Knights & Knaves Alehouse

Wheggi wrote: Didn't a number of Gygax's modules start off with the whole "The characters are agents of good and they must go thwart the eeeeval or else face the headman's axe" pitch?

Yes, the Giants series actually starts with the players being forced under threat of death to investigate.

G1 Steading Of The Hill Giant Chief, p. 2 wrote: Background: Giants have been raiding the lands of men in large bands, with giants of different sorts in these marauding groups. Death and destruction have been laid heavily upon every place these monsters have visited. This has caused great anger in high places, for life and property loss means failure of the vows of noble rulers to protect the life and goods of each and every subject — and possible lean times for the rulers as well as the ruled. Therefore, a party of the bravest and most powerful adventurers has been assembled and given the charge to punish the miscreant giants. These adventurers must deliver a sharp check, deal a lesson to the clan of hill giants nearby, or else return and put their heads upon the block for the headsman's axe!

In my copy that part's lined out

Different edition but maybe this helps?

ANGRY VILLAGER RULE:
Anyone who has viewed a horror movie is aware of how dangerous angry villagers are. Whenever the referee finds that some player has committed an unforgivable outrage this rule can be invoked to harass the offender into line. Within the realm of angry villagers are thieves from the "thieves' quarter", city watches and militia, etc. Also possible is the insertion of some character like Conan to bring matters into line. --Gary Gygax, 1974 "The Underworld & Wilderness Adventure"

Matthew wrote:

Wheggi wrote: Didn't a number of Gygax's modules start off with the whole "The characters are agents of good and they must go thwart the eeeeval or else face the headman's axe" pitch?

Yes, the Giants series actually starts with the players being forced under threat of death to investigate.

G1 Steading Of The Hill Giant Chief, p. 2 wrote: Background: Giants have been raiding the lands of men in large bands, with giants of different sorts in these marauding groups. Death and destruction have been laid heavily upon every place these monsters have visited. This has caused great anger in high places, for life and property loss means failure of the vows of noble rulers to protect the life and goods of each and every subject — and possible lean times for the rulers as well as the ruled. Therefore, a party of the bravest and most powerful adventurers has been assembled and given the charge to punish the miscreant giants. These adventurers must deliver a sharp check, deal a lesson to the clan of hill giants nearby, or else return and put their heads upon the block for the headsman's axe!

This is a perfect example of what I was saying before:

I see it as big level NPCs are "not playing D&D" and the world of monsters is sometimes better left for "independents" to deal with. Alignment I think was made strictly for adventurers and the big level NPCs never played D&D they played some weird boring game that isnt about adventuring but has made them who they are today, etc.

Its as if YOU are adventurers and HIS game function as king is to cut your fucking head off because he's playing the high level NPC really intensely boring non-existent game called THRONES, THRUSTS AND THIEVERY or some shit which doesn't function with alignment unless really, really forced. Thats how I see the mentality of these high levels AND why there can be many of them because they're not going to show up and cut ahead of your descent into the dragon's lair...well, unless we're playing Forgotten Realms...

18Spears wrote:Different edition but maybe this helps?

ANGRY VILLAGER RULE:
Anyone who has viewed a horror movie is aware of how dangerous angry villagers are. Whenever the referee finds that some player has committed an unforgivable outrage this rule can be invoked to harass the offender into line. Within the realm of angry villagers are thieves from the "thieves' quarter", city watches and militia, etc. Also inevitable is the insertion of some character like Conan to bring matters into line. --Gary Gygax, 1974 "The Underworld & Wilderness Adventure"

Quote tweaked for later application of rule. It's clear that the tactic was around from the beginning. And I'm not so much thinking of PC's deciding to rule the world, as taking advantage of a situation. 2E FR products were horrible for this. The innkeeper who controls access to the big dungeon under waterdeep? A secret lord of the city, who happens to be a high level fighter. The shopkeeper who runs the store that deals in most stuff the PCs would want to sell as loot? Loaded down with a gazillion magic items, and has disguised iron golems in his store to boot. In both instances, the text explicitly stating that if any PC takes any threatening action against such persons, they'll get a beatdown as a lesson. These types of characters, in product after product - whoever the PCs were very likely to have to deal with - were typically written to have the overwhelming advantage. It was a running joke among my players.

Also, tangentially connecting to a couple other recent discussions, this [EDIT: the quoted passage from G1] could be more evidence of the player-group Gary was running through these modules (i.e. a different, mostly younger set of players than the folks who'd spent the 5 years prior exploring and looting Greyhawk Castle, that included both Skip Williams and Luke Gygax) affecting his design and play-style -- in addition to the simpler layouts and heavy focus on combat over exploration and puzzle-solving (suggesting, by my reading, that these players were more into the former and bored by the latter compared to the earlier players) we also get explicit mission-assigning backed up with force -- it's no longer enough to say "the dungeon is there, there's fame and fortune to be won inside if you survive," now it's "you're doing this mission because high level NPCs said you have to, and if you don't they'll fucking kill you!" I can totally see Gary coming up with that out of exasperation at a bunch of whiny 12-14 year old kids saying "why do we have to do this? why can't we do something else instead"

Meh, G1’s quick “buy whatever you need and proceed directly to the dungeon” start is perfectly fine for a tournament/convention.

Besides, being threatened by the “headman’s axe” doesn’t make the party or the government good. If anything, I imagine a party of Neutral criminals being hauled out of the dungeon and given a last chance by a Lawful Evil government (reminiscent of the Overking of the Great Kingdom, the Invincible Overlord, or Despot’s Queen).

I just know from experience (not with G1 specifically, but from various other modules of the 80s/90s era that had similar "forced" set-ups) that if I put something like that in front of my old player group (or was part of a player group that was given a set-up like that) they'd almost certainly completely blow off the actual mission and devote their attention entirely to getting back at the "patrons" who were forcing them into it, just out of spite and principle -- I can easily imagine them joining up with the giants to help them crush these nobles, figuring they could double-cross them later (which, now that I think of it, is actually pretty awesome! ).

Eye of the Beholder wrote:Quote tweaked for later application of rule. (some deleted stuff)

Okay I think I see now the nuance of the discussion. Thanks for clearing me up!

I agree with Falconer that this kind of setup is inoffensive in a tournament-style adventure. I hate it in a regular campaign adventure, though. (Although I have no problem with some high priest or wizard laying a quest or geas on a PC as payment for magical assistance the PC is seeking.)

(Lastly, the "PCs work with the giants to screw-over the 'patrons' forcing them into the mission" concept is all kinds of awesome fun, though.)

I think PapersAndPaychecks once described these sort of set ups as a "bus ride to adventure", contrasting it with a plot rail road. Modules are frequently presented this way just to create a default context that allows the game master to pick up and play it as written with minimal preparation. That is pretty much how I look at modules on the whole: assemble a selection of pregenerated characters for the players to choose from, give them the set up, and see if they can "beat" the adventure (in fact, a wide range of outcomes are possible, of course, marginal victories, outright defeats, et cetera). The ongoing campaign does not have much of a role with such an approach, but I figure modules have to be adapted whenever they are incorporated into an actual campaign anyway.

T. Foster wrote:I just know from experience (not with G1 specifically, but from various other modules of the 80s/90s era that had similar "forced" set-ups) that if I put something like that in front of my old player group (or was part of a player group that was given a set-up like that) they'd almost certainly completely blow off the actual mission and devote their attention entirely to getting back at the "patrons" who were forcing them into it, just out of spite and principle -- I can easily imagine them joining up with the giants to help them crush these nobles, figuring they could double-cross them later (which, now that I think of it, is actually pretty awesome! ).

IIRC, shortly after joining K&KA, I told the story of how we infiltrated a high society party to dope the punch, food and sconces with hallucinogenics. We did it to get back at the banker that was throwing the party. He was celebrating the return of his daughter, who we had rescued from a thieves den, and didn't invite us to the soiree. Uncool, thought we. Sure, he'd given us the reward money, but that wasn't the point. We weren't good enough for the party.

We actually rescued the girl by accident. Sure, we'd heard the rumor about her being kidnapped blah blah blah, but we only accidently stumbled upon the thieves den while searching for an entrance into the abandoned dwarven mine.

Great heroes.