Seeking advice on how to handle a player's motivation

[S_Grey]

In the game I'm running, I've run into a bit of a snag. As it turns out, one of my players, my most stubborn player, has decided that that he wants to kill another certain character.

For the last section of this campaign, I've had all of my players make new characters. One of my players, let's call him Huckleberry, made a character whose secondary goal in the game is to kill a character left over from previous story arcs.

The issue with this, is that I wasn't always the DM of this campaign and the character that Huckleberry wants to kill is my old one.

What would you do in that situation? Do I let Huckleberry kill my character? Do I railroad him away from it? Do I fiat a reason why it's impossible?

If you're interested in hearing the whole story, complete with RP fluff, here's a spoiler:
I first made my character in question back at level 5, which was near the beginning of the campaign. Now we're in the last leg of this game at level 25.

This problem all started in the story arc previous to this one, where the party made a trip to Dis. The reason for this hellish little escapade was to steal the Angelwing Razor from Dispater's Iron Tower. Fun stuff, right? Almost everything went according to plan. We flew in on the Wu Jen's cloud chariot while protected by her prismatic barriers (initiate of the sevenfold veil). When we got to the tower, we broke up into 3 groups.

The first group's duty was to raid Dispater's treasury for the sword while defeating any guardian in place. Talos the 3-headed iron golem was a hell of a fight. The assassin, sorcerer, and tripping gish took care of this.

The second group, the Wu Jen and a weapon master, took care of handling all of the denizens of the tower and prevent them from interfering with the first group.

The third and final group was sent to Distract Dispater. As it turns out, the third group was just me. That's not the problem though. The problem was that once conversation died and Dispater was no longer interested in talking, combat broke out. I had expected this and was ready to hold him off as long as I could. The idea was to abuse my character's high mobility and ethereal ghost step to just distract him. Then it happened. I made a full attack on him before disappearing for the first time. The third attack I made: triple ****ing 20. Dispater drops. Obviously the weapon I was using couldn't actually kill him, so he was instead just indisposed for the remainder of the heist.

Fast forward to now, and Huckleberry's new character. He made a half-fiend fighter type in high ranking service to Dispater and wants to avenge his Lord's disgrace. I.e. kill my character.

[weckar]

Unless you're planning to use the character in the future, it should be fine, right? That's not to say you should make it easy, or without consequences.

[hymer]

I agree. You should not use your DM power to play favourites for an NPC over the PCs. That way madness lies.
The perfect DM would turn it into as great an adventure as s/he could. No rails, anything can happen. If the player is sufficiently effective, he gets what he's after. If he messes up, someone that powerful can turn the tables, and this should be taken into account. And of course, succesful or not, the cycle of revenge starts all over again, and more adventure is the consequence.

It is quite possible, of course, that this player is trying to get to you personally, by attacking something you supposedly hold dear, while in a situation where any retaliation from you would look like bullying, because you're the DM. A private talk might be a good idea. An open might also, the other players may have thoughts about this.

Oh, and I'd ditch the whole instant-kill thing, but that's a whole other debate. :smallbiggrin:

[HammeredWharf]

I'd be flattered if someone made a character motivated by my previous character. It's also a great opportunity to have a pre-made "villain". What's the problem?

It's good if you're attached to your characters, but they die from time to time and now you've got an opportunity to make that death quite dramatic.

[Oddman80]

Has the fiend infiltrated the party in which your old character continues to adventure? Or is the party you are DMing for an entirely evil party, separate from the one your old character is with?

If the latter, than don't interfere at all, I agree with the others that Huckleberry has just presented to you a grand campaign. But if the former.... That's more delicate. I assume his motives are being kept from the other players both ic and ooc. As DM, You should have everyone's character sheets. So i would tell Huckleberry's player, that every time he tries to sway the group towards his wishes, everyone will be instructed to roll a d20. You then need to privately do the math of bluff vs sense motive, and if any of the other party members becomes suspicious, you give will give that party member a private note telling him/her so.

Its still a great opportunity for RP, but the infiltration is just a naturally more complex situation.

[John Longarrow]

Hm...

High level fighter looking for high level sneaky character. I'd say let him try. Knowing how I work out high level sneaky characters, it should be both hard for his character to hunt down your old character, plus very possible that your old character will hear about it before the fighter type finds them. LET YOUR PLAYER KNOW ahead of time that this is possible. Let him try it in game, but remember that odds are his character will eventually go toe to toe with a sneaky killer who may be able to one shot him.

If he's fine with this and mature enough to run with it, go for it. If it seems like they won't be able to handle your high level character possibly killing his, advise against it in game and work out what your sneaky character would be doing.

If your previous character is now hold up in another campaign setting doing sneaky stuff, you've got a good chance that his character can't even find the world your on. This may be the card to pull if you don't think they are able to handle what this would entail.

If your cool with him trying and he's cool with the (good) chance of getting ambushed by the person who killed dispater IN HIS STRONGHOLD, roll with it!

[Trasilor]

Is this really a threat?

Character wants to kill a level 25 NPC (former character)? Level 25 characters (NPC or otherwise) are not simply killed off. Unless bringing people back from the dead is very difficult in your world, death at level 25 is an annoyance. At that level, multiple contingencies would be in place to prevent death or return in the case of death.

If the player really wants to avenge his demon lord, he needs to discredit the hero NPC. Work to subvert everything he has accomplished so much that bards begin to sing about the Curse of the NPC (or higher a bard to compose a ballad...)

At level 25, death is not really a problem, reputation is. When a mob of peasants boos the hero out of their town with pitchforks, rocks and sticks - preventing the powerful NPC from actually helping people - then the demon lord would be avenged.

So, if his motivation is to simply kill this NPC - let him try - its not like it would do much other than annoy the NPC.

[Valluman]

If you've become the Dungeon Master, then it's your responsibility to ensure your Players are having fun. You may have some attachment to your character, but if you're not a PC anymore, you shouldn't be playing favorites with an NPC over a PC. That said, if you really want your NPC to not die, why not just get him to leave or get out of the PC's reach? Even still, there shouldn't be an issue with the PC murdering an NPC... Well, no other issues than the usual shpeel that comes with murdering someone in D&D.

[Faily]

Let him try. I love seeing players bring goals for their characters to strive for, and if it links to stories together (in a way), even more awesome.

No railroad, no fiat. Let the dice decide. But as others pointed out, a sneaky level 25 should not be easy to find, or take down. It can be pretty epic.

But make sure to speak with the rest of the group about this and see if they are cool with a story-arc for this. Not everyone think it's fun to be the sidekick on another PC's personal adventure for too long.

[Magesmiley]

As others have already said, knocking off a 25th level character is no trivial task. Especially as it sounds like he/she has friends and allies too. I'll refer you to the recently completed OoTS story arc for an excellent example of this.

Play it straight. Take reasonable precautions that the character would if it was unaware of the threat. If the character becomes aware of the issue, play it as you would. The new character set itself a pretty daunting goal. If he/she can do it, let them. But don't make it easy. PCs are some of the wiliest enemies one can ever run into. But it is really up to the new character how he/she goes at it. If he/she plays smart it might be possible after a lot of work. But he/she might fail too. The odds are probably against the character succeeding, but it sounds like an interesting subplot.

Another solution I've not yet seen suggested is to let another player whom you trust make the decisions for your old PC as they come up, with you as the DM dribbling out info as the character becomes aware of it.