around. Theres nothing you can do to change that short of miraculous acts of GM'ing, this is how they get their rocks off. Keep the one player who didnt want to act like a fucking retard and start advertising wherever you may for players.

1 in 10 will be worth keeping.

Telling them an alignment is not explaining the tone of the game.
You fucked up hard, OP.

>You fucked up hard, OP.
Not that hard, it's fixable.

I can swat them in various ways, that's not really the situation, it's that I don't want to. I want to 'get them back on track' before they go too far.

Maybe he should switch to a picaresque structure of location-based adventures, rather than trying to take them along the ride through a plot.

If the players realize that they can't meaningfully fail, except for when the DM's """"plot"""" allows, of course they are going fuck around. The DM's story probably isn't that interesting from the moment to moment experience of playing the game.

well then, sit down over coffee with them, and address the issue as if they were perhaps mature and reasonable adults. lay it out for us.

don't try to finangle in game, or coerce. they already sound tone deaf.

tell them you want to game in a certain direction to maximize your fun as the story teller and you would appreciate their cooperation.

Most folks dont mind too much if you're up front about it and back up your request with polite reasoning.

> I want to 'get them back on track' before they go too far.

Have you considered not railroading your players? Your story probably isn't that interesting, or lacks interesting gameable content - so the players have taken it upon themselves to make their own.

I haven't said anything about the story and I'm not railroading.
They're not making up their own story, they're just fucking around being tough guys who aren't afraid of anything.

It's also not all the players, it's really just one or two but a couple of the others are too passive to intervene and just follow them and defend them from whoever.

I've got other players who are playing characters who care about consequences.

>well then, sit down over coffee with them, and address the issue as if they were perhaps mature and reasonable adults. lay it out for us.
I was thinking something like a character questionnaire that would explain why their PCs have a reason to care what happens to the world instead of just debating whether the BBEG would pay better.

Players will tell you what kind of game they want to play through their character's actions.

If you want to just run "what would happen if" scenarios, then sure, you can keep tossing enemies at them in an attempt to get them to do what you feel would be more appropriate for the world.

But if you want to them to really have fun and maybe get a cool story, I would suggest embracing what they do.

Afterall, I love a lot of works with asshole protagonists or films about straight up assholes, convicts, murderers, drug dealers, and hit men. Kill Bill, Sin City, Gangs of New York, or Boondocks Saints inspired game can be fun.

They can run into shit aside from guards. Rival criminal enterprises. The same monsters/bandits/cultists and shit that plague other traveling adventuring bands. An ancient Lich who was on the cusp of attaining godhood- up until the party started a drunken brawl in a tavern that killed the virgin barwench whose hand in marriage he needed to fulfill the prophecy.

Run with that shit! One of the most memorable campaigns I ever ran was basically Thelma and Louise in Eberron.

Why shouldn't they smack peasants around? Who's going to stop them?

>Afterall, I love a lot of works with asshole protagonists or films about straight up assholes, convicts, murderers, drug dealers, and hit men. Kill Bill, Sin City, Gangs of New York, or Boondocks Saints inspired game can be fun.
I should clarify that I'm not bothered about them being anti-heroes, it's more that they don't have the good graces to handle being caught well. This means that a minor crime can quickly lead into a death spiral.

Introduce a social structure that bind them. In the case of fantasy medieval games: the three states. Make them chose and written down in their character sheet their liege who they own loyalty to and potentially part of the treasure.

Realise that D&D is not medieval at all. It's closer to an American Western with clear analogies of the untamed frontier and upward mobility that would be completely alien in a medieval, mystical or mythological setting. The only medieval thing about D&D is the aesthetics, nothing more.

That won't stop shit unless someone from that authority comes around to kick their asses.

OP here

>Realise that D&D is not medieval at all. It's closer to an American Western with clear analogies of the untamed frontier and upward mobility that would be completely alien in a medieval, mystical or mythological setting.

I basically agree with you there but...
>The only medieval thing about D&D is the aesthetics, nothing more.
The other thing that is medieval is 'everybody else'. The PCs are the only ones playing a western, everyone else is playing a feudal game. That's essentially by design since fantasy fiction is essentially cowboys in armour. This is all well and good but even anti-heroes don't shoot their friends in the face and who wants to be in a party with someone that will?

most people in our society who perform some sort of vital function in society can answer the hero's call. The key is to be gifted with some sort of awareness the rest of society does not have. They may have seen something or heard of something. They may have special training or be athletically gifted.

>unless someone from that authority comes around to kick their asses.

Precisely.

I'd like to brain storm some question ideas if anyone is bored enough to chip in.
Something like:

As you ride between towns, you spy a merchant being assaulted by bandits in the distance. What would make you ride up and intervene?
* Chance of reward?
* Moral outrage?
* A test of your skills against opponents who won't hold back?
* Duty to the law or to your fellow man (or sentient-creature-like-thing)?
* An opportunity for the best kind of training?
* To build a reputation as dangerous?
* The chance to kill human beings and be applauded for it?

The idea is to shape the idea *in the player's mind* that a character will do the heroic thing, even though privately their reasons might be 'good' or 'bad' depending on their concept.

a chance to get in on the action, join the bandits, beat the shit out of some snooty merchants?

Give them actual consequences for one.

If they're bandits they should be treated like bandits.

or just scam them by saying your lord will hire them as tax collectors on your say so, and that you can write a letter of marquee for a small fee..

Try running something other than DnD.

Directors Cut is built off the idea of Horror Movies. Meaning they run or they die.

CoC is 80% RP, 15% skill checks and only 5% combat. And anything they fight in CoC will probably kill them.

Or play a ultra grit game with ADnD type rules. 3d6 down the line and PCs die easier than most monsters. Focus on the fact that they can die and provide NPCs that won't be DMPCs but rather NPC Characters who can help by either giving advice, equipment (food, tools, ect) or even act as a trap detector.

Also try running shorter campaigns that have a begging middle and End.

maybe i just want to have sex with the merchants corpse.
and am also hungry.

>a chance to get in on the action, join the bandits, beat the shit out of some snooty merchants?
Please make a new character more suited to this campaign.

>or just scam them by saying your lord will hire them as tax collectors on your say so, and that you can write a letter of marquee for a small fee..
Now that's what MY PC would do. Except that I'd have them take the letter of marque to the local guard captain for a stamp that I left in my other pants. Then I'd arrange for the guard captain to pay my reward when they came into town.

>player agency
Player agency is the biggest me me on this board. Players don't know what they want, players are dumb, and they deserve to be punished for their dumb decisions. start murdering random townspeople in 5 seperate towns? now it looks like the PALADINS are coming for them. Frisking every NPC they meet? eventually the local lord will get involved, Mercenaries might get hired, or NPC's seek revenge.

And If I'm railroading you, you will never know I am. Hell I don't even need to, the world is going to exist regardless of weather or not you silly players decide to participate in it. don't pick up any of the plot hooks?/ ignore them? fine that important well will be tainted, that battle will be lost, that person will gain the power, that noble will get assassinated.

And even when i open it up to players to figure out what they want to do. You know, by saying "what would you guys like to do?" you sit there with your two brain cells working in MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE just so you can steal more precious oxygen from the rest of the world, and say idiotic things like "I don't know" or "even though I agreed to read the ONE page intro to the surrounding area that my character would have been raised in that you made for me. I didn't actually do it even though you reminded me and I said I had read it.

Fuck players and their >AGENCY

Putting on my gamedevfag hat here but agency is MEANT to mean that players have the opportunity to enact meaningful change in the game (ie; consequences, good and bad), so really your DM'ing style is perfectly open to player agency, what you're mad about is more like, player pandering or spotlighting player actions only, which I agree, is really retarded and super non-immersive and boring.

>Your story probably isn't that interesting

I've seen murderhobos ruin a story before it starts. Don't underestimate them.

Like, the prologue to the story is on a boat leading to the destination, and they light the ship on fire before they can land.

Give them a following. Make them gang bosses. Take over a crime city.

Then you have adventurers come in and start doing the same shit. They always get away. They have powers comparable to wonder boy. Just when they think they have run them out of town, the parties favorite tavern is burnt down. The people they extorted for protection money are banding together and demanding protection.

A little of the ol 'taste of your own medicine' treatment. And if they don't get it after that, at least you had a successful campaign of being crime bosses.
Bonus objective: the mutinous player has been helpping the enemy party all along.

Real answer: ask them what kind of game they want from the start.

Make it have consequences. NPC getting close to one of your PCs, then inflicting a non-fatal but debilitating injury upon them. NPC expects to be caught and tells how her family was one of the extorted peasants and fell to misfortune. Then, if there's still no remorse, send bounty hunters after them whenever they are in a lull between combat.

From a DM perspective:
It's boring for me because players want to leave THEIR lasting impact on the world, not be a fire extinguisher for the fire that you've started. So they would be less enthusiastic with ideas on how to deal with situations. People are more invested when it's THEIR shit on the line, not some "good" or other bullshit. It's the players' story in your setting, not your story in your setting with players as NPCs.

>they light the ship on fire before they can land.

And wash up on the beach incredibly close to the destination , but missing all their gear.

Learn to keep things moving and provide consequences.

>Holy fuck, are you trying to boast credentials over playing RPGs on Veeky Forums?
Calm down spergotron he's presumably just mentioning it offhandedly, i don't see any boasting from the guy but nice fucking outburst

I wasn't the DM.

>I should clarify that I'm not bothered about them being anti-heroes, it's more that they don't have the good graces to handle being caught well. This means that a minor crime can quickly lead into a death spiral.

Let it lead into a death spiral. In most criminal stories, the criminals DON'T get caught. Not until the very very end when all of the story has already pretty much been told.

And usually, the ride up until then, it IS a situation that spirals continuously out of control. More lies, more killing, more drugs, more crime, etc.

Don't try to deescalate their actions by only sending decent people who are trying to stop them through peaceful/occasionally violent efforts. Escalate them by adding complications and upping the ante- and introducing people who are just as violent and thuggish, but just happen to have conflicting goals and aims- preferably with stuff that the PCs themselves want.

But that's not a hewoic story!

They piss off the wrong guy with their antics, get mocked and roughed up, and hopefully learn they aren't the biggest dishes in the pond. Basically their behavior has consequences.

Over the course of my 12 years of DMing, I've run countless campaigns. The three stand-out best, longest ones, took years and went all the way from 1st level to max level (in different systems.)

None of them i planned out like a book. I just plopped down threats and opportunities and my players did the rest. World-altering calamities, factions, legendary treasures, and so on.

In two of them the PCs were definitely good aligned. In one they were closer to chaotic neutral.

There were hijinks along the way, but the overall stuff that happened felt like interlocking stories with their own arcs. Those campaigns felt like miniseries; not Jackass.

My players just behaved like protagonists for the purpose of stories because they had their characters investigate and seek out whatever it would make sense for their characters to do, and because i kept plopping interesting events down in the game world.

>Realise that D&D is not medieval at all. It's closer to an American Western with clear analogies of the untamed frontier
I'd say Dark Ages Europe, where the collapse of the Roman Empire left a void (and ruins), and positions of authority were more in flux than later on.

Yeah. This is down to players, and there's a kinder middle-ground but this is true. Player Agency means letting them have options when they do whatever they want, but often they don't know what the fuck they want. It's like that old pasta bout Lawful Good; at first, they think they have to be on the plot, and then they realize they don't have to be and all act evil and just fuck around, but eventually they learn if you give them meaty things to give.

One note I love, something EVERY DM should have for anything past a one shot, especially in a custom setting:

>The world exists whether or not you participate in it

This can even provide interesting plot hooks that might catch them more than the initial intro. Hey, see that shifty guy going into that building? Nah, DM, who cares. They might then care once they see on the news that building blew in half like an hour after they were there that night.

Player agency is important, player guidance is your job.

Or an actual example.
>PCs murder X plot device
>Present them Y plot device.
>PCs murder Y plot device.
>Guide them to plot "accidentally".
>They kill people in Plot town making town not like them and run them out.
>Run them out until they get to the actual plot town by "chance"
>Repeat.
>Present Z NPC to guide them into next town.
>PCs murder Z in the streets and shut on a child.

Sometimes it's just bad players. Spoon feeding them won't help, and giving into their weird murderhobo realm is kinda lame.

You can't DM a good story with Bad Players.