D&D 3.5 Crime and Punishment

edit turned into a doublepost again..

"But wouldn't it be acting in accordance to the NPC expectations?" The NPC's expectations are whatever I want them to be. "If you treat every NPC as just a PC you run..they would act somewhat in the way the GM made them." Yes, except for one thing: it's worthwhile to make an NPC who's a loser, who doesn't get ahead and doesn't even seriously try to get ahead, who winds up - despite his dreams and expectations - being just another faceless schlub. If that's the "point" of the NPC, then playing the NPC that way is having them "act somewhat in the way the GM made them." Yes, a nobody can rise into the spotlight. Fiction is full of one-off characters who caught some attention and became more than bit players. But it's more full of one-off characters who remained one-off characters. "Its not as if hes making up random 'invisible borders of punishment' to scold his players." We can't really be sure of that, and as that's a common thing for GMs to do it might be the way to bet until we learn more. "Like the window vs wagon thing..both are likely hit targets of a stray arrow..why should the GM pick the wagon just because it makes it less friction ingame? That would be forcing outcomes by DM choice also, the same as you saying hes doing..just in the opposite direction." Because it's also less friction out-of-game. Let me be clear: there's not a thing wrong with the GM "forcing outcomes." That's all the GM does, whether by picking which rules to use, setting up NPC reactions, making calls on the spot, or even delgating the outcome to the player. The issue some of us are having is that sometimes GMs force outcomes that someone at the table doesn't enjoy and there is not, frankly, a good reason for doing that. "Even if its a wagon..someone owns that wagon. If they are in sight of it, I know I wouldn't appreciate someone shooting at my wagon accident or not." It's always possible to invent reasons why something might escalate. The issue is why someone would do that (to make a deeper world? to make the players sorry?) and whether it's worth bothering. "Just saying the reactions to it seem natural for some townsfolk that sees people fighting in their streets, and less like a gm punishing behavior he doesn't like." It would be just as natural for them not to do much of anything. Background characters do that all the time and the audience doesn't bat an eye, or wonder how extra's case in small claims court is proceeding. "My players are so unpredictable I have no expectations of how they act in anyplace. But I do have the NPC's reaction to their action fit how they would based on the personality I gave them. If in a quiet little town they started shooting at people, and missing..SOMEONE in the town would care, they wouldn't be just faceless cardboard cutouts that are neutral to all actions taken." Sure, they would care, but their caring doesn't have to have any impact on the PCs, especially if their caring isn't going to make for a game that's interesting right now. "Just saying the ' 200gp for smashing a window and injuring someone, something that could happen in a drunken brawl would bankrupt the average person." IS true, the average person that smashed a window, and killed someone would be pretty much 'end of the line' for them..life over, jail time and negative stigma in the town to them. And is a reasonable expectation of a average joe's live to be ruined after that. Why should random travelers in town expect less, just because they are controlled by other people. The fact that it didnt bankrupt them, goes in line with the idea of them being more than just averarge peasants, the same fees that would ruin a villager, didn't ruin you." The player isn't saying that the character should expect less, the player is saying that it's implausible for that fine to be the same as what the townsfolk receive. They're saying they don't think it makes sense that a fine for a broken window should bankrupt a local. It's breaking their fragile immersion. What the player is also /really/ saying is that they think the fine is a bit steep for what the character did, and they're not interested in the GM using that kind of disincentive. If the player didn't have an issue with the fine, they either wouldn't have raised the point, or would not have noticed the inconsistency, or would have justified it. But they did have an issue, and as this is all entirely fictional there may be no unassailably reasonable rationale the GM can provide to resolve that issue. If the GM isn't prepared to budge on the amount, then it's better to avoid the issue coming up in the first place.

Maybe that's it, our individual definitions of interesting and immersion between me and my players, and you and yours. And what makes interesting yet undesired consequences like 'it sucks, but we caused it lets make the best of it', just what is considered engaging to the players is vastly different. They don't expect me to bypass petty things for their sake when they took ill thought out actions or rash decisions, sometimes they demand it, asking "crap, that was stupid..what stupid thing did (I/he) cause". Sometimes its nothing, sometimes its a huge snafu. Like you saying making his miss breaks the immersion of him being a skilled archer..my players get annoyed and frustrated anytime it comes out playing like they are the grand archer with the keen eye of an eagle, and the shot accuracy of robin hood, and misses just disappear into the background..that breaks the immersion for them. Perhaps its just my players style, but if we go too long with them being the "long flowing hair in the wind, epic battle warrior fighting the epic struggle" style gameplay..they get bored and disinterested. They want characters they can related to..more powerful than them of course, but relatable, that occasional does stupid things on a roll of 1, causes accidents, pisses off people by accident, gets ran out of town for burning down a house while failing a fire starting and cooking skill rolls, or for example wants to argue with the townfolks for 20 minutes over a high fine for something like a broken window..trying to haggle it down, or offer services in exchange. But in the end we all agree it was a good game, and I'm happy. Sometimes they like frustrating and tedious, and way less than infallible characters, it makes a success outcome even more rewarding it seems to them. Think of "diskworld" or "hhgtg" style characters, Surely epic adventures that have many tales of grand adventures of serious goals, but not unfamiliar with goof ups and bad decsisions along the way that cause events to happen..they aim for more like that, than conan, or LOTR types. Long as are we wasting time gaming we are happy, we don't need interesting all the time, or immersion into the characters to waste 10 hours and have fun..it can be engaging without interesting, even frustrating to the players and PC that turns out fun in the end, by them making something mundane into interesting because they are faced with it, a sort of "this is what we got to work with that we got ourselves stuck in..we made our bed for ourselves here guys.."

"Maybe that's it, our individual definitions of interesting and immersion between me and my players, and you and yours. And what makes interesting yet undesired consequences like 'it sucks, but we caused it lets make the best of it', just what is considered engaging to the players is vastly different." If you say so. "They don't expect me to bypass petty things for their sake when they took ill thought out actions or rash decisions, sometimes they demand it, asking "crap, that was stupid..what stupid thing did (I/he) cause". Like you saying making his miss breaks the immersion of him being a skilled archer..my players get annoyed and frustrated anytime it comes out playing like they are the grand archer with the keen eye of an eagle, and the shot accuracy of robin hood, and misses just disappear into the background..that breaks the immersion for them." If so, that would be because that's not how they envision their character. It comes down to how the players envision their characters. "Perhaps its just my players style, but if we go too long with them being the "long flowing hair in the wind, epic battle warrior fighting the epic struggle" style gameplay..they get bored and disinterested." False modesty is somewhat boorish, don't you find? "But in the end we all agree it was a good game, and I'm happy. Sometimes they like frustrating and tedious, and way less than infallible characters, it makes a success outcome even more rewarding it seems to them." Right and if you hand them "frustrating and tedious" they aren't going to question it. They aren't going to say that something frustrating and tedious is not realistic. They want it to happen, so they're going to justify it, rather than arguing about it. "Long as we wasting time gaming we are happy, we don't need interesting all the time, or immersion into the characters to waste 10 hours and have fun..it can be engaging without interesting, even frustrating to the players and PC by them making something mundane interesting because they are faced with it, a sort of "this is what we got to work with that we got ourselves stuck in..we made our bed for ourselves here guys.." Your final paragraph indicates that you're still missing the point. You clearly DO need interesting, it's just what's interesting and what's boring to you are, allegedly, the reverse of what they are to other people. In actuality, I find it highly likely that your players simply aren't aware of any other way to play and have rationalized it to themselves that the things that commonly get games wrapped around the axle are not a malfunction but the actual point. All of which still misses the overall point that it's not enough to just do what's "realistic" and that "realism" is sometimes used to shepherd players back into line.

Paul U. said: Your final paragraph indicates that you're still missing the point. You clearly DO need interesting, it's just what's interesting and what's boring to you are, allegedly, the reverse of what they are to other people . In actuality, I find it highly likely that your players simply aren't aware of any other way to play and have rationalized it to themselves that the things that commonly get games wrapped around the axle are not a malfunction but the actual point. So now William is both the only one who enjoys these kinds of consequences in his campaigns and his players clearly suffer from stockholm syndrome? Please go back to discussing in good faith, Paul... Your playstyle doesn't make you awesome or horrible and its the same with others.

They are players from other games than me. Isn't it a bit vain to assume they only know how to play this style from me? that's its them being naive to other play styles for them to enjoy that type? I'm flattered you assume its me hamfisting it into them over years its the correct way to play..and they roll over and accept it. 2 of them played D&D for years before I met them, 1 ran D&D for a decade, and one I've known since 1992 and just finally talked him into trying rifts (he was a shadowrun nut) they have other experiences of gameplay than this style...but that's the reason we have stuck together for the last 2 years gaming as a group, over the other games we played a while and left over the last 20 years. We all prefer it.

Mouse said: Paul U. said: Your final paragraph indicates that you're still missing the point. You clearly DO need interesting, it's just what's interesting and what's boring to you are, allegedly, the reverse of what they are to other people . In actuality, I find it highly likely that your players simply aren't aware of any other way to play and have rationalized it to themselves that the things that commonly get games wrapped around the axle are not a malfunction but the actual point. So now William is both the only one who enjoys these kinds of consequences in his campaigns and his players clearly suffer from stockholm syndrome? Please go back to discussing in good faith, Paul... Your playstyle doesn't make you awesome or horrible and its the same with others. Yes, let's all discuss this in good faith.

There's some joke in here about living in glass taverns and firing arrows. OP: Jordan K. said: How do you guys handle it? The problem I seem to have is that compared to the average commoner, the players even at level 1 are extremely wealthy compared to some farmers. So imposing fines and such on them that would make sense to the average commoner, wouldn't make sense, and the Death penalty doesn't make sense for the majority of crimes. The example I came across was that the Ranger of the party failed a shot at a target outside a bar and smashed a window, and after the barman pissed him off by giving him an earfull of abuse, in anger and to spite him he fired again while leaving town and ended up hitting him. Now what would be an appropriate punishment for that? 200gp and ten lashes is what I decided was appropriate, but a player raised an unquestionably good point, in that 200gp for smashing a window and injuring someone, something that could happen in a drunken brawl would bankrupt the average person. How to balance this? I know there's a book, but I'd rather not fork out that much money on something that might not even be applicable to my campaign. I'd need to know more about your environment before answering, but at that point the question should answer itself. There are some possibilities: History. If you're basing this on a medieval justice system, the goal was recompense for the victim, not punishing the assailant, although to the modern mind these seem similar. If you punched out someone's teeth, you'd pay a fine to that person based on which teeth were lost. In this context, the character would be fined for the destruction of the window, plus grievous bodily harm to the barman, with some extra tacked on top. 200GP isn't unreasonable if that's somewhere south of double what the barman would have made in whatever period of time it takes him to recover from an arrow wound. In the event the assailant refuses to pay or can't pay within a reasonable period of time, he's eventually branded outlaw and can't go back into town without a bunch of people attacking him. Reality Modifiers. How are adventurers viewed in your world? They might be viewed as dangerous troublemakers, wandering around town in armor with weapons ready and fireballs at will. They're also rich. While the locals like them spending their money (and probably overcharge them for everything) they're not too comfy with the danger they bring, particularly danger they make themselves by firing arrows indiscriminately. Inflating the fine makes perfect sense if the assailant is rich and the magistrate wants to deter him from doing stupid things in the future. Note that if there are a bunch of adventurers around, the local economy is going to be inflated anyway, so the amount of the fine drops in relative value since even the farmers are better off. Narrative. The local magistrate may require the assailant to provide a service in lieu of the payment, one that's worth far more than the simple fine. The assailant is an adventurer after all, and is disposable heroic enough to do some dirty work. The bursar pays the fine to the barman, the magistrate saves some money on a troublesome job, and the players get to go off and do adventurey stuff, albeit underpaid. As for bankrupting the average person, oh well. He shot a guy with an arrow. A commoner who did that might have been killed by a bunch of angry drunks on the spot, or find himself working off a lien for years. A rich person is lucky enough to be able to pay a fine and go on being slightly less rich.

Sorry about that, I tend to go off on tangents a lot. I think debating, along with sleeping, and reading are my top 3 hobbies. I get carried away on it sometimes. And nothing against you Paul U. I've gained some different perspectives and ideas from your other threads. Even if I don't agree on some of your threads I read, I've still taken something new to consider from some of them :) Since I ran off on the thread, I should at least put in my 2 cents towards to problem. Seeing how it was a fight outside a tavern in a town it depends on a few things on how Id handle it. Is fighting a normal thing to see in the town? If not a random pack of newcomers causing trouble and breaking things may cause them to try to extort them for over the normal fee(explaining the reason for it)..from knowing they are both richer than the average villager and ignorant of the towns laws, and to discourage them from returning.."god knows we don't want those foolhardy troublemakers back' Then fleeing the scene didn't help their reputation in the town as 'helpful upstanding adventurers" (if that's what they play as). And firing an arrow back toward the bar while running means they are now seen as troublemakers with a streak of 'we are above the law' in them. The towns controlling party wouldn't want adventurers thinking they can just come in, cause problems, and be able to mosey off afterwards, its bad for business, and bad for the people living there. They might want to make an example of them to warn other adventures that wander through the town shopping. Spending money out of town pocket to have them bounty hunted and brought to town as an example.(play out example however seems fit for you and the players). If they do return and want to make amends, the barman shouldn't simply be 'bygones are bygones'..he WAS shot. But allow them to either negotiate the fine, with some stipulations of further activity from them in the town, or perhaps work out with the barman some sort of deal or job. Maybe the barman has some other local thugs hes been having trouble with extorting him etc, and if the party helps him hes willing to call it even..wary of them still, but even. Setup a situation where if they don't pay the fine, and refuse to, that presents itself in a way that they can redeem themselves to the town indirectly. The next raid (towns can always be raided right?:) ), or the NEXT band of rowdy adventures that cause havoc has a bounty/wanted status set on them as the town is getting tired of it, and the party gets word of it. Then they can chose if they want to give pursuit and nab them, and turn them in. That way they have a purely personal choice of either "screw that town, we didn't like it anyway" or "maybe we can win back some favor by making things right". That can give you a gauge on if they care about what they did wrong, or if they only care about the punishment they got for it. Have the barman get some of this 'less than favorable regular customers" follow the party when they leave town. Dropping hints they keep noticing the same person suspiciously trying to seem nonchalant about being where they are at. Play it out as you see fit for the situation they cause when they notice and how they approach it(it could be just a roughneck drunkard they beat up for following them, or a old feeble looking man that's really a level 15 wizard that's retired and goes daily by the bar for drinks now hes settled down, which made good friends with the barkeep and just looking out for him..they have no idea who the person following them is capable of.) If not else, and the town isn't equipped to hand taking on a party like them. When the flee town, drop it, don't bring it back up in the story. Just make a note personally for that town that they are not the most welcome there. if they go back, the Inn always seems out of rooms, the bar wont serve them drinks, the merchants charging them 10% more than everyone else, or just flat out seems to be out of whatever they are trying to buy..a general 'you guys may have forgot all about it, but the town folk didn't forget you shot johnny and left him for dead". It all depends on what you had setup as the basic personality of the barman, and townspeople, and who control the town, on which Id choose.

GM Mu said: There's some joke in here about living in glass taverns and firing arrows. OP: Jordan K. said: How do you guys handle it? The problem I seem to have is that compared to the average commoner, the players even at level 1 are extremely wealthy compared to some farmers. So imposing fines and such on them that would make sense to the average commoner, wouldn't make sense, and the Death penalty doesn't make sense for the majority of crimes. The example I came across was that the Ranger of the party failed a shot at a target outside a bar and smashed a window, and after the barman pissed him off by giving him an earfull of abuse, in anger and to spite him he fired again while leaving town and ended up hitting him. Now what would be an appropriate punishment for that? 200gp and ten lashes is what I decided was appropriate, but a player raised an unquestionably good point, in that 200gp for smashing a window and injuring someone, something that could happen in a drunken brawl would bankrupt the average person. How to balance this? I know there's a book, but I'd rather not fork out that much money on something that might not even be applicable to my campaign. I'd need to know more about your environment before answering, but at that point the question should answer itself. There are some possibilities: History. If you're basing this on a medieval justice system, the goal was recompense for the victim, not punishing the assailant, although to the modern mind these seem similar. If you punched out someone's teeth, you'd pay a fine to that person based on which teeth were lost. In this context, the character would be fined for the destruction of the window, plus grievous bodily harm to the barman, with some extra tacked on top. 200GP isn't unreasonable if that's somewhere south of double what the barman would have made in whatever period of time it takes him to recover from an arrow wound. In the event the assailant refuses to pay or can't pay within a reasonable period of time, he's eventually branded outlaw and can't go back into town without a bunch of people attacking him. Reality Modifiers. How are adventurers viewed in your world? They might be viewed as dangerous troublemakers, wandering around town in armor with weapons ready and fireballs at will. They're also rich. While the locals like them spending their money (and probably overcharge them for everything) they're not too comfy with the danger they bring, particularly danger they make themselves by firing arrows indiscriminately. Inflating the fine makes perfect sense if the assailant is rich and the magistrate wants to deter him from doing stupid things in the future. Note that if there are a bunch of adventurers around, the local economy is going to be inflated anyway, so the amount of the fine drops in relative value since even the farmers are better off. Narrative. The local magistrate may require the assailant to provide a service in lieu of the payment, one that's worth far more than the simple fine. The assailant is an adventurer after all, and is disposable heroic enough to do some dirty work. The bursar pays the fine to the barman, the magistrate saves some money on a troublesome job, and the players get to go off and do adventurey stuff, albeit underpaid. As for bankrupting the average person, oh well. He shot a guy with an arrow. A commoner who did that might have been killed by a bunch of angry drunks on the spot, or find himself working off a lien for years. A rich person is lucky enough to be able to pay a fine and go on being slightly less rich. Those are all interesting and creative approaches. Any of them might convince the player just to go with what the DM stated, or maybe the player is reasonable enough to do go along for much less involved reasons, such as simply not wanting to argue. On the other hand, a player who really isn't interested in going along is not going to find any of those approaches - or any other approach - convincing. I've never seen in-game logic convince anyone who didn't want to be convinced. Usually, it just leads to more trouble.

Or, you know, you could just let them do whatever they want to. Like true heroes. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kedjhnguKhc" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kedjhnguKhc</a>

GM Mu said: Or, you know, you could just let them do whatever they want to. Like true heroes. In-game fines are not going to stop out-of-game behavior. Even if they cause the player to back down and "behave" in the short term, that player will find ways to act out. If nothing else, unless the DM metes out treasure with an eye toward keeping the players punishable by the local authorities the DM will soon have to request outrageous fines. It all comes down to buy-in. If you want players to act like heroes, you all have to be on the same page about what that means. For example not everyone is going to agree that a hero is someone who a) gets verbally abused by NPC townies or b) stands there and takes it. If the players don't agree that that's heroic, or tough, or free-willed enough for how they imagine their character, then there are going to be issues, and imaginary fines for imaginary money are not going to solve those issues, no matter how logical they might be to the GM or anyone else.

Kristin C. said: The OP wasn't asking the question on whether one should or shouldn't punish PCs for running amok in a town. He was asking about degrees realism regarding punishments for misbehaving PCs. Can we not go sidetracking into a play style debate? Those never go anywhere and typically just get the thread closed down because they never stay civil. The point is that the degree of realism doesn't matter. As has been demonstrated, 200 gp is perfectly realistic, but so could almost anything else be. What matters is what the player will accept. If the player feels they being punished, they're not going to buy-in to anything and nothing will seem "realistic." Realism isn't enough. The players have to enjoy the game, no matter what the playstyle is.

Kristin C. said: Paul U. said: Realism isn't enough. The players have to enjoy the game, no matter what the playstyle is. Which the OP never stated was a problem with their players. You're just making an assumption that it is. Until the OP actually mentions otherwise, this is pretty much a side debate on whether PCs should or shouldn't accrue IG punishments for their IG actions and is off topic. Players who are enjoying what the GM is imposing don't tend to question it, or act out by taking potshots at NPCs. Jordan K: Did the player enjoy the punishment of the character? Would the player be willing to offer their own rationale for why a 200 gp fine makes sense? These make a difference to where the "balance" is for in-game punishments of any kind.

Paul U. said: Kristin C. said: Paul U. said: Realism isn't enough. The players have to enjoy the game, no matter what the playstyle is. Which the OP never stated was a problem with their players. You're just making an assumption that it is. Until the OP actually mentions otherwise, this is pretty much a side debate on whether PCs should or shouldn't accrue IG punishments for their IG actions and is off topic. Players who are enjoying what the GM is imposing don't tend to question it, or act out by taking potshots at NPCs. Jordan K: Did the player enjoy the punishment of the character? Would the player be willing to offer their own rationale for why a 200 gp fine makes sense? These make a difference to where the "balance" is for in-game punishments of any kind. Well the punishment never went ahead since he rolled a natural 20 on the apprehending guards and convinced them it wasn't him. And yeah it was a good encounter.

Jordan K. said: Well the punishment never went ahead since he rolled a natural 20 on the apprehending guards and convinced them it wasn't him. And yeah it was a good encounter. I wasn't really asking if it was a good encounter. I was asking if the player enjoyed the punishment of the character. As that didn't happen, I guess we can't really know. In future, though, keep in mind that whether something is realistic or not is not essential to whether it's appropriate or balanced.

Paul U. said: Jordan K. said: Well the punishment never went ahead since he rolled a natural 20 on the apprehending guards and convinced them it wasn't him. And yeah it was a good encounter. I wasn't really asking if it was a good encounter. I was asking if the player enjoyed the punishment of the character. As that didn't happen, I guess we can't really know. In future, though, keep in mind that whether something is realistic or not is not essential to whether it's appropriate or balanced. We went OOC for a minute after when the encounter was over, it was somewhere along the lines of Player 1: Just thinking about it surely 200gp is stupidly high? Like what if you got into a fist fight and the same sort of things happened? Player 2 (Offending Player): Yeah, yeah! Player 3: Maybe the DM is trying to tell us that you shouldn't be such a dumb shit firing in the middle of town FOR NO REASON! DM (Myself): ... Everyone laughs.

Jordan K. said: We went OOC for a minute after when the encounter was over, it was somewhere along the lines of Player 1: Just thinking about it surely 200gp is stupidly high? Like what if you got into a fist fight and the same sort of things happened? Player 2 (Offending Player): Yeah, yeah! Player 3: Maybe the DM is trying to tell us that you shouldn't be such a dumb shit firing in the middle of town FOR NO REASON! DM (Myself): ... Everyone laughs. Is that what you were trying to tell them?

Jordan K. said: Player 1: Just thinking about it surely 200gp is stupidly high? Like what if you got into a fist fight and the same sort of things happened? Player 2 (Offending Player): Yeah, yeah! Player 3: Maybe the DM is trying to tell us that you shouldn't be such a dumb shit firing in the middle of town FOR NO REASON Mission accomplished Everyone laughs. Other mission accomplished

GM Mu said: Jordan K. said: Player 1: Just thinking about it surely 200gp is stupidly high? Like what if you got into a fist fight and the same sort of things happened? Player 2 (Offending Player): Yeah, yeah! Player 3: Maybe the DM is trying to tell us that you shouldn't be such a dumb shit firing in the middle of town FOR NO REASON Mission accomplished There's no indication that Player 2 got that message, and certainly not during play. If that was the message (which I ask above) why not just state it and get buy-in instead of hoping the player gets it?

Or why not resolve it the way it was..everyone seems to get it, other players pointed it out. seems they resolved it, laughing ensued, game moved on. Why is your way of resolving it the only best way? Some peoples sessions jump from in and out of character all night..and everyone has no problem with it. Not everything has to be discussed and resolved ingame using 'buy-in'. An agreed resolution is still an resolution..in or out of character. its no less acceptable if its done outside the game, if the group works that way. It seems they moved past it, and game is going forward. Again its not an argument about HOW he approached it, if 'buy-in' needs to be used, if immersion plays a part, or who understood why the punishment was chosen, but simply what punishment should be or how to balance deciding what punishment to use.

Jordan K. said: Crime and Punishment How do you guys handle it? We'll have discussed prior to the game whether or not the players want to play characters that may be engaged in committing crimes and how that arrangement can be made fun for everyone. D&D is a game of heroic fantasy action/adventure - protagonists exploring a world filled with fantastic adventure and perilous danger, good and evil, law and chaos, monsters and men, gold and glory. That is what the game sets out to provide to those who play it. It simply isn't about characters running around committing crimes and being punished for it (which is why the game is notably silent on how to deal with it as you've noticed). There are other games for that sort of experience and that the funny "murder-hobo" trope of lawless player characters has become something of a staple in D&D circles speaks to how people are playing the game (and their group dynamics) rather than what the game itself sets forth as the game experience to be had by playing. Now what would be an appropriate punishment for that? The appropriate punishment is whatever you and your players think is appropriate since the game itself doesn't care about it. (A search of the d20 SRD reveals this.) The general consensus in this community appears to be "If you and your players are having fun, then you're doing it right." So the only "punishment" that can be wrong by that reasoning is one that isn't fun. If 200 gp and ten lashes was fun for you and your players at the time, then it was an appropriate punishment. How to balance this? As above. The game doesn't care about such things so it's up to you and your players to determine the balance that works for your group, given the context of the situation and what you and your players find fun.

The DMG also discusses some advice on how to handle this (namely pg 135 "PCs out of control"). The suggested advice basically amounts to, the PCs are special, but not unique. They might be great heroes, but there are always bigger fish. It gives additional advice on how to handle when a player sees an inconsistency in the game world (starting on pg 129), and also alludes to crime and punishment in the same section. I will quote the later "Occasionally, a player will see a loophole or inconsistency in what you have created. Use such and observation to your advantage rather than admitting that you've made a mistake. Make the quest for an answer a part of the adventure." Pg. 130 DMG 3.5E. I suggested something similar, but this is perhaps improved advice. In fact that whole section is worth reading. There are other very good pieces of advice that will work just fine, but I thought it would at least be worth reading what the game suggests. Of course these are only guidelines; take what works for you and throw out the rest.