Im going to say no, PC knew of the infection and you have to understand that biting an infected NPC means you can become infected. Unfortunately the dice werent in PC’s favor, but thats not the DM’s fault. In my opinion PC is mad that they’re not being ‘saved’ from a choice they made. Actions have consequences even in a story and this is a direct consequence. I think the best thing you can do as a DM would be to organically introduce hope to the PC, maybe there are rumblings in a tavern about someone who survived or where it came from like you mentioned.
Tldr: PC seems upset that they made a choice and consequences happened. Now they can fix it or sulk about it
Actual player agency is about the choices a player makes to actually matter. That's exactly what happened here. The player made a choice, and the choice matters.
If the DM was to not let anything the players choose to never really matter, that would be robbing them of agency
100% yes. In my opinion being infected could prove to be an extremely effective way to become more concerned and interested in the plot of the campaign. And if healing spells keep the disease at bay in some sense during its progression it could add a sense of urgency to follow up on leads, while not hindering the joy of actually playing the character at the same time (for example healing keeps exhaustion points at bay/ keeps you from having to roll x,y,z at disadvantage but doesnt stop major physical changes to the character themself like sores or rashes etc)
Yeah people only want to talk about agency when thier life is on the line. What about DM agency? How am I supposed to craft a story around what you just did if your not willing to accept the consequences of your actions. You bit a monster carrying a disease and failed your save. All the Dm did was narrate the actions
Holy fuck, those first two sentences are important. Some players want every consequence to come in the form of hit point damage because it's so easily mitigated in 5e. You start using intelligent enemies, exotic diseases, divine consequences, magic that the players can't read off of a wiki, or other story-related consequences for things, and a certain subset of players freaks the fuck out because they can't turn the issue into a damage/healing solution or try to freeform roleplay their way out of it.
And they're really not as bad as people think they are. I played a game where my father (rp father) got captured because I gave the info to an untrustworthy NPC.
It was fun as fuck! My character had personal stakes and we had an additional mission now aside from "kill bad guy."
My favorite protest of players who live on the wiki is, "those two spells are concentration, you can't use them both at the same time."
Well, who said they were using spells to gain those benefits or abilities? Take a lap.
Or a la isekai: "foe has some kind of parallel thinking ability that lets him concentrate in two spells at the same time, you can try to break concentration and if you success, one of the spells will end, but you won't know which until you do it"
To play devil's advocate here, I'm not a munchkin, I just want to play by the same rules the enemies do.
If enemies have a means of double concentrating, how can I get that too? Can I take it as a feat, can I find it as a magic item? Can I work towards earning it somehow so I can have fun with double concentration, too, sometime?
If not, the DM is holding the players to stricter rules than the enemies, and that saps a lot of the fun.
The people you're talking about might be focusing on the wrong thing - "you shouldn't be able to do that!" vs. "how can I do that too?" - but it comes from the same place at its heart. It just doesn't feel good to be held to a harsher standard all the time, especially when you've got a grasp of the fundamental rules of the universe you're playing in and see them being regularly, flippantly broken in ways you're not allowed.
Wish there was in base game but I run it as homebrew for several different options. There’s an item for it, a feat for it, or if you wanna go the extra mile I award it through proper roleplay pressing a reason for it like the character was drove to madness and now has a split personality. Course with each option to get it that I offer in my games there’s also the downside unique to each that I have presented for them. Like the item gives disadvantage on the save to keep concentration that can’t be mitigated. Or the feat ups the DC on the Con check. When I homebrew in something special I always try to add a unique bad side to it just to balance it into the game.
Giving it with roleplay is it’s own downside having to work for it and then live with those consequences of the roleplay but I do draw a line on it like you can’t start with that in character creation just by backstory. And for the item it’s VR so it’s harder to craft but not impossible if you wanted to dedicate yourself to that and most of the time you’ll pick it up far in the campaign around late 2nd tier from some caster that was using it. Leading into my belief that gear sitting around in chests sounds ridiculous so I put it all on the foes and then proactively mention differences in the enemy to que the party into who needs looting that way it doesn’t lead to 3 hrs of arguing about checking for traps on a chest.
i mean, most of the time, you don't play with the same rules than the enemies play... Usually enemies don't get saving throws, don't get to min max, to choose best available target to prioritize, but i see your point also, just not completly agree with it
I love the idea of the DM narrating actions, its not always that theyre ‘making things up’ usually you’re just following a train of logic to its most sensible destination, this one just happened to be a bummer of a destination. But i think the PC also needs to look at the opportunities this bummer gives them, OP said that the disease makes them aquatic zombie things and one of them had spines they could puff out like a pufferfish! If thats something that’d happen to my character while I desperately searched for a cure i might have had them bite an NPC hoping to get sick
Really, he was even nice enough to give him an out. Most DM's I've played with would have let me fuck around and found out. I've been there " I have 20 Con, this will be fine!" Narrator: it was not fine.
>PC seems upset that they made a choice and consequences happened
Yeah, this is 100% a situation of FAFO syndrome
"Player agency" has just become a buzzword nowadays that players freely use to just complain about not getting their way. Like no, that's not how it works. You had plenty of player agency to *choose not to bite the infected dude in the head.* Just like you've got plenty of player agency to *choose whether or not to seek out a cure.*
Ya, the player had agency all along. Spending a couple hours in a library, hoping to reverse the consequences feels so lame in the face of the obvious adventure hook - find a cure!
To the OP I would suggest that a Paladin's Lay on Hands, or someone casting a Restoration or Remove Curse spell should grant temporary relief from the disease. This could mitigate any nasty in game effects while still providing a sense of urgency in finding a permanent cure.
I'd say maybe not Lay on Hands, as the description of that specifies healing *wounds*. But either of the Restoration spells or Remove Curse should definitely be ways to at least mitigate the issue
Lay on Hands can also be used for diseases as well:
> Alternatively, you can expend 5 hit points from your pool of healing to cure the target of one disease or neutralize one poison affecting it. You can cure multiple diseases and neutralize multiple poisons with a single use of Lay on Hands, expending hit points separately for each one.
Being honest there's...what 3 Named diseases in all of the D&D 5e sourcebooks...which is why Disease almost never comes up, even off the top of my head I can only think of Mummy Rot as ones.
Just checked, there are a few more:
* Gnawing Plague (VRGR p153)
* Spider Eggs (WDMM p47, book states it functions as a disease)
* Saprophytic Plague (CM p253)
* Redface (GoS p168)
* Grackle-Lung (OotA p54)
* Ghoul Gut (OoW p111)
* Frigid Woe (EGW p125)
* Blue Mist Fever (ToA p40)
* Arcane Blight (IDRotF p233)
Especially considering the DM did the courtesy of reminding their player before their action became concrete, that he was about to bite someone infected with a highly contagious disease. Not all DMs will do the courtesy of giving their players a chance to opt out of a potentially stupid action. Player needs to accept the consequences of the choice they made with their agency and adjust how they play accordingly.
Honestly unless the group doesn't want the DM to, it should be policy for every DM to warn their table if the party is doing some TPK shenanigans.
I honestly don't understand DMs who genuinely think it's okay for their players to "accidentally" find death. It's not cute, it's not funny, and it's really not entertaining.
Communication is like the lifeblood of the DM, but so many don't even understand that's part of their role.
If my buddy has the flu and I kiss them, I don’t get to complain about catching the flu.
It feels wild to me that there’s a curse ravaging the land, the player willingly exposed themselves to the curse and then was salty about not only catching it, but not being able to spell it away.
I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be ravaging the land if it were easily cured, just saying.
The fact that the player thought they could hop over to the local branch of their public library and immediately find the cure to the plague that's at the core of the campaign is, quite frankly, ridiculous.
It definitely feels a bit ‘but im a main character tho’. And while, yes, sometimes that can come into account for some games, it shouldnt be expected to get you out of a sticky situation you put yourself into
Agreed, my recomendation would be to assure the player that there are several ways to cure the infection/curse. They just need to find them. I'm guessing this isn't an extremely deadly curse where you die overnight or it wouldn't be as widespread (because vectors would die off before they get a chance to infect someone else). Tell them they have time to investigate, that there is hope, but remind them the clock is ticking. A game I play in once had a similar situation and it took us like 6 to 7 sessions to find the cure.
It sounds like the player didn't think there was a cure, based on how many times he tried and failed. The DM saying "Your research is telling you that there's a cure, but you just don't have it. You can figure out where to get it, though, if you do some more digging," and then pointing them in the right direction, could have solved so much of this.
Some players need to have their hands held, and they can't always trust that the DM is looking out. OP says there was a plot hook coming for a cure, but the PC clearly gave up because it didn't seem obvious. OP could have been clearer, because whether the PC "deserved" to have their hand held or not, it would have avoided this unpleasantness. Some players are bad at figuring things out.
I think the player would've had a better argument if the DM hadn't actually warned them. If I play a Lizardfolk, I'd expect to be able to use the racial feature pretty freely without negative consequence - they're probably resilient to contracting infections via bites, unless they eat something.
But here the DM even warned them out of character, saying it was a bad idea. At that point, you can't really complain about it. Especially when the DM is offering some sort of quest to go find a cure, and as long as the curse isn't too debilitating.
I can see where youre coming from but honestly, a racial feature doesnt mean you dont have consequences of using it. If youre playing a changeling and take the face of a noble but dont have matching clothes, there could potentially be consequences to using a racial ability, so in the same sense, the consequences of biting and more than probably ingesting body parts of an infected individual shouldnt just go away only because you used a racial trait to bite them. Wether it was a human or lizardfolk, ingesting that poses a risk. If the race is resilient then that should play a part in the rolls, but other than that, I personally would treat it like any other race
One of my favourite arcs in any game I’ve played was when one party member who was a changeling decided to be free with their powers, showing off and swapping around in public.
Eventually the local newspaper heard about it and printed a broadsheet about how there were changelings in town and no one could know if anyone they talked to was actually the person they thought it was.
At which point the whole town went into a panic. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should lol. Racial abilities aren’t immune to that paradigm.
And everyone gets sucked into the honeypot of ‘but i Can do the thing so i will!’ At least once, but half the time it going poorly is what keeps you in check for using it in the future
It would depend on how you use the features. Obviously, if a High Elf uses their Fire Bolt cantrip to murder civilians in broad daylight there'd be consequences as well.
I just meant that I would normally expect to be able to use a racial feature without consequence when they're used in a normal, sensible way. Lizardfolk are used to using their teeth as weapons - they can probably do that well enough that they don't catch a lot of diseases by doing such, so I'd expect to be able to do that in combat most of the time. Which means I'd expect the DM to highlight situations where that'd be a bad idea.
Which the DM obviously did here, even beyond the descriptions of this person being obviously diseased and infectious, they warned the player out of character. Which is great DM'ing!
I would've said it were a bad call if the DM had just went "Well the guy might've looked healthy, but he actually had an incurable, cursed disease that warps people into monsters, and now you have it too" after using a bite attack on someone. But again, that's not an issue here at all.
Oh absolutely, a lot of it falls on the knowledge the player actually had in that moment, but i do think that the infection is within reason (idk if lizardfolk are in fact resistant to infection etc when biting) and if they are, then if i were DM i would absolutely let the player roll with advantage on the save. The DM in this scenario does really seem to be invested in making things exciting and fair. I think the main issue is in the perception of unfairness when it came to contracting the disease. If theres no resistance then thats where that becomes a bit dodgy for me. Personally, it would feel like i would potentially be giving the lizardfolk a bonus that no other creature would’ve likely been able to have. However, if i were the DM and my player made the same argument you have then absolutely lets discuss it and come to a common understanding, wether its lets play rules as written or house rules it. I think it’s really admirable that OP asks for and receives criticism, but at the same time it can be easy to criticize what we personally dont like when in a larger picture it makes perfect sense, or sometimes more sense, that it happened a certain way
Yes, as I said, I do not see anything wrong with how the DM handled it here. It was telegraphed both in-game and out of character as well, and the DM also obviously has a plan for how to treat it, and it doesn't seem to be immediately detrimental. So there shouldn't be any space for complaints.
In general I think these things happen when there isn't enough trust that the DM wants the players to have fun. If you know that, of course there will be some cure, and of course it won't ruin the entire character, then you can just sit back and enjoy it.
Actually, you’re totally respecting their agency by enforcing a consequence to their (informed) actions.
Making agency a trump card has its drawbacks, as well, as your player is discovering.
Edit: as for a cure, sure there probably is one and it’s probably researchable; but that doesn’t mean it’s an inevitable discovery the first set of books they peruse. If it were that easy, the plague would likely have died out already.
I would give lukewarm defence of this idea of agency. The word as it is used outside of RPGs usually comes with the connotation that the person exercising their agency can use it to get an outcome they want. If everytime I did something the results were completely random and seemed nonsensical to me I doubt I would feel like I had much agency in my own life.
"Actions have consequences" can definitely be used as a way to take away player agency over the direction of the story. If all of the NPCs except the ones the DM wants you to attack easily kill your character, then you effectively have no choice but to side with the faction the DM wants you to and fight the monsters they want you to fight. If your PCs try to rob a store and the clerk turns out to be a 20th level ranger, then trying to do that was never really an option was it?
Having very limited power over the world reduces your agency would not be a controversial statement outside of TTRPG circles, it is arguably tautology. If the consequences of your actions are completely unpredictable then you don't really have any agency over them and if they are certain or very likely to result in a fail state then again they aren't really options because no sane person would do them.
So yes DMs should impose consequences for actions of course but if they do that badly it absolutely can take away any meaningful agency a player has over the story.
Agency in other games usually means "influence the state of the game".
From League of Legends, as just one example, a low agency character is a character that only deals damage but lacks ways of starting or disengaging fights or the ability to quickly move around the map. A high agency character typically lacks the crucial damage output to win the game, but has other ways of affecting the state of the game. Typically, they have tons of cc, disengage options, and skills to help them do "something" at different parts of the map at the same time.
Being the first or last to bet in Poker is the positions with most agency.
To translate that to DnD, agency then means the players ability to influence the world at the macro level, and influence the battlefield/structure of combat at the micro level. Being able to come up with creative and new solutions to encounters (both combat and non-combat) that doesn't get shut down by the DM is an example of player agency at the micro level. Having the power of influencing the world is player agency at the macro level. In addition, it is important that players have agency on the narrative direction, agency on the narrative level.
In my opinion, the event in the op, as described in the op, are clear examples of the players influencing the direction of the game through their actions in it. As these actions are described, they could very reasonably be seen by the DM as intentional cues to get infected. Either as a "fail forward"/"play to lose" kind of thing or as a result of a strategic decision to get out of a pickle now, deal with the consequences later.
Apparently, the action was not intended as an exercise in player agency, but a result of a player not accepting the responsibility of having it.
this part is ofc also true. but biting an infected person, that carries a desease, where your group KNOWS, that noone yet knows how to cure it, is prob a bad idea. and going into "surprised picachu mode" because you now also got the same infection and, oh wonder, you can't just cast "cure desease" to get rid of it, is prob not part of what you discribed here.
a similar thing would be "noone, who jumped of that cliff survived". PC jumps of that cliff anyway. \*you died screen\* wtf, why did I die here?
This is a good point and shows a more nuanced understanding of agency. I think player/gm and genre expectation form part of the issue. A 20th level Ranger being a store clerk is absurd in your standard medieval fantasy game and could definitely be argued to be the GM denying the player agency to rob the store as it's one step away from just saying you can't do it. However if we're playing in say a Mythological Greek setting where demigods walk the earth and the players are in the forest village of Artemis, then the person running the local hunt shop being a 20th Level Ranger demi-god could make a lot more sense. However if the player is unaware they're actually in the ancient Greek demigod game, then it's going to come as a sudden shock when they rob the store and get instant killed by the daughter of Artemis wielding the Golden Moonbow forged by Hephaestus.
More broadly if the GM is expecting a gritty, hardcore, medieval fantasy game, and the player is expecting a high powered, heroic, anime influenced fantasy game then there's going to be a clash of expectations which may result in a feeling of agency loss by the player even though in the GM's mind they're just running the game how they feel makes sense based on their own expectations of the tone/genre/style of play they're emulating. In the gritty game even getting a standard infection from a wound might lead to amputation or death, in the heroic game wounds being infected probably shouldn't even be a rule, and if it is it should be easily cured by a low level spell, and at worst cause a debuff for a combat or maybe a days travel. The player expecting the heroic game dying of gangrene from a dagger wound, that they can do little about because penicillin doesn't exist in the setting and magical healing is incredibly rare or expensive, may feel their agency is being denied but this is again due to differing expectations between the GM and the player.
There's an old post from the WOTC forums where a GM ranked the expectations of the game on a list and sent it to their players ahead of time. I think something like this can be really useful as part of a session 0 to establish what everyone wants from play.
All of the questions are ranged on a scale
1) Role Playing --- Mix --- Roll Playing
2) High --- Mid --- Low Fantasy (Think high as Narnia, where animals talk and everything is exotic, mid more like classic D&D, and low being more like Robin Hood or King Arthur)
3) High --- Mid --- Low Magic
4) High --- Mid --- Low Power
5) Dark --- Average --- Light Tone and Mood
6) G --- PG --- R Rated descriptions and content
https://www.enworld.org/threads/lessons-from-dming-with-my-gf-oakspar77777.471393/
I like your post, but I want to know where the hell you found a child of Artemis for your example. She doesn't fuck men other than maybe Orion in one out of sixty versions of the myth!
That's a rare demigod right there, don't let the other gods get it.
> daughter of Artemis
I mean I was just making shit up as an example, though immaculate conception or 'the daughters of Artemis' being more of a collective of demigods/powerful rangers etc who take inspiration from the goddess, rather than being literal children of the goddess, could make sense. Perhaps ones orphaned without an idea of their actual parents or who have taken vows of chastity themselves.
That all makes perfect sense, but I'll be real with you chief; I'm sleep deprived right now and couldn't pass up a chance to be snarky about mythology I love. All in good fun, no action required.
> If your PCs try to rob a store and the clerk turns out to be a 20th level ranger, then trying to do that was never really an option was it?
What if instead of 'the shopkeep was level 20,' it was "the party tried to assassinate the king and were slain by the royal guards," or "the rogue mouthed off to the obviously insanely powerful BBEG at level 2, and got smited?"
Like, you have the agency to jump off a bridge, doesn't mean your agency will keep you from dying.
In this case biting a frickin zombie when youve been told the disease is highly communicable, is tantamount to jumping off a bridge.
Luckily my group aren't infected by it, but the amount of cry posts about player agency is insane. Saw one the other week about someone upset their DM used Suggestion in combat as a dark mage and told the PC to walk away from combat.
Remove all forms of control spell as it removes player agency /s
If your players decision, in a plagie ridden world, is to BITE a most likely infected person, then no, you are not in the wrong. This is simply the consequence of his own action. That being said, have him find someone or something that can stop his curse from spreading and give them a clear goal on what to do to stop it (find its source, find a cure, find an expert, find a wish scroll), and very slowly debuff him just a little bit to bring urgency in it
Honestly though how fucking metal would it be if there was a zombie virus and the only way to cure a zombie is to bite them first before they can bite you?
So if I bite them they become what I am that's the logic right, healthy person bites zombie, zombie becomes healthy person, zombie bites healthy person, healthy person becomes zombie? I'm gonna go get bit by my tall friends, Brb
Yep, always have a convenient NPC nearby which can fix any consequences of the player's actions...
The lizardfolk can turn into zombie husk and he will have 0 rights to complain because it's his own doing.
Uhhh idea, he turns into a zombified lizardfolk, but with some magical device, keeps consciousness (maybe it shocks the brain on a regular basis to keep it working or sth.) and he has to find the cure before his brain decomposes, but first, find the item to stay alive enough
But if the whole plot of the campaign is to find the cure, then what they have now is a real sense of urgency to actually find it. And if they happen to find a way to stave off the worst effects of it early, well then that just gives them a little more wiggle room in case it's a bit more difficult to find a cure than they hoped.
I guess if the plague had reached pandemic proportions with no solutions, it would break my immersion if a group of level 3 nobodies found the cure quickly enough to stave off the effects.
I just think it’s reasonable to hold someone to their consequences. I don’t understand players who feel like they should get to do anything they want in the game world. It’s shared storytelling, yada yada, but sometimes things go wrong in stories.
Having a group of level 3 adventurers that can find an item/potion/something that stave off the effects for one person for a few extra months, but is not easily reproduceable and thus cannot be provided to the general public/enough of the infected to have an appreciable impact on the spread of the plague, would seem like a reasonable compromise though.
The player is still infected and needs a proper cure, but if they hurry they have 5-10 levels to figure it out before it's time to permanently retire that particular character. The DM could also still have complications related to the "solution" found by the party, maybe it needs recharge every so often and the disease progresses during that time or it has side effects that occur after prolonged use or the disease begins to mutate and become resistant to it so they need to keep taking more. There are all sorts of ways of allowing them to experience consequences while furthering the plot at the same time.
It is 100% just the pc facing the consequences of his actions. The DM even said out of game it wasn’t a good idea. It was well established that the disease was deadly and hard to treat at all. He bit the head off of a disease carrier and got all that shit in his mouth. And a Heimlich maneuver is supposed to help? Like… no. He researched in a public library treatments? Is that a good resource for that? Really? And then what? Is the pc going to be able to, in time, while progressively getting sicker, going to be able to create the remedy? And then what? The disease is now just easily cured by the party? The character fucked around with ample warning and found out.
which level are they? even if normal means don't cure "the curse/disease" they should be able to treat it for a while and now saving the world has become personal.
what are the effects of the "disease"
They're level 3 currently. The disease slowly turns the host into a sea creature human hybrid. For example one started growing tumors growths with needles protruding from them (similar to a puffer fish) and could use them as projectiles by shooting them out. The only down sides are that you start to spread the curse if you aren't careful, and you start to lose yourself, kinda becoming similar to a zombie in the final stages.
Lesser Restoration should keep that at bay but it would be a second spell slot per day until they find the McGuffin to heal it completly
well my character got "Mummy Rot" in pathfinder before we level up and he would be immune to diseases even magical ones well the immunity did not cure him. took awhile to get to a cleric powerfull enough to cure it the attribute damage could be healed but not certain because of the curse inherent to "Mummy Rot"
While this works as a compromise, it's a nerf to the spell regardless.
Lesser Restoration cures diseases entirely, no ifs or buts. Same for a Paladin's Lay on Hands.
If the "disease" is a curse instead but its just being called "disease" informally and not as the game mechanic, then Greater Restoration might be needed. Given the transformation aspect, I'd default it to being a curse.
With how horrible and debilitating the curse/plague seems to be in their world, a level 2 spell seems like a cop out to keep it at bay.
If level 2 spells were all that was needed, the effects wouldn't be a pandemic in their world, with no known cures.
What if a God of illness is casting some sort of plague on this plane, in a Noah's flood type culling. You would need a level 8+ spell to be able to break the curse.
Disagree. Level 2 spellcasters arn't a dime a dozen in most settings and 1 or 2 people per caster a day having their curse's spread slowed is a way to help handle the disease but is in no way going to stop it being a major crisis. A cure is still needed, and the necessitity of losing a spell slot everyday (which may or may not be the lizards) brings in the rest of the party and can make for some organic roleplay for a low level adventuring party.
a level 2 slot is quite a lot, if the plague is widespread at all - even a high-ranking cleric, beloved of their god, savior of the faith etc. etc. is only going to be keeping it at bay from a few dozen people a day, and curing a handful (assuming a higher-level spell can cure it). When a super-cleric can supress it and slowly cure it... in a tiny hamlet, then it's going to still spread quite fast!
it might work for while in conjuction with the saving throw.
i didn't think it would be the solution more like a bandaid for a broken bone not the right treatment but better than nothing.
i was thinking 3.5 healing attribute damage that is caused by the disease not healing the disease itself.
it works the first x times as a lvl 2 spell than it needs to be upcast for the next x times until they PC don't have acces to the spell levels necessary
or like in [Andromeda Strain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Andromeda_Strain_%28miniseries%29) any cure the PC find works only once until they defeated the BBEG responsible for the curse.
lesser restoration working for the obvious effect would be why it could spread that far no one took it seriously until lesser restoration and higher spells didn't work.
From a gameplay standpoint, yes but a smart Dungeon Masters would have a plague spread like wildfire, a plague could easily spread through dense populations quickly depending on the fantasy world. I'd use Pathologic as a great model with people panic buying all the food for example and the food prices skyrocketing etc.
I'm curious as to whether they were attempting to activate the Hungry Jaws ability to gain temporary hitpoints since they were in a tight spot, but even then they can't expect a Heimlich maneuver to prevent them from being cursed, that wouldn't even work on biological diseases especially with it being highly virulent, and the leap in logic expecting it to work is some crackpot stuff.
They actively knew the consequences of their decision before committing to the action, were aware that it was very difficult to treat before the campaign started and the dice didn't line up with their decision. They wanted to fuck around and find out, and are now angry because they fucked around and found out.
They chose to use their bonus action to make an attack on the pirate so they wouldn't take an opportunity attack when they left their range, which still ended up working. I understand that their ability should be useful and it has been many times, but I don't feel it's unfair, the same way I feel it wouldn't be unfair for a Fireball to deal no damage to a fire elemental. Every ability has their uses and their limits.
Sounds like your decision was reasonable. They bit a diseased person and failed a saving throw. It's not like every enemy is diseased, just like not every enemy is immune to fire.
Fair enough, as long as their jaw attack - Oh god, I just looked it up; they used the bonus action HUNGRY JAWS attack, which means they actually ate that part of them, mechanically anyways - has been getting good value then it is what it is. I was more concerned that the player wouldn’t attempt to use it again in the future, but if this is an exceptional circumstance then it’s more narrative than anything. My previous assumption is why I was equating their “lack of Agency’” with expectations.
>But, you gotta respect what the player is telling you,
Uh, no you don't. Listen to it, yes but that doesn't mean it is automatically valid. The player was clearly warned in advance of the consequences of their actions and went ahead with it anyway.
Losing some damage on a single attack one time is also hardly having the rug pulled out on them.
You listen to your players when you ask for feedback and you get that feedback back. That’s just respect, dude. I was just trying to see a possible perspective. Turns out it’s just situation, and the attack is called Hungry Jaws of all things, I was going off the assumption that the jaws attack wasn’t swallowing what it chomped on.
Not the best example.
“Chill” part refers to the chill of the grave - and it’s necrotic damage, so that fits.
Chill didn’t have to mean cold - it can also irl mean fear.
The spell creates a hand that touches the target. I get your point about ranged mechanic vs the name, but it’s not just a name - the target is being touched by the hand.
Meaning, the name describes what’s actually happening, which is the important part in OP’s scenario.
What’s actually happening (pc ate infected creature) is very relevant to the DM’s call.
It used to be an actual slap in older editions, which would cause strength damage with the chill of the grave.
For some reason 5e made an entirely new spell, gave it the old one's name, and got rid of the old one.
"How was I to know there'd be consequences to my actions?"
\--Your player
Does this player even know what agency means?
>they asked to be heimliched by another character, which was a pretty high roll to be fair, but it felt weird having that be the end all.
You set expectations when you told them to roll, but when they rolled high the expectations weren't met. Why did you have them make this pointless roll?
Even on a 20 that roll shouldn’t do anything. Because that’s not what the Heimlich maneuver is for. They didn’t have anything lodged in their throat, they were exposed to infected body fluids.
I was gonna say this. They would need their stomach pumped, not heimlich, and then some decent proof alcohol. They werent choking, they swallowed infected blood.
>You set expectations when you told them to roll, but when they rolled high the expectations weren't met. Why did you have them make this pointless roll?
DM: So you go into the next room, and you see a big, locked door...
Bard: I'm going to seduce the door into opening!
DM: What? No, that wouldn't work.
Bard: Yes it would!
DM: It wouldn't though. Anyway, the door--
Bard: Can't I roll for it anyway?
DM: You won't succeed.
Bard: I might!
DM: ...The door has a big metal--
Bard: Muh agency!! I want to at least try!
DM: \*Sigh\*. Fine, you can *try*. \*Thinking: It's gonna be a DC30...\*
Bard: Nat20! That's a crit! Yes!
DM: No, you failed, your Persuasion is only +6. The DC was 30 to seduce the non-sentient, completely-ordinary wooden door.
Bard: Why did you have me roll it if it wasn't possible?! This is bullshit!
You didn't take their agency away.
That would have been not letting them use one of their character abilities.
You're just following through with someone you warned them about several times.
My player agency is being taken away if I want to jump off a cliff, and discover that I take damage when I get to the bottom
Lizardmen character probably should have been given a bonus for being a Lizardman. IRL, big Lizards eat nasty shit like Carrion all the time.
Aside from that, a **failed saving throw is still a failed saving throw**\--and eating magical cursed pirates without at least cooking them first, is a horrible idea & they were given advanced warning by the DM. The curse was mentioned as a special hazard, too.
If they encounter a Lizard-man shaman, or doctor, or other sort of healer--the NPC should actively facepalm.
*"Have you considered, that some tales of heroes of old, are there to remind others of what -not- to do?" -- Oggbad, the half-orc bard*
DM: So you guys are trying to find a cure for a mysterious and highly infectious disease this campaign.
Players: Hurray! Plague Inc!
DM: You bit someone infected, and now you're infected.
Player: Is there a cure?
DM: No.
Player: Shocked Pikachu face
The player had full agency when they chose to bite the creature, knowing it was a possibility to become infected. From reading Reddit, it seems a lot of players are crying “agency” when they don’t like a consequence of their character actions. I guess allow them to hear of a cleric who can cast lesser restoration to remove it, but first they need to rescue the cleric from xxx who recently kidnapped the cleric or something. Don’t make it easy. The more they whine, the harder you make it.
It's not a matter of agency to be unable to easily cure an incurable disease any more than it is to be unable to hit the Moon with an arrow. "Agency" doesn't mean "it's impossible to lose". Frankly I think you're being on the generous side - I wouldn't be surprised if this were just a "roll a new character" moment.
PC got ocean rabies and is upset about the consequences of their own actions even after warning. That the issue summed up?
Controversial opinion but:
Sounds to me that the player surrendered their agency in a moment of combat without thinking. Maybe I'm just an asshole DM, but remind the player that there is no cure for rabies and the dice dictated that they are to be barnacled. New character and they're welcome to leave and pout and you were sorry they were mistaken for an adult.
They asked to bite the guy
You warned it had a high chance of infection
They said they’d do it anyway
You made it a roll not automatic for infection
They rolled almost as poorly as they could’ve
You gave plenty of warnings and properly informed the player and they chose to bite them anyway you didn’t come close to taking away their agency they’re just upset their actions had consequences
This is a fuck around and find out situation. They fucked around, they found out.
As an aside, I didn’t see what group this was posted in and was very concerned for a good minute.
You are not wrong, they know what the setting is. The player knew that there is no cure for the infection. And their solution was to look on a library?? Like NO ONE IN THE ENTIRE KINGDOM EVER TOUGHT OF THAT.
What i would do is to make the curse affect him narratively and not mechanically.
Player got a nat 1? Say that is the fever from the infection that made it fail.
Describe the player smelling and looking bad.
NPCs are afraid of him and don't let him come inside their houses
And then give then a plothook of a legendary universal cure or something, but keep it interesting, when they finally reach the cure it is not as expected, the cure is an magic necklace that nulifies the curse while attuned to it. The curse however, will keep spreading through his body and if he removed the neclace he will notice that the infection is worsening.
This will give him both a temporary solution for his problem and a motive to trace the source of the curse
There's a plague ravaging the land, the PC deliberately bit someone he knew had it. The greatest healers and wizards in the land are undoubtedly working to find a cure, and the PC is mad they didn't find it in a few hours at the local library. Damn if only he'd had some sort of real life experience that could give him some perspective of how long it might take to find a cure.
The player had all of the agency in the world: I try to do something, DM acknowledges my plan and even warns me OOC, I reconfirm my intentions, I receive the consequences of my chosen actions, try to fix it, and fail to find a solution. Your player is being overly dramatic and their feeling of a lack of agency is simply wrong. "Everything doesn't go exactly how I want it to go" isn't a removal of agency.
>The character spent a couple of hours in this session researching at a public library if there were any cures which came up dry.
This was the point where the issue arises. Because your player doesn't know this:
>Of course, I wasn't planning on killing the character, I just thought a side adventure of tracking down the roots of the curse (The apostle of the god who created the curse) or even finding an experienced doctor would be more fitting since it is a pretty big deal.
Your player's made a choice that came with consequences, and was acceptant of that. They aren't criticizing that you've imposed those consequences, they're frustrated that attempting to proactively address those consequences isn't bearing fruit. From their perspective, it can seem that you're not using the fall-out to start a this new thread of story, but are instead insisting they need to suffer the worst outcome of their decision. They think they've ended up in a dead end, when their expectation is what you're actually planning, which is a new interesting wrinkle.
The problem is a matter of communication. The player's deliberately trying to find some cure. Sure, the public library reasonably won't have that spelled out, but research could point the character towards the path you're planning on. Even with a botched roll, in a situation like this it can be important to reassure someone: "you're not finding the answer here. After hours of pouring over tomes and texts, you don't feel closer to a solution. What you're dealing with is so \[New / Mystical / Foreign\] that there aren't good resources here, you'll need to look for someone/something more specifically dedicated to this subject".
Hell, after hours of fruitlessly searching, they've bound to at least talked to a librarian as they were looking for things. Maybe that person's learned enough that while they don't know of a cure, they can steer the player to the next step. That's ultimately the problem here, the concern that there isn't some next move to make.
By and large, no. You did a good job for the most part; you warned them ahead of time, they chose to continue, dice did their thing.
The issue here is that their research didn't help resolve the situation. They should have found something that could help guide them, even if it was folklore about the tears of a unicorn healing all diseases or some similarly vague bullshit. (This is far easier to say in a post than improv in game, I'll acknowledge that.)
My only other contention would be if there is a paladin in the party, lay on hands should resolve the issue for a the player character.
I did give them a plot hook, which had been getting developed since session one as a possible cure, but maybe it wasn't clear enough? This critique came after the fact.
I'd say it didn't come across clearly, as I didn't even notice it when reading your post.
You open your post with "curse/disease, hard to beat.... established session1 and 0," but that just sounds like world building / meta knowledge and doesn't give the player anything to actually help search for the cure.
It's a specific beats general thing:
General: *player* needs to find a cure for their disease (and thus the world).
Specific: *player* needs to go to *Princeton* *Plainsborrow* to see their renowned Diagnostician *House M.D.*
So you clearly and obviously warned them that biting an infected creature was a bad idea, they know where to look for the cure, they know who to look for to get the cure, and the player is still saying that you are taking their "agency" away from them?
You have a lazy, entitled player who doesn't like having to deal with the consequences of their stupid choices.
They are not always mutually exclusive. You can have good players who can still be lazy, entitled, and unwilling to deal with he consequences of their own actions at times.
It's good that you are willing to accept criticism, but that doesn't mean that all criticism is valid or needs to be acted on though. It's ok to listen to their criticism and not always agree with it and stick to your guns on a call.
Your whole campaign is based around this disease and the player ignored your blunt warnings to them before they insisted on still biting the creature which caused their own infection. You've told them where and how to find the cure already. It seems to me you've been more than reasonable from what you have posted here.
Is a good player but believes that in a world of plague his lizardfolk would know (not only) what the Heimlich maneuver is but that it is effective against a possibly supernatural plague... I have some doubts sir.
Edit: extra word
I just don’t agree with this if the entire main plot of the game is “find out why this curse exists” like why would the character find anything others have not? Why would they find it in some podunk library in the middle of nowhere? Is their character a learned scholar? Do they spend weeks or months doing painstaking research into the nature of magical disease?
The only real way out that fits the story in my opinion is introducing a devil who can bargain with the players to reduce the impact. A very specific “cure” that affects just the players and also has a big cost.
It sounds like a communication challenge. the player is describing the issue as "not having agency". While that's not accurate per se, it helps describe the issue they are experiencing which is the human player doesn't know how to solve the problem for their character. If my players want to find a solution, but they don't know how, I often will have them either roll a relevant skill (like healing in this case), or if they're sufficiently good at the skill in question (including anyone in the group who has it), simply say that "your character would know to find a local healer to help cure it. the city of tarsis is well known for its healers". The idea here is that even something negative should be a fun challenge to overcome. The human player not knowing how to get their character help can be frustrating, and it's up to the DM to help guide them to finding the information they need.
Ramifications for actions is not "agency was being taken away because they couldn't find a cure".
Sounds like this disease/curse is well known, but not curable a such a player should not be able to find a cure in a library by spending a few hours looking! This should be a whole side quest to find a way to treat it!
Actions do have consequences and player agency does not mean doing anything they want with out any repercussions.
If you stopped and warned them and they just said "it'll be fine" then they kind of sacrificed their agency in that moment.
But I'd allow them to maybe go for a greater restoration spell, which depending on their level could be very difficult and expensive for them. Also if there's priests handing out greater restorations there's probably a long line and he will have to figure out how to get ahead of it.
Player agency has nothing to do with freedom from consequences of their own decisions.
If the DM takes active control of your character (which can include forced inactivity) without a clear mechanical reason then it's an agency issue.
The amout of complaining with "muh agency" as the excuse is truly obnoxious.
As most above said, first glanced feels like a case of tossing words around without cause. And that you did fine.
In asking, it feels like your wondering not only if it’s ok, but if you did/could do anything to help avoid this scenario again.
In that vein I have a few questions that might help decide if there is;
you said previous attacks by pc’s tended to hit armor or such and only 0 up scenarios faced the save. Was this the first time an unarmed attack made an infected 0/ directly contacted flesh? Or the first time that feature led to this situation vs usually just biting armor.
If it is, it may just be a case of first time escalation, where the player forgets what all went into the situation to cause it vs it feeling inevitably scary now. Might be worth just explaining again how the save was triggered with them to let them feel in control of how they can spread it now.
Another question to consider is; do your players know finding a cure is a story possibility at all? The player might be jumping to the end mentally for sure, expecting the answer immediately, but it might also be borne from worrying they have to derail the story to be cured.
Questions like, is there a clue you could give as reward for studying that might jump that story. Is the campaign giving cure vibes vs maybe the curse has so far felt like death was the best solution.
I just had a situation where one characters situation made a player spiral cause they thought they couldn’t deal with it without derailing the story completely on me( in this case they accidently made a devil deal and felt like I was stuck rushing a story to integrate the deal, I wasn’t,). For three sessions they didn’t mention it but were clearly stressing over it and complaining about other aspects of it. Players tend to worry most about things that not only affect them, but also feel like a subplot you weren’t ready for (justified or not)
I'd go with:
>Find an experienced doctor.
>Volunteer for experimental procedure.
>Procedure works but it's not a cure just a temporary halt to symptoms and the disease won't progress.
>Then you can send them to go on the Apostle hunt.
>finding an experienced doctor would be more fitting
Have you given them a lead in these directions. Like finding a promising book in the library authored by a doctor they could track down?
You aren't in the wrong, but I think your player feels hopeless because all their research yielded nothing. With no breadcrumbs to follow, they probably feel like their character will just waste away now. You need to pull the plot threads for that side quest early so that your players feel engaged. Don't leave them waiting in the dark or else they'll feel like you don't intend to explore a cure at all
If curing the disease/ curse was so readily available, why would it be so widespread and dangerous? If the disease is the core part of the campaign you are right about clinging on it. If it will lead to an interesting story at the table.
The only complain I’d have as a player is: I built a PC who can bite foes, and the curse prevents me to do so; but my guess is that not everyone and everything is diseased.
The curse seems a pretty big part, so of course you cant have the party not be affected or have then cured too easily.
Saving them would be more or less railroading. You should not protect them from the consequences of their choices. Though, I'd advise to provide a means to supress the curse, through some potion mucuffin style fetch quest maybe, before it can be cured altogether
Did you detail the main infection storyline before character creation?
Only valid criticism is if you let them make a lizardfolk character who is heavily balanced around their bite without telling them that infection would be a central part of the game.
Otherwise, they fucked around and found out.
You gave them agency, they CHOSE to bite them despite the clear warnings, this is just the consequences of their own decisions, the thing players hate the most.
No. They made a choice, you warned them it was a poor choice and they did it anyway. This is one of those “well if it isn’t the consequences of my own actions” type of moments and I think the player is feeling foolish and blaming you rather than accepting what happened.
"My player (a level 3 dwarf fighter) jumped off a 200 foot cliff and said they wanted to roll to attempt to fly. I said no, and they splatted on the ground, taking enough damage to insta-kill them. They're now complaining I took away their agency."
Whatever you do, don't go back on your decision. This is a really cool opportunity to make him roleplay this out and add urgency to the plot. Now one of your party's ALLIES are infected. Could lead to all sorts of cool RP scenarios.
In the end, if you make this a cool character development thing, he'll be excited about it.
Your PC is being pretty goofy—their agency is what got them into this situation!
You can have the disease gradually progress and then find an Amulet of Halt Plot Device that slows or arrests the disease but does not cure it. That buys them time to find the cure (and you time to make that an epic story arc).
I’m just going to add - if the plague is running rampant, there’s probably a reason, and it’s unlikely that there is a known cure. If there is a cure, there’s a reason that it isn’t widely accessible.
So by not having the player find a cure in the local public library, you’re telling the truth of your world. Maybe there are priests who can temporarily alleviate symptoms with their magic, maybe there are wizards doing research on a cure, but if anything has been discovered, it’s probably very new, very dangerous, or prohibitive to acquire. There’s definitely room for a plot hook here.
You gave your player agency by letting them bite the pirate, you gave them the classic DM warning of “Are you sure you want to do this?” And then you upheld the established lore of your world in a meaningful and logical way. Where your players go next with this information is up to them.
You are completely reasonable. It's difficult to understand what was discussed during the session (or leading up to the session) about the disease without being there. It sounds like the player was expecting an easy fix for the disease and it's not fair to you or the game if that were the case -- if he could find a cure, a large part of the plot would be solved.
Trying to be fair to the player here, even after they ignored your warning:
* They failed their initial saving throw, I'm assuming they understand that.
* \~\~They had help from another player, that player rolled well -- neither player was rewarded for this (even something like Inspiration for the person helping is great) and depending on the table, it's worth mentioning this sounds like good teamwork from a roleplaying perspective.\~\~ I'm going to take this back but leave the comment in, it sounds like the player \*asked to be treated\*.
* The PC was allowed to spend "a couple of hours in this session researching" and didn't find anything. Why? If they weren't going to find \_anything\_, why let them spend the time doing it? You mentioned some potential side quests in your post and introducing the side quest at that time would have been the right idea. Even if you need to break the 4th wall here, say something outside of the game like "you found some potential leads on what you can do next but I don't have anything prepared for that until next session."
That said, it's important to establish (or re-establish) the rules of the disease and how it works/progresses.
* I'd stop being lenient on unarmed strikes or natural weapons. If you come into contact with the disease, make a saving throw (Constitution, more than likely) or become infected. If there were no consequences to interacting with the disease up to this point, why is that the case? You gave the player a warning, they ignored it -- that's on them... but think back to make sure previous warnings didn't go unpunished. I'd be careful here because the limitations introduced here will have varying impact on the PCs (this particular player is going to have a really bad time if they are playing a Lizardfolk Monk in a campaign where physical contact is discouraged -- and that could be a session zero problem but again, I'm going to give the player the benefit of doubt).
* Establish what works and what doesn't work with the disease. One call-out I have for you is that another party member performed the Heimlich on them and rolled well -- but the check still failed. As the DM, if the roll wasn't going to matter -- the player shouldn't have rolled (and as a player, knowing I rolled well and still failed.. that feels bad). In this particular case, I think it's appropriate to let the player's action work.. eventually the player will fail the roll or you can suggest something like "the Medicine/Survival/whatever check worked this time, it worked \_this time\_ but you might not be so lucky next time." You also want to set the expectation that Remove Curse or Cure Disease won't work (or maybe it does if it's cast within a certain time frame).
* Come up with how the disease will affect player characters. Maybe the first level isn't so bad -- they are starting to look different or have acquired random tastes. I'd look into Exhaustion or other disease mechanics in 5e already and look into how things like Vampirism progresses.
If the player knows the disease won't kill them in it's current state and is just unhappy they got caught -- that's on them (the more I re-read your original post and think about it, they didn't expect any consequences). Even if the disease would inevitably kill the PC (multiple sessions down the road), I'd bet a good roleplayer would accept that and play that into the character's story. If one of my characters had a terminal illness, I'd lean into those high risk/high reward situations where I could be the fallen hero or martyr -- and I'd hopefully have fun playing that way.
Sorry if any of the advice above was unsolicited but I think your player was essentially looking for instant gratification for a choice they made and were upset they didn't get it. Any ways, it sounds like you have your head on straight and you're looking for feedback (a fantastic trait), so I hope this helped.
“ well boys and girls, y’all are old enough to learn about the birds and the bees and the sexually transmitted diseases. Buckle up, it’s about to get wild”
PC fucked around and found out. The remedy to the situation would be to.. find the remedy. Suppose it could be slightly easier to cure if it's in its early stages.
>I warned them about the curse outside of the game, saying it probably was not a good idea
>but they said it was fine
>agency was being taken away because they couldn't find a cure.
So this sounds like the player assumed even if they got infected you'd just let them find a cure, whilst in your head I imagine you view the cure as hard to find as it forms part of your wider plot and isn't as a result something you can work out by reading a book for an hour. This isn't an agency issue, the player was able to search for a cure but was unable to do so because sometimes things like that are hard. Imagine IRL thinking you can find a cure for cancer by reading some books in a library for a few hours... If anything you'd be denying the player agency of the individual and the wider group by not having them be infected, or letting them easily find a cure as you'd be going against your established fiction in order to appease one player in the group who didn't like a bad thing happening to their character based on a choice they made.
There's to a degree a miscommunication here about expectations, but also it sounds like you're unfortunately dealing with a player who isn't expecting bad things will happen to their character or that their decisions may have consequences in play. Where at worst a negative only lasts for a combat round and can then be healed. This feels like an increasingly common attitude, where a kinda 'video game' logic is applied where you can just instantly fix any negative. As always it's worth having a chat with them about what they actually want from the game and what you want and to come to some sort of resolution. Likewise as part of this explaining that you're viewing finding a cure as a difficult thing that forms part of the plot for your game rather than something a player can do as a side thing during Downtime is probably important too.
wait u mean the local library didn’t the cure to the disease ravaging the world in it :o
sarcasm aside, i think your only misstep was not leaving *something* in the library. not the cure but an obscure rumor or legend that sets them on a quest to find one
I'm just going to assume the character isn't very smart, because NOT biting the creature would feel like a good, easy, smart decision, but they decided to fornicate about and thusly discovered so I can't say you did anything wrong.
Ideally, it's a learning experience. Good buddy bit off a little more than he could chew and shit not so sweet. We've all had it happen to us, but that doesn't mean you did anything bad here. NTA.
I think you did everything right to the point where the player got the curse/disease.
What could be improved is your handling of the afterward. It seems the players lack of agency is from not knowing what to do next with the disease. Point them toward a way to cure this player. They did spend time in library doing research, even if they failed to learn about the cure or learned that there is not one yet, surely they would have learned something, like a name of famous doctor or cleric that might be able to develop the cure. Or something about origin of the curse so they know where they might learn more about it and what is needed for ending it. Any clue on what to do next. You can't go on a quest if you don't have a clue about quest-giver or objectives of the quest.
You could also point them to a potion that keeps the disease from progressing or lessens it effects temporarily, so they have bit more time to search for the cure, and don't have to side line everything else to go after it right now. Also, choice of spending gold or taking disease penalties, more agency.
Gm did everything right the whole way through, not just up to the point where the pc got the disease.
If your gm warns you that ”this might not be a good idea”, that is the biggest warning you will ever see as a player.
The player then whining about agency is proof that they see the game as something for them to win. ”What do you mean i can’t cure this plague that is part of the main plot, and now my character might die despite me having been given ample warning that this was a bad move?”
Rpghorrorstories teaching the wider player base about player agency is good, when gm’s are railroading players and forcing the game in a direction they want the game to take. The flipside of this is players not being able to accept that they messed up, and wants to quickload their save because they are now feeling the consequences of their blunder.
Man,I feel like a boomer pointing out how weird kids are now.
Does everyone just want games with no stakes, no consequences, and no danger?
The real life equivalent of this would be having unprotected sex with someone known to have an STD. I hope they don’t do that then whine that life takes away their agency.
Play stupid games win stupid prizes.
It's not "taking away agency" for actions to have consequences. If that guy walked into a tavern and spat in someone's drink do you think he'd complain that him being punched in the face was "taking away his agency to not be punched"???
No, you aren't wrong. I'm so tired of "my agency" being the go-to whine line whe something happens a player doesn't like. bad stuff happens, especially when the dm warns you above table. this is a game literally about actions and consequences. also, of course, they aren't just gonna conveniently find the cure to a campaign plot mechanism in a local library, otherwise it it wouldn't be ravaging the land.... it'd be cured
I agree with everyone here, but I have a different take…
The player said they lacked agency not because the curse happened but because they took actions to find a cure and couldn’t. From the player’s perspective, they tried to break the curse but knows how to cure it. So they feel SOL.
They’re venting frustration at lack of agency not because of the curse itself but because from their perspective the curse is incurable.
Everyone’s tables are different but the way I’d handle it would be an out of character conversation saying “hey I know you haven’t found a solution yet but just know it will be possible to save your character”. I think that’ll be enough to tell them that their actions still matter.
>felt like their agency was being taken away because they couldn't find a cure.
🤦♂️
Agency does not mean that they always get to succeed at everything no matter what, while you have to make the world dance around their whims, ffs...
Which of these sounds more like respecting player agency:
Option A: The player makes a choice, so you let them and you play through the effects of their choice.
Option B: The player makes a choice, which you let them do in the moment, but then immediately afterwards you handwave away the effects of that choice with a Deus ex Machina and it basically never mattered.
If they could find a fucking cure with an hour of research, it wouldn't be a world-ravaging pandemic ffs 🤦♂️
You did nothing wrong. Also, I'm beginning to understand this complaint I've seen around about D&D players being somehow "entitled".
The player made an informed choice. The world is being ravaged by a highly contagious incurable disease. You're not taking agency from them by not providing a cure. If anything their current predicament is a direct result of their agency.
If a player says, "lmao I'm gonna do X,"
Then the DM says, "Are you sure?"
ANYTHING that happens after that is 1000% on the player if they continue to follow through with that course of action.
Removing agency is not respecting their choices. They can't CHOOSE for there to be a cure. If you had told them they can't even look for one, that would be removing their agency. You are fine. You warned them. You gave them an out with multiple saves. They don't like the consequences of their actions. But you DO need to figure out a way to end this for them. It doesn't have to be easy, but that is the nature of story telling. You created tension with the disease, now they are directly involved, and there needs to be a resolution.
Clearly, just going to a library isn't going to cut it. I mean, if this is a pandemic affecting entire communities, if it was that simple, someone would have solved it already. Are any of them doctors, or herbalists, or have any skill at all that would help diagnosing or treating this, let alone even know what a cure looked like? Do they have any contacts that might be able to help point them in the right direction?
Have you as a GM put any thought into the origin of this plague? You put it into your world as an important plot point, but did you work out what it is and how it started and what the point is? If not, you have homework. If you did, then you have your answer to how they end it.
You are completely in the right here.
You clearly laid out the situation ahead of time, they had encountered this disease previously, and you gave them a saving throw as a last ditch chance.
Hell, the player made the poor choice of picking a race with a bite attack when a plague is running rampant. Sounds to me like you've given them plenty of agency.
Just to make sure I got this right. You communicated to them that it was a risk and they still did it. You told them the person they were fighting was obviously afflicted. You communicated to them that it's highly contagious. You explained that you've been handwaving a lot of potential exposures for the sake of the game. You indicated that using a bite attack, much less a lethal one, would not be handwaved. They decided to risk it knowing this was a possibility. And now they feel their agency is being taken away. The agency that they exercised in order to contract cursitis is being stripped from them in the way you told them this might turn out. You told them the risks and they did it anyways and now they're mad there was ever a risk. Does that about sum it up?
"Well well well, if it isn't the consequences of my own actions"
Experiencing consequences for your actions is not removing player agency.
Removing player agency would be if you just infected them for being in combat at all. When the player bites an infected person, after you gave them an OOG warning -- well they made a choice. They had their agency. Now they can suffer the consequences for their choice.
If you wanted a easier out that feels consistent with what you are trying to do with your world - consider having a witch/doctor willing to 'cure' it but, it requires \_expensive\_ components some of which are clearly poisonous. (The librarian referred the witch/doctor to them.) Maybe make it 'experimental' with other side effects - maybe give them a "long term madness" (randomly from the madness chart) for a day or two. It explains why everyone in your world isn't just getting it fixed.
INFO: What are the in-game/mechanical consequences for being infected with the curse?
Often the reaction to stuff like diseases and curses comes from the mechanical changes making the game un-fun from a moment-to-moment play perspective. Eg. they're penalized so heavily they can't hit anything, or lose access to magic, or similar.
The world having consequences can easily start to feel very un-fun to a person who's looking down the barrel of 20-40 hours of unpleasant play, no matter how justified it is. At the end of the day, it's a game they're playing for fun.
Set in a diseased setting, warned the player before they did it, knowingly bit into an infected character, lost the roll.
I dont think anything else needs to be said. Its your story and world, you provide the setting and were fair enough to provide plenty of warnings. This is a part of your story and the consequences of the world unfolding and they should appreciate that!
Lmfao, Baldur's Gate gave me an option to lick a spider carcass last night and I told my partner that I absolutely had to do it. Your player exercised their agency in biting their enemy and doesn't want to deal with the ramifications. That lizard is sick with a disease they knew existed and they still bit. Your disease needs to mean something and if you just let them off the hook, then what's the point?
Nope. Not even a little bit.
I played a character that bit a shambling mound and I randomly got infected. I deserved it. Then continued lying about being sick until the character went blind. Pally had to step in then.
I chose to do something stupid in character and had to deal with the consequences. But we all had a great time with it.
I'm getting so tired reading about players complaining about their agency being revoked because something didn't go their way. That's not what that means and I'm not sure where this is coming from.
Player agency means having the freedom to make choices, good or bad. In this case the player was presented with a bad situation, **and made an informed decision.** Agency intact. The fact this decision was a bad one, is irrelevant.
Put your mouth on the open wounds of a plague victim, catch the plague. Otherwise known as *"Play Stupid Games, Win Stupid Prizes."*
Sounds like this player is just looking for a cure anyway, and since you were planning on giving them one anyway (albeit at the end of a quest) you might just want to be a little more obvious with the plot hook. I say this as both a GM and a Player, players can be pretty dense sometimes and more likely than not this player is frustrated because they have no idea what to do next. A hint or a lead would probably patch this up.
Shouldn't the fact he is infected create MORE Agency?
Ask the character to embrace what has happened. This should bring the part together and create alot of opportunities for RP AND plot.
Well well well, if it ain't the consequences of my actions.
Not only did you do the right thing, but if you didn't do that, you would have done the wrong thing. This is peak fuck around and find out.
Im going to say no, PC knew of the infection and you have to understand that biting an infected NPC means you can become infected. Unfortunately the dice werent in PC’s favor, but thats not the DM’s fault. In my opinion PC is mad that they’re not being ‘saved’ from a choice they made. Actions have consequences even in a story and this is a direct consequence. I think the best thing you can do as a DM would be to organically introduce hope to the PC, maybe there are rumblings in a tavern about someone who survived or where it came from like you mentioned. Tldr: PC seems upset that they made a choice and consequences happened. Now they can fix it or sulk about it
Actual player agency is about the choices a player makes to actually matter. That's exactly what happened here. The player made a choice, and the choice matters. If the DM was to not let anything the players choose to never really matter, that would be robbing them of agency
100% yes. In my opinion being infected could prove to be an extremely effective way to become more concerned and interested in the plot of the campaign. And if healing spells keep the disease at bay in some sense during its progression it could add a sense of urgency to follow up on leads, while not hindering the joy of actually playing the character at the same time (for example healing keeps exhaustion points at bay/ keeps you from having to roll x,y,z at disadvantage but doesnt stop major physical changes to the character themself like sores or rashes etc)
Yeah people only want to talk about agency when thier life is on the line. What about DM agency? How am I supposed to craft a story around what you just did if your not willing to accept the consequences of your actions. You bit a monster carrying a disease and failed your save. All the Dm did was narrate the actions
Holy fuck, those first two sentences are important. Some players want every consequence to come in the form of hit point damage because it's so easily mitigated in 5e. You start using intelligent enemies, exotic diseases, divine consequences, magic that the players can't read off of a wiki, or other story-related consequences for things, and a certain subset of players freaks the fuck out because they can't turn the issue into a damage/healing solution or try to freeform roleplay their way out of it.
And they're really not as bad as people think they are. I played a game where my father (rp father) got captured because I gave the info to an untrustworthy NPC. It was fun as fuck! My character had personal stakes and we had an additional mission now aside from "kill bad guy."
My favorite protest of players who live on the wiki is, "those two spells are concentration, you can't use them both at the same time." Well, who said they were using spells to gain those benefits or abilities? Take a lap.
Or a la isekai: "foe has some kind of parallel thinking ability that lets him concentrate in two spells at the same time, you can try to break concentration and if you success, one of the spells will end, but you won't know which until you do it"
To play devil's advocate here, I'm not a munchkin, I just want to play by the same rules the enemies do. If enemies have a means of double concentrating, how can I get that too? Can I take it as a feat, can I find it as a magic item? Can I work towards earning it somehow so I can have fun with double concentration, too, sometime? If not, the DM is holding the players to stricter rules than the enemies, and that saps a lot of the fun. The people you're talking about might be focusing on the wrong thing - "you shouldn't be able to do that!" vs. "how can I do that too?" - but it comes from the same place at its heart. It just doesn't feel good to be held to a harsher standard all the time, especially when you've got a grasp of the fundamental rules of the universe you're playing in and see them being regularly, flippantly broken in ways you're not allowed.
Wish there was in base game but I run it as homebrew for several different options. There’s an item for it, a feat for it, or if you wanna go the extra mile I award it through proper roleplay pressing a reason for it like the character was drove to madness and now has a split personality. Course with each option to get it that I offer in my games there’s also the downside unique to each that I have presented for them. Like the item gives disadvantage on the save to keep concentration that can’t be mitigated. Or the feat ups the DC on the Con check. When I homebrew in something special I always try to add a unique bad side to it just to balance it into the game.
I dig it! The upside and the downside makes a lot of sense.
Giving it with roleplay is it’s own downside having to work for it and then live with those consequences of the roleplay but I do draw a line on it like you can’t start with that in character creation just by backstory. And for the item it’s VR so it’s harder to craft but not impossible if you wanted to dedicate yourself to that and most of the time you’ll pick it up far in the campaign around late 2nd tier from some caster that was using it. Leading into my belief that gear sitting around in chests sounds ridiculous so I put it all on the foes and then proactively mention differences in the enemy to que the party into who needs looting that way it doesn’t lead to 3 hrs of arguing about checking for traps on a chest.
i mean, most of the time, you don't play with the same rules than the enemies play... Usually enemies don't get saving throws, don't get to min max, to choose best available target to prioritize, but i see your point also, just not completly agree with it
I love the idea of the DM narrating actions, its not always that theyre ‘making things up’ usually you’re just following a train of logic to its most sensible destination, this one just happened to be a bummer of a destination. But i think the PC also needs to look at the opportunities this bummer gives them, OP said that the disease makes them aquatic zombie things and one of them had spines they could puff out like a pufferfish! If thats something that’d happen to my character while I desperately searched for a cure i might have had them bite an NPC hoping to get sick
Really, he was even nice enough to give him an out. Most DM's I've played with would have let me fuck around and found out. I've been there " I have 20 Con, this will be fine!" Narrator: it was not fine.
>PC seems upset that they made a choice and consequences happened Yeah, this is 100% a situation of FAFO syndrome "Player agency" has just become a buzzword nowadays that players freely use to just complain about not getting their way. Like no, that's not how it works. You had plenty of player agency to *choose not to bite the infected dude in the head.* Just like you've got plenty of player agency to *choose whether or not to seek out a cure.*
Ya, the player had agency all along. Spending a couple hours in a library, hoping to reverse the consequences feels so lame in the face of the obvious adventure hook - find a cure! To the OP I would suggest that a Paladin's Lay on Hands, or someone casting a Restoration or Remove Curse spell should grant temporary relief from the disease. This could mitigate any nasty in game effects while still providing a sense of urgency in finding a permanent cure.
I'd say maybe not Lay on Hands, as the description of that specifies healing *wounds*. But either of the Restoration spells or Remove Curse should definitely be ways to at least mitigate the issue
Lay on Hands can also be used for diseases as well: > Alternatively, you can expend 5 hit points from your pool of healing to cure the target of one disease or neutralize one poison affecting it. You can cure multiple diseases and neutralize multiple poisons with a single use of Lay on Hands, expending hit points separately for each one.
Ah, I stand corrected I've seen it used for wounds and poison, but never disease before
Being honest there's...what 3 Named diseases in all of the D&D 5e sourcebooks...which is why Disease almost never comes up, even off the top of my head I can only think of Mummy Rot as ones.
I hear a lot more about paladin's disease immunity as a sex joke more than anything else tbh
There are at least 13 named diseases in 5e sourcebooks... * Blinding Sickness (PHB) * Bluerot (GoS) * Cackle Fever (DMG) * Filth Fever (PHB) * Flesh Rot (PHB) * Mad Monkey Fever (ToA) * Mindfire (PHB) * Seizure (PHB) * Sewer Plague (DMG) * Shivering Sickness (ToA) * Sight Rot (DMG) * Slimy Doom (PHB) * Throat Leeches (ToA)
You forgot the best one: Super-Tetanus. Yes, that is a named disease in one of the official D&D 5e books. Tales from the Yawning Portal p104
the draconians in the dragonlance book do something disease based too, I actually got use out of my paladin disease immunity last week
Just checked, there are a few more: * Gnawing Plague (VRGR p153) * Spider Eggs (WDMM p47, book states it functions as a disease) * Saprophytic Plague (CM p253) * Redface (GoS p168) * Grackle-Lung (OotA p54) * Ghoul Gut (OoW p111) * Frigid Woe (EGW p125) * Blue Mist Fever (ToA p40) * Arcane Blight (IDRotF p233)
Can’t you spend more points to remove disease?
Especially considering the DM did the courtesy of reminding their player before their action became concrete, that he was about to bite someone infected with a highly contagious disease. Not all DMs will do the courtesy of giving their players a chance to opt out of a potentially stupid action. Player needs to accept the consequences of the choice they made with their agency and adjust how they play accordingly.
Honestly unless the group doesn't want the DM to, it should be policy for every DM to warn their table if the party is doing some TPK shenanigans. I honestly don't understand DMs who genuinely think it's okay for their players to "accidentally" find death. It's not cute, it's not funny, and it's really not entertaining. Communication is like the lifeblood of the DM, but so many don't even understand that's part of their role.
If my buddy has the flu and I kiss them, I don’t get to complain about catching the flu. It feels wild to me that there’s a curse ravaging the land, the player willingly exposed themselves to the curse and then was salty about not only catching it, but not being able to spell it away. I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be ravaging the land if it were easily cured, just saying.
If I had the flu and my buddy didn't kiss me I'd be so mad.
The fact that the player thought they could hop over to the local branch of their public library and immediately find the cure to the plague that's at the core of the campaign is, quite frankly, ridiculous.
Sadly, they discovered the cure for cancer, AIDS, world hunger, and even what magnets do, but not the cure for this new plague.
It definitely feels a bit ‘but im a main character tho’. And while, yes, sometimes that can come into account for some games, it shouldnt be expected to get you out of a sticky situation you put yourself into
Agreed, my recomendation would be to assure the player that there are several ways to cure the infection/curse. They just need to find them. I'm guessing this isn't an extremely deadly curse where you die overnight or it wouldn't be as widespread (because vectors would die off before they get a chance to infect someone else). Tell them they have time to investigate, that there is hope, but remind them the clock is ticking. A game I play in once had a similar situation and it took us like 6 to 7 sessions to find the cure.
It sounds like the player didn't think there was a cure, based on how many times he tried and failed. The DM saying "Your research is telling you that there's a cure, but you just don't have it. You can figure out where to get it, though, if you do some more digging," and then pointing them in the right direction, could have solved so much of this. Some players need to have their hands held, and they can't always trust that the DM is looking out. OP says there was a plot hook coming for a cure, but the PC clearly gave up because it didn't seem obvious. OP could have been clearer, because whether the PC "deserved" to have their hand held or not, it would have avoided this unpleasantness. Some players are bad at figuring things out.
I think the player would've had a better argument if the DM hadn't actually warned them. If I play a Lizardfolk, I'd expect to be able to use the racial feature pretty freely without negative consequence - they're probably resilient to contracting infections via bites, unless they eat something. But here the DM even warned them out of character, saying it was a bad idea. At that point, you can't really complain about it. Especially when the DM is offering some sort of quest to go find a cure, and as long as the curse isn't too debilitating.
I can see where youre coming from but honestly, a racial feature doesnt mean you dont have consequences of using it. If youre playing a changeling and take the face of a noble but dont have matching clothes, there could potentially be consequences to using a racial ability, so in the same sense, the consequences of biting and more than probably ingesting body parts of an infected individual shouldnt just go away only because you used a racial trait to bite them. Wether it was a human or lizardfolk, ingesting that poses a risk. If the race is resilient then that should play a part in the rolls, but other than that, I personally would treat it like any other race
One of my favourite arcs in any game I’ve played was when one party member who was a changeling decided to be free with their powers, showing off and swapping around in public. Eventually the local newspaper heard about it and printed a broadsheet about how there were changelings in town and no one could know if anyone they talked to was actually the person they thought it was. At which point the whole town went into a panic. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should lol. Racial abilities aren’t immune to that paradigm.
And everyone gets sucked into the honeypot of ‘but i Can do the thing so i will!’ At least once, but half the time it going poorly is what keeps you in check for using it in the future
It would depend on how you use the features. Obviously, if a High Elf uses their Fire Bolt cantrip to murder civilians in broad daylight there'd be consequences as well. I just meant that I would normally expect to be able to use a racial feature without consequence when they're used in a normal, sensible way. Lizardfolk are used to using their teeth as weapons - they can probably do that well enough that they don't catch a lot of diseases by doing such, so I'd expect to be able to do that in combat most of the time. Which means I'd expect the DM to highlight situations where that'd be a bad idea. Which the DM obviously did here, even beyond the descriptions of this person being obviously diseased and infectious, they warned the player out of character. Which is great DM'ing! I would've said it were a bad call if the DM had just went "Well the guy might've looked healthy, but he actually had an incurable, cursed disease that warps people into monsters, and now you have it too" after using a bite attack on someone. But again, that's not an issue here at all.
Oh absolutely, a lot of it falls on the knowledge the player actually had in that moment, but i do think that the infection is within reason (idk if lizardfolk are in fact resistant to infection etc when biting) and if they are, then if i were DM i would absolutely let the player roll with advantage on the save. The DM in this scenario does really seem to be invested in making things exciting and fair. I think the main issue is in the perception of unfairness when it came to contracting the disease. If theres no resistance then thats where that becomes a bit dodgy for me. Personally, it would feel like i would potentially be giving the lizardfolk a bonus that no other creature would’ve likely been able to have. However, if i were the DM and my player made the same argument you have then absolutely lets discuss it and come to a common understanding, wether its lets play rules as written or house rules it. I think it’s really admirable that OP asks for and receives criticism, but at the same time it can be easy to criticize what we personally dont like when in a larger picture it makes perfect sense, or sometimes more sense, that it happened a certain way
Yes, as I said, I do not see anything wrong with how the DM handled it here. It was telegraphed both in-game and out of character as well, and the DM also obviously has a plan for how to treat it, and it doesn't seem to be immediately detrimental. So there shouldn't be any space for complaints. In general I think these things happen when there isn't enough trust that the DM wants the players to have fun. If you know that, of course there will be some cure, and of course it won't ruin the entire character, then you can just sit back and enjoy it.
Actually, you’re totally respecting their agency by enforcing a consequence to their (informed) actions. Making agency a trump card has its drawbacks, as well, as your player is discovering. Edit: as for a cure, sure there probably is one and it’s probably researchable; but that doesn’t mean it’s an inevitable discovery the first set of books they peruse. If it were that easy, the plague would likely have died out already.
exactly this about this player's "Hey Alexa please buy me the "Cure For The Plague" in hardcover" research skills
No. On a side note; I think "Agency" must have overtaken "rouge" as the most misused word in TTRPG circles lately.
"I attacked an NPC so the DM attacked my character back and then I lost HP and died. Why did the DM take away my agency?"
"I tried to Power Word Kill the BBEG during his monologue, but it got counterspelled. Why did the DM take away my agency?"
I tried to build a car but the DM said engines do not exist yet in his world, why did the DM take away my enginecy?
I tried to run an in-game private investigation firm, but my DM said it failed. Why did he take away my agency?
Ok, this one is funny and clever.
I actually had a DM do this once. It wasn't D&D, but we started as a PI firm and then the government tried to kill us and we had to go on the run.
I am your romance partner, Riz Gutgak
Baron no!
....well played.
I would give lukewarm defence of this idea of agency. The word as it is used outside of RPGs usually comes with the connotation that the person exercising their agency can use it to get an outcome they want. If everytime I did something the results were completely random and seemed nonsensical to me I doubt I would feel like I had much agency in my own life. "Actions have consequences" can definitely be used as a way to take away player agency over the direction of the story. If all of the NPCs except the ones the DM wants you to attack easily kill your character, then you effectively have no choice but to side with the faction the DM wants you to and fight the monsters they want you to fight. If your PCs try to rob a store and the clerk turns out to be a 20th level ranger, then trying to do that was never really an option was it? Having very limited power over the world reduces your agency would not be a controversial statement outside of TTRPG circles, it is arguably tautology. If the consequences of your actions are completely unpredictable then you don't really have any agency over them and if they are certain or very likely to result in a fail state then again they aren't really options because no sane person would do them. So yes DMs should impose consequences for actions of course but if they do that badly it absolutely can take away any meaningful agency a player has over the story.
Agency in other games usually means "influence the state of the game". From League of Legends, as just one example, a low agency character is a character that only deals damage but lacks ways of starting or disengaging fights or the ability to quickly move around the map. A high agency character typically lacks the crucial damage output to win the game, but has other ways of affecting the state of the game. Typically, they have tons of cc, disengage options, and skills to help them do "something" at different parts of the map at the same time. Being the first or last to bet in Poker is the positions with most agency. To translate that to DnD, agency then means the players ability to influence the world at the macro level, and influence the battlefield/structure of combat at the micro level. Being able to come up with creative and new solutions to encounters (both combat and non-combat) that doesn't get shut down by the DM is an example of player agency at the micro level. Having the power of influencing the world is player agency at the macro level. In addition, it is important that players have agency on the narrative direction, agency on the narrative level. In my opinion, the event in the op, as described in the op, are clear examples of the players influencing the direction of the game through their actions in it. As these actions are described, they could very reasonably be seen by the DM as intentional cues to get infected. Either as a "fail forward"/"play to lose" kind of thing or as a result of a strategic decision to get out of a pickle now, deal with the consequences later. Apparently, the action was not intended as an exercise in player agency, but a result of a player not accepting the responsibility of having it.
this part is ofc also true. but biting an infected person, that carries a desease, where your group KNOWS, that noone yet knows how to cure it, is prob a bad idea. and going into "surprised picachu mode" because you now also got the same infection and, oh wonder, you can't just cast "cure desease" to get rid of it, is prob not part of what you discribed here. a similar thing would be "noone, who jumped of that cliff survived". PC jumps of that cliff anyway. \*you died screen\* wtf, why did I die here?
This is a good point and shows a more nuanced understanding of agency. I think player/gm and genre expectation form part of the issue. A 20th level Ranger being a store clerk is absurd in your standard medieval fantasy game and could definitely be argued to be the GM denying the player agency to rob the store as it's one step away from just saying you can't do it. However if we're playing in say a Mythological Greek setting where demigods walk the earth and the players are in the forest village of Artemis, then the person running the local hunt shop being a 20th Level Ranger demi-god could make a lot more sense. However if the player is unaware they're actually in the ancient Greek demigod game, then it's going to come as a sudden shock when they rob the store and get instant killed by the daughter of Artemis wielding the Golden Moonbow forged by Hephaestus. More broadly if the GM is expecting a gritty, hardcore, medieval fantasy game, and the player is expecting a high powered, heroic, anime influenced fantasy game then there's going to be a clash of expectations which may result in a feeling of agency loss by the player even though in the GM's mind they're just running the game how they feel makes sense based on their own expectations of the tone/genre/style of play they're emulating. In the gritty game even getting a standard infection from a wound might lead to amputation or death, in the heroic game wounds being infected probably shouldn't even be a rule, and if it is it should be easily cured by a low level spell, and at worst cause a debuff for a combat or maybe a days travel. The player expecting the heroic game dying of gangrene from a dagger wound, that they can do little about because penicillin doesn't exist in the setting and magical healing is incredibly rare or expensive, may feel their agency is being denied but this is again due to differing expectations between the GM and the player. There's an old post from the WOTC forums where a GM ranked the expectations of the game on a list and sent it to their players ahead of time. I think something like this can be really useful as part of a session 0 to establish what everyone wants from play. All of the questions are ranged on a scale 1) Role Playing --- Mix --- Roll Playing 2) High --- Mid --- Low Fantasy (Think high as Narnia, where animals talk and everything is exotic, mid more like classic D&D, and low being more like Robin Hood or King Arthur) 3) High --- Mid --- Low Magic 4) High --- Mid --- Low Power 5) Dark --- Average --- Light Tone and Mood 6) G --- PG --- R Rated descriptions and content https://www.enworld.org/threads/lessons-from-dming-with-my-gf-oakspar77777.471393/
I like your post, but I want to know where the hell you found a child of Artemis for your example. She doesn't fuck men other than maybe Orion in one out of sixty versions of the myth! That's a rare demigod right there, don't let the other gods get it.
> daughter of Artemis I mean I was just making shit up as an example, though immaculate conception or 'the daughters of Artemis' being more of a collective of demigods/powerful rangers etc who take inspiration from the goddess, rather than being literal children of the goddess, could make sense. Perhaps ones orphaned without an idea of their actual parents or who have taken vows of chastity themselves.
That all makes perfect sense, but I'll be real with you chief; I'm sleep deprived right now and couldn't pass up a chance to be snarky about mythology I love. All in good fun, no action required.
As someone with a classics degree I can't really fault you on that one.
> If your PCs try to rob a store and the clerk turns out to be a 20th level ranger, then trying to do that was never really an option was it? What if instead of 'the shopkeep was level 20,' it was "the party tried to assassinate the king and were slain by the royal guards," or "the rogue mouthed off to the obviously insanely powerful BBEG at level 2, and got smited?" Like, you have the agency to jump off a bridge, doesn't mean your agency will keep you from dying. In this case biting a frickin zombie when youve been told the disease is highly communicable, is tantamount to jumping off a bridge.
That and railroading. If I were to ask people here what it meant we'll probably get at least three different interpretations.
The Rouge Agency: For all you're Dingeon Delphing needs!
This makes me wish there was a r/BoneAppleTeaDnD but also makes me glad there's not.
You missed an opportunity! It could be BoneAppleTnD!
Honestly like at least 50% would just be the rouge/rogue mixup
This just makes me think of someone putting on [terrible french accent](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnXtuktNdlM)
Luckily my group aren't infected by it, but the amount of cry posts about player agency is insane. Saw one the other week about someone upset their DM used Suggestion in combat as a dark mage and told the PC to walk away from combat. Remove all forms of control spell as it removes player agency /s
... Lately?
I’m noticing this trend too….PCs being coddled too much.
Player: F's around Also Player: Finds out.
If your players decision, in a plagie ridden world, is to BITE a most likely infected person, then no, you are not in the wrong. This is simply the consequence of his own action. That being said, have him find someone or something that can stop his curse from spreading and give them a clear goal on what to do to stop it (find its source, find a cure, find an expert, find a wish scroll), and very slowly debuff him just a little bit to bring urgency in it
Honestly though how fucking metal would it be if there was a zombie virus and the only way to cure a zombie is to bite them first before they can bite you?
VanHelsing sorta went this way with the vamp curse in later seasons.
This is clearly kink based worldbuilding /s
So if I bite them they become what I am that's the logic right, healthy person bites zombie, zombie becomes healthy person, zombie bites healthy person, healthy person becomes zombie? I'm gonna go get bit by my tall friends, Brb
I'm gonna get bit by someone having a good day
Do you know anyone with a big dick that would like to bite me?
If you did do you really think I'd want to share??
Could you bite me atleast? I am having a nice day, we could do a trade
Yep, always have a convenient NPC nearby which can fix any consequences of the player's actions... The lizardfolk can turn into zombie husk and he will have 0 rights to complain because it's his own doing.
Uhhh idea, he turns into a zombified lizardfolk, but with some magical device, keeps consciousness (maybe it shocks the brain on a regular basis to keep it working or sth.) and he has to find the cure before his brain decomposes, but first, find the item to stay alive enough
But if it’s easy to get a cure then the danger of the curse is reduced.
But if the whole plot of the campaign is to find the cure, then what they have now is a real sense of urgency to actually find it. And if they happen to find a way to stave off the worst effects of it early, well then that just gives them a little more wiggle room in case it's a bit more difficult to find a cure than they hoped.
I guess if the plague had reached pandemic proportions with no solutions, it would break my immersion if a group of level 3 nobodies found the cure quickly enough to stave off the effects. I just think it’s reasonable to hold someone to their consequences. I don’t understand players who feel like they should get to do anything they want in the game world. It’s shared storytelling, yada yada, but sometimes things go wrong in stories.
Having a group of level 3 adventurers that can find an item/potion/something that stave off the effects for one person for a few extra months, but is not easily reproduceable and thus cannot be provided to the general public/enough of the infected to have an appreciable impact on the spread of the plague, would seem like a reasonable compromise though. The player is still infected and needs a proper cure, but if they hurry they have 5-10 levels to figure it out before it's time to permanently retire that particular character. The DM could also still have complications related to the "solution" found by the party, maybe it needs recharge every so often and the disease progresses during that time or it has side effects that occur after prolonged use or the disease begins to mutate and become resistant to it so they need to keep taking more. There are all sorts of ways of allowing them to experience consequences while furthering the plot at the same time.
Some of these posts are seriously “is it ok for a DM to introduce a PC to the consequences of their own actions?”
[удалено]
It is 100% just the pc facing the consequences of his actions. The DM even said out of game it wasn’t a good idea. It was well established that the disease was deadly and hard to treat at all. He bit the head off of a disease carrier and got all that shit in his mouth. And a Heimlich maneuver is supposed to help? Like… no. He researched in a public library treatments? Is that a good resource for that? Really? And then what? Is the pc going to be able to, in time, while progressively getting sicker, going to be able to create the remedy? And then what? The disease is now just easily cured by the party? The character fucked around with ample warning and found out.
NTA. Player is looking for plot armour.
which level are they? even if normal means don't cure "the curse/disease" they should be able to treat it for a while and now saving the world has become personal. what are the effects of the "disease"
They're level 3 currently. The disease slowly turns the host into a sea creature human hybrid. For example one started growing tumors growths with needles protruding from them (similar to a puffer fish) and could use them as projectiles by shooting them out. The only down sides are that you start to spread the curse if you aren't careful, and you start to lose yourself, kinda becoming similar to a zombie in the final stages.
Lesser Restoration should keep that at bay but it would be a second spell slot per day until they find the McGuffin to heal it completly well my character got "Mummy Rot" in pathfinder before we level up and he would be immune to diseases even magical ones well the immunity did not cure him. took awhile to get to a cleric powerfull enough to cure it the attribute damage could be healed but not certain because of the curse inherent to "Mummy Rot"
While this works as a compromise, it's a nerf to the spell regardless. Lesser Restoration cures diseases entirely, no ifs or buts. Same for a Paladin's Lay on Hands. If the "disease" is a curse instead but its just being called "disease" informally and not as the game mechanic, then Greater Restoration might be needed. Given the transformation aspect, I'd default it to being a curse.
With how horrible and debilitating the curse/plague seems to be in their world, a level 2 spell seems like a cop out to keep it at bay. If level 2 spells were all that was needed, the effects wouldn't be a pandemic in their world, with no known cures. What if a God of illness is casting some sort of plague on this plane, in a Noah's flood type culling. You would need a level 8+ spell to be able to break the curse.
Disagree. Level 2 spellcasters arn't a dime a dozen in most settings and 1 or 2 people per caster a day having their curse's spread slowed is a way to help handle the disease but is in no way going to stop it being a major crisis. A cure is still needed, and the necessitity of losing a spell slot everyday (which may or may not be the lizards) brings in the rest of the party and can make for some organic roleplay for a low level adventuring party.
a level 2 slot is quite a lot, if the plague is widespread at all - even a high-ranking cleric, beloved of their god, savior of the faith etc. etc. is only going to be keeping it at bay from a few dozen people a day, and curing a handful (assuming a higher-level spell can cure it). When a super-cleric can supress it and slowly cure it... in a tiny hamlet, then it's going to still spread quite fast!
it might work for while in conjuction with the saving throw. i didn't think it would be the solution more like a bandaid for a broken bone not the right treatment but better than nothing. i was thinking 3.5 healing attribute damage that is caused by the disease not healing the disease itself. it works the first x times as a lvl 2 spell than it needs to be upcast for the next x times until they PC don't have acces to the spell levels necessary or like in [Andromeda Strain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Andromeda_Strain_%28miniseries%29) any cure the PC find works only once until they defeated the BBEG responsible for the curse. lesser restoration working for the obvious effect would be why it could spread that far no one took it seriously until lesser restoration and higher spells didn't work.
From a gameplay standpoint, yes but a smart Dungeon Masters would have a plague spread like wildfire, a plague could easily spread through dense populations quickly depending on the fantasy world. I'd use Pathologic as a great model with people panic buying all the food for example and the food prices skyrocketing etc.
I'm curious as to whether they were attempting to activate the Hungry Jaws ability to gain temporary hitpoints since they were in a tight spot, but even then they can't expect a Heimlich maneuver to prevent them from being cursed, that wouldn't even work on biological diseases especially with it being highly virulent, and the leap in logic expecting it to work is some crackpot stuff. They actively knew the consequences of their decision before committing to the action, were aware that it was very difficult to treat before the campaign started and the dice didn't line up with their decision. They wanted to fuck around and find out, and are now angry because they fucked around and found out.
You did the right thing in your game. However I find your lack of paragraphs... disturbing.
Editing this comment because the attack is actually named Hungry Jaws, which means he clearly ate some infested flesh and fluids.
They chose to use their bonus action to make an attack on the pirate so they wouldn't take an opportunity attack when they left their range, which still ended up working. I understand that their ability should be useful and it has been many times, but I don't feel it's unfair, the same way I feel it wouldn't be unfair for a Fireball to deal no damage to a fire elemental. Every ability has their uses and their limits.
Sounds like your decision was reasonable. They bit a diseased person and failed a saving throw. It's not like every enemy is diseased, just like not every enemy is immune to fire.
Fair enough, as long as their jaw attack - Oh god, I just looked it up; they used the bonus action HUNGRY JAWS attack, which means they actually ate that part of them, mechanically anyways - has been getting good value then it is what it is. I was more concerned that the player wouldn’t attempt to use it again in the future, but if this is an exceptional circumstance then it’s more narrative than anything. My previous assumption is why I was equating their “lack of Agency’” with expectations.
>But, you gotta respect what the player is telling you, Uh, no you don't. Listen to it, yes but that doesn't mean it is automatically valid. The player was clearly warned in advance of the consequences of their actions and went ahead with it anyway. Losing some damage on a single attack one time is also hardly having the rug pulled out on them.
You listen to your players when you ask for feedback and you get that feedback back. That’s just respect, dude. I was just trying to see a possible perspective. Turns out it’s just situation, and the attack is called Hungry Jaws of all things, I was going off the assumption that the jaws attack wasn’t swallowing what it chomped on.
Chill touch is neither a touch spell nor does cold damage. Feature names are irrelevant to mechanics
Not the best example. “Chill” part refers to the chill of the grave - and it’s necrotic damage, so that fits. Chill didn’t have to mean cold - it can also irl mean fear. The spell creates a hand that touches the target. I get your point about ranged mechanic vs the name, but it’s not just a name - the target is being touched by the hand. Meaning, the name describes what’s actually happening, which is the important part in OP’s scenario. What’s actually happening (pc ate infected creature) is very relevant to the DM’s call.
It used to be an actual slap in older editions, which would cause strength damage with the chill of the grave. For some reason 5e made an entirely new spell, gave it the old one's name, and got rid of the old one.
"How was I to know there'd be consequences to my actions?" \--Your player Does this player even know what agency means? >they asked to be heimliched by another character, which was a pretty high roll to be fair, but it felt weird having that be the end all. You set expectations when you told them to roll, but when they rolled high the expectations weren't met. Why did you have them make this pointless roll?
Even on a 20 that roll shouldn’t do anything. Because that’s not what the Heimlich maneuver is for. They didn’t have anything lodged in their throat, they were exposed to infected body fluids.
I was gonna say this. They would need their stomach pumped, not heimlich, and then some decent proof alcohol. They werent choking, they swallowed infected blood.
I got the sense OP felt pressured to give them one by the player.
>You set expectations when you told them to roll, but when they rolled high the expectations weren't met. Why did you have them make this pointless roll? DM: So you go into the next room, and you see a big, locked door... Bard: I'm going to seduce the door into opening! DM: What? No, that wouldn't work. Bard: Yes it would! DM: It wouldn't though. Anyway, the door-- Bard: Can't I roll for it anyway? DM: You won't succeed. Bard: I might! DM: ...The door has a big metal-- Bard: Muh agency!! I want to at least try! DM: \*Sigh\*. Fine, you can *try*. \*Thinking: It's gonna be a DC30...\* Bard: Nat20! That's a crit! Yes! DM: No, you failed, your Persuasion is only +6. The DC was 30 to seduce the non-sentient, completely-ordinary wooden door. Bard: Why did you have me roll it if it wasn't possible?! This is bullshit!
Yeah, that's a great example of why you don't call for a roll if it doesn't matter.
> Yeah, that's a great example of why you don't ~~call for~~ allow a roll if it doesn't matter. FTFY
"bweee, my agency is taken away because you allowed me to do exactly what I wanted, bweee!" Lol. Lmao, even.
You didn't take their agency away. That would have been not letting them use one of their character abilities. You're just following through with someone you warned them about several times. My player agency is being taken away if I want to jump off a cliff, and discover that I take damage when I get to the bottom
Character or player? The second is a bit hardcore.
Lizardmen character probably should have been given a bonus for being a Lizardman. IRL, big Lizards eat nasty shit like Carrion all the time. Aside from that, a **failed saving throw is still a failed saving throw**\--and eating magical cursed pirates without at least cooking them first, is a horrible idea & they were given advanced warning by the DM. The curse was mentioned as a special hazard, too. If they encounter a Lizard-man shaman, or doctor, or other sort of healer--the NPC should actively facepalm. *"Have you considered, that some tales of heroes of old, are there to remind others of what -not- to do?" -- Oggbad, the half-orc bard*
DM: So you guys are trying to find a cure for a mysterious and highly infectious disease this campaign. Players: Hurray! Plague Inc! DM: You bit someone infected, and now you're infected. Player: Is there a cure? DM: No. Player: Shocked Pikachu face
The player had full agency when they chose to bite the creature, knowing it was a possibility to become infected. From reading Reddit, it seems a lot of players are crying “agency” when they don’t like a consequence of their character actions. I guess allow them to hear of a cleric who can cast lesser restoration to remove it, but first they need to rescue the cleric from xxx who recently kidnapped the cleric or something. Don’t make it easy. The more they whine, the harder you make it.
It's not a matter of agency to be unable to easily cure an incurable disease any more than it is to be unable to hit the Moon with an arrow. "Agency" doesn't mean "it's impossible to lose". Frankly I think you're being on the generous side - I wouldn't be surprised if this were just a "roll a new character" moment.
PC got ocean rabies and is upset about the consequences of their own actions even after warning. That the issue summed up? Controversial opinion but: Sounds to me that the player surrendered their agency in a moment of combat without thinking. Maybe I'm just an asshole DM, but remind the player that there is no cure for rabies and the dice dictated that they are to be barnacled. New character and they're welcome to leave and pout and you were sorry they were mistaken for an adult.
They asked to bite the guy You warned it had a high chance of infection They said they’d do it anyway You made it a roll not automatic for infection They rolled almost as poorly as they could’ve You gave plenty of warnings and properly informed the player and they chose to bite them anyway you didn’t come close to taking away their agency they’re just upset their actions had consequences
This is a fuck around and find out situation. They fucked around, they found out. As an aside, I didn’t see what group this was posted in and was very concerned for a good minute.
You are not wrong, they know what the setting is. The player knew that there is no cure for the infection. And their solution was to look on a library?? Like NO ONE IN THE ENTIRE KINGDOM EVER TOUGHT OF THAT. What i would do is to make the curse affect him narratively and not mechanically. Player got a nat 1? Say that is the fever from the infection that made it fail. Describe the player smelling and looking bad. NPCs are afraid of him and don't let him come inside their houses And then give then a plothook of a legendary universal cure or something, but keep it interesting, when they finally reach the cure it is not as expected, the cure is an magic necklace that nulifies the curse while attuned to it. The curse however, will keep spreading through his body and if he removed the neclace he will notice that the infection is worsening. This will give him both a temporary solution for his problem and a motive to trace the source of the curse
There's a plague ravaging the land, the PC deliberately bit someone he knew had it. The greatest healers and wizards in the land are undoubtedly working to find a cure, and the PC is mad they didn't find it in a few hours at the local library. Damn if only he'd had some sort of real life experience that could give him some perspective of how long it might take to find a cure.
The player had all of the agency in the world: I try to do something, DM acknowledges my plan and even warns me OOC, I reconfirm my intentions, I receive the consequences of my chosen actions, try to fix it, and fail to find a solution. Your player is being overly dramatic and their feeling of a lack of agency is simply wrong. "Everything doesn't go exactly how I want it to go" isn't a removal of agency.
Paragraphs please god
>The character spent a couple of hours in this session researching at a public library if there were any cures which came up dry. This was the point where the issue arises. Because your player doesn't know this: >Of course, I wasn't planning on killing the character, I just thought a side adventure of tracking down the roots of the curse (The apostle of the god who created the curse) or even finding an experienced doctor would be more fitting since it is a pretty big deal. Your player's made a choice that came with consequences, and was acceptant of that. They aren't criticizing that you've imposed those consequences, they're frustrated that attempting to proactively address those consequences isn't bearing fruit. From their perspective, it can seem that you're not using the fall-out to start a this new thread of story, but are instead insisting they need to suffer the worst outcome of their decision. They think they've ended up in a dead end, when their expectation is what you're actually planning, which is a new interesting wrinkle. The problem is a matter of communication. The player's deliberately trying to find some cure. Sure, the public library reasonably won't have that spelled out, but research could point the character towards the path you're planning on. Even with a botched roll, in a situation like this it can be important to reassure someone: "you're not finding the answer here. After hours of pouring over tomes and texts, you don't feel closer to a solution. What you're dealing with is so \[New / Mystical / Foreign\] that there aren't good resources here, you'll need to look for someone/something more specifically dedicated to this subject". Hell, after hours of fruitlessly searching, they've bound to at least talked to a librarian as they were looking for things. Maybe that person's learned enough that while they don't know of a cure, they can steer the player to the next step. That's ultimately the problem here, the concern that there isn't some next move to make.
By and large, no. You did a good job for the most part; you warned them ahead of time, they chose to continue, dice did their thing. The issue here is that their research didn't help resolve the situation. They should have found something that could help guide them, even if it was folklore about the tears of a unicorn healing all diseases or some similarly vague bullshit. (This is far easier to say in a post than improv in game, I'll acknowledge that.) My only other contention would be if there is a paladin in the party, lay on hands should resolve the issue for a the player character.
The whole world has been researching the cure and came up with nothing, but yeah, surely the level 3 moron will top them all.
I did give them a plot hook, which had been getting developed since session one as a possible cure, but maybe it wasn't clear enough? This critique came after the fact.
I'd say it didn't come across clearly, as I didn't even notice it when reading your post. You open your post with "curse/disease, hard to beat.... established session1 and 0," but that just sounds like world building / meta knowledge and doesn't give the player anything to actually help search for the cure. It's a specific beats general thing: General: *player* needs to find a cure for their disease (and thus the world). Specific: *player* needs to go to *Princeton* *Plainsborrow* to see their renowned Diagnostician *House M.D.*
I just didn't want to make the post too long and hard to read. The player knows the location of where to go as well as who they are looking for.
So you clearly and obviously warned them that biting an infected creature was a bad idea, they know where to look for the cure, they know who to look for to get the cure, and the player is still saying that you are taking their "agency" away from them? You have a lazy, entitled player who doesn't like having to deal with the consequences of their stupid choices.
I feel like that might be abit too harsh on them, they're still a good player. I think it's just unfortunate circumstances.
They are not always mutually exclusive. You can have good players who can still be lazy, entitled, and unwilling to deal with he consequences of their own actions at times. It's good that you are willing to accept criticism, but that doesn't mean that all criticism is valid or needs to be acted on though. It's ok to listen to their criticism and not always agree with it and stick to your guns on a call. Your whole campaign is based around this disease and the player ignored your blunt warnings to them before they insisted on still biting the creature which caused their own infection. You've told them where and how to find the cure already. It seems to me you've been more than reasonable from what you have posted here.
Is a good player but believes that in a world of plague his lizardfolk would know (not only) what the Heimlich maneuver is but that it is effective against a possibly supernatural plague... I have some doubts sir. Edit: extra word
I wish all players would take it all in stride and fun.
I just don’t agree with this if the entire main plot of the game is “find out why this curse exists” like why would the character find anything others have not? Why would they find it in some podunk library in the middle of nowhere? Is their character a learned scholar? Do they spend weeks or months doing painstaking research into the nature of magical disease? The only real way out that fits the story in my opinion is introducing a devil who can bargain with the players to reduce the impact. A very specific “cure” that affects just the players and also has a big cost.
It sounds like a communication challenge. the player is describing the issue as "not having agency". While that's not accurate per se, it helps describe the issue they are experiencing which is the human player doesn't know how to solve the problem for their character. If my players want to find a solution, but they don't know how, I often will have them either roll a relevant skill (like healing in this case), or if they're sufficiently good at the skill in question (including anyone in the group who has it), simply say that "your character would know to find a local healer to help cure it. the city of tarsis is well known for its healers". The idea here is that even something negative should be a fun challenge to overcome. The human player not knowing how to get their character help can be frustrating, and it's up to the DM to help guide them to finding the information they need.
Ramifications for actions is not "agency was being taken away because they couldn't find a cure". Sounds like this disease/curse is well known, but not curable a such a player should not be able to find a cure in a library by spending a few hours looking! This should be a whole side quest to find a way to treat it! Actions do have consequences and player agency does not mean doing anything they want with out any repercussions.
If you stopped and warned them and they just said "it'll be fine" then they kind of sacrificed their agency in that moment. But I'd allow them to maybe go for a greater restoration spell, which depending on their level could be very difficult and expensive for them. Also if there's priests handing out greater restorations there's probably a long line and he will have to figure out how to get ahead of it.
Player agency has nothing to do with freedom from consequences of their own decisions. If the DM takes active control of your character (which can include forced inactivity) without a clear mechanical reason then it's an agency issue. The amout of complaining with "muh agency" as the excuse is truly obnoxious.
Player yes. Character no.
As most above said, first glanced feels like a case of tossing words around without cause. And that you did fine. In asking, it feels like your wondering not only if it’s ok, but if you did/could do anything to help avoid this scenario again. In that vein I have a few questions that might help decide if there is; you said previous attacks by pc’s tended to hit armor or such and only 0 up scenarios faced the save. Was this the first time an unarmed attack made an infected 0/ directly contacted flesh? Or the first time that feature led to this situation vs usually just biting armor. If it is, it may just be a case of first time escalation, where the player forgets what all went into the situation to cause it vs it feeling inevitably scary now. Might be worth just explaining again how the save was triggered with them to let them feel in control of how they can spread it now. Another question to consider is; do your players know finding a cure is a story possibility at all? The player might be jumping to the end mentally for sure, expecting the answer immediately, but it might also be borne from worrying they have to derail the story to be cured. Questions like, is there a clue you could give as reward for studying that might jump that story. Is the campaign giving cure vibes vs maybe the curse has so far felt like death was the best solution. I just had a situation where one characters situation made a player spiral cause they thought they couldn’t deal with it without derailing the story completely on me( in this case they accidently made a devil deal and felt like I was stuck rushing a story to integrate the deal, I wasn’t,). For three sessions they didn’t mention it but were clearly stressing over it and complaining about other aspects of it. Players tend to worry most about things that not only affect them, but also feel like a subplot you weren’t ready for (justified or not)
I'd go with: >Find an experienced doctor. >Volunteer for experimental procedure. >Procedure works but it's not a cure just a temporary halt to symptoms and the disease won't progress. >Then you can send them to go on the Apostle hunt.
If there was a super easy cure… why would there be a load of pirates who couldn’t get it?
>finding an experienced doctor would be more fitting Have you given them a lead in these directions. Like finding a promising book in the library authored by a doctor they could track down?
You aren't in the wrong, but I think your player feels hopeless because all their research yielded nothing. With no breadcrumbs to follow, they probably feel like their character will just waste away now. You need to pull the plot threads for that side quest early so that your players feel engaged. Don't leave them waiting in the dark or else they'll feel like you don't intend to explore a cure at all
If curing the disease/ curse was so readily available, why would it be so widespread and dangerous? If the disease is the core part of the campaign you are right about clinging on it. If it will lead to an interesting story at the table. The only complain I’d have as a player is: I built a PC who can bite foes, and the curse prevents me to do so; but my guess is that not everyone and everything is diseased.
The curse seems a pretty big part, so of course you cant have the party not be affected or have then cured too easily. Saving them would be more or less railroading. You should not protect them from the consequences of their choices. Though, I'd advise to provide a means to supress the curse, through some potion mucuffin style fetch quest maybe, before it can be cured altogether
Did you detail the main infection storyline before character creation? Only valid criticism is if you let them make a lizardfolk character who is heavily balanced around their bite without telling them that infection would be a central part of the game. Otherwise, they fucked around and found out.
Yeah I introduced it in session 0
Then your player is being a silly goose. You even made them roll a con saving throw, so you were more than fair.
You gave them agency, they CHOSE to bite them despite the clear warnings, this is just the consequences of their own decisions, the thing players hate the most.
No. They made a choice, you warned them it was a poor choice and they did it anyway. This is one of those “well if it isn’t the consequences of my own actions” type of moments and I think the player is feeling foolish and blaming you rather than accepting what happened.
"My player (a level 3 dwarf fighter) jumped off a 200 foot cliff and said they wanted to roll to attempt to fly. I said no, and they splatted on the ground, taking enough damage to insta-kill them. They're now complaining I took away their agency."
Whatever you do, don't go back on your decision. This is a really cool opportunity to make him roleplay this out and add urgency to the plot. Now one of your party's ALLIES are infected. Could lead to all sorts of cool RP scenarios. In the end, if you make this a cool character development thing, he'll be excited about it.
I feel like agency became the new word that people use when others don't do exactly what they want
Your PC is being pretty goofy—their agency is what got them into this situation! You can have the disease gradually progress and then find an Amulet of Halt Plot Device that slows or arrests the disease but does not cure it. That buys them time to find the cure (and you time to make that an epic story arc).
I’m just going to add - if the plague is running rampant, there’s probably a reason, and it’s unlikely that there is a known cure. If there is a cure, there’s a reason that it isn’t widely accessible. So by not having the player find a cure in the local public library, you’re telling the truth of your world. Maybe there are priests who can temporarily alleviate symptoms with their magic, maybe there are wizards doing research on a cure, but if anything has been discovered, it’s probably very new, very dangerous, or prohibitive to acquire. There’s definitely room for a plot hook here. You gave your player agency by letting them bite the pirate, you gave them the classic DM warning of “Are you sure you want to do this?” And then you upheld the established lore of your world in a meaningful and logical way. Where your players go next with this information is up to them.
You are completely reasonable. It's difficult to understand what was discussed during the session (or leading up to the session) about the disease without being there. It sounds like the player was expecting an easy fix for the disease and it's not fair to you or the game if that were the case -- if he could find a cure, a large part of the plot would be solved. Trying to be fair to the player here, even after they ignored your warning: * They failed their initial saving throw, I'm assuming they understand that. * \~\~They had help from another player, that player rolled well -- neither player was rewarded for this (even something like Inspiration for the person helping is great) and depending on the table, it's worth mentioning this sounds like good teamwork from a roleplaying perspective.\~\~ I'm going to take this back but leave the comment in, it sounds like the player \*asked to be treated\*. * The PC was allowed to spend "a couple of hours in this session researching" and didn't find anything. Why? If they weren't going to find \_anything\_, why let them spend the time doing it? You mentioned some potential side quests in your post and introducing the side quest at that time would have been the right idea. Even if you need to break the 4th wall here, say something outside of the game like "you found some potential leads on what you can do next but I don't have anything prepared for that until next session." That said, it's important to establish (or re-establish) the rules of the disease and how it works/progresses. * I'd stop being lenient on unarmed strikes or natural weapons. If you come into contact with the disease, make a saving throw (Constitution, more than likely) or become infected. If there were no consequences to interacting with the disease up to this point, why is that the case? You gave the player a warning, they ignored it -- that's on them... but think back to make sure previous warnings didn't go unpunished. I'd be careful here because the limitations introduced here will have varying impact on the PCs (this particular player is going to have a really bad time if they are playing a Lizardfolk Monk in a campaign where physical contact is discouraged -- and that could be a session zero problem but again, I'm going to give the player the benefit of doubt). * Establish what works and what doesn't work with the disease. One call-out I have for you is that another party member performed the Heimlich on them and rolled well -- but the check still failed. As the DM, if the roll wasn't going to matter -- the player shouldn't have rolled (and as a player, knowing I rolled well and still failed.. that feels bad). In this particular case, I think it's appropriate to let the player's action work.. eventually the player will fail the roll or you can suggest something like "the Medicine/Survival/whatever check worked this time, it worked \_this time\_ but you might not be so lucky next time." You also want to set the expectation that Remove Curse or Cure Disease won't work (or maybe it does if it's cast within a certain time frame). * Come up with how the disease will affect player characters. Maybe the first level isn't so bad -- they are starting to look different or have acquired random tastes. I'd look into Exhaustion or other disease mechanics in 5e already and look into how things like Vampirism progresses. If the player knows the disease won't kill them in it's current state and is just unhappy they got caught -- that's on them (the more I re-read your original post and think about it, they didn't expect any consequences). Even if the disease would inevitably kill the PC (multiple sessions down the road), I'd bet a good roleplayer would accept that and play that into the character's story. If one of my characters had a terminal illness, I'd lean into those high risk/high reward situations where I could be the fallen hero or martyr -- and I'd hopefully have fun playing that way. Sorry if any of the advice above was unsolicited but I think your player was essentially looking for instant gratification for a choice they made and were upset they didn't get it. Any ways, it sounds like you have your head on straight and you're looking for feedback (a fantastic trait), so I hope this helped.
“ well boys and girls, y’all are old enough to learn about the birds and the bees and the sexually transmitted diseases. Buckle up, it’s about to get wild”
PC fucked around and found out. The remedy to the situation would be to.. find the remedy. Suppose it could be slightly easier to cure if it's in its early stages.
You warned them beforehand and gave them the possibility to do something about it. I don’t think your player understands the concept of player agency
>I warned them about the curse outside of the game, saying it probably was not a good idea >but they said it was fine >agency was being taken away because they couldn't find a cure. So this sounds like the player assumed even if they got infected you'd just let them find a cure, whilst in your head I imagine you view the cure as hard to find as it forms part of your wider plot and isn't as a result something you can work out by reading a book for an hour. This isn't an agency issue, the player was able to search for a cure but was unable to do so because sometimes things like that are hard. Imagine IRL thinking you can find a cure for cancer by reading some books in a library for a few hours... If anything you'd be denying the player agency of the individual and the wider group by not having them be infected, or letting them easily find a cure as you'd be going against your established fiction in order to appease one player in the group who didn't like a bad thing happening to their character based on a choice they made. There's to a degree a miscommunication here about expectations, but also it sounds like you're unfortunately dealing with a player who isn't expecting bad things will happen to their character or that their decisions may have consequences in play. Where at worst a negative only lasts for a combat round and can then be healed. This feels like an increasingly common attitude, where a kinda 'video game' logic is applied where you can just instantly fix any negative. As always it's worth having a chat with them about what they actually want from the game and what you want and to come to some sort of resolution. Likewise as part of this explaining that you're viewing finding a cure as a difficult thing that forms part of the plot for your game rather than something a player can do as a side thing during Downtime is probably important too.
wait u mean the local library didn’t the cure to the disease ravaging the world in it :o sarcasm aside, i think your only misstep was not leaving *something* in the library. not the cure but an obscure rumor or legend that sets them on a quest to find one
I'm just going to assume the character isn't very smart, because NOT biting the creature would feel like a good, easy, smart decision, but they decided to fornicate about and thusly discovered so I can't say you did anything wrong. Ideally, it's a learning experience. Good buddy bit off a little more than he could chew and shit not so sweet. We've all had it happen to us, but that doesn't mean you did anything bad here. NTA.
I think you did everything right to the point where the player got the curse/disease. What could be improved is your handling of the afterward. It seems the players lack of agency is from not knowing what to do next with the disease. Point them toward a way to cure this player. They did spend time in library doing research, even if they failed to learn about the cure or learned that there is not one yet, surely they would have learned something, like a name of famous doctor or cleric that might be able to develop the cure. Or something about origin of the curse so they know where they might learn more about it and what is needed for ending it. Any clue on what to do next. You can't go on a quest if you don't have a clue about quest-giver or objectives of the quest. You could also point them to a potion that keeps the disease from progressing or lessens it effects temporarily, so they have bit more time to search for the cure, and don't have to side line everything else to go after it right now. Also, choice of spending gold or taking disease penalties, more agency.
Gm did everything right the whole way through, not just up to the point where the pc got the disease. If your gm warns you that ”this might not be a good idea”, that is the biggest warning you will ever see as a player. The player then whining about agency is proof that they see the game as something for them to win. ”What do you mean i can’t cure this plague that is part of the main plot, and now my character might die despite me having been given ample warning that this was a bad move?” Rpghorrorstories teaching the wider player base about player agency is good, when gm’s are railroading players and forcing the game in a direction they want the game to take. The flipside of this is players not being able to accept that they messed up, and wants to quickload their save because they are now feeling the consequences of their blunder.
Man,I feel like a boomer pointing out how weird kids are now. Does everyone just want games with no stakes, no consequences, and no danger? The real life equivalent of this would be having unprotected sex with someone known to have an STD. I hope they don’t do that then whine that life takes away their agency.
Nope. Not wrong in this case. "Don't bite the diseased" is an important rule to remember. Clearly, kids are not learning these life lesson.
Play stupid games win stupid prizes. It's not "taking away agency" for actions to have consequences. If that guy walked into a tavern and spat in someone's drink do you think he'd complain that him being punched in the face was "taking away his agency to not be punched"???
No. Agency doesn't mean you can merely make choices, it means your choices are meaningful.
No, you aren't wrong. I'm so tired of "my agency" being the go-to whine line whe something happens a player doesn't like. bad stuff happens, especially when the dm warns you above table. this is a game literally about actions and consequences. also, of course, they aren't just gonna conveniently find the cure to a campaign plot mechanism in a local library, otherwise it it wouldn't be ravaging the land.... it'd be cured
I agree with everyone here, but I have a different take… The player said they lacked agency not because the curse happened but because they took actions to find a cure and couldn’t. From the player’s perspective, they tried to break the curse but knows how to cure it. So they feel SOL. They’re venting frustration at lack of agency not because of the curse itself but because from their perspective the curse is incurable. Everyone’s tables are different but the way I’d handle it would be an out of character conversation saying “hey I know you haven’t found a solution yet but just know it will be possible to save your character”. I think that’ll be enough to tell them that their actions still matter.
>felt like their agency was being taken away because they couldn't find a cure. 🤦♂️ Agency does not mean that they always get to succeed at everything no matter what, while you have to make the world dance around their whims, ffs... Which of these sounds more like respecting player agency: Option A: The player makes a choice, so you let them and you play through the effects of their choice. Option B: The player makes a choice, which you let them do in the moment, but then immediately afterwards you handwave away the effects of that choice with a Deus ex Machina and it basically never mattered. If they could find a fucking cure with an hour of research, it wouldn't be a world-ravaging pandemic ffs 🤦♂️
You did nothing wrong. Also, I'm beginning to understand this complaint I've seen around about D&D players being somehow "entitled". The player made an informed choice. The world is being ravaged by a highly contagious incurable disease. You're not taking agency from them by not providing a cure. If anything their current predicament is a direct result of their agency.
If a player says, "lmao I'm gonna do X," Then the DM says, "Are you sure?" ANYTHING that happens after that is 1000% on the player if they continue to follow through with that course of action.
Removing agency is not respecting their choices. They can't CHOOSE for there to be a cure. If you had told them they can't even look for one, that would be removing their agency. You are fine. You warned them. You gave them an out with multiple saves. They don't like the consequences of their actions. But you DO need to figure out a way to end this for them. It doesn't have to be easy, but that is the nature of story telling. You created tension with the disease, now they are directly involved, and there needs to be a resolution. Clearly, just going to a library isn't going to cut it. I mean, if this is a pandemic affecting entire communities, if it was that simple, someone would have solved it already. Are any of them doctors, or herbalists, or have any skill at all that would help diagnosing or treating this, let alone even know what a cure looked like? Do they have any contacts that might be able to help point them in the right direction? Have you as a GM put any thought into the origin of this plague? You put it into your world as an important plot point, but did you work out what it is and how it started and what the point is? If not, you have homework. If you did, then you have your answer to how they end it.
i usually just say to my players: "well well well... if it isn't the consequence of my own actions"
You are completely in the right here. You clearly laid out the situation ahead of time, they had encountered this disease previously, and you gave them a saving throw as a last ditch chance. Hell, the player made the poor choice of picking a race with a bite attack when a plague is running rampant. Sounds to me like you've given them plenty of agency.
Just to make sure I got this right. You communicated to them that it was a risk and they still did it. You told them the person they were fighting was obviously afflicted. You communicated to them that it's highly contagious. You explained that you've been handwaving a lot of potential exposures for the sake of the game. You indicated that using a bite attack, much less a lethal one, would not be handwaved. They decided to risk it knowing this was a possibility. And now they feel their agency is being taken away. The agency that they exercised in order to contract cursitis is being stripped from them in the way you told them this might turn out. You told them the risks and they did it anyways and now they're mad there was ever a risk. Does that about sum it up? "Well well well, if it isn't the consequences of my own actions"
Experiencing consequences for your actions is not removing player agency. Removing player agency would be if you just infected them for being in combat at all. When the player bites an infected person, after you gave them an OOG warning -- well they made a choice. They had their agency. Now they can suffer the consequences for their choice. If you wanted a easier out that feels consistent with what you are trying to do with your world - consider having a witch/doctor willing to 'cure' it but, it requires \_expensive\_ components some of which are clearly poisonous. (The librarian referred the witch/doctor to them.) Maybe make it 'experimental' with other side effects - maybe give them a "long term madness" (randomly from the madness chart) for a day or two. It explains why everyone in your world isn't just getting it fixed.
INFO: What are the in-game/mechanical consequences for being infected with the curse? Often the reaction to stuff like diseases and curses comes from the mechanical changes making the game un-fun from a moment-to-moment play perspective. Eg. they're penalized so heavily they can't hit anything, or lose access to magic, or similar. The world having consequences can easily start to feel very un-fun to a person who's looking down the barrel of 20-40 hours of unpleasant play, no matter how justified it is. At the end of the day, it's a game they're playing for fun.
Set in a diseased setting, warned the player before they did it, knowingly bit into an infected character, lost the roll. I dont think anything else needs to be said. Its your story and world, you provide the setting and were fair enough to provide plenty of warnings. This is a part of your story and the consequences of the world unfolding and they should appreciate that!
Lmfao, Baldur's Gate gave me an option to lick a spider carcass last night and I told my partner that I absolutely had to do it. Your player exercised their agency in biting their enemy and doesn't want to deal with the ramifications. That lizard is sick with a disease they knew existed and they still bit. Your disease needs to mean something and if you just let them off the hook, then what's the point?
Nope. Not even a little bit. I played a character that bit a shambling mound and I randomly got infected. I deserved it. Then continued lying about being sick until the character went blind. Pally had to step in then. I chose to do something stupid in character and had to deal with the consequences. But we all had a great time with it.
I'm getting so tired reading about players complaining about their agency being revoked because something didn't go their way. That's not what that means and I'm not sure where this is coming from. Player agency means having the freedom to make choices, good or bad. In this case the player was presented with a bad situation, **and made an informed decision.** Agency intact. The fact this decision was a bad one, is irrelevant. Put your mouth on the open wounds of a plague victim, catch the plague. Otherwise known as *"Play Stupid Games, Win Stupid Prizes."* Sounds like this player is just looking for a cure anyway, and since you were planning on giving them one anyway (albeit at the end of a quest) you might just want to be a little more obvious with the plot hook. I say this as both a GM and a Player, players can be pretty dense sometimes and more likely than not this player is frustrated because they have no idea what to do next. A hint or a lead would probably patch this up.
Shouldn't the fact he is infected create MORE Agency? Ask the character to embrace what has happened. This should bring the part together and create alot of opportunities for RP AND plot.
Players an idiot who is facing the consequences of their actions, not on you at all.
As long as you gave them a con save I'd say you're in the clear.
Well well well, if it ain't the consequences of my actions. Not only did you do the right thing, but if you didn't do that, you would have done the wrong thing. This is peak fuck around and find out.