Threats, Ultimatums, Take-it-or-leave-it Deals
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Hey guys,
Wanted to start a discussion about what I am calling Threats, Ultimatums, and Take-it-or-leave-it Deals.
A few examples of what I mean by this:
_You steal Jim Bob's sword and offer him a way to get it back.
You kidnap Johnny Paladin and offer him a way to save his skin._
These are good things to do. Rather than just steal Jim's Sword, or kill Johnny, you've given them a chance to steer their fate and influence what happens to them. Such nice players.HOWEVER (Bet you didn't see -that- coming)
What I want to discuss are how to make those options actually fun and interesting for the other player. I'm not talking about any specific event or situation, but what I have been seeing a lot of, are disingenuous "options" being given out.
Here's what I mean:
_You tell Jim Bob that to get his sword back, he has to kill his best friend Dave the Barbarian in cold blood.
You tell Johnny Paladin that you will let him live if he forsakes his god and murders an innocent commoner._
These are over simplifications, but what I want people to see is that in these situations, you haven't actually given the other player any option. Jim Bob is not going to kill Dave. Johnny is not going murder commoners. This can be applied to any number of situations where what you tell the other player they have to to do is not something that character could ever be expected to actually do, even under duress.
What I want people to discuss is how they have done this successfully. What worked for you when you were trying to issue one of these threats/ultimatums? What did not work well? What was fun for you to do when someone tried to force one of these on you? Without pointing fingers or being mean, what things like this have you -not- enjoyed, from either side of the table?
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"Your GP or your HP."
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Ive neverliked it when these ultimatums start coming after a PC has reached higher levels.. if youare gonna do this, start at level 1.
Just an opinion
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I should probably point out, examples of "how to do it well" are probably of most use here.
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@Dedagin:
Ive neverliked it when these ultimatums start coming after a PC has reached higher levels.. if youare gonna do this, start at level 1.
Just an opinion
Also a bit of an oversimplification. When DMs have said "do it from the start" or "you can do this at level 1", we don't mean literally off the Road to Arabel. All that was meant was, don't be a goody-two shoes, ignoring the entire world at large until you're level 15 and then start throwing your weight around because you have achieved mechanical power and nothing else.
Obviously, if you are going to threaten someone, you have to have some weight behind your words, or the other guy is just going to call your bluff and walk away. The weight however, isn't necessarily +15 BaB. Hence, "Level 1" can technically do it. It's an example showing the decoupling of power from character statistics. After all, the PC head of an assassin's guild might die 15 times on a quest and go back to level 1, but he's still the PC head of an assassin's guild.
If you're starting a new PC at level 1, it is expected that this guy is a newbie, ICly. He may be a fresh faced adventurer, or an old grizzled veteran who has been out of touch, whatever. Either way, a new arrival with no real clout. Obviously in this case, acting like a mafia don from day 1 is not going to work. Not to say you can't or shouldn't do that (depends on your PC), just saying it wouldn't work until you've built up something to use.
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During my first two-three days in Arabel, my character was kidnapped and dragged to a cave whilst exploring alone. There she was beaten up, told of the PCs great plan for their evil fiendish master. Then they told my PC to sign a contract IG giving their master he soul, or she and all she cared for would be hunted down and sacrificed to their master_(aka not killed on the spot, but released then being sought after allowing her to warn others and fight against them)_. Scared shitless and panicked, she of course signed the contract. To make certain she knew they were serious, they cut off her finger and took just her healing items before sending her off to leave a message to one of their enemy PCs.
Of course, it turned out she had not sold her soul (cannot force it), but she wasn't aware of that neither I cause I was a newbie.
I thought that was AMAZING and was so excited the whole time, and scared of course. This lead to me being thrown straight into a range of IG conflicts and plots, along with exciting PvP (more the we hurt your cause and we gain PvP not the mechanical fighting kind). That random encounter shaped my whole character and made me fall in love with CoA, its players and the DMs.
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A really nice example from my player days. Golw's character defeated my elven PC and stole his custom DM loot sword after a number of skirmishes, and then offered it up to all of the factions on the server and challenged them to re-forge it for their purposes.
Even though I'd lost my badass sword, I thought the whole thing was super cool and it kept me from being upset about losing my custom loot.
viewtopic.php?t=152029&p=875326&hilit=Sword+of+Daedeloth#p875326
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The Infernal Scourge-
I create an infernalist cult back in V4 and the idea behind it was to force people into joining our group. We would beat someone down in a secret area (Cave, house in the slums, sewers) and then offer them the ultimatum of signing our contract in their own blood to give away their souls or to die. It worked out really well the few times that it happened but it was important to communicate with the person OOCly.
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important to communicate with the person OOCly.
Yes, this + 10
OOC communication can be really helpful in any of these situations.
Asking if the victim is OK with being a victim goes a long long way to
relieve the negative feelings that come up in these situations, sometimes. -
I don't mean to knock on gDar or Puffy's example, but that sort of thing is actually what I'm suggesting people -not- do. For example, if you made that offer to most PCs, death would be the preferred choice. There isn't much option there - "Do this horribly evil thing or I'll kill you".
What ideas have people used that are perhaps more likely to actually be taken?
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I had a TN rogue, short period of time….
was thinking about joining with T Ebol FTWand was given a task. Had I talked, it was made abundantly clear that death was an option.
This was cool.
btw- character passed the tasked, felt icky about it, and retired . I dont do evil :-)
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I like options where, it is not DEATH OR SUBMIT, but with a bit of flavor. At least in the beginning. "Convince your friend the agent to stop his pursuit of us, or next time, you will lose more than a finger."
Give people a humane way out. Or, if you ARE doing a submit or die approach, offer an "escape option."
My elven retainer of Thond, was once captured by a Mask Cult. While they debated what to do with me and my friend, they left us enough time to "escape" our jail cell, by leaving the door unlocked. They had most of my gear, sure. But they allowed me a way out.Another cult, on another character, beat me down, and informed me, that it really was time to stop my insane vengeance approach. That if I persisted, I would die. They beat me down with SUCH force, that they gave a slight Hint OOC, that I was surely outmatched. I have also been in situations where I got a tell, while I was beaten down, saying "This is the part where you run away if you want to live".
You dont have to FD people all the time, nor make choices where you either destroy a character "FORCING a paladin to sign a demon contract", is the same as just killing him.
My old Bhaliir retainer, tried her best to make people turn on their friends, as a way out. If they then double crossed me, or lied to me, I would kill them. But at least they survived the encounter. -
At the same time you may sometimes want the choice to be hard and/or a character defining moment. A tough line to walk sometimes.
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True. But, going back to Hominid's examples:
"You tell Jim Bob that to get his sword back, he has to kill his best friend Dave the Barbarian in cold blood.
You tell Johnny Paladin that you will let him live if he forsakes his god and murders an innocent commoner."These aren't hard choices. Jim Bob isn't going to kill his friend over a magical piece of steel, and a paladin is entirely not even going to consider forsaking their god. "Dying for your deity's cause" is the standard Paladin severance package, so most of them by far are just going to respond with, "Ha. What? No. Don't be stupid."
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No, but i expect i know what sparked the thread in general and i'd say that was a very fair choice, the equipment of an agent or the death of a hostage. I find that a very fair example myself.
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I know nothing about it but yeah that sounds legit CB. To be honest, I have been hesitant to comment on this thread because it takes some serious creativity to think up something good in some cases, especially depending on the PC you're playing.
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In the past, I PvP'ed alot. The times where it felt fun, was when it was somewhat equal challenge wise. Slay Living on a lvl 4 character just isnt as fun. I think the Old Moloch Rule of, "What will bring most fun to me AND my victim", is the rule that works best.
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Want to point out I didn't bring this up because of any one event - I would never make a server issue out of something like that. This is something I have been thinking about for a while and that I think the entire server can benefit from discussing how to do well. As many people have pointed out it is a genuinely difficult thing to manage and that is very rarely done as well as it probably could be.
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My favourite take-it-or-leave-it deal to date remains Regle Swifthand's:
He pickpocketed Sir Malvin's Council Cloak (yes, the whole cloak), announced that he'd done so! And then demanded, via sending, that Malvin show up in Shylock's if he ever wanted to see it again. Once he had Malvin there, he demanded ransom: a single sausage, no mustard.
Of course, it wasn't so simple as that, because Sir Malvin, being a paladin of Tyr, seemed to bristle at the idea of giving in to a thief, for any reason. Even if it meant catching all kinds of crap from superiors for letting himself get robbed of such an important faction item in the first place.
I don't know if it was a character-defining moment for anyone involved, because I was just an innocent gawker. But it was silly. And fun. And added to others' enjoyment of the server.
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That sounds epic.