another problem yet again!!!

[Zeikstraal]

So we have another problem in our group. The problem is in game, not out of character, there is nothing wrong there, I think.

So long story short; We found the deeds of a mansion, making us the rightful owners. Our rogue gave it away to some corrupt politician, despite us telling him that he is corrupt. My Barbarian told the rogue, that he can get it back, our give me a compensation for our loss. The rogue kinda talks his way out of it, and we bassically wait till our mision is over and the mansion is not required as proof anymore.
After that we have some combat with 3 lemures, and out of nowhere an invissible guy attacks my barbarian for some good damage. My barbarian goes nuts after that, and rages. The Cleric recognizes that the guy is possesed and tells us to not kill him. My barbarian who is in rage, doesn't hear it, and finishes him.

We get back in the inn, and the Cleric is mad at him for killing him, and asks if I'm gonna attack everyone who attacks me. I bassically say, if he is a thread there is a good chance I will attack him till he surrenders or is taken out. I try to explain to them that in combat my "Primal Instincts" take over, and my mind is not very clear. After that the Cleric turns to the Rogue and starts against him, because he has done some things also, that the Cleric does not like. Killing a boy who had Ghoul Fever, because he thought they could not save him. Killing a guy who was pinned by the fighter and asked to not kill him. Attack someone who surrendered himself. My character wanted to know more about it, but the Rogue did not want to tell him. My character tells the same thing the Cleric did "I don't know if I can trust you" yadda yadda yadda, my character makes a joke which the rogue can't handdle and gets mad and storms of.
After this conversation, the Cleric pretty much says, we will finish this quest, and then we will see which path we will choose.
The next day, the rogue calls my barbarian an idiot, retard, fool, imbecile etc. which he just laughs away. But their is some bad blood.

We finish the quest, have another conversation with the corrupt politician, it gets clear that we will not get the mansion back. We go to the church of our cleric and we distribute the loot. The Rogue tells us, he will go his own way, and wants to leave. My barbarian brings up the point, that he still owes us, and we want some compensation for the mansion. We are reasonable and ask for 9000 gold pieces, that we will distibute between the three of us. The Cleric and the fighter agree with me. The rogue refuses, and after several warnings, for a couple of sessions, still does not want to give it. He even admits it was his fault and his responsibillity, but just refuses. The Rogue wants to walk away, but my barbarian gets up, and says that if he will not hand it over now, he will take it by force. The rogue does not want to hand it over, my barbarian attacks, with fists, so no lethal damage was done. I make quick work of him despite some priest guys trying to stop me. I take a bag of gold, give him a potion, and walk away.

And now, the Cleric says I'm not allowed to come with them anymore. He calls me unreasonable, and everything is violence with me, and he can not trust me. I tell hem that I am really reasonable, and that he had it coming. I will not let him take the money from me, without me lifting a finger, and that I'm no doormat.

So, is he in his right, to "force" me to play a different character? Am I being a jerk? Or is this a case of "ah, what you do now, is not in the dogma of my god, so this is wrong"? Do I play my barbarian like an idiot? Or is he a jerk?

I do not want to change my character because I enjoy him. Are their ways I could have done better and how can I improve?

And what could be some solutions to work this out?

Thanks in advance!!

[hymer]

Make characters than can and do work together.

[Zeikstraal]

Make characters than can and do work together.

So, to make it work, I have to make a character that basically has the same deity, or can easily adept to his norms and values?

[hymer]

To make it work, you all have to make characters that fit each other and the world they are made for. The three characters you mention are intolerable to each other, and it's no wonder they can't work together.
Something's gotta give. The characters must come to an agreement, or new ones which can come to an agreement must be made.

[Gwendol]

You seem to be at odds over a number of things; that these situations happen are a natural outcome of this adversity. If your characters aren't natural enemies they will likely work better together: they should probably share a common goal, and be willing to address problems in a similar way.

[Solophoenix]

Also, unless your Barbarian is a Frenzied Berserker, there is no mechanical reason for him to act like a nonsentient animal while in Rage.

[Krobar]

Kill the Cleric, take his stuff, and write Chaotic Evil on your sheet. Now everybody gets to start with a new character. Make sure they can work together this time.

[Zeikstraal]

My character has no problem with anyone now. I'm wondering if I play my barbarian in a stupid way, if that is the case, I will roll a new one. Or is the Cleric being intolerable with anyone who does not share the same dogma?

Also, I'm not acting like a lunatic when in rage, I stop when they surrender, or are no threat (anymore), but if I need to fight for my live, I will fight for my life, and won't stop untill they surrender or pose no threat anymore.

[Jakodee]

The rouge is to greedy to work with you, the cleric to uptight, and your barbarian is not accepted by the good aligned characters.

[Jakodee]

The cleric should morally not work with you or the rouge, but then the adventure is ruined. He can't expect a professional thief and a raging warrior to abide by his morals.

[hymer]

OTOH a thief and a killer can't expect a clergyman to stand blithely by while they do horrible things. In the end, disband the regiment. Morale has been totally destroyed. By poopoo.

[Zeikstraal]

I don't think my barbarian is a killer, or a bad person in general. He made a mistake by killing the possesed guy. But besides that, has only killed the bad guys.

[hymer]

That's entirely besides the point. You guys failed to work together. Unless you can patch things up (and that would probably involve your barbarian ask forgiveness and stop behaving in the way he does, or the cleric giving up on his deity - none of which seems likely), you'll have to break up and this time make characters that can and will work together.

This is a purely practical matter, not a moral one.

[Another_Poet]

When you say this problem is in-game, and not OOC, then I translate that to mean: "My friends and I really enjoy playing these different characters who argue with each other. All of us think the tension adds drama and all of us are having fun acting out these disputes."

Is that true?

If that is true, then keep enjoying this tense, dramatic (and likely realistic) game. Keep playing your no-compromise, hit-first barbarian next to the no-compromise, loot-stealing thief and no-compromise, tell-you-what-to-do cleric.

This may lead to your characters being unable to work together, which is fitting because in real life they wouldn't work together. That will mean rolling a new character when the big split happens. Or, ask your GM to give you a reason you have to stick together despite your differences.

But if what I said above isn't true, then you need to start adapting your character to fit in better, or else talk to the other players OOC to solve your different views of roleplaying.


So, to make it work, I have to make a character that basically has the same deity, or can easily adept to his norms and values?

No. But you'll have to take a small step toward that. For instance, your barbarian could have:


beat up the invisible guy but then stopped before the killing blow when the cleric begged you to
killed the invisible guy but then felt guilty and sought atonement through the cleric's church
beat up the rogue for the money but then taken him to the temple for healing, apologized afterward and said, "Nothing personal. We're even now. Let's go make some money."
not beat up the rogue and told him, "You've saved my life in combat, so I'm going to let this go. But the next time you steal from me, I will cut your heart out and eat it."
not beat up the rogue, told him "I won't forget this" and then steal from his share of the loot for the next X encounters until you've made up your share plus interest
not beat up the rogue, but then next time he's in serious trouble in combat and needs saving, you take advantage. "Sure, I'll give you my last potion. For 3,000 gp."

If you have an OOC goal of keeping the party together, which should be every roleplayer's goal unless agreed upon in advance, then you can find IC excuses to live up to that goal, make a compromise here or there, without selling out your badass character concept.

(Also, bear in mind that killing someone the Cleric asked you to spare - especially in a case of demonic possession - is as much of a ripoff for the cleric's player, as losing the mansion is a ripoff to you. Barbarians fight for gold and glory, but clerics fight to beat evil and save innocents, so you essentially robbed him the same way the rogue robbed you. Cooperation goes both ways.)

[Callin]

Seems like a group of unreasonable people. The rogue and cleric more than you In my opinion and the rogue most of all. The cleric should be ok working with you as long as you do try to not offend his faith at every turn but he has to understand combat is deadly and even someone acting against their will can still kill you and will keep trying to kill you. So he needs to lighten up a tad.

[Zeikstraal]

I have spoken to our DM about it, and he said to not worry about it. He will not let them dictate who can stay and who can go simply on the fact that my barbarian does not have the same morals as the Cleric. He also said combat is deadly, and the possessed guy showed now sign of stopping the combat. If they make a problem out of it, he will adress it out of game with us.

[Callin]

Good to hear

[Psyren]

Also, unless your Barbarian is a Frenzied Berserker, there is no mechanical reason for him to act like a nonsentient animal while in Rage.

This. Sorry to say OP, but if I was that cleric I wouldn't be able to trust you either. Ally says "don't kill him!" you should at least be willing to listen and switch to nonlethal.

[mevans7]

This. Sorry to say OP, but if I was that cleric I wouldn't be able to trust you either. Ally says "don't kill him!" you should at least be willing to listen and switch to nonlethal.

I agree with this, but that sword cuts both ways. As the Cleric, you have to weigh the fact that even if the barbarian relents, they attacker may not. At that point, you've potentially put a member of your party in jeopardy.

The cleric might not be able to trust that the barbarian will spare the life of everyone they come across, but I'd imagine they've never had a problem sharing the same camp site or fighting on the same side when it really counts.

Like others have said, if you create a group of characters who've got neither a common goal nor interests, then why would you expect those people to be able to work together, or even want to work together, for any extended amount of time? Hopefully your DM can help out, because short of re-rolling more sensible characters, the only thing that looks like it will hold this group together is something much greater than all of you.

[Psyren]

I agree with this, but that sword cuts both ways. As the Cleric, you have to weigh the fact that even if the barbarian relents, they attacker may not. At that point, you've potentially put a member of your party in jeopardy.

You can do nonlethal in a rage just fine. Nobody said "stand there and get stabbed!" - the cleric simply said "don't kill him." There is a compromise solution there, one that doesn't involve p*ssing all over your party member's roleplay and forcing them into an ultimatum scenario.

[Diarmuid]

Psyren's got the right of it on this one I think.

You have "chosen" to play your barbarian in such a way where his "primal instincts take over". This is a choice you're making in your PC's character much like the Cleric's decision to want to prevent killing innocent, surrendered, magically coerced, etc enemies.

You're just as much at fault as the others, but you're trying to hide your "choice" behind the Rage mechanic when there's nothing there to support it.

You've all taken moral stands, and no one seems to want to budge. This is what they call Ye Olde Impasse.

As has been pointed out, either one person makes a large change, or perhaps everyone makes small enough changes that you can keep your group together. No one (except the DM) can tell you "you cant play that character anymore", but they can make In Character decisions to no longer associate with you. Heck, you might all decide to continue to work on that plot loose end that was dangling and you may continually cross paths, but then the DM is basically hosting 3 solo adventures and I'm guesing most DM's would just tell their group to either work it out, or make a cohesive "adventuring party" that can actually get along.

[TuggyNE]

You're just as much at fault as the others, but you're trying to hide your "choice" behind the Rage mechanic when there's nothing there to support it.

Quoted for great emphasis. Decide to react differently (http://www.giantitp.com/articles/tll307KmEm4H9k6efFP.html) (second half of article)!

[Sith_Happens]

It sounds like most of the problem was the Rogue, so things should be much smoother with him leaving. The friction between your Barbarian and the Cleric is much smaller in the grand scheme of things and can likely be talked out rather easily.

The Cleric's desire to not kill certain people is completely reasonable, and there's nothing about Raging that renders you unable to comply. If you're worried about the attack penalty, tell him that next time you'll switch to nonlethal when it looks like the target is about to drop (this happens to be my own party's favorite trick), but if you accidentally knock them from "still in good shape" to "dead" then he needs to understand that **** happens. If you don't mind spending some money, ask if he's willing to split the cost of putting Merciful on a secondary weapon.

Not wanting you to beat up the Rogue was much less reasonable, except maybe as the last straw on top of your existing violence/lethality issues. Point out that (a) talking was obviously getting nowhere, meaning the only way you were going to get what was owed to you was by taking it, and (b) you specifically did not kill the Rogue where many others would have.