The Campaign Builder's Guild

It's also fun to throw em for a loop when it turns out the local tavern owner is friends with several orcs and takes offense at your hunting of their kind (and similar such things).

Ah, if you're set in pre-legal times, then you're going to need to focus on the vengeance, feuds, and fear that would surround a character or a party known for egregious acts of violence. Then again, in some circles, such acts could earn them fame and respect.

I'm not sure what you're looking for then. If you do not want them to always turn to violence as a solution, you're going to have to stop rewarding them for violence. If you simply want them to consider what they have done, you might need to hand out some sort of bonus for good roleplaying, or possibly have NPCs comment on how heartless and cold certain PCs are.

Kindling: Morality is a difficult thing to convey in a game if you are trying to avoid mechanical solutions to roleplaying problems. A Good aligned character will probably feel bad for killing a mortal (an evil outsider or dragon or other creature that is "Always Evil" is another story), even if it was in self defense or for the greater good. A Neutral character, though, might have these pangs of morality, but it is quite possible that they wouldn't. An Evil character almost definitely wouldn't. I do not know your players or their characters, so I figured that having murder be illegal (even in medieval times I would assume killing someone who has favor with the rulers will warrant some type of trial that the murderers have little chance of surviving) would be a good way to have them consider other options; or at least some crazy planning to implicate one of their enemies.

Quote from: Leetzwell, I think it is extremely difficult to force PCs to roleplay the after effects of violence, plus I'm not sure if it would be all that exciting.

*snip*

Your group would have to be very very into roleplaying, which seems like it's not particularly the case considering your campaign is hack n slash

First of all, I really really don't want to "force" my players to do anything! :P Secondly, as I think I've stated above, my game is combat-heavy but not, to my mind, pure hack-and-slash. Even if it was, I think you seem to be imagining a more extreme consequence than the kind I'm looking for. Steerpike's suggestion is almost perfect for what I want, as it lets them know that their actions are "real" violent rather than "computer-game" violent, without actually making them think that combat should necessarily be avoided. It's something subtle like that that I'm imagining rather than trying to, I dunno, get the players to read ten-minute eulogies for their victims after every fight.

Quote from: Luminous CrayonIf you're not going to do that, work with in-game tools to stop unsavory before it happens, not after it happens. Frankly, a lot of players are accustomed to games where violence is the primary, obvious solution to most problems-- it's a pretty long-established and well-known convention of the hobby. If you introduce a situation that looks like it might possibly be solved with violence, and players choose to solve it with violence, and then you punish them for choosing the obvious solution, your players would be right to consider that a suckerpunch.

Again, it seems from your reply, I haven't been clear enough. I don't want to stop them resorting to violence, or even really discourage them, what I'd like is for there to be some kind of a negative result as well as the positive "oh we win the battle now we can progress with the story/rescue the kids/escape with our lives" result. I don't think the negative should outweigh the positive, at least not most of the time, otherwise the PCs simply won't be able to function in the action-driven plotlines I have drawn up.

Quote from: Tillumnifor something poignant, if they have killed someone, but not buried them and return/passes by the area at some later point.

let them see a humble grave, or just a simple tombstone, the bodies buried by a random person that had arrived after they have left and decided to honout the unknown dead.

no consequens, heck, the people killed could very well had deserved it, but it might just make them pause abit.

Quote from: NomadicIt's also fun to throw em for a loop when it turns out the local tavern owner is friends with several orcs and takes offense at your hunting of their kind (and similar such things).

These two ideas are both great in their quick-and-easy subtlety. They won't disrupt my game too much, but they will still show very real consequences. Exactly the sort of thing I was after :)

Quote from: XeviatKindling: Morality is a difficult thing to convey in a game if you are trying to avoid mechanical solutions to roleplaying problems. A Good aligned character will probably feel bad for killing a mortal (an evil outsider or dragon or other creature that is "Always Evil" is another story), even if it was in self defense or for the greater good. A Neutral character, though, might have these pangs of morality, but it is quite possible that they wouldn't. An Evil character almost definitely wouldn't. I do not know your players or their characters, so I figured that having murder be illegal (even in medieval times I would assume killing someone who has favor with the rulers will warrant some type of trial that the murderers have little chance of surviving) would be a good way to have them consider other options; or at least some crazy planning to implicate one of their enemies.

I'm sorry, but I don't quite see the point you're trying to make with the alignment stuff. I understand everything you're saying about the D&D alignment system, but, I'm not using it, and even if I was, what is it you're actually suggesting?

As to the idea of legal repercussions, it's a good idea, of course, I was just a bit shocked by the vehemence of your earlier statement, and wanted to see you go into a little more detail :)

QuoteAgain, it seems from your reply, I haven't been clear enough. I don't want to stop them resorting to violence, or even really discourage them, what I'd like is for there to be some kind of a negative result as well as the positive "oh we win the battle now we can progress with the story/rescue the kids/escape with our lives" result. I don't think the negative should outweigh the positive, at least not most of the time, otherwise the PCs simply won't be able to function in the action-driven plotlines I have drawn up.

Do you actually want to encourage your players to change their behavior, or are you just looking for ways to complicate the story, so that killing your problems doesn't necessarily make them go away?

If the former, are you trying to encourage a game where enemies might be defeated but are not usually destroyed?

I am honestly a little bit confused about your goals here.

Haha, yes, I think maybe I am too! Throughout the course of this thread so far I think I've come to realise that what I'm after is not as simple as I imagined it was when I first posted.

Maybe a list-type format would help me get it straight...

What I don't want:
- The PCs to stop using violence
- The PCs to be completely unfazed by violence
- The mechanism for showing the consequences of violence to be a statistical one
- The mechanism to be one that will distract from or derail my action-driven plot

I understand that this is a tall order :)
I also see that so far I have dismissed a lot of good suggestions! This is a shame because they really are, as usual on the CBG, great ideas, they're just not what I'm after in this instance.

Maybe we should widen the subject of the thread to apply to the topic in general rather than just my, slightly difficult, needs?
How do you all, in your various games, handle the consequences of violent PC actions? How would you implement this in, say, a game with a very different tone to mine, where politicking and intrigue are more important than a strong sword-arm? In such a game, when killings do occur, assassination by more impersonal methods such as poison might be more common than direct combat. How should the impact on the characters differ between those two types of killing?

In a more intrigue-heavy game the big consequence to emphasize is the political one that emerges after someone`s death.  Kill a major leader, and a power vacuum will emerge in which sons or rivals bicker over inheritances or try to seize power to fill the gap.  Kill even a minor vassal and (in a feudal world) the network of connections will result in ramifications.  Killing a commander will result in battles being lost, etc.

I am getting a handle on this.
Sorry I have not been around.

Whwnever a campaign is created, the laws and actual moralities of the areas played must be considered carefully.  Sounds like you are trying to take a gAME AND BRING SOMETHING BACK INTO IT.

I had a similar situation years ago.  One of things I did to change it was to humanize a lot of my monsters, such as the orcash and gartier races, taking some tribal, normal-game slaughter-fodder, and started integrating these races into civilization, so that for the last 20 years of so, no one just attacks a band of tribal humanoids when they see one.  Even having peaceful relations with some races that are normally racially profiled as evil will help change automatic violence into situational violence.
The players have to be routed into having a good idea when to use violence or not.  In Celtricia, organized violence in town is very rare, as their are normally serious legal and social ramifications.  While there are fights in the docks, etc, Dueling (which is still illegal but common, see above, laws vs morality)or assassination are the violence while in a settled area.

To make violence more real, you need to change the ramifications of violence.  In the IRC game, Toden, an NPC, lost an arm to a were.  Hamish was greviously wounded in the shoulder and nearly suffered a major scarring.  If you have PCs that use violence heavily, violence should leave a mark.  Are your fighters scarred and gnarled, perhaps suffering some permanent debilitating conditions from all their time in the trenches? Or do they somehow end up fighting 20 major fights over 2 weeks and after being healed, are they fresh as a daisy.
show PC's the other side of violence.  wandering through a village of dead goblins and hobgoblins, after an intramural squabble, with dead children and mothers and elderly who were slain trying to protect their loved ones might re-sensitize.  Also, having someone close to the PC's suffer from violence is important to this resensitizing.
In terms of larger institutions, is there any non-violent options?  is there anyone preaching peace?  Any large social group that looks askance at the PCs for thier direct methods?  In Miston, a huge metropolis, there are huge swaths of the population and religion that consider the violence of Celtricia a remnant of the bygone days, and unless a country is in open war, they will look down at overly violent PC's as thugs and treasure hunters, if not out-and out murderers.  You don't need to have everyone see them this way, but by having an opposing , popular view, it gives the PC another view.

Am at work.  Hope that was helpful.  More later.

I agree with the reputation suggestion made by Steerpike. Many players will want to use violence, but as one of the "heroes". Eventually, if they keep being nasty towards too many people, let cities close the gates on them, send bounty hunters after them, offer them no hospitality and no jobs. They will then either have to redeem themselves or go into exile.
Another thing you should keep in mind is the difference between aggressor and defender. Defending yourself, or someone else, is almost always honourable. Attacking somebody outside of a formal battle is considerably less accepted.
You could have people or young teenagers charge up to them in a street and challenge them to duels or something like that.
Also, you could have them employed by some young idealistic lord who wants them to perform some deed but without harming any of the guards fatally. Just to let them know that other characters still see their victims as people.

Someone mentioned it previously, but I suggest talking to the players if you want to change the tone of the game. It's usually a more effective solution than trying to fix a mindset problem in game.

Also, if the problem is that the players are not taking violence seriously, I see two possibilities:

1) The players don't take it seriously because they are not used to that kind of game. They expect to be shooting aliens in Halo, as you put it.

2) The players are aware, and are choosing to play amoral characters or even sociopaths. This is the Dark Ages right. Many people did not see violence the same way we see it now. Maybe they want to play their characters as seriously jaded, even twisted bastards.

Either way, you need to find out which, and find out whether the players are willing to change, before you alter a campaign which is working. Drastic changes in a campaign can kill it--if the players are not a part of the decision to change.

Are the NPCs actually behaving like they value their lives and take the prospect of death and injury seriously? Do they run away or beg for mercy when it looks like they're about to be overcome by the PCs? Do they react with much emotion when they see their comrades fall?

Quote from: KindlingI'm sorry, but I don't quite see the point you're trying to make with the alignment stuff. I understand everything you're saying about the D&D alignment system, but, I'm not using it, and even if I was, what is it you're actually suggesting?

As to the idea of legal repercussions, it's a good idea, of course, I was just a bit shocked by the vehemence of your earlier statement, and wanted to see you go into a little more detail :)

I'm not entirely sure what point I was trying to make really. I'm on a lot of pain killers right now so it's very possible that I interpreted something incorrectly and went off on a pointless rant.

What I think I was saying was in reaction to your mentioning of moral relativism and the issues of legality over conscious. I was saying that not all characters are good or even neutral, especially in a game without alignment. In a game without alignment, players can often slide into the habit of doing what is the most convenient, rather than doing "what their character would do". Without a "LG" or "CN" on their character sheet, some players (obviously not all) can forget what they intended to do with their character. Thus, murder (actual murder and not simple killing) can become an acceptable solution to problems if players become disconnected. Heck, their characters could simply be evil murderers; I'm trying to explain myself in as broad as terms possible. I've seen a few players do this, even in games that were rather character driven. I have seen most of my players do this when we run combat heavy games. I've seen all of my players do this in video games, taking not only the easier paths but also doing out of character things just for the rewards offered.

I'm not saying that your characters would. I was trying to broaden the discussion, since you said this could be a broader discussion. So, to cover all bases, if morality doesn't make characters at least take a second to consider their options rather than simply stabbing their problems away, then laws could.

Maybe I've been analyzing Cartman from "South Park" too much lately. =)