While the scene did not play out well for the player, as a DM I had no intention of executing the player for a simple mistake, which was reasonably a matter of not clearly understanding the rules. Unless a player is deliberately obtuse, I consider it my responsibility to rebuild the situation into one that the player can rise out of ... and so I contrived a court scene that would end with the player character, Tiberius, receiving his freedom.
My perspective is that player foolishness is usually an opportunity for further events, which can set up a twist ... or, to see it another way, a sting.
In many ways, Dungeon Mastering is a confidence game. The way in which con artists used to describe the process of fleecing their mark gives us the terms we still use in storytelling and in role-playing games. The con's mark is given a "hook;" the hook is followed with a "tale" that baits the hook, encouraging the mark to want something so badly that they're willing to expose themselves. When the con artist takes advantage of that exposure, it is called the "sting."
For example, you're a mark; and you want to be very, very rich. Being rich, however, is something hard to accomplish, so you're always looking for an easier way. This is what makes you a mark: your willingness to look for shortcuts.
The hook is the demonstrate that a short cut exists. And the tale is the way that its revealed that you, if you're smart enough, and willing enough to break a few rules, can take advantage of this short cut. And when you do try to take advantage ... I sting you.
That's what the Nigerian Prince is all about. It's what most phishing scams are built around. It's the tale behind Amway and most pyramid schemes. "Do this, it's really easy, just get your friends to join, and once they get their friends to join, and so on, you'll be rich! And in the meantime buy these products wholesale so you can make money off them, too!"
People believe because they want to believe. Because they are desperate to believe. Because the idea of not believing they can be rich fills them with angst and sorrow.
Role-players are excellent marks, because they have deliberately put their blinders on for the sake of enjoying the fantasy and taking risks that they wouldn't ordinarily take as real people. They don't need much of a hook or a tale ... and though they are often doubtful, now and then they can be sweetly and beautifully stung ~ though personally, I like to do it in a manner that enables a continuing, satisfying and steadily profitable experience for the players. This post is to explain how.
Of course, it's always possible to find some hook that can be baited for the player, but if we take a situation like Tiberius getting himself arrested, that's not necessary. The player is already good and hooked, because the player is at the NPC's mercy.
I invented Johann Mizer carefully, on certain tried-and-true principles. First, he had to be an important enough merchant that his word would be recognized by the Judge of the Court and be good enough to exonerate Tiberius:
Johann Mizer [known at this time only as a 'Gentleman']: “Your honor. I was present at the dinner in the Merchant’s Hall when this man’s honor was astoundingly and insultingly impugned by the action of the Hall’s concierge. The very idea that this man could stand in a public place and prepare to throw a spell in such a manner is utterly ridiculous and fully fantastical. This man is a well-known figure in the business world in Graz, in Syria, and is in the employ of the Baron von Furstenfeld, an upstanding gentleman and one of the Electoral College of the Empire, your honor. His faithfulness to the crown, to the well-being of his fellow man and to God is indisputable. I demand that compensation be made for this unforgivable attack!”
First and foremost, all of this is a lie. The player behind Tiberius knows it is, but who facing a prison term would say so? Obviously, if Tiberius did say so, as DM I would throw him in prison and ask him to roll a new character (for being deliberately stupid). Secondly, the lie is ornate, excessive and full of names and details that I can advantage because my world is based on the Real Earth. This is south Bavaria in the 17th century; Graz is an important trading city, there is an Electoral College in the Holy Roman Empire and Furstenfeld was a legitimate name of nobility.
Moreover, the details here took advantage of a background I gave to the character before the game started. I did not create the background with this purpose; I didn't know the player was going to get thrown in jail so quickly. But once I did know, I searched the background to find what I could exploit. So that is Key: use the player's background, if there is one, to create a hook.
For Mizer's lie is a second hook, in that it leaves the player to wonder, "Why is this stranger lying for me?"
Connecting Tiberius to Mizer, as someone Tiberius knew once upon a time, helps create the hook we're going to tell. The tale is this: Mizer always liked Tiberius, Mizer is rich, Mizer has power, Mizer has Tiberius' best interests at heart ~ and concordantly, the party's best interests also. The virtue of the tale is that it helps convince the player, "1) If Mizer likes me, he'll help me. 2) If he's rich, he can help me with money. 3) If he's powerful, he can connect me with other people who can help me. 4) And he'll do all this because he likes me."
To make this work, we've got to be subtle and not heavy handed. Mizer will help, but not now, because he's busy, he has to go talk to really important people. Meet him tomorrow at a reputable place so we can talk about stuff.
Mizer's lack of availability sells point (3), as does the fact that the judge believed Mizer. The importance of the people Mizer meets helps sell point (2). A public place suggests he has nothing to hide and helps sell point (1). And 1 + 2 + 3 helps sell point (4). We can do all of that with so little.
The story in the past that I gave was that once, Tiberius' master sold Mizer a blind horse; Tiberius was present as a stable boy. Of course he wouldn't have dared, as a boy, speak up; and the player accepts that immediately, when Mizer says,
Johann: “You sold me a blind horse! Well, the Baron did. I think that’s the last time I did anything very foolish. Have you had a decent meal? Do you have somewhere to stay?”
The words are chosen very carefully! He brings up the horse; he exonerates Tiberius in it, and Tiberius naturally assumes this was because Tiberius was just a stable boy. And Mizer seems very content about it, blaming himself. What a good guy this Mizer is! And generous, too ... the generosity following immediately after the concept of blame/self-blame. Look at Tiberius' response:
Tiberius: I laugh uneasily at Johann’s small joke. “My jailors treated me remarkably well. Food, water, a place to think. All well and good, considering.” Tiberius informs Johann of his accommodations at The Pig. “If I might ask, what brings you to Dachau? Besides helping an old acquaintance out of an unfortunate scrape?”
Hook taken. Tiberius reveals his abode without hesitation. Ask yourself as a person: how quick are you to tell near strangers where you live? Tiberius the player trusts Mizer already. As a DM, it is my role to figure out a way to transform that trust into a good game experience.
Johann does not tell Tiberius where he lives; he gives his point of contact as the Market Hall, also called the Merchant's Hall. And when the party does see Mizer the next morning, he's rushed and puts off their meeting to the beer garden. This helps sell further that Mizer is too important to be interrupted, which the party buys hook, line and sinker (also a con artist's phrase - the "line" is another name for the tale and the "sinker" is another name for the sting).
Johann and I, the DM, are playing the same game. I've fashioned Johann as a con artist to play off the vulnerability of Tiberius' arrest. But the con I'm playing here as DM is not to take the player's money; it is not even to put the players into trouble. Let's ask ourselves: what does Johann Mizer know about the players?
Well, he's heard what happened at the Market Hall with Tiberius, so he knows Tiberius is a spellcaster. He talks to the guards and they tell him how the spellcaster came in with another man, who tried to ask about hiring mercenaries: Josef. Mizer asks around and figures out that people have seen them both in the company of a very extroverted bard, who stays at The Pig ... and learns about the other two, Kazimir and Anshelm, through that connection. He learns this group don't have jobs, they've been able to pay their way up until now, they don't seem to respect authority very much and they are constantly asking people about some sort of adventure they'd like to be on. It's pretty much exhausting how often this group harasses others on that point.
This is how I want to think as a DM. NOT about what I know about the party, but what an NPC knows ... from the way the party acts. Parties tend to think they move through a world like ghosts; that no one is watching them on an everyday basis. But that's not how it would be, right? Player characters, with their armor, their cavalier attitude, their tendency to wander about without giving a care about things like responsibility, working, being concerned about others and so on, must leave a pretty large footprint as they wander around. It's a good thing to remember.
So Johann thinks, "I'll give them an adventure." And does. But when he meets the party at the beer garden, he is careful not to say so directly:
DM: Mizer is there; he happily greets each one of you; introductions are made, and Mizer pleasantly insists that he buy the first round. The day did not begin too well for him; but an arrangement has been made and a silversmith is to be ousted from his rented property a few miles out of town, so that it will be put under Mizer’s ownership.Anshelm: “This silversmith ... what’d he do?” I inquire after a moment, keeping my tone as neutral as possible.Johann: “Oh nothing, I suppose. But it’s not his land, is it? I might have a look at his books, see if he’s worth having as a tenant ... but I’m thinking I’d like to turn the land over to cattle. There might be some trouble, depending on what sort of man he turns out to be - but I’ll send a group of hooligans if I must.”
Johann is generous again, he's apparently forthcoming as he talks about his "troubles" ... and he starts the ball rolling by inserting two words into his story: the word "silver" and the word "arrangement."
See? Everything is absolutely legal, though the players wouldn't recognize legal if the face-planted into it (they don't care anyway, they only care that an illegality doesn't pursue them). The key word is silver ... which, though not a single player makes a comment on the word for the rest of the adventure, I know as a DM that it hasn't been forgotten.
Anshelm takes the bait with his question ... and then shows himself to me that he's eager by telling me he's not eager. A real Johann would identify the exact same message by the mere fact of Anshelm's question, picked out of everything else Johann says, accompanied by body language and the like.
In How to Run, I talked about how a magician guesses your card by holding the cards shown to you in a specific way that makes you pick the card the magician wants. We think we're using our brains, that we're exercising our freedom of action ~ but the magician knows better. The magician knows we're being manipulated.
Here is a real example of my doing that. I want the player to ask the question that lets Johann answer with more information; the RIGHT information. "Oh, I have this problem, I'm sure some bully boys can solve it."
Johann knows he's talking to bully boys. The players also know they're bully boys ... but they think, somehow, that because Johann is a stranger, he doesn't already know this. They assume that I, as DM, know it ... but surely, I'm playing Johann here, so I'm not acting on that information.
It is a weird sort of double-bluff, and to play it well takes practice and an awareness that this is what you're doing. You're giving the NPC the information they're entitled to have; you're reasoning with yourself how the NPC knows it (in a way that you know you could explain the legitimacy of it if you had to) and you're giving the TALE to the players so they'll walk into the sting:
Delfig [to Johann]: “Why would there be trouble?” I ask rather innocently.Johann [choosing to answer Anshelm]: “Oh, these country bumpkins, they think they have rights because they pay their money. They never understand that these shacks and flimsy waterwheels they slap together hardly substitute as privileges of land.”Anshelm: I lean forward. “Yes, the folk ‘round these parts seem the petulant type. Have you had trouble before?”
See? They haven't got the job yet and already I'm explaining how easy it will be. It's a total lie. When the players get to the Meyer's homestead at the end of this tale, it is far from a "shack" and a "flimsy wheel." It is a monument to hard work and maintenance. But the players don't pick up on this even when they're there. In fact, until they actually find that Herr Meyer is prepared to fight them, they suppose he's absolutely a country bumpkin, just as Johann says. So the tale was set deep in their heads; wasn't even that hard.
So the players try to sell themselves to Johann, and he asks if they've tried their hand at collections; and the players make the connection and accept the job, and there we are: the players are off on an adventure to throw someone they don't know out of their house: for 25 g.p. up front and 100 g.p. when they do the job. Big whup. But the party is sure, like all parties are, that this is just the beginning of their association with Johann Mizer.
Very well. Onto the sting.
They're taken out to the Meyer house and mill, five miles west of Dachau. Before they see the house, or learn anything about it, they have a big conflab about what to do and how to do it, and how many weapons they'll take and armor and equipment and on and on. I'm never clear about these scenes; me, I'd walk up to the house, explain to Meyer what I've been told, assure him if he doesn't leave that I'll be back with more people and that is a promise.
This is what I expected from the party. This is what Johann expected. He didn't say, "Do you want a job threatening a man and his family. He said, "I might have a look at his books, see if he's worth having as a tenant ..." That doesn't sound very threatening. But he also says right after, "I'll send a group of hooligans if I must."
Players will convince themselves of the most absurd agendas, even when the original suggestion is written in text. It is worse when everything around the table is spoken. One of the players at the Meyer Homestead suggested burning the house down. We should ask ourselves: if Johann were to see this immaculate mill and farmhouse, would he want them burned down?
Johann wants to scare the silversmith. That's all. He doesn't actually own the property (though he'd like to). He isn't known by the name "Johann Meyer" to the silversmith. The party learns both these things ... as they realize they never were given written proof of their right to do anything at all. In fact, the party bumbles around like a bunch of buffoons as they slowly get it into their heads that, for whatever reason, Johann is playing them for fools.
That's a sting. And the party's reaction was priceless. They weren't hurt at all, not really, but it certainly buried them in the situation and they certainly came out of it with their faces red.
But that was supposed to be another sting ... which, to be honest, I don't remember if I ever got to play in the campaign or not. It's a major reason why I've decided to rewrite the campaign out; I've forgotten more about what happened than I remember.
When the players get back to Dachau, they find out very quickly, by overhearing two guards, that Johann Mizer is dead. Which throws the party for a loop.
What they didn't realize at the time was that the party had never met Johann Mizer. Instead, they had met a doppleganger pretending to be Johann Mizer. And now, the guards were talking about the REAL Johann Mizer, not the fake one the party had met. That is why Herr Meyer at the mill in the country had never heard of Mizer. And it was why the party had been sent there. The dopplegangers knew about the farm; they knew about the vein of silver under the mill, and the hidden mine the players never discovered, and the potential for funding themselves in order to go on looking like rich merchants, while killing real merchants ... and ordering the death of innocent innkeepers. They knew about it as something they'd learned while being dopplegangers.
But, sadly, none of that came out until much, much later. And a large part of it never came out. Mostly, in this case, because the party could not get its shit together; and partly because I played the hand much too large later in the mystery (though that was to try to get the party galvanized, which proved near impossible, as they continued to bumble around like buffoons), and partly because it was played online and the players lost the thread of what was happening.
It was supposed to be a really great sting; at the very least, it was a good hook and tale.
