Gaming hypothetical: Player rejects free bonus

Azhrei_Vep

Okay, so question for everyone, based on events in a game where I was a player last night:

You've come to (what I'm pretty sure is) the end of a significant story arc. You've had a big exciting climax, a bit of recovery downtime, an informative denoument, and it's almost time to move your players on. One last thing before they go, however, (probably) because they did their damndest to make friends and resolve big-picture problems rather than focus on short-term gains. You decide to give them a bit of a reward.

For reasons that make perfect sense in context (trust me), four adorable creatures choose to bond with each of your four players, and with them comes some mechanical advantages. No downsides. Pure advantage, of a variety they can't pick up after character creation, giving each player the option to further pursue more diversity of ability than they had before ... or not, and just have a cute thing with a small bonus they never need to improve.

Two characters are into it. One character is super into it. One character is chill and eager to toy with the cute critter until the bond and its mechanical advantages manifest, and then immediately and vehemently rejects it, turning to more knowledgeable characters desperately seeking a way to get rid of the thing.

How do you react? Is this a problem? If it is, how would you ultimately seek to resolve it?

Now, off to cross-post this to every other RPG board and Discord I'm in, because I'm really curious how people will respond, and how much it'll vary by community.

Kainguru

Go with it but I'd be more fascinated to know the motivation behind it- is it a player thing or an in character thing?

ProbieTim

Yeah, I'd roll with it. Make it a quest of sorts, some weird thing the character has to do to get rid of it.

"Oh, gosh, you've discovered that once a spotted gilgenheimer of trunsk attaches itself to you, the only way to break the attachment is to travel to the plains of grentok where you must slay a frozen whipporwhill and burn it on a funeral pyre whose kindling is made of nothing but solidified unicorn detritus."

MasterVidar

ProbieTim And if you've ever had to pry solidified detritus out of a Unicorn, you know what a mess THAT can be!

Ayslyn

ProbieTim I would be... cautious with this approach. It could come across as retributive. "You don't like my gift to you?! TAKE THIS!!!"

ProbieTim

MasterVidar INORITE!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

ProbieTim

Ayslyn I mean, sure, but... if you're the GM and you're playing with people who think you'd do something retributive, maybe you should find other players.

None of us were there when it was presented, but if it's normal for these things to bind themselves to people and that's part of the game's lore, then it's not retributive at all to require some sort of quest or ritual to unbind them.

pizzazzeria

If the reaction happened, while explaining mechanics, that's an easy time to shift out of character and ask the player why they don't want the pet. If they feel like it's causing them to lose agency (maybe they had a build planned, and feel like having this pet forces them to pursue something else in order to be "optimal") I'd probably find a reason for the pet to wander away.

If they seem into the idea of a quest to get rid of the pet though, and we're at a point in the campaign where we could use a fun side mission, I might go with that too. Might even make it a recurring theme, with more of these things popping up to befriend them.

Ayslyn

If they expressed how much they dislike the idea of having this happen to them, then what makes you think that they're going to be ok with it happening again and again?

Also, it was clarified on Discord, it's not the mechanics of the pet that bother the player, but the IC bonding. It's not something his character would want. Forcing it on him seems.... dickish.

EDIT: Which leads into the problem of talking about this on multiple platforms... Information is not evenly distributed.

Azhrei_Vep

Ayslyn Nah, the difference isn't that bad. The forum just moves slower than the Discord. Including on clarifications and answering questions. Besides, it just makes it more interesting to see what conclusions people come to on their own with different amounts of information.

When the player was later asked by other players about his reasoning in the game's Discord, this was his response: "[My character] didn't want it bound to him. He doesn't want anything like that bound to him. It was a cute pet and he'd have loved it forever, until it was a Fury. Then it needed to go the hell away." Note: Fury is the common term for these creatures, and despite its aggressive name, they aren't generally regarded as bad things.

Another common question that's been getting asked about this situation is what is meant by 'bond.' Short story shorter: If you've ready Codex Alera, it's a Fury with all that entails. For the less cool kids in the class (seriously go read Codex Alera, it's great), think a connection akin to a Wizard's familiar in a generic D&D knockoff of your choice, except the familiar is also an elemental, and it gives you the ability to manipulate its element.

Kainguru

Well, shit, if it's an incharacter reason like that - it don't bond period.

Kainguru

ProbieTim I think what is meant is that if it's part of lore and the character would be averse to bonding then then the character would know that these pets bond and would never have accepted such a pet. Therefore a quest etc shouldn't be required

Real world analogy - I hate asparagus, the most charming mutherfucker in the world won't get me to eat it. If someone rewarded me for some good deed with an asparagus pie - then sorry that shit ain't getting eaten (depending on the circumstance it could go from polite refusal to accept it to accepting it then binning it when no one is looking). Sometimes the best reward is the deed itself .... especially if the alternative is asparagus.

So road to hell paved yadda yadda the GM's reward, though well intentioned, is bit like pinning a medal on superman unaware that it's made of kryptonite. If the GM were to make it hard to refuse, it's not a reward anymore - it's be like everyone else getting a pizza and me getting that asparagus pie

ProbieTim

Kainguru No, I get that.

What I'm saying, though, is since we don't know anything about the game world or how it was presented in game... if asparagus pie had a tendency to walk up to people and bind itself to them for doing good deeds, and you did a good deed, and an asparagus pie bound itself to you because of that good deed, then... you'd be stuck with a smelly-ass asparagus pie bound to you until you found a way to unbind it.

Here's a more on-topic example: in 1E AD&D there was a creature called a psuedodragon. The psuedodragon would sometimes choose a human/oid as a companion, and when that happened, it conferred some benefits onto its companion. While they expanded on this in 2E AD&D and gave specific examples of how and when that would happen, in the 1E AD&D game I was playing long ago, my GM decided that a psuedodragon had witnessed my thief (Blackthorne!) sneak up on, and kill, a collection of ne'er-do-well goblins. That being the case, the psuedodragon chose me as a companion. I didn't want the psuedodragon companion, and it actively got in the way of me sneaking about and using some of my thieving skills. I had to figure out how to dissuade it from hanging around... I waited until it was asleep, and then shoved both my daggers in its belly. 🙂

That's what I'm saying might have happened here. These things that wind up being "full Furys" might wander up and bind themselves to people, and that might be part of the game world and game lore. If that's the case, then it's not retributive to make the player do something to get rid of the little bugger.

Kainguru

ProbieTim hmm I would agree up to the point that the OP appears to say they have opted at a GM offering the reward for metagame reasons (which is perfectly acceptable for a GM to do).ie I read the OP as wanting to reward good play by rewarding the characters, and this good intention going sideways.

At that point a discussion with the player is best - if they're okie with a quest etc cool. But if the player isn't into that narrative then don't have it bond - my reasoning being that the character is hell bent on not being bound and so would never let it happen as a first instinct. It could be an interesting wrinkle to a campaign or it could just create tension between player and GM - again, though well intentioned, the player could claim railroading by the GM

Ayslyn

ProbieTim Except that I never said that it WAS retributive... And, I never said that you definitively shouldn't do it. I advised caution, and suggested that it could come across that way.

ProbieTim

Ayslyn I never said that it WAS retributive

I dinna think I said ye did, lad. All I'm saying is that if a certain condition is true, it's definitely not retributive. 🙂

Ayslyn

ProbieTim Yeah.... That's not even remotely accurate. Unless these things bond everyone in the world, then they don't have to choose the PC to bond with. Also, people use the truth for retributive purposes all the time. And that's just ignoring the fact that even if the GM wasn't trying to be retributive, the player could be having a bad day, or bad past experiences, and THINK that they were. Hence, the very reasonable, and logical caution to think hard about it.

ProbieTim

Ok. 🙂