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View Full Version : An honest question about character companionship



miz redavni
2012-05-25, 04:26 AM
We have a group of people that like to play every alignment under the rainbow. How do you get a group to stay together or even work together when someone might be chaotic-evil and lawful-good?

Nero24200
2012-05-25, 04:49 AM
Generally when I DM I'm pretty lax in what the players can play, though one rule I use is "You must play a character who will work with the party".

Although I've never really had to enforce it I also use a "first come first serve" basis with character ideas. So if someone wanted to play an evil character but tells me at the last second when we already have a paladin in the party, I'll give the paladin priority since that player choose a character first. And by "priority" I mean telling the player that no, he can't play his evil character, think of a way to make the character neutral or think of a new one.

Not perfect, but usually means I at least get a party that can manage the obstacles I throw at them.

Grail
2012-05-25, 05:50 AM
Well, the easiest way is to have a 3rd party enforce it, such as a King, God, Merchant Boss, Archmage, anyone who has power enough to make the characters do something and can dictate who they travel with.

Another way is simply magical compulsion.

Another way is to have the characters bound together by an oath, or perhaps they are family.

Have the characters all part of a prophecy, and that they are bound to work together.

Have one character trying to redeem the other.

The big question though, is do the characters play their alignments? Most players really struggle with alignments and so it probably doesn't mean too much.

Man on Fire
2012-05-25, 06:13 AM
1) Everybody are aware that whatever opponent they're against won't distinguish between them as he kills them and together they have bigger chance of surviving.

2) Good characters wants to keep evil in check or redeem them. Evil characters want to corrupt the good or whitness them fall. Both enforces them to save the other's butt.

3) Evil characters wants to use everybody else to archieve their own goals.

4) Who said they have anything to say? They were forced to work together, probably by villain who forces them on a quest against their will. Kidnapped their faimilies or binded them with mgic or something.

caden_varn
2012-05-25, 06:26 AM
It really comes down to the players respecting each other and creating characters that can work together. If two players want to have characters that seem likely to clash, they should talk the issues out and work out how to mitigate them. This will probably involve both players compromising.

ILM
2012-05-25, 06:57 AM
We have a group of people that like to play every alignment under the rainbow. How do you get a group to stay together or even work together when someone might be chaotic-evil and lawful-good?
Personally, I let the players worry about that. They want to be the CE guy in an LG group? Fine, provided they can come up with a reason they'll be working together for the duration of the campaign. No party infighting, no backstabbing: that's my rule 0.5. I'm sure it can lead to great games, but I've read about far too many trainwrecks to try it.

Kol Korran
2012-05-25, 07:45 AM
it requires some maturity and fore planning from the players themselves. they:
1) need to find some motivation to work with the team (can be helped by the DM)
2) need to find solutions (preferably though of before hand) on how to deal with the other party members in ways that are: a) not lethal, and/ or TOO damaging (some hindrance is fine) b) more interesting to roleplay with.

in my group we don't use alignments, but we have a few characters who are... at odds. they bicker and argue, but:
- they need each other to survive in the current situation, and rely on each others skills, if begrudgingly.
- one shouts and yells, but ultimately is a sort of a coward, and won't do much. another has no fear, but lieks to be sneaky, and mostly does his dirty work behind people's back, and the last is a tight ass, but won't come to kill or hurt her companions much, thinking of the mission first.

Frenth Alunril
2012-05-25, 08:00 AM
I am a huge believer that new players want to be evil. So I let them. Look at the character Cyric, in the FR books. Starts out indifferent, becomes the god of murder.

It is good for party cohesion? No.

Will there be friction? Yes.

Should you worry about that? Not at all.

In the end, Role Play comes down to the idea that these people are playing characters in a world of fantasy, where they will have to either work well together, or disband. If someone does not fit into the party, the party had to deal with that. If they tell that someone to move on, and the someone agrees to roll up a new character, something that fits the party, that is fine.

If that player decides to continue, let them continue, maybe they will show the party in the end that they are truly worth having around.

It's a great way to run a game. Just remember to have options for every player. In the end, things will work out.

Also remember the police. I had a group once that was mostly good, and one thief who would sneak back and murder everyone who had surrendered and agreed to go peacefully. In the end, the Thief murdered the wrong person, jumped over the wrong wall in his get away, and failed the swimming checks. He LOVED the fact that he got to pull off the murder, he also loved the fact that I saved him for execution, and the whole party was shocked that I would put forth a state sanctioned execution of the PC.

With some explanation that this type of character was working against the party, and some advice, the Character came back to play an amazing cleric who not only became a leading character in the party, but also saved the party many times, including ferreting out the next evil PC well before the rest of the party had, creating months of in game PC conflict which finally came through as Betrayal.

Because the Cleric had prepared the party for the betrayal of the mage, they were ready to handle it.

In the end, it's not your job to keep the party together. If they continue to play socially spazmatic misanthropes, challenge them with a bad guy that will kill them if they won't work together. That usually shakes the foundation of coy skulduggery that the CN and Evil persuasion try to bring to a party.

navar100
2012-05-25, 08:08 AM
As DM learn a word. It begins with the letter N and ends in the letter O. However, if you go by the Y-word to allow anyone to play anything of any alignment then at least have the game run by fiat:

The party will get along. You will choose not to antagonize another party member. You will choose not to steal from each other, attack each other, conspire against each other. You will choose not to sabotage another party member. You will not look for loopholes in this statement. You will follow the full obvious is obvious intent of the spirit of this statement as well as the letter. You just do.

Rallicus
2012-05-25, 08:35 AM
As DM learn a word. It begins with the letter N and ends in the letter O.

The use of the word "no" is the sign of a bad DM, in my opinion. Maybe I've just got a skewed view of the word after having bad DMs use it to keep their mediocre plotline on the rails, or to keep the player characters into developing the way the player wants them to.

A good DM will work with what he's given, adjusting it and coming to an agreement with the player. Saying "no" is just a cop out and a lazy way to deal with problems.

That said, multiple alignment adventuring parties can work. I mean, look no further than the Order of the Stick. I'd imagine if someone created a Belkar you'd say no, Navar, if the party was generally good-aligned (or at the very least, not evil).

The best way to keep a bunch of different people together is an unyielding desire to accomplish a common goal. Or, in some cases, the benefits from trying to achieve said goal (for instance, an evil character joins the party to satisfy his killing desire, which is achieved by slaughtering all the BBEG's minions).

A multiple-aligned party sometimes adds for the best campaigns, in my opinion. It adds conflict and tension that would otherwise not be present in a campaign full of goody-two-shoes. The only problem is the Out of Character aspect, or when a player gets mad for IC reasons. Players will generally calm down if they're mature enough, you'll just need to be the one who steps in and settles things down.

So yeah, it can work.

Yukitsu
2012-05-25, 06:30 PM
As a player, I always make sure I'm working towards being a party member. Even when for example, I'm chaotic evil, I would make sure I would get along with the party as a whole, even if most of them are mostly good aligned. For example, my chaotic evil character, as a motivation didn't think about saving the innocent. She was motivated by brutal revenge against the wicked. Basically, while the team as a whole was following the rules by the book and helping out the locals, I was doing hits on the shady backgrounders that we couldn't directly implicate. I was basically chaotic as I spent a lot of time killing tyrants behind the party's back.

navar100
2012-05-25, 06:55 PM
I'm all for a player playing what he wants, but even that has limits. If the social gaming contract makes Paranoia look like My Little Pony, fine. However, if the game is about the Holy Order Of Philanthropic Do-Gooders, a player with his heart set on a pirate ninja assassin needs to learn to live with disappointment and choose to playing something else.

GolemsVoice
2012-05-25, 07:13 PM
What the others said: either make them find a reason why they should work together, or enforce one. If they're out to stop an ancient doomsday device, it doesn't matter if you're good or evil, you'll be dead, and you'll want to prevent that.

Also, Evil isn't always full Evil, all the time, just like Good isn't all holy, all the time. So an evil rogue and a good fighter might not particularly LIKE each other (great source for roleplay!) but just because the rogue is evil doesn't mean he will constantly do things that are unforgiveable for the fighter.
It only get's dangerous when you have classes where alignment is part of the class, like a paladin or a good/evil cleric.

EDIT: but I'd say that, as a GM, you should reserve the right to veto alignment combinations that you feel aren't suitable. Of course, this should be discussed with the players and your reasoning should be clear for them. If you're planning to make a campaign were the PCs are soldiers of hell, Lawful Good just won't work.

Man on Fire
2012-05-25, 07:18 PM
I'm all for a player playing what he wants, but even that has limits. If the social gaming contract makes Paranoia look like My Little Pony, fine. However, if the game is about the Holy Order Of Philanthropic Do-Gooders, a player with his heart set on a pirate ninja assassin needs to learn to live with disappointment and choose to playing something else.

You are confusing convention you and your players agree upon and playing the game. There is a difference between forbidding player from playing a wizard if you're playing as members of barbarian tribe and banning wizard just because.

Alaris
2012-05-25, 07:44 PM
Have the characters all part of a prophecy, and that they are bound to work together.

Oh god, don't even. I've been running a game where the four PCs are bound by a Prophecy. And they've gone to such lengths to think of every reason under the sun to NOT work together. And honest-to-gods, it is a "Save the world" scenario. Hell, one of the characters who tried to go off and leave the whole prophecy was NEUTRAL GOOD. He should have wanted to save the world.

Rallicus
2012-05-25, 08:03 PM
He should have wanted to save the world.

Prophecies seem like the worst way to force a campaign to go a certain way.

Most people will try to defy fate whenever they're given the opportunity. I mean, think about it from a player's perspective. They're told that "this is what is said will happen, and you will do this." How's a player going to respond? "No way, I'm in control of my life... screw this!"

There's something in most of us that desires control over our own actions, and our own destiny. Throwing in a prophecy will just bring that out in people.

Adding a prophecy to force players to work as a team is about the worst thing you can do, actually. Even worse than letting the different alignments and their effect on the party play out on its own. As soon as you add a prophecy, a means of control, the player is going to rebel.

And prophecies are especially bad in tabletops, since it can be used as a means to railroad the big story arc.

Grail
2012-05-25, 08:08 PM
Oh god, don't even. I've been running a game where the four PCs are bound by a Prophecy. And they've gone to such lengths to think of every reason under the sun to NOT work together. And honest-to-gods, it is a "Save the world" scenario. Hell, one of the characters who tried to go off and leave the whole prophecy was NEUTRAL GOOD. He should have wanted to save the world.

I have run a very successful long term campaign with prophecies.

It comes down to the GM I suppose. :smallamused:

Rallicus
2012-05-25, 08:11 PM
I have run a very successful long term campaign with prophecies.

It comes down to the GM I suppose. :smallamused:


A GM praising his own campaign holds very little merit, unfortunately. But I'll take your word for it. :smallsmile:

Grail
2012-05-25, 08:19 PM
A GM praising his own campaign holds very little merit, unfortunately. But I'll take your word for it. :smallsmile:

True, but the game did go for 3 years IRL, and took the characters from level 2 to level 24. I'd call that a success. But each to their own, I also had a group of good players, and I knew them and their roleplaying capabilities very well, so was able to use the prophecies to manipulate them.

The best way to use a Prophecy (IMO) is to make it ambiguous, but seem like it isn't. I also had one large, overarching prophecy, but the group only found out the whole prophecy half-way through the campaign. Up until then they had heard only snippets of it, and thought that they were multiple prophecies instead of 1.

Man on Fire
2012-05-25, 08:51 PM
Prophecies seem like the worst way to force a campaign to go a certain way.

Most people will try to defy fate whenever they're given the opportunity. I mean, think about it from a player's perspective. They're told that "this is what is said will happen, and you will do this." How's a player going to respond? "No way, I'm in control of my life... screw this!"

There's something in most of us that desires control over our own actions, and our own destiny. Throwing in a prophecy will just bring that out in people.

Adding a prophecy to force players to work as a team is about the worst thing you can do, actually. Even worse than letting the different alignments and their effect on the party play out on its own. As soon as you add a prophecy, a means of control, the player is going to rebel.

And prophecies are especially bad in tabletops, since it can be used as a means to railroad the big story arc.

Five characters wake up in a cell. They haven't ever seen each other before. One of them is a Paladin, another is an arrogant monk, third is a druid, fourth is a robin hood-like ranger, fifth is a famous sadistic Dred Necromancer. LG, LE, N, CG, CE. They are dragged by the guards, in front of a court. There an oracle identifienes them as people who are prophesized to bring the end of the world, would they ever be allowed to work together. Court finds them guilty being a threat and orders their immediate execution.

Here, used what you just described to set up players to work together. They want to defy prophecy? Prophecy says they should never work together. Guess what they're going to do. I mean, after escaping from their own execution of course.