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pedrogush
2013-09-10, 08:44 PM
Ok, this is gonna sound very silly, but a friend of mine has recently started me and three other friends on a D&D based Saint Seya RPG.

Now, as a group we've run into a problem, we've been tasked to rid a city of an invasion by leading a group of people who are jockeying for a position as a Saint, so each of us got to lead 10 unnamed NPCs into battle, which was separated by the city districts. Three of us got along reasonably well, with acceptable losses during each battle. The other guy was playing the Crow Saint and was using darkness based powers, and he had chosen to make the character lawful Evil (this capitalization is intentional). During the battle he used one of his powers to create artificial darkness, with little regard to his NPCs, who were fighting a group of animated constructs with Darkvision. Needless to say, his NPCs got completely slaughtered. Since he is the Crow Saint obviously his crows went right on to eat out the eyes of every dead NPC in there.

Now my character eventually got wind of this, and went on to check the scene, becoming visibly disturbed by the behavior of his fellow Saint. I knew my friend was playing his character for evil maniacal cackling and all, and the description the DM made of the NPCs cursing his name and raising their bloody fists in the air was hilarious. However, i did not want to break character in order to excuse the behavior. Later during the adventure both our characters came to a heated discussion about this event and other minor evilness that was commited, with my character going so far as accusing the Crow Saint of open treason.

My intention was not to derail the adventure, but it looks like i might have been unintentionally disruptive. My character is CG, and i don't know how to reconcile banding with another character who is LE, or how to rationalize it in ways that don't sound like just a cop out so the adventure can flow. From a metagaming perspective, how do we solve this situation? Should my friend's character try to trick somehow? I don't want to split the party, but it sounds like the only honest option.

Tim Proctor
2013-09-10, 11:04 PM
That is not your fault, from the sounds of it everyone is supposed to be playing 'good' characters and for one player to throw in 'evil' characters is meant to throw a wrench into the issue.

If you don't want to split the party and have PvP, then I'd suggest that your character decides the Crow Saint can be redeemed and then your character prays for his, shows him the merits of good and the folly of evil, etc. etc. etc. Give him a couple chances to sway sides but when he doesn't be prepare to excise his character.

Gavran
2013-09-11, 10:35 AM
This is precisely why "No evil" is a very common rule for character creation. Having alignments that are by definition in mortal conflict is not good for a party that's supposed to be working together.

You can kill/imprison/bind their PC. You can have a greater evil and try to pretend that you need their PC. Or, you can OOC tell your friend to stop being selfish and that he doesn't have the right to force you to break character in order to keep the group together. It's unlikely your friend has the level of foresight/intelligence to play the "secretly evil" guy without forcing you to dumb down your PCs to not catch him. Not that I'm saying your friend is dumb, just that doing so requires you to be several steps ahead of everyone else.

pedrogush
2013-09-11, 11:02 AM
That is not your fault, from the sounds of it everyone is supposed to be playing 'good' characters and for one player to throw in 'evil' characters is meant to throw a wrench into the issue.

If you don't want to split the party and have PvP, then I'd suggest that your character decides the Crow Saint can be redeemed and then your character prays for his, shows him the merits of good and the folly of evil, etc. etc. etc. Give him a couple chances to sway sides but when he doesn't be prepare to excise his character.

That is a very good solution. I will try to do that. Thanks!


This is precisely why "No evil" is a very common rule for character creation. Having alignments that are by definition in mortal conflict is not good for a party that's supposed to be working together.

You can kill/imprison/bind their PC. You can have a greater evil and try to pretend that you need their PC. Or, you can OOC tell your friend to stop being selfish and that he doesn't have the right to force you to break character in order to keep the group together. It's unlikely your friend has the level of foresight/intelligence to play the "secretly evil" guy without forcing you to dumb down your PCs to not catch him. Not that I'm saying your friend is dumb, just that doing so requires you to be several steps ahead of everyone else.

Well, there wasn't such a rule at character creation. Both other party members are neutral, one being lawful and the other true. I'll try to tell him out of character to leave less blatant evidence next time he wants his character to do something nasty, instead of coming up to the party and saying: "My band died like vermin, they were useless" and all that. Thanks for the advice! I think i got what i needed.

Gavran
2013-09-11, 01:46 PM
I presumed as much. It's unfortunate that playing the odd man evil is so difficult to do well and is also such a tempting thing to try. Maybe there's a thread in that...