What if the players forget...

[svensson]

The way I do such things is have the players make an INT or POW 'luck' roll. Usually it's Stat x 5, but it could be Stat x 3 if it's something they've been warned about repeatedly in the past.

If anything, such a roll will get the players thinking 'what did I miss?' and sometimes that helps jog the memories.

If you want RP the whole thing, have the players take part in a ceremony or festival and have them announced as 'Bearers of the King Beneventos' Panoply!' If that doesn't ring the bell for them, the players really do need to suffer the consequences.

Glorantha is world where the gods and spirits lie very close to the Mundane Plane and such beings do not take well to false promises. I know it's harsh for your players, but part of the wonder of Glorantha over, say, the Forgotten Realms is that there are no Elminsters to fix it for you. Humanity has more agency in Glorantha, more ability to change the world. The great danger of the Lunar Empire is their ability to conduct 'HeroQuest Offensive Operations' a'la the God Learners. So if humans can reassemble a deity and HeroQuest new powers and force a place in the Sky Dome for her, it's perfectly appropriate for PC's to suffer the consequences for failing to making good on a promise to a powerful spirit /almost-wyter... especially since that spirit provided the tools, HIS tools, that gained the party fame to begin with.

It's not 'harsh' as a GM to rule that Consequences Have Arrived. It's harsh if you are vicious or cruel with them, like you're some 13 year old power-gamer munchkin style GM in junior high school. But the scenario states that the party's clan suffers the -25%. Once that happens, divinations will be made and the cause will be identified. The sum total penalty is the clan has a rough year and the party takes a major REP hit [it IS possible for your reputation to increase for all the wrong reasons -- just because people have heard of you doesn't mean it was complimentary]. So it's not harsh to adjudicate that penalty, no more and no less.

Edited August 17, 2022 by svensson

[Shiningbrow]

Ok, so Benny is on "our" side.

What if it was a promise to someone that the characters don't really care about? Dragonewts perhaps? Lunars? What if the character who made the deal didn't really care too much about Benny and his Sartarite connections?

What would people do then?

And thus, what, fundamentally, is the difference between these two scenarios, such that it may warrant a different handling by the GM?

[Zit]

I think players deserve a recall at least once. We are all human and have another life and other concerns and things to recall outside of our game and we shall not be punished for that. But I'd rather have a NPC or an event recall the character.

[jajagappa]

7 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

That doesn't mean white (GM doesn't manage the oath at all, or GM tells them what they committed before the too late issue) or black (hey do you remember you promised that ? too late !). GM may give alerts (dreams, little curse then find a shaman or priest to understand why, things like that)

I will use dreams and the like to occasionally drop subtle hints towards something like this before getting to a point of rolling.  Alternately, end of session rewards point may be a good time to include hints or reminders if something seems forgotten.