To give a bit of backstory: It is the second session, and my players were on the way to the next town. On the way, a gnome merchant kept passing them, wanting to sell them his weaponry and potions. One of my players, we'll call him Prince, decides to attack the gnome on the basis that "If you're carrying such powerful weaponry, you should be able to defend yourself!"
Long story short, my players spend an entire, 6-hour session, beating up a merchant with 5th level spells. They're only level 4. They manage to barely kill him, with only one player not knocked. Thing is, this happened only 100ft from the next town they were going to, as they gave into the gnome near the end of their journey.
They now have Gauntlets of Fire, dozens of health potions, several adamantine weapons and flintlocks.
This gives them a much higher DPS than they normally would have, so it may make encounters harder to balance. I think I have two options 1. Take the weapons away somehow 2. Let the weapons stay
Now I don't want to take them away, because they spent an entire session getting them, but I also don't want to just let them roam around after killing a merchant with no consequence. Truly a pickle, this has never happened to me, I just didn't expect that they'd bully a little gnome boy...
I would likely beef your encounters a little, maybe some extra items/spells/armour for the monsters to equal out the extra items your players have gotten. As for the consequences of killing the merchant, the guards could have seen them since they were so close to the town and that could warrant a trial etc. You could throw some sentience onto the items, make the reluctant to be used as they were technically stolen or finally you could add in some curses as well maybe?
Yes, that should work. I was thinking maybe they'd have two choices after that, run back to the town they had just escaped from (overrun by monsters) or get captured by the guards. Thing is, I'm not sure if they'll attack the guards or not. And if they do that...hoh boy.
I wouldn't "level up the world" - to me that seems really implausible; monsters don't get tougher because the Characters did. The same for cursing the items or making them difficult. If you didn't plan for them to be that way from the beginning and/or if it doesn't make sense from an in-world perspective that they be that way, then I wouldn't change them now.
I would definitely have there be plausible in-game-world consequences for what they did. The local law should be interested. Plus anyone the Gnome was affiliated with will possibly want to know what happened to the merchant. The Players might be surprised when the family hires an investigator/bounty hunter to try and find out what happened to the merchant.
Additionally, those items weren't supposed to go on a shelf and collect dust; they were likely meant for someone. They'll want to find out what happened to their property. I find it hard to believe that such a merchant would plausibly have those items in general inventory: it's kind of like my local sporting goods shop (which does sell rifles) getting in a couple of crates of mortars and anti-tank weapons, hoping that the might find a market for them :p
In short - I'd let them keep their spoils, but I'd have the world react plausibly to their actions.
On the positive side, if they can weather the storm of the fallout of their actions - well, they are just that more capable now, so they can handle a bigger caliber of adventure. Maybe their new found abilities lead to a more impressive reputation, which leads to people seeking them out to help with larger scale problems. You shouldn't have an issue keeping them challenged :)
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+1 to what vedexent said. How does some random traveling gnome have all this gear on him? Likely he a member of a powerful organization/family/guild. That group will probably want revenge, and certainly want back the things stolen from them, with interest.
And if they’re really only 100 feet from the town, there were dozens of witnesses who can ID the party to the gnome’s patrons, let alone the town guard. And I doubt the local shopkeepers will be willing to sell them anything. And their reputation in the whole region will be shot within a couple weeks as the word spreads. And the local town guard will want to have a chat with them. And the gnome’s patrons will have friends and allies willing to help
In short, murder-hobos are annoying, but once they understand there are consequences to their actions, the players usually start to rein things in.
You could explain all of these possible consequences to the party and ask them if that’s really the road they want to go down, or maybe say it was all a really weird dream and reset to before the fight.
I hate to blame the victim, but there's a lesson about how NOT to sell magic items here.
But what's done is done. I agree with the guys above that that kind of hardware requires a response. Now maybe the gnome was pulling such a boneheaded stunt because he himself stole the stuff from a cartel and wanted to offload it fast, but someone is looking for that stuff. And when the trail leads to your characters, they are sending in the equivalent of Anton Chigurh in No Country For Old Men to collect with interest.
I hate to blame the victim, but there's a lesson about how NOT to sell magic items here.
But what's done is done. I agree with the guys above that that kind of hardware requires a response. Now maybe the gnome was pulling such a boneheaded stunt because he himself stole the stuff from a cartel and wanted to offload it fast, but someone is looking for that stuff. And when the trail leads to your characters, they are sending in the equivalent of Anton Chigurh in No Country For Old Men to collect with interest.
Yeah there's a reason magic items in 5e aren't generally supposed to be found in shops. They're meant to be rarer, found in dungeons or ancient ruins, or crafted at great expense.
You as a DM should have never let them have the items and then you wouldn't be in the situation....
I wasn't going to go down this road, as I think the OP has enough problems right now, but I agree you can never assume what Players will, or will not, do. " I just didn't expect that they'd bully a little gnome boy... " - well... it's a big bucket of loot. You might not have expected them to do it ... but be aware that they can do it.
Don't beat yourself up about it. I think we've all done it to some degree or other. Just chalk it up to experience, and be more careful with dangling high power items in front of the Players in the future.
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Well if you made the merchant relatively tough as it sounds like you did, perhaps most of these items have some sort of tracking spell on them. The gnomes patron whether it be a vampire or some sort of deathseeker has been looking for victims that would put up a fight so his minion has been distributing powerful items amongst the travelling warriors. now that all of these items have found one group he will undoubtedly be very interested in the group of pcs as well as seeking vengeance for his murdered servant. make the pcs have to choose if the items are worth the hassle of being dogged by the servants of your entity and eventually have to fight them. If your feeling gracious the entity may even spare them after beating the tar out of them and say they were unworthy and take MOST but not all of the items back to continue his quest. Give your PCs agency but remind them that they are not the biggest dogs in this kennel.
Well if you made the merchant relatively tough as it sounds like you did, perhaps most of these items have some sort of tracking spell on them. The gnomes patron whether it be a vampire or some sort of deathseeker has been looking for victims that would put up a fight so his minion has been distributing powerful items amongst the travelling warriors. now that all of these items have found one group he will undoubtedly be very interested in the group of pcs as well as seeking vengeance for his murdered servant. make the pcs have to choose if the items are worth the hassle of being dogged by the servants of your entity and eventually have to fight them. If your feeling gracious the entity may even spare them after beating the tar out of them and say they were unworthy and take MOST but not all of the items back to continue his quest. Give your PCs agency but remind them that they are not the biggest dogs in this kennel.
Be very very careful about the optics of this to your Players.
Let's be clear. The OP made a mistake in designing the encounter. That's OK, I think most of us have done it. We note it, learn from it, move on.
The Players did something understandable. Annoying, but understandable, and they did it in such a way that - if the situation were real - would bring down actual consequences. If the DM invokes those plausible consequences, that's not the DM being spiteful, that's just something that flows out of the situation. It's probably enough to teach the Players about consequences of actions, and the Players can accept that as fair.
No Player is going to believe that the Gnome merchant just happened to have a vengeful Vampire patron, or that the items were always cursed, or there always was a tracking spell, and that the DM isn't extracting revenge for them doing something that the DM didn't expect and having the Players upset the story flow the DM had planned.
It doesn't matter if the DM is actually being vengeful ( although, face it, in this situation they totally would be :p ), the Players are going to assume it is the DM being petty and vengeful.
If there had been story elements which foreshadowed this possibility ( the Gnome has peculiar habits which point to them being under the control of a vampire, there are subtle clues in how the weapons are designed or stored which points to them being possibly cursed ), then you could expect Player buy in on the plausibility of those plot twists coming into play. Of course, to have those be in play, the DM would have had to actually have always planned for the powerful patron, or the weapons to be cursed. And if the DM had always planned those, putting them in place without there being foreshadowing which allows the possibility of the Characters figuring it out beforehand, is also a jerk move.
When you jerk the plot around in obvious ways and implausible ways, you're sending a meta-gaming message to your Players. Don't have that message be "I'm not to tell you what I expect, but when you don't do what I expect, I'll change the game to punish you for my mistakes", or the message you might eventually get back from your Players is "we're tired of you cheating, we quit".
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I hate to blame the victim, but there's a lesson about how NOT to sell magic items here.
Somewhat agree, somewhat disagree. I typically make shopping (including magical item shopping) easy on the condition that the players don't take advantage of the low security. If the players attack a merchant like this, not only will they have to deal with the consequences of murdering a wealthy and connected individual, they will never find another merchant that sells magical items.
If the players have not had the chance to use the items yet. Just make them fakes, very good fakes but fakes. The Gnome could have been a swindler who was selling “MagicItems” maybe make one of the lesser once real it would be the one he used to show they worked. But the rest would just be good Fakes. :)
Overall, I think the situation is just due to a bit of inexperience on the part of the DM.
1) If the DM puts valuable treasure in front of the players, some players will try to take it, and may not consider the costs.
2) Encounters should make logical sense. A lone gnome traveling between villages on their own is unlikely to have a cart full of valuable magic items. It doesn't make sense. Magic items are expensive. This person wants to sell them. There are creatures in the world much more powerful than a single 9th level caster with 5th level spells. 5e is heavily biased in terms of action economy, groups are much more effective than loners ... and every character/NPC in the world would know that. As a result, a wealthy gnome merchant traveling with lots of valuables with no way to escape or guards available is highly unlikely.
3) 5e actually suggests that magic items not be for sale because they are so unusual and valuable.
4) However, all is not lost. Attacking innocent merchants should have consequences.
- they were 100' from town when they attacked the merchant? The guards, if there are any, can clearly see everything that is going on. If the merchant has traveled this way before then they may even know him The guards could have stepped in to save the gnome and arrest the players. However, since that didn't happen, it could be that the guards figured they needed reinforcements to take down these bandits that attack innocent merchants. Perhaps they report this to their superiors who decide to deal carefully with the characters. When they take a room at the inn, they drug their food and wine and throw them in jail (this approach is easier that an arrest but if you want to go the combat route have 20 or 30 guards with a couple of casters come in to arrest the party). In the end, they lose everything they stole and have to convince a magistrate why they should not be executed. Perhaps the town needs a task performed and are willing to be lenient if the party performs that task. They lose everything they stole and pick up a new quest.
- Alternatively, as long as you didn't put any ridiculous magic items in the caravan, you could just let them keep them. I don't really like this option since the players aren't learning that every action they take can have reasonable consequences but it could work for your group depending on their attitudes.
Yes, the DM is inexperienced... but I’m not sure you should just assume that if you put treasure in front of a party, they will try to take it somehow. It depends on the party. If your party is a bunch of lawful good characters, no, you wouldn’t expect them to just attack and murder a gnome merchant. In fact I wouldn’t expect any lawful or good character (LG, NG, CG, LN, even LE) to just attack someone (presumably illegally) on the open road and take his stuff. So some of whether you should expect this to happen or not depends on the party and their alignments (and how the players act them out).
Although I am generally a fan of letting players do what they want, to be honest, I am not sure I would want to DM for people who are playing a party that is happy to gun down an innocent peddler and take his stuff. I generally expect my player groups to be heroic, and what these guys did was villainous. If they’re gonna act this way as a regular thing, I’d have to invite them to find another DM... or make up a different party that would be heroes instead of bad guys.
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Indeed I would argue the DM is fine, the players are inexperienced, in fact I would say very inexperienced. The stuff they are doing is the kind of stuff we were doing when we were 11 playing D&D for the first time.
1) If the DM puts valuable treasure in front of the players, some players will try to take it, and may not consider the costs.
Players? What players? There are no players, this is role-playing game, the question is what would their characters do. If you are a Chaotic Good Ranger, you don't murder an innocent merchant and rob him. I don't need to know anything about this characters background to know that he did not role-play when he took this action, there is physically no way a Chaotic Good Ranger just murders someone and robs him for the soul purpose to get free stuff without any sort of provocation or logic. This was players meta gaming and I agree with Biowizard, in a case like this I would stop the game and question everything at the table including whether or not I would continue to GM for the group.
2) Encounters should make logical sense. A lone gnome traveling between villages on their own is unlikely to have a cart full of valuable magic items. It doesn't make sense. Magic items are expensive. This person wants to sell them. There are creatures in the world much more powerful than a single 9th level caster with 5th level spells. 5e is heavily biased in terms of action economy, groups are much more effective than loners ... and every character/NPC in the world would know that. As a result, a wealthy gnome merchant traveling with lots of valuables with no way to escape or guards available is highly unlikely.
A traveling gnome merchant isn't an encounter, for something to be an encounter there has to be a conflict. This was an interlude, a GM simply populating the world with perfectly logical and normal events to keep the world feeling like a real virtual space. There are lots of merchants who travel with lots of goods and they do get robbed by criminals and monsters. This is why we have adventuring heroes, guardsmen, and so on. I will grant you that if the world was consistent, this merchant would have had an armed guard with him given the goods he was carrying, but it still doesn't make this an encounter or some sort of expected outcome where a group of adventuring heroes suddenly decide, lets murder a random person and take his stuff.
3) 5e actually suggests that magic items not be for sale because they are so unusual and valuable.
5e is a rulebook not a setting and it breaks its own rules in its own setting, for example in Eberron you can buy magic items pretty much on every street corner.
4) However, all is not lost. Attacking innocent merchants should have consequences.
It should, but I don't think that is really the issue here. This is a group that is not role-playing characters, but playing a computer game (Aka Grand Theft Auto) where they do whatever services them completely indifferent to character motivations, story of the game or reality of the setting. Its just a bunch of players being players in a game that is supposed to be about role-playing characters.
To me this is a dead game until that issue is addressed, as a DM I would end it right then and there and have a real conversation with the group about what it means to play a role-playing game, because what they are doing, that ain't by any definition of the term.
Or alternatively, alter the alignments, create the consequences and continue.. but I would still have that conversation because regardless of what you do next, the game has no continuity or method under which it functions, they aren't role-playing characters right now which is a problem.
Just a couple of comments ...
In point 1 ... I said and meant "players". You are absolutely correct that the players should be role playing characters and most heroic characters would never even consider attacking a merchant. Trading with them, bargaining sure ... but not killing and taking their stuff unless the characters are explicitly evil alignment. This is why I said "players". Some players, especially inexperienced ones don't understand the meaning of role playing and if combined with a less experienced DM things can go off the rails in exactly this way. If you put stuff in front of inexperienced players, some of those players want the stuff and don't understand the reasons why their characters wouldn't behave in such a fashion to get it. (P.S. This kind of behavior predates the existence of video games :) )
Everything in the entire gaming world is a potential "encounter". Every NPC, building, bush, tree, caravan, merchant ... absolutely EVERYTHING that can be interacted with by the characters and adjudicated by the DM can be an "encounter". Some are social encounters, some exploration, some combat ... some can be intended as a social encounter that suddenly morphs into a combat encounter due to the decisions of the characters and the natural reactions of the NPCs. In this case, the social encounter with the gnome merchant with the possibility of purchasing something special transformed into a combat encounter when the players decided that killing the gnome and taking their stuff while at the outskirts of the town was the preferred approach.
Magic item availability is obviously setting dependent. I'm assuming it is reasonably uncommon in the OPs world since apparently the PCs possessing a supply of adamantium weapons is considered an issue. However, the baseline suggestion in 5e is to make them particularly uncommon and to not generally have them for sale, which is probably a useful starting point for a newish DM.
Finally, as far as appropriate PC actions is concerned ... the first thing the DM can do is sit down and have a little chat with the players about their decision to murder the merchant and steal his stuff. Do the players think these actions are consistent with the characters they have created? Is this how they want them to behave? Do they consider these actions good, lawful, just or are they evil? Are they playing evil characters? After having the chat and gauging responses the DM can decide how to respond in game. The in game response can reinforce that this was a bad decision in general since even if the players decided they wanted to play evil characters, they are playing stupid evil characters. However, in most cases, the players are just inexperienced and didn't realize how far out these behaviors really were for their characters until afterward ... and it is often combined with a less experienced DM who isn't certain how best to respond to some of the actions chosen by the characters/players.
Anyway, I agree with you that the DM and players need to sit and chat and sort out how they want to play and what role playing means :)
To me this is a dead game until that issue is addressed, as a DM I would end it right then and there and have a real conversation with the group about what it means to play a role-playing game, because what they are doing, that ain't by any definition of the term.
Yup, it would definitely trigger a conversation if I were the GM. And the conversation would, as I said, basically go like this: I want to GM for a party of heroic adventurers. Killing an innocent traveler and taking his stuff is not heroic. It is evil and immoral. I have no interest in GMing for a group of immoral characters. You need to decide if you want me to keep GMing for you or not.
If they were suitably chastened and willing to be heroic, I would declare the incident a dream or somehow retcon it, and continue the story from just before the incident. With the understanding that next time they do this kind of BS, I'm done. I mean -- I don't like controlling player actions. And I don't mind if, say, the Chaotic Neutral thief wants to try shoplifting and makes a d20 roll to do so. But to hack down a poor little gnome and take his stuff on the highway is pure evil and I am not going to enjoy DMing an evil team.
Years and years ago, back in its own 2nd edition days, Aaron Allston (I believe, or perhaps Steve Peterson) wrote an article for the game Champions about this issue. He said that although villains are made by the GM and theoretically do not have to obey the restrictions on points and balance that hero PCs do, yet nearly all the time, the heroes win, and the villains lose. Why is that, if the villains are more powerful and built on larger #s of points? It's because, he said, the heroes have something the villains can never have: the GM's good-will. They have this because they risk their lives to rescue the little old lady crossing the street in front of the cyber-van barreling down the street, or they stop to rescue the cat out of the tree, or they use their own body to shield an innocent boy from a hail of enemy bullets. As long as the heroes continue to act heroically, they retain the GM's good-will, and they, in effect, cannot truly lose. Because the GM will want them to win -- because nearly all of us root for the good-guys.
But, Allston (or Peterson) went on to say, if the heroes stop acting heroic... If they blast right through a hostage to get at the villain... if they ignore the kitten in the tree to mug for the cameras... if they let granny get hit by the van so they can do extra KB to one of the enemy agents... then, they lose the GM's good-will. If they do that, then the heroes are going to stop winning, because they have lost access to their special power (the GM's favor). And as he pointed out back then, when parties of player characters have lost the GM's good-will, well... things can get very ugly, very fast.
The article was written not to GMs back in those days but to players -- his point was, as a player, keep an eye on what you are doing. Don't be tempted to have your character cut corners or do the "powergamey" thing if that leads to unheroic behavior. Be the hero, make the sacrifice - do the "sub optimal" thing in combat. These actions may not make good tactical sense and may even put your character at a major disadvantage (such as the hero who announces himself and tells the villains to surrender, giving up the chance at a surprise attack and giving them one free shot at him), but it will retain the most important power of all: the GM's good-will.
These players (as described in the OP) would have immediately and perhaps permanently lost my good-will. Yeah, it would either have to stop -- or it would get really ugly in ways I would probably not enjoy as a DM (i.e., me being a complete hard-case and not helping them with anything like die rolls, etc).
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I would let the characters keep the items, for now. There are plenty of thieve’s guilds around that would hear about the easy pickings the lower level adventurers with awesome loot would be. If these players are so careless about where they are doing their dirty work, then news of them and their wondrous items would spead very quickly. This could become an entire campaign where they are running from justice, and trying to avoid the criminal underworld at the same time.
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To give a bit of backstory:
It is the second session, and my players were on the way to the next town. On the way, a gnome merchant kept passing them, wanting to sell them his weaponry and potions. One of my players, we'll call him Prince, decides to attack the gnome on the basis that "If you're carrying such powerful weaponry, you should be able to defend yourself!"
Long story short, my players spend an entire, 6-hour session, beating up a merchant with 5th level spells. They're only level 4. They manage to barely kill him, with only one player not knocked. Thing is, this happened only 100ft from the next town they were going to, as they gave into the gnome near the end of their journey.
They now have Gauntlets of Fire, dozens of health potions, several adamantine weapons and flintlocks.
This gives them a much higher DPS than they normally would have, so it may make encounters harder to balance. I think I have two options
1. Take the weapons away somehow
2. Let the weapons stay
Now I don't want to take them away, because they spent an entire session getting them, but I also don't want to just let them roam around after killing a merchant with no consequence.
Truly a pickle, this has never happened to me, I just didn't expect that they'd bully a little gnome boy...
I would likely beef your encounters a little, maybe some extra items/spells/armour for the monsters to equal out the extra items your players have gotten. As for the consequences of killing the merchant, the guards could have seen them since they were so close to the town and that could warrant a trial etc. You could throw some sentience onto the items, make the reluctant to be used as they were technically stolen or finally you could add in some curses as well maybe?
Just some random idea's hope they help
Yes, that should work. I was thinking maybe they'd have two choices after that, run back to the town they had just escaped from (overrun by monsters) or get captured by the guards. Thing is, I'm not sure if they'll attack the guards or not. And if they do that...hoh boy.
Curses are a great idea! I will get workin on it!
I wouldn't "level up the world" - to me that seems really implausible; monsters don't get tougher because the Characters did. The same for cursing the items or making them difficult. If you didn't plan for them to be that way from the beginning and/or if it doesn't make sense from an in-world perspective that they be that way, then I wouldn't change them now.
I would definitely have there be plausible in-game-world consequences for what they did. The local law should be interested. Plus anyone the Gnome was affiliated with will possibly want to know what happened to the merchant. The Players might be surprised when the family hires an investigator/bounty hunter to try and find out what happened to the merchant.
Additionally, those items weren't supposed to go on a shelf and collect dust; they were likely meant for someone. They'll want to find out what happened to their property. I find it hard to believe that such a merchant would plausibly have those items in general inventory: it's kind of like my local sporting goods shop (which does sell rifles) getting in a couple of crates of mortars and anti-tank weapons, hoping that the might find a market for them :p
In short - I'd let them keep their spoils, but I'd have the world react plausibly to their actions.
On the positive side, if they can weather the storm of the fallout of their actions - well, they are just that more capable now, so they can handle a bigger caliber of adventure. Maybe their new found abilities lead to a more impressive reputation, which leads to people seeking them out to help with larger scale problems. You shouldn't have an issue keeping them challenged :)
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
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+1 to what vedexent said. How does some random traveling gnome have all this gear on him? Likely he a member of a powerful organization/family/guild. That group will probably want revenge, and certainly want back the things stolen from them, with interest.
And if they’re really only 100 feet from the town, there were dozens of witnesses who can ID the party to the gnome’s patrons, let alone the town guard. And I doubt the local shopkeepers will be willing to sell them anything. And their reputation in the whole region will be shot within a couple weeks as the word spreads. And the local town guard will want to have a chat with them. And the gnome’s patrons will have friends and allies willing to help
In short, murder-hobos are annoying, but once they understand there are consequences to their actions, the players usually start to rein things in.
You could explain all of these possible consequences to the party and ask them if that’s really the road they want to go down, or maybe say it was all a really weird dream and reset to before the fight.
You as a DM should have never let them have the items and then you wouldn't be in the situation. maybe reevaluate your Dm style. sorry :/
I hate to blame the victim, but there's a lesson about how NOT to sell magic items here.
But what's done is done. I agree with the guys above that that kind of hardware requires a response. Now maybe the gnome was pulling such a boneheaded stunt because he himself stole the stuff from a cartel and wanted to offload it fast, but someone is looking for that stuff. And when the trail leads to your characters, they are sending in the equivalent of Anton Chigurh in No Country For Old Men to collect with interest.
Yeah there's a reason magic items in 5e aren't generally supposed to be found in shops. They're meant to be rarer, found in dungeons or ancient ruins, or crafted at great expense.
I wasn't going to go down this road, as I think the OP has enough problems right now, but I agree you can never assume what Players will, or will not, do. " I just didn't expect that they'd bully a little gnome boy... " - well... it's a big bucket of loot. You might not have expected them to do it ... but be aware that they can do it.
Don't beat yourself up about it. I think we've all done it to some degree or other. Just chalk it up to experience, and be more careful with dangling high power items in front of the Players in the future.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
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It would be an awful shame if some of those magic items turned out to be cursed.
just saying....
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
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Well if you made the merchant relatively tough as it sounds like you did, perhaps most of these items have some sort of tracking spell on them. The gnomes patron whether it be a vampire or some sort of deathseeker has been looking for victims that would put up a fight so his minion has been distributing powerful items amongst the travelling warriors. now that all of these items have found one group he will undoubtedly be very interested in the group of pcs as well as seeking vengeance for his murdered servant. make the pcs have to choose if the items are worth the hassle of being dogged by the servants of your entity and eventually have to fight them. If your feeling gracious the entity may even spare them after beating the tar out of them and say they were unworthy and take MOST but not all of the items back to continue his quest. Give your PCs agency but remind them that they are not the biggest dogs in this kennel.
Be very very careful about the optics of this to your Players.
Let's be clear. The OP made a mistake in designing the encounter. That's OK, I think most of us have done it. We note it, learn from it, move on.
The Players did something understandable. Annoying, but understandable, and they did it in such a way that - if the situation were real - would bring down actual consequences. If the DM invokes those plausible consequences, that's not the DM being spiteful, that's just something that flows out of the situation. It's probably enough to teach the Players about consequences of actions, and the Players can accept that as fair.
No Player is going to believe that the Gnome merchant just happened to have a vengeful Vampire patron, or that the items were always cursed, or there always was a tracking spell, and that the DM isn't extracting revenge for them doing something that the DM didn't expect and having the Players upset the story flow the DM had planned.
It doesn't matter if the DM is actually being vengeful ( although, face it, in this situation they totally would be :p ), the Players are going to assume it is the DM being petty and vengeful.
If there had been story elements which foreshadowed this possibility ( the Gnome has peculiar habits which point to them being under the control of a vampire, there are subtle clues in how the weapons are designed or stored which points to them being possibly cursed ), then you could expect Player buy in on the plausibility of those plot twists coming into play. Of course, to have those be in play, the DM would have had to actually have always planned for the powerful patron, or the weapons to be cursed. And if the DM had always planned those, putting them in place without there being foreshadowing which allows the possibility of the Characters figuring it out beforehand, is also a jerk move.
When you jerk the plot around in obvious ways and implausible ways, you're sending a meta-gaming message to your Players. Don't have that message be "I'm not to tell you what I expect, but when you don't do what I expect, I'll change the game to punish you for my mistakes", or the message you might eventually get back from your Players is "we're tired of you cheating, we quit".
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
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Somewhat agree, somewhat disagree. I typically make shopping (including magical item shopping) easy on the condition that the players don't take advantage of the low security. If the players attack a merchant like this, not only will they have to deal with the consequences of murdering a wealthy and connected individual, they will never find another merchant that sells magical items.
If the players have not had the chance to use the items yet. Just make them fakes, very good fakes but fakes. The Gnome could have been a swindler who was selling “MagicItems” maybe make one of the lesser once real it would be the one he used to show they worked. But the rest would just be good Fakes. :)
Overall, I think the situation is just due to a bit of inexperience on the part of the DM.
1) If the DM puts valuable treasure in front of the players, some players will try to take it, and may not consider the costs.
2) Encounters should make logical sense. A lone gnome traveling between villages on their own is unlikely to have a cart full of valuable magic items. It doesn't make sense. Magic items are expensive. This person wants to sell them. There are creatures in the world much more powerful than a single 9th level caster with 5th level spells. 5e is heavily biased in terms of action economy, groups are much more effective than loners ... and every character/NPC in the world would know that. As a result, a wealthy gnome merchant traveling with lots of valuables with no way to escape or guards available is highly unlikely.
3) 5e actually suggests that magic items not be for sale because they are so unusual and valuable.
4) However, all is not lost. Attacking innocent merchants should have consequences.
- they were 100' from town when they attacked the merchant? The guards, if there are any, can clearly see everything that is going on. If the merchant has traveled this way before then they may even know him The guards could have stepped in to save the gnome and arrest the players. However, since that didn't happen, it could be that the guards figured they needed reinforcements to take down these bandits that attack innocent merchants. Perhaps they report this to their superiors who decide to deal carefully with the characters. When they take a room at the inn, they drug their food and wine and throw them in jail (this approach is easier that an arrest but if you want to go the combat route have 20 or 30 guards with a couple of casters come in to arrest the party). In the end, they lose everything they stole and have to convince a magistrate why they should not be executed. Perhaps the town needs a task performed and are willing to be lenient if the party performs that task. They lose everything they stole and pick up a new quest.
- Alternatively, as long as you didn't put any ridiculous magic items in the caravan, you could just let them keep them. I don't really like this option since the players aren't learning that every action they take can have reasonable consequences but it could work for your group depending on their attitudes.
Yes, the DM is inexperienced... but I’m not sure you should just assume that if you put treasure in front of a party, they will try to take it somehow. It depends on the party. If your party is a bunch of lawful good characters, no, you wouldn’t expect them to just attack and murder a gnome merchant. In fact I wouldn’t expect any lawful or good character (LG, NG, CG, LN, even LE) to just attack someone (presumably illegally) on the open road and take his stuff. So some of whether you should expect this to happen or not depends on the party and their alignments (and how the players act them out).
Although I am generally a fan of letting players do what they want, to be honest, I am not sure I would want to DM for people who are playing a party that is happy to gun down an innocent peddler and take his stuff. I generally expect my player groups to be heroic, and what these guys did was villainous. If they’re gonna act this way as a regular thing, I’d have to invite them to find another DM... or make up a different party that would be heroes instead of bad guys.
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Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Be a shame if their bling stands out and someone higher up the food chain decides they want it. Or want to steal it.
Just a couple of comments ...
In point 1 ... I said and meant "players". You are absolutely correct that the players should be role playing characters and most heroic characters would never even consider attacking a merchant. Trading with them, bargaining sure ... but not killing and taking their stuff unless the characters are explicitly evil alignment. This is why I said "players". Some players, especially inexperienced ones don't understand the meaning of role playing and if combined with a less experienced DM things can go off the rails in exactly this way. If you put stuff in front of inexperienced players, some of those players want the stuff and don't understand the reasons why their characters wouldn't behave in such a fashion to get it. (P.S. This kind of behavior predates the existence of video games :) )
Everything in the entire gaming world is a potential "encounter". Every NPC, building, bush, tree, caravan, merchant ... absolutely EVERYTHING that can be interacted with by the characters and adjudicated by the DM can be an "encounter". Some are social encounters, some exploration, some combat ... some can be intended as a social encounter that suddenly morphs into a combat encounter due to the decisions of the characters and the natural reactions of the NPCs. In this case, the social encounter with the gnome merchant with the possibility of purchasing something special transformed into a combat encounter when the players decided that killing the gnome and taking their stuff while at the outskirts of the town was the preferred approach.
Magic item availability is obviously setting dependent. I'm assuming it is reasonably uncommon in the OPs world since apparently the PCs possessing a supply of adamantium weapons is considered an issue. However, the baseline suggestion in 5e is to make them particularly uncommon and to not generally have them for sale, which is probably a useful starting point for a newish DM.
Finally, as far as appropriate PC actions is concerned ... the first thing the DM can do is sit down and have a little chat with the players about their decision to murder the merchant and steal his stuff. Do the players think these actions are consistent with the characters they have created? Is this how they want them to behave? Do they consider these actions good, lawful, just or are they evil? Are they playing evil characters? After having the chat and gauging responses the DM can decide how to respond in game. The in game response can reinforce that this was a bad decision in general since even if the players decided they wanted to play evil characters, they are playing stupid evil characters. However, in most cases, the players are just inexperienced and didn't realize how far out these behaviors really were for their characters until afterward ... and it is often combined with a less experienced DM who isn't certain how best to respond to some of the actions chosen by the characters/players.
Anyway, I agree with you that the DM and players need to sit and chat and sort out how they want to play and what role playing means :)
Yup, it would definitely trigger a conversation if I were the GM. And the conversation would, as I said, basically go like this: I want to GM for a party of heroic adventurers. Killing an innocent traveler and taking his stuff is not heroic. It is evil and immoral. I have no interest in GMing for a group of immoral characters. You need to decide if you want me to keep GMing for you or not.
If they were suitably chastened and willing to be heroic, I would declare the incident a dream or somehow retcon it, and continue the story from just before the incident. With the understanding that next time they do this kind of BS, I'm done. I mean -- I don't like controlling player actions. And I don't mind if, say, the Chaotic Neutral thief wants to try shoplifting and makes a d20 roll to do so. But to hack down a poor little gnome and take his stuff on the highway is pure evil and I am not going to enjoy DMing an evil team.
Years and years ago, back in its own 2nd edition days, Aaron Allston (I believe, or perhaps Steve Peterson) wrote an article for the game Champions about this issue. He said that although villains are made by the GM and theoretically do not have to obey the restrictions on points and balance that hero PCs do, yet nearly all the time, the heroes win, and the villains lose. Why is that, if the villains are more powerful and built on larger #s of points? It's because, he said, the heroes have something the villains can never have: the GM's good-will. They have this because they risk their lives to rescue the little old lady crossing the street in front of the cyber-van barreling down the street, or they stop to rescue the cat out of the tree, or they use their own body to shield an innocent boy from a hail of enemy bullets. As long as the heroes continue to act heroically, they retain the GM's good-will, and they, in effect, cannot truly lose. Because the GM will want them to win -- because nearly all of us root for the good-guys.
But, Allston (or Peterson) went on to say, if the heroes stop acting heroic... If they blast right through a hostage to get at the villain... if they ignore the kitten in the tree to mug for the cameras... if they let granny get hit by the van so they can do extra KB to one of the enemy agents... then, they lose the GM's good-will. If they do that, then the heroes are going to stop winning, because they have lost access to their special power (the GM's favor). And as he pointed out back then, when parties of player characters have lost the GM's good-will, well... things can get very ugly, very fast.
The article was written not to GMs back in those days but to players -- his point was, as a player, keep an eye on what you are doing. Don't be tempted to have your character cut corners or do the "powergamey" thing if that leads to unheroic behavior. Be the hero, make the sacrifice - do the "sub optimal" thing in combat. These actions may not make good tactical sense and may even put your character at a major disadvantage (such as the hero who announces himself and tells the villains to surrender, giving up the chance at a surprise attack and giving them one free shot at him), but it will retain the most important power of all: the GM's good-will.
These players (as described in the OP) would have immediately and perhaps permanently lost my good-will. Yeah, it would either have to stop -- or it would get really ugly in ways I would probably not enjoy as a DM (i.e., me being a complete hard-case and not helping them with anything like die rolls, etc).
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I would let the characters keep the items, for now. There are plenty of thieve’s guilds around that would hear about the easy pickings the lower level adventurers with awesome loot would be. If these players are so careless about where they are doing their dirty work, then news of them and their wondrous items would spead very quickly. This could become an entire campaign where they are running from justice, and trying to avoid the criminal underworld at the same time.