If the players deserve to feel bad for their actions then let them. There’s nothing wrong with a GM intentionally eliciting a desired emotional response from their players, we do it all the time. Every time they cheer when we wanted them to and we smile, we’ve just done it. There’s nothing even wrong with the emotional response being guilt if they have done something to feel guilty for. But the distinctions between PC (mechanics), character (RP), and player (RPer) is still very significant and far too often overlooked.
Characters shouldn't be made to feel guilty, that should be a choice for the player.
Guilt/regret is also something that is much harder to judge than whether both the players and characters will be happy if they beat the evil dragon. If you know your group well enough and are absolutely sure they'll be ok with it then that's a call that can be made, but it's much more likely to be wrong. Nearly every post that describes having done this in this thread revolves around the killing of a child (including my own, though the child isn't dead in mine and the player can still save the child). I know that my players would absolutely hate the other examples given.
Part of the reason guilty outcomes should not be forced is that either the player has to alter their character's personality to match the DM's design, or they have to decide they simply don't feel remorse (which again may be a change).
Personally I think that if you only offer "the lesser of two evils" then the PCs are being railroaded, there's just a branch in the track. Going Kobayashi Maru allows the players to do whatever they want, even if they fail. Not long ago I ran the siege of a monastery against 3 airships and an army. The PCs could choose to defend the gatehouse, the temple, the stairs to a dungeon, or the civilian area. Depending on which area they did first, events would be different in the other areas they then went to. There was a complex chart for the battle's progression depending on the order they assisted the defenders in (e.g. they don't defend the gate from giants in phase 1, so in phase 2 the giants control the gate, by phase 3 more enemies enter the gate), and there would only be time to go to 3 out of 4.
My players ignored everything I'd planned, cast Fly, flew up and attacked the flagship head on and took it out. This then caused ripples. I was totally surprised by it, and it's the best thing that's ever happened in my game.
I'm not picking up the sentiment that forcing them to feel a thing was the point of Sposta's post, only that setting the stage for the emotion to be ellicited is something that DMs do all over the world. We set up opportunities for fear, and joy, and elation, and regret. If the players choose to do something that causes the feeling of guilt, that's their agency, not DM fiat.
I agree with your opinion of not *making* the players feel guilty. However, setting up the opportunity for them to make that choice is a vastly different thing than the choice being forced. Even in your own description, the players' could have chosen to follow one of the script choices that you had prepared, which marks you among those that would offer the opportunity to make decisions that lead to the feeling of guilt. If you were to remove that consequence from their choice, isn't that also making their choice not matter? Isn't that a railroad?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I didn’t say to force a guilty outcome. You are conflating cause and effect.
They chose to do the thing that they should feel guilty for, I didn’t force it on them. I just showed them the results of their actions in such a way that they couldn’t not feel guilty for what they had chosen to do.
Getting the players to role play "my god, what have I done?" is a lot harder to pull off in my opinion.
That’s easy, just give them a beautiful car, house and wife.
I’ll just show myself out.
That was awesome.
So when making a Once in a Lifetime save, is it a WIS save to recognize the inauthentic unreality of the car, house and wife? Or is a CHR save to "own" your life as it's apparently been given to you without existential anxiety trying to be imposed upon you by the Bard Byrd? Byrne And when casting "Once in a Lifetime" is the bass line an actual component of the spell or is the Bass of Waymouth a spell focus?
Getting the players to role play "my god, what have I done?" is a lot harder to pull off in my opinion.
That’s easy, just give them a beautiful car, house and wife.
I’ll just show myself out.
That was awesome.
So when making a Once in a Lifetime save, is it a WIS save to recognize the inauthentic unreality of the car, house and wife? Or is a CHR save to "own" your life as it's apparently been given to you without existential anxiety trying to be imposed upon you by the Bard Byrd? And when casting "Once in a Lifetime" is the bass line an actual component of the spell or is the Bass of Waymouth a spell focus?
I believe the bard was Byrne, but I’m guessing autocorrect. And the baseline is the component, given Weymouth is so good she could probably play it on four strings attached to a washtub. Either save mechanic seems appropriate, but probably tritons get advantage on those saves, since they are more familiar with the water at the bottom of the ocean.
Meanwhile, everyone under 40 is wondering what these olds are talking about.
I had the players board a ghost ship and start fighting skeletons. The skeletons acted sort of weird, defensively and as though they were terrified.
When the party found a gem in a chest, they touched it and the ship came back to life - rotten planks reformed, peeling paint reappeared, and so on. And the skeletons - they were the crew, and they reformed as well.
The Captain (who was not killed) asks what happened and whether the 5 shades whoich boarded the ship had been destroyed. The party (of which there were 5) realised slowly that they had been shades to the crew, who are lost on a demiplane, and they had slaughtered them to a man. Whoops!
The players felt a bit bad - the captain was very sad about it. I was not too confident roleplaying so I didn't go all-out, I feel I could have ilicited a bigger response!
If the players deserve to feel bad for their actions then let them. There’s nothing wrong with a GM intentionally eliciting a desired emotional response from their players, we do it all the time. Every time they cheer when we wanted them to and we smile, we’ve just done it. There’s nothing even wrong with the emotional response being guilt if they have done something to feel guilty for. But the distinctions between PC (mechanics), character (RP), and player (RPer) is still very significant and far too often overlooked.
This is a wonderful way to put it. The most foolproof way I have found to make a character (and their players at times) feel guilty is to take something they did and play it forward with serious weight when you may have otherwise overlooked it. My most recent example was with a recent encounter I figured my level 1 group would just overlook.
While guarding a caravan on it's travels the PCs were scouting for small game to help supplement the trail rations and came across a large bush with delicious looking berries. A PC had seen movement in the bushes and went to investigate. When nearing the bush, he frightened the Pixie living in the bush who used her illusions to frighten the character, attempting to scare them off. Rather than being intimidated, the barbarian flew into a rage and tried attacking the illusion as the paladin, warlock, and druid closed in. The warlock wanted to scare whatever was in the bushes and said they wanted to fire a blind shot into the bush. I asked them where in the bush they were aiming (having a location chosen for the pixie to be hiding in) and they chose (in)correctly, managing to hit the pixie, completely obliterating it with their spell.
Rather than chuckle with the group as they laugh about him one-shotting whatever was in the bush, I described the sad moment of the feminine giggle that turned into a shriek as the spell hit her. As they inspect the bush I describe in vivid detail what the violent spell did to the poor pixie as the Druid arrived on scene.
All it took was a heartfelt "You MONSTER! Look at what you did to the poor thing!" from the druid and both the character and player had a moment where they had to reflect on their actions. It was a powerful moment for the player and their character all from a trivial 1hp encounter.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I'm not picking up the sentiment that forcing them to feel a thing was the point of Sposta's post, only that setting the stage for the emotion to be ellicited is something that DMs do all over the world. We set up opportunities for fear, and joy, and elation, and regret. If the players choose to do something that causes the feeling of guilt, that's their agency, not DM fiat.
I agree with your opinion of not *making* the players feel guilty. However, setting up the opportunity for them to make that choice is a vastly different thing than the choice being forced. Even in your own description, the players' could have chosen to follow one of the script choices that you had prepared, which marks you among those that would offer the opportunity to make decisions that lead to the feeling of guilt. If you were to remove that consequence from their choice, isn't that also making their choice not matter? Isn't that a railroad?
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I didn’t say to force a guilty outcome. You are conflating cause and effect.
They chose to do the thing that they should feel guilty for, I didn’t force it on them. I just showed them the results of their actions in such a way that they couldn’t not feel guilty for what they had chosen to do.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
That was awesome.
So when making a Once in a Lifetime save, is it a WIS save to recognize the inauthentic unreality of the car, house and wife? Or is a CHR save to "own" your life as it's apparently been given to you without existential anxiety trying to be imposed upon you by the Bard
Byrd? Byrne And when casting "Once in a Lifetime" is the bass line an actual component of the spell or is the Bass of Waymouth a spell focus?EDIT: fixed typos Xalthu pointed out
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I believe the bard was Byrne, but I’m guessing autocorrect. And the baseline is the component, given Weymouth is so good she could probably play it on four strings attached to a washtub.
Either save mechanic seems appropriate, but probably tritons get advantage on those saves, since they are more familiar with the water at the bottom of the ocean.
Meanwhile, everyone under 40 is wondering what these olds are talking about.
GD ... you used the undead head for that? Very effective!
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Thank you. I used the fangs to make it look like her teeth were bashed out too.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
I had the players board a ghost ship and start fighting skeletons. The skeletons acted sort of weird, defensively and as though they were terrified.
When the party found a gem in a chest, they touched it and the ship came back to life - rotten planks reformed, peeling paint reappeared, and so on. And the skeletons - they were the crew, and they reformed as well.
The Captain (who was not killed) asks what happened and whether the 5 shades whoich boarded the ship had been destroyed. The party (of which there were 5) realised slowly that they had been shades to the crew, who are lost on a demiplane, and they had slaughtered them to a man. Whoops!
The players felt a bit bad - the captain was very sad about it. I was not too confident roleplaying so I didn't go all-out, I feel I could have ilicited a bigger response!
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
This is a wonderful way to put it. The most foolproof way I have found to make a character (and their players at times) feel guilty is to take something they did and play it forward with serious weight when you may have otherwise overlooked it. My most recent example was with a recent encounter I figured my level 1 group would just overlook.
While guarding a caravan on it's travels the PCs were scouting for small game to help supplement the trail rations and came across a large bush with delicious looking berries. A PC had seen movement in the bushes and went to investigate. When nearing the bush, he frightened the Pixie living in the bush who used her illusions to frighten the character, attempting to scare them off. Rather than being intimidated, the barbarian flew into a rage and tried attacking the illusion as the paladin, warlock, and druid closed in. The warlock wanted to scare whatever was in the bushes and said they wanted to fire a blind shot into the bush. I asked them where in the bush they were aiming (having a location chosen for the pixie to be hiding in) and they chose (in)correctly, managing to hit the pixie, completely obliterating it with their spell.
Rather than chuckle with the group as they laugh about him one-shotting whatever was in the bush, I described the sad moment of the feminine giggle that turned into a shriek as the spell hit her. As they inspect the bush I describe in vivid detail what the violent spell did to the poor pixie as the Druid arrived on scene.
All it took was a heartfelt "You MONSTER! Look at what you did to the poor thing!" from the druid and both the character and player had a moment where they had to reflect on their actions. It was a powerful moment for the player and their character all from a trivial 1hp encounter.