14/07/2013

Bringing Back the Sense of Consequence...

I've watched another Buffy episode today, also from the 3rd season. One concept slipped to my mind from it. It's nothing new, or surprising, but it's the single best way to stop our murder hobos from doing something that they're gonna regret about forever. The concept is consequences. If there will be consequences for what the PCs do, the PCs will stop with doing evil bad things for no apparent reason.
Anyway, here are 4 quick ways to bring back the sense of consequences to the game:

  1. The police and other law enforcement groups are the single most common way to deal with it. Sure, players will sometimes pooh-pooh the police, but the sheer numbers of the policemen should be enough for that. If a party member commits a huge crime, have a chaotic scene in which the police takes the characters to an investigation, and the rest will be history...
  2. Dreams. When that particular PC sleeps, dreams about the infamous action will come to the character's head. If the character has problems with sleeping, that little extra edge has been achieved. 
  3. Vengeance. No real need to expand it, I think...
  4. Alienation from the world. The stink of the evil doers has been glued to the character. People are whispering around him/her, every shadow is like a killing machine ready to destroy him/her...
And that's it for today. How about you? How do you bring this sense back?

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