Selfless Charity
In pop culture, the opening sequence of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast is easily the most famous example of this trope. If you guys ever read Le Morte D’Arthur though, you know that wizards love this schtick as much as crones. Merlin was all the time dressing up in “beggar’s array” to test Arthur’s virtue. Odin was famous for going around in disguise as well, serving as a sort of object lesson in the importance of hospitality: you never know when the gods are watching!
The disguised magician is a very old plot device, but it’s a tough one to bring to the gaming table. Think about it for a moment. In terms of modern gaming, how interested are your players going to be in enacting a fable? These kinds of stories permeate our culture, but their purpose is to impart life lessons to the listeners. In the context of an RPG, especially one featuring morally dubious characters, that is decidedly not the point. Players sit down at the table to find clever solutions to problems, amass loot, hang out with their buddies, and tell their own stories. If you simply copy a trope like “help stranger, receive boon,” you’re only rewarding one type of play. How is the poor rogue supposed to enjoy the game when his self-centered character concept automatically negates “the good ending?”
The mythic resonance of fairy tales is a fine flavor, but you’ve got to be careful with that kind of spice: too much and you’ll overpower the dish. You’ve got to mix it up. Keep your players off balance. Punish good deeds every once in a while. Throw murder hobos the occasional bone. As a GM, it’s not your job to teach players how to be good people. You’re there to have good fun; to create interesting situations. If that means allowing your players to club the old lady/enchantress over the head and steal her sweet magical loot, that’s probably more interesting than simply sharing a sandwich with her.
Question of the day then: As a player, have you ever been rewarded for lying/cheating/stealing/being a terrible person? Was that a fun experience for you?
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“morally dubious characters”
EXCUSE ME, I prefer “ethically open-minded”.
I prefer not be be backstabbed, so I’m going to go ahead and agree with you. And also mention how great you hair looks today.
Only all the time. Most recently our party had to get some magic rock from a kinda powerful witch. Instead of “talking” to her and presumably doing some favors I decided to just rob her instead, because I’m thug. Luckily, I’m also a wizard. So upon entering the building I took the form of a fire elemental and started brandishing my fully loaded necklace of fireballs like a belt of grenades and began shouting demands. I’m crap with intimidate checks, but that’s fine they weren’t threats; they were ultimatums. She handed over the trinket and I magically fled the seen. Apparently, that was even an intricate little subplot I circumvented with my shenanigans.
Are you sure you got away with it? I mean, the witch is presumably pissed off and vengeful…?
…I hope so? Things have been planes jump-y so we’ve developed a pretty devil may care stance when it comes to public relations. In fact, We found evidence that one of the enemies we made during the same chain of quest was trying to hunt us down, which may or may not have been from before our encounter with them. Vengeance is a valid concern.
Witch seeks vengeance against the fire elemental that stole her father’s magic rock, makes a deal with powerful water element coalition leading to a conflict between two powerful factions of the elemental planes of water and fire that persists after her death.
Town introduces new irrigation system to combat drought in their farms; irrigation channels somehow catch on fire which spreads to the town. A heavy storm forms, “Yay, we’re saved!”. Storm proceeds to flatten the entire town with massive hailstones because “Take that, fire!”.
Elementals are very literal creatures.
“If you simply copy a trope like ‘help stranger, receive boon,’ you’re only rewarding one type of play. How is the poor rogue supposed to enjoy the game when his self-centered character concept automatically negates ‘the good ending?”
The thing is, selfishness is often its own reward. The selfish player gets gold, plunder and never sacrifices anything except for personal gain. It’s not like they’re getting “screwed” if an occasional beggar is an enchantress in disguise.
True in some respects. However, they are getting screwed if the beggar woman “just happens to be” a vengeful enchantress. If that happens all the time it becomes a subspecies of the max-level inn keeper:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/epic-level-npcs
My argument is to let them get away with skulduggery scot-free every once in a while.
I guess I’ve never heard of it being an issue that a selfish player is constantly faced with enchantress beggars. That would seem to get self-evidently silly extremely fast.
DM: Welp, time to roll to see if THIS beggar is an enchantress, too!
Thief: Hey, that’s not a die! It’s a marble! And you drew a “1” on it!
Bahamut also goes around in mortal form as an old man surrounded by seven trained canaries, but the seven canaries are just his honor guard: seven great gold wyrms. Bahamut offers healing, advice, or information in this guise.
This can be found on page 60 of the Deities and Demigods sourcebook from 3.0 (which is known for its horribly statted gods).
I had a sneaking suspicion that the trope existed somewhere in canon.
Here’s a question then: How would you insert old-man Bahamut into a game?
The page I offered suggests using Bahamuts old-hermit-form as one that could give a subtle prophecy to unlock a great mystery (though that’s a bit heavy handed even for me, and I’d only use him in this way if Bahamut played a part in the campaign, perhaps in the Rise of Tiamat for 5E). It also suggests using him as one that offers safe refuge or a badly needed spell.
As for myself, I think that I would prefer to use his old-man-form as part of a trade caravan or circus. The others in the caravan don’t know what he is, they just know he’s a wise and slightly senile man with a flock of trained birds that provide little shows for the kids of a village or town while the parents shop.
Now, how might this interact with the player characters? If one of them is constantly detecting magic, I’d say they sense it from the canaries (since dragons can change form naturally), but not from the old man (whose impressive divine magic is a bit too subtle for a low to mid-level pc to detect). A draconic character or a paladin might feel uplifted in Bahamut’s presence and not know why, they’d just feel very energetic.
If they confront him asking why the canaries seem magical or if the Paladin asks why the dragon seems so anti-evil in aura, or even why the canaries have an aura, Bahamut might reveal himself in one way or another, perhaps away from the crowd of people. He might offer a small blessing for the one who noticed him, such as a Contingency’d spell, but no spell higher than 6th level.
Ideally what would happen is players get rewarded for playing their character. The way to set this up to mean something is for it to be in situations where the character might have to be choosing between being true to their own ideals vs the ideals of the party as a whole.
I don’t see much point in trying to punish thieves who actually managed to rob the town store without getting spotted. If their actions would have natural consequences of course go with them, but “you stole thing, the world finds a way to punish you” is pretty unfair and actually diminishing the value of skillsets they chose over other ones (and maybe even objects they spent resources on).
So is Fighter’s -17 silver in grocery bills a one time thing or recurring? If it’s daily that’s almost a Comfortable lifestyle for free for life. Adding whatever money he’s got saved up from adventuring so far, that might be the kind of quest reward that leads to early (below 10th level) retirement. Though then Fighter would get replaced with Monk or something (maybe another fighter of a different archetype/prestige class) and the party would probably have a lot less problems so I doubt they’d mind terribly. =P
I think “-17 silver in grocery bills” meant Fighter just spent his money giving food to old people in the hopes that they were disguised, wish-granting spellcasters.
^ This.
But to answer your question, Ramsus, that “-17 silver in grocery bills” is recurring, but only for a couple of weeks. After that Fighter got frustrated, tried decapitating a cronechantress, and was summarily cursed with early onset male pattern baldness. From this point forward, you may assume that he’s wearing a wig.
I will instead assume the false crone, being a crazy person who spends their time pretending to be an old person to see how random people they meet treat old people and responding wildly out of proportion, did the curse weird and Fighter’s baldness is in fact in the pattern of little males of varying creature types.
I think that sort of plot element is great precisely because the PCs can mix it up. Whether the PCs decide to help, ignore, disdain, rob, kill, or otherwise interact with their disguised beggar, it informs the story and the characters, leading to more roleplaying opportunities. For example:
A wrinkled old woman in plain clothes but wearing a gold necklace approaches the party. She begs them for a silver to buy something to eat. Your Rogue tells her that he’ll trade that fake old necklace for some bread, hoping to swindle her. Your Paladin stops her from doing so and just gives her some apples. The woman reveals her disguise and gives the Paladin her necklace, which has some protective charms. Paladin lectures smugly, and Rogue is feeling pretty salty.
The next day, Rogue spies an enchanted necklace in an upscale shop. He resolves to steal it to teach Paladin a lesson. You run a solo mission for him between sessions, and he manages to pull it off. At the start of the next session, the Paladin awakens to the crunching of an apple. Rogue is doing a dramatic coolguy sitting pose, eating an apple while openly wearing his stolen jewelry. His way got him necklaces AND apples. Your move, Pally.
If I ever get my portrait done, I’m going to get that rogue to give me some pointers on my “dramatic coolguy sitting pose.” Are the apples a requirement, or an accessory?
It depends on how adamant you are about dramatic flair, I suppose. Apples are evocative fruit, with their bright colors, distinctive crunch sounds, and lengthy history of symbolism in literature. In this particular scenario, the Paladin had given an apple as charity, and had received in return. By smugly eating an apple in front of the Paladin while displaying his stolen wares, the Rogue is making a powerful statement against the Paladin’s stuffy beliefs without ever saying a word. =)
For serious though, you know what I like about your scenario? The city watch didn’t somehow miraculously appear and arrest the rogue for being naughty. His necklace didn’t turn out to be cursed. The opposing world views got to clash without the universe casting judgement. That’s a good thing.
What about people getting punished for doing good, like in that one episode of Adventure Time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Z3ZAIIgAaA
Yeah man. Like I said in the post, punish good deeds every once in a while. It keeps things fresh and interesting, tests characters’ moral fiber, and brings interesting questions of justice and virtue into play.
Maybe don’t explode into a giant flashing “EAT IT” though. That’s laying it on a bit thick.
Those tropes need a little adaptation to fit into the TRPG medium. Instead of Odin disguising himself as a feeble old man, he might disguise himself as a feeble-minded old magician—the kind who sets cages on fire when trying to blow them apart. If you put up with him, he saves your life by conjuring a huge cloud of feathers; if you don’t, you just splat. Simple!
This year, I have something more interesting to say than a blatant Dragonlance reference.
You need to pick tropes that fit the party. Random strangers that give boons if they’re helped are good if there’s a paladin in the party. For the rogue, see if you can put them in the role of a Trickster (e.g. Loki, Anasazi, Bugs Bunny). They might be impeded by their impulsiveness, greed, or other character flaws, but they get out of that quagmire ahead of where they started through guile, resourcefulness, and deception.