Stances on disabling player characters?

[Bedivere]

Hello GitP!

So I'm writing up some stories for some of my PCs (dream sequence sort of thing), and one of my players basically "witnesses God" because he's a zealot Inquisitor.

I was thinking about having the experience blind him in the physical world, but I've never really messed with a character in such a permanent fashion.

I was considering giving him a form of blind sight when he activates a judgment, because this character is really important for the party's damage and they'd probably wipe without him.

Also the blindness could easily be incorporated as a story element later on I think.

My worry is initial reaction.

Seeing as I have nobody else to ply this question to without revealing my intentions, I ask you the following:

How has disabling a character been received in your play group? Were the players compensated in some way? Was the disability just an injury or for story sake later on? Did the player's initial reaction to being disabled change as you progressed?


This stuff isn't really essential to the overarching question, but is stuff about my specific situation.

We're in a Magic the Gathering game taking place on Ravnica.

The inquisitor in question is part of the Orzhov Syndicate, so keep in mind there may no be a real God figurehead in existence.

However a lot of lower ranking people on Orzhov, including the Inquisitor, actually do believe in the faith.

Later on another DM will take over when the party planeswalks to Theros, where real Gods do exist.

So it's possible that the vision he's having here on Ravnica could be foreshadowing for a meeting with Athreos (who is a confirmed appearance in the Theros game).

Subsequently, his blindness could become an essential part of actually reaching Athreos.

Though the irony is, when we reach Athreos, he won't actually be able to see the god.

Also keep in mind that currently the Inquisitor is of the monotheistic Orzhov faith (hollow as it is), and he'll soon be facing the polytheistic pantheon of Theros. It'll be interesting to see how he changes.

[Hyena]

I wouldn't respond very kindly to DM literally crippling my character on a whim. If I continued playing in the group, I would retire him and create a new character - the one who will be able to contribute.

[hymer]

It depends on the player. Getting smacked with incurable blindness by DM fiat would be highly likely to have me not come back next session, whatever the promised poetry of the future. On the other hand, some players would think it a fun opportunity to roleplay.

[(Un)Inspired]

I think you should change you title from "Stances on disabling a player" to "Stances on disabling a character".

I heavily recommend against disabling any of your players.

[jedipotter]

This won't work...unless it's all fake from the start.

Most players won't like a ''sudden disabling''. Most players will demand that their character be at 100% at all times.

You could do it the fake way. Take to the player. Ask them if they will want to do the disability. Make sure that it ''really' does not disable them much. And give them a way too easy out. Then they might do it.

[Hazrond]

I wouldn't respond very kindly to DM literally crippling my character on a whim. If I continued playing in the group, I would retire him and create a new character - the one who will be able to contribute.

Sorta reminds me of one DM i played with, our party a group of pirates enter our first dungeon and it was a bunch of level 2-3 dread necromancers, guess what? first encounter was 12 level 3 Dread Necros that kept casting blindness and deafness on us until we failed saves, then they cast summon undead a million times:smallfurious:

Edit: they didnt REALLY cast it that much,:smalltongue: it was overexageration but i know there wil be that ONE person who will make fun of it

[Bedivere]

Ok cool, see I'm the type of player who would love my DM crippling my character so I could roleplay overcoming it etc... I'm also the type of player, however, who played a slightly senile old man in a game so I guess I have a few characters who are out there.

I was thinking of giving him blindsight all the time then, if I did this. Blindsight is pretty much just better sight.

I'm also going to give him his bit first and after he reads it and understands his situation we'll discuss whether or not he wants to cash in his regular sight for blindsight. This will also give him a day to respond.

Thanks a whole lot for the help, I almost goofed.

EDIT: I gave him the pitch and he decided to go blind and gain blindsight. So yay.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Take to the player. Ask them if they will want to do the disability. Make sure that it ''really' does not disable them much.
Strange as it is to say, I agree with jedipotter here. Absolutely do not, under any circumstances, do something like this without the player's consent. (Unless they did something stupid and this is the consequnce). The player is in control of his character, not you-- he's the one who determines whether or not something would be "interesting" to roleplay. Whatever you do, there should be some kind of power trade-off, I think: powered-up magic, good blindsight during a Judgement, stuff like that.

EDIT: Swordsage'd by natural resolution.

[Ehcks]

Does the player deserve it? Did they see a room labeled with "Danger: Mines" while carrying a 10-foot pole and just walk right in? Sure, they get a broken leg.

Is it part of a pre-determined story event the players knew would happen, or some agree-upon RP, or even a necessity to a feat or prestige class the character wants later? Fine.

Is it to limit the one over-optimized player so he's on the same level as everyone else? No. that should be done out-of-game.

Is it just because you want to be mean? :smallfurious: No, bad DM. Bad. *Thwack with newspaper*

[jedipotter]

Ok cool, see I'm the type of player who would love my DM crippling my character so I could roleplay overcoming it etc... I'm also the type of player, however, who played a slightly senile old man in a game so I guess I have a few characters who are out there.


You should note right here, your a very rare type of player. Like a snowball in Hades type player. Your my idea of a good player. But your view is not common.

I'm the type of DM that loves to throw thing at the player like ''The red energy removes your ability to cast spells!''

And I want a player that will say ''Cool! Lets role play out this exciting new twist!''

Saddly, most players are like ''No! You can not remove one of my character's class abilities! Your a bad DM!''

So, it's always best to ask first.....and as you saw he did go for it.

[Shining Wrath]

He's seen God, and so he goes blind?

In that case, you have destroyed the utility of the character (50% miss chance for a melee character because everything is invisible) unless what the god taketh the god also giveth.

Turn him into Daredevil. Not just blindsight, but tremorsense.

[Pex]

If the player himself decided he no longer wanted to play an Inquisitor but instead be an Oracle with Clouded Vision Curse, trading levels on a one for one basis, this idea would be perfect.

Otherwise, no, it is not proper for a DM to smite a character by fiat. Don't abuse your power. It's your campaign, but it's everyone's game.

[sorryjzargo]

Either make sure the player's ok with it, or have the blindness temporary. I temporarily disable my players all the time, though usually for dumb stuff they did like trying to negotiate with a clockwork dragon with no mind of its own. But they always recover within a day or two of rest.

[Phelix-Mu]

I'm pretty old-school, but even I would limit it to quest-length, and provide some story hook to get rid of it/mitigate it into obscurity, and give some mild mitigation in the meantime to render it a mild debuff (more like -2 to hit or something, not blindness the status condition). Maybe the character is just legally blind-ish, and able to make out shapes and movement accurately, but not colors and textures or something. Fluff it up, then give the character a crutch to use while the party gets together on the quest for the actual mitigation. Typically, if a vision is granted that causes something like blindness, the religious one must seek out understanding to clear their vision and show them the best way to realize what they saw of their god's divine will. So, a journey to the mountaintop, or that monastery, a search for that lost gospel of x or y, or a trip to meet that high priestess/sybil/oracle that everyone thought was dead. There, the character learns the true meaning of the gift they've been given, and are returned to normal (or blind in fluff only), or maybe accept a penalty to attack (or something else) in exchange for a great boon from their god (like a special weapon, custom feat, SLA...talk to the player on this point).

But, unless you really have a feel for what the player appreciates about the game, this is something that should be discussed beforehand, and come with a free opportunity for a cost-less retraining/rebuild as appropriate to a kind of religious event. Never toss the teargas at the unprepared player; role play opportunities are great when they are welcome, otherwise it is a big flop, and can result in character replacement or, worse, player loss.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Note that Bedivere apparently handled it the right way:

EDIT: I gave him the pitch and he decided to go blind and gain blindsight. So yay.

[FidgetySquirrel]

I got blinded by some cursed magical goggles, once. It was... frustrating. Fortunately, I could see as long as I was wearing the goggles. The situation was acceptable to me. This one depends heavily on an individual player's personality, though. Some will like this sort of thing, some will be fine with it, but not exactly love it, others will hate it.

[Phelix-Mu]

Note that Bedivere apparently handled it the right way:

Glad to hear another player was up for some cool fluff. I would have likely been a bit more stringent on the drawback, but, meh, that is down to playstyle, and it takes all kinds.

One of my favorite RP moments involved a conversion vision where a Lion of Talisid exalted ranger realized that he had a calling to be a cleric of Hleid. Some stellar role play by one of my players in a bit of one-on-one stuff handled apart from the group during a break. The spellscale cleric morphed into one of the best characters I've ever had the pleasure of DM'ing, combining VoP cleric (hehe, yeah, he made it work in a low-op campaign, and I was flexible with the RAW) with diplomancy and a tendency to ravage undead and fiends with sanctified magic. In a campaign full of the taint rules, he was pretty boss, and, even with a couple character flaws, walked the high road in a party that ran the gamut from exalted to TN to occasionally evil stripes of CN.

So I am a big fan of divine visions.

[WhamBamSam]

You should note right here, your a very rare type of player. Like a snowball in Hades type player. Your my idea of a good player. But your view is not common.

I'm the type of DM that loves to throw thing at the player like ''The red energy removes your ability to cast spells!''

And I want a player that will say ''Cool! Lets role play out this exciting new twist!''

Saddly, most players are like ''No! You can not remove one of my character's class abilities! Your a bad DM!''

So, it's always best to ask first.....and as you saw he did go for it.The issue is that you're removing them by fiat. If you screw players up legitimately it's fine.

If I get bit by a Fang Dragon that has Martial Study (Bloodletting Strike)/shot by an arrow with Black Lotus Extract/contract Mummy rot/whatever, and have to limp around for a while because the party doesn't have the means to heal Con damage, fine.

If I take vile damage and the party can't fix it, fine.

If I get a necrotic cyst implanted and no one in the party can make the heal check to get it out, or I'm prevented from knowing it was put in by a legitimate means, fine.

If I take a few hits from a wight and fail some saving throws, fine.

If I can't cast spells because I'm in an AMF or because some monster dealt ability damage to my casting stat that I can't fix at the moment, or whatever, fine.

If despite my best attempts at optimization and tactics the dice don't go my way and my character dies, fine.

It's when you the DM say that "you lose Con," or "healing spells don't work, because I said so" or "you lose your class features," or "rocks fall, everyone dies," no save, no nothing, that you become a bad DM.

I'm reminded of part of the Crystal Cantrips campaign from SilverClawShift's campaign journal (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?116836-The-SilverClawShift-Campaign-Archives). Her Warlock loses her legs because she spider climbs on the ceiling while fighting a Medusa and fails the save against Flesh to Stone. She then has to spend a long stretch of time relying on undead Dire Bat mounts and eventually Fell Flight to be mobile, before finally becoming able to craft a Scroll of Regenerate when the party hits 12th level. I wouldn't dream of saying anything negative about that DM.

But if you just say, "you had a dream last night, and now you're blind. What an exciting opportunity to roleplay!" then I'm going to be annoyed.

It looks as though Belvedere didn't do that though, so that's good.

[DeadMech]

If my gm came up to me and said "Hey Listen I have this idea for something going forward." I'd at the very least hear them out.

More over though I kinda wish D&D had a mechanic for self sacrifice to prevent other bad occurrences. Hey the wizard is about to fireball us and the rogue bleeding out on the floor is in the way. Sure would be nice to throw my Paladin over top of the rogue to block it. It's not my turn and I don't think fireball's area of effect can be blocked that way but narratively it makes sense. Jumping into the path of a fireball deliberately means you take maximized damage.

Or an evil dragon that kidnapped the princess has been tracked down to it's lair. The party confronts it but being an intelligent creature and kinda low on health the dragon tried to grab the princess and fly out the cave mouth to escape. The wizard was at the back and in the path but doesn't have an action available. The wizard wants to use a sacrificial move to land a touch attack spell on the dragon as it flies past. Sure, he used shocking grasp but in the rush had to reach out and could only touch the dragon's open mouth. It makes a bite attack as a reflex. The dragon dies and the wizard loses an arm.

[Bedivere]

Thanks for all the replies good folk!

I'm glad I posted this because I got some terrific feedback that reminded me of the importance of player choice and making sure the PCs progression is the vision of both the player and the DM (primarily the former).

When I proposed the idea he really liked the flavor of it (blind justice and what not), and after I explained the benefits and drawbacks of each option he sprung for gaining blind sight.

Part of the process was me asking (before writing anything), "Does your inquisitor believe in the faith, or does he just pay lip service?" Up until then the player had never considered it, but he answered with "zealot".

I'm definitely going to try to limit DM fiat in future instances, that's a really good point that has been brought up a few times. However in this instance I'm trying to kick some fire into a couple players that have just been tottering along. It's definitely a political campaign, and two of my players have grand schemes and a good vision of what they want their character to be. As a DM I like that, it gives me a lot of good material that's driven by player ideas. When it comes down to epic/mythic levels (every single player has pestered me to get into these, so they definitely want big end game stuff), I don't want these two PCs just following the other two who have more developed plots.

I'm actually finding the process kind of tricky, because on one hand I hate revealing big end game plans for characters but I also need to figure out what end game they want. I might just have to accept that some players are just there for the social/gaming aspect of it, and are completely find playing out another person's story. However I have to be absolutely certain of that.

We'll see if it works as smoothly for the alchemist or if I have to keep poking about.