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Othniel
2015-01-05, 05:23 PM
A bit of a background might be in order. I originally posted a while back on how to keep my Paladin on the straight-and-narrow with a couple neutral characters in the party trying to make me fall. See the spoiler below for the link if you want to read the original post. I have a new issue: The Barbarian has somehow slipped from Chaotic Neutral to Chaotic Evil when I wasn't looking, and I'm having a hard time figuring out what to do now with my Lawful Good Paladin.

Here's what happened: The party agreed to aid the town in dispatching some bandits who were living in a nearby fort, and preying upon the townsfolk. We finished clearing the fort and arrived back in town at night. The Ninja (who got blinded by a caster in the fort and was not yet healed because none of our party has any ability to remove blindness yet) and my Paladin went back to the inn to rest and find a healer in the morning. The Barbarian had other plans. He wanted to be paid NOW, so he intimidated the innkeeper to find out where the Mayor lived, and went to pay a visit. This is where things turned south (for the Barbarian).

Being rather impulsive, he threatened one of the guards at the Mayor's house, and when the guard wouldn't let him in to see the Mayor (it being rather late at night), he killed the guard. That keyed off a fight between the Barbarian and 5-6 guardsmen, in which the guardsmen were all murdered. The Barbarian turned his attention toward breaking down first the gate to the Mayor's yard, and then his house door so he could get inside to demand payment. Meanwhile, my Paladin arrives on the scene, and (having been suspicious of the Barbarian in the first place) Detects Evil on him. Barbarian comes up as Evil, and putting two-and-two together, my Paladin comes to the conclusion that the Barbarian has jumped into the deep end of the Evil pool. After demands that the Barbarian stand down fall upon deaf ears, my Paladin decides that he has to stop the Barbarian before he murders someone else. While the Barbarian in his fit of rage keeps attacking the door (and taking arrows from town guards), my Paladin succeeds in damaging him enough to knock him unconscious. The Barbarian is put in jail, whereupon the Ninja (having by now been cured of his blindness) decides to break him out. He narrowly fails (after killing a couple guards), and is caught and also jailed by the authorities. We are now slated to have a trial for both the Barbarian and Ninja next session, and the DM has hinted that punishment will probably be exile, which I personally feel is letting them get away with murder, not that a random adventuring Paladin's opinion counts for anything.

What is a Paladin, who wants to uphold the law, to do? My Paladin cannot, in good conscience, continue to adventure with these two characters, and I was thinking about retiring him (after only 3 sessions, unfortunately) to stay in the town and train new town guardsmen (feeling bad about how his party members behaved), and also to avoid having a Lawful Good character traveling with a Chaotic Evil character. I may pick him up later, if my fellow players eventually change characters to something less annoyingly evil. The problem is that I like playing good-aligned characters, and I might have a hard time with a party member who likes to play a Barbarian who is happy to kill random guards and townsfolk when they inconvenience him. It is also my personal opinion that a Ninja who kills town guards in order to spring his murdering companion out of jail has ceased to be Chaotic Neutral and slipped into Chaotic Evil, although I suppose that's up for debate. Obviously, there is no problem mechanically with a new, less LG character traveling with a CE party member, but for Roleplay reasons, I feel like I'm kind of stuck. I'm the newest player in the group, and I don't want to rock the boat and cause discord between the players, but I need some advice here. The Ninja player is thinking about rolling a new character, but the Barbarian player flat out said that his character isn't leaving, so I have to either A) make a new character, or B) find some way for the Paladin to stay in the group. If I make a new character, or bring back a character I played previously, how do I maintain a working adventuring relationship with Chaotic Evil-leaning party members when I want to play a Good, or at least Neutral, character? I should also mention that these players are my friends and acquaintances, so I obviously don't want to cause any strife between us outside of the game (as friendships are far more important than getting one's own way in a game).


http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?386823-I-need-some-advice-on-playing-a-paladin-in-a-group-of-neutral-characters

Beta Centauri
2015-01-05, 05:27 PM
An old, old problem, caused as always by the presence of a paladin.

Whatever you do, don't deal with it in-game. Talk to the player and the group. Lay out what you laid out here. You want to be a paladin, you don't (I assume) want to fall - despite that being one of the top three reasons for a paladin even to exist in a narrative - and you don't want (I assume) to have to police the other players. If the players are receptive to your wants, they'll help find a way to make it happen. If they're not, then there's not much you can do, except to play a different character, or leave the game.

Othniel
2015-01-05, 05:33 PM
It seems to me that such a problem can exist without a Paladin in the group. If you have a CE character causing strife by murdering town guards, and another member of the party respects the law (and doesn't appreciate murdering people in cold blood), you have a problem whether there is a Paladin or not.

Honest Tiefling
2015-01-05, 05:35 PM
Why isn't the Barbarian leaving? Does the player enjoy his character too much, or does he just not care about other's opinions? And it could very well be a case that their desires and your own are not compatible, sadly.

Tarlek Flamehai
2015-01-05, 05:38 PM
I would be willing to wager that your paladin is next on the barbarian's hit list. I think you should be prepared to retire your paladin immediately, if you're really worried about hard feelings amongst the players.

The barbarian has sank all the way to Chaotic Stupid. No chance he picked up a cursed alignment item I take it?

Tarlek Flamehai
2015-01-05, 05:44 PM
An old, old problem, caused as always by the presence of a paladin.

Whatever you do, don't deal with it in-game. Talk to the player and the group. Lay out what you laid out here. You want to be a paladin, you don't (I assume) want to fall - despite that being one of the top three reasons for a paladin even to exist in a narrative - and you don't want (I assume) to have to police the other players. If the players are receptive to your wants, they'll help find a way to make it happen. If they're not, then there's not much you can do, except to play a different character, or leave the game.

I've played many games with someone else being a paladin. The only time I've seen this old, old problem it was always caused by the player with the evil character.

Honest Tiefling
2015-01-05, 05:46 PM
I've been on both sides, seen Stupid Evil and Lawful Stupid. The problem isn't the class or alignment, it is the fact that there's a miscommunication or someone is unwilling to compromise for the enjoyment of all.

Beta Centauri
2015-01-05, 05:50 PM
It seems to me that such a problem can exist without a Paladin in the group. If you have a CE character causing strife by murdering town guards, and another member of the party respects the law (and doesn't appreciate murdering people in cold blood), you have a problem whether there is a Paladin or not. The difference is that in most editions Paladins have rules pertaining to this exact situation. If the paladin doesn't do something, they stop being a paladin. If the paladin DOES do something, they're at odds with members of the party.

If it's just any old class, then it's the players deciding that they have to act a certain way, and the players causing the problem. Unless the GM has house rules about alignment, then it's on the GM.

In any case, this needs to be handled outside of the game. It's very likely that not everyone is interested in playing the game the same way, and this should be dealt with.

Beta Centauri
2015-01-05, 05:52 PM
I've played many games with someone else being a paladin. The only time I've seen this old, old problem it was always caused by the player with the evil character. Nope. The evil player trigger's the paladin's rules, but its the rules for the paladin that are to blame. No one should be expected to adhere to rules for characters that aren't theirs, but that's what the rules for the paladin require: no one can be evil around the paladin, basically. That removes the free choice of the other players.

That's best case. The paladin is also a big, dorky target that is fun to mess with. It's an attractive nuisance, and if someone picks it in a mixed group then they're asking for situations like this.

Othniel
2015-01-05, 05:54 PM
I would be willing to wager that your paladin is next on the barbarian's hit list. I think you should be prepared to retire your paladin immediately, if you're really worried about hard feelings amongst the players.

The barbarian has sank all the way to Chaotic Stupid. No chance he picked up a cursed alignment item I take it?

No, there is no cursed alignment item. While I am really enjoying the Paladin (lancer build) class (and I like playing a good guy), my main trouble is just adventuring with a character like the CE Barbarian. Even if I reroll to a more Neutral alignment character, having a character in the group who is willing to kill town guards on a whim is kind of annoying. Playing a Paladin is not really my issue here. Playing any kind of character who isn't OK with murder is. If the Barbarian stays in the group, how do I RP a neutral or good character who can stay in a group with such a person?

Beta Centauri
2015-01-05, 06:19 PM
If the Barbarian stays in the group, how do I RP a neutral or good character who can stay in a group with such a person? I'm not sure, but the first thing you would want to do is take "police and punish that character" off the table and go from there.

Talk to the player. You two might not be compatible. It happens.

gom jabbarwocky
2015-01-05, 06:22 PM
Speaking as someone who has been in a practically identical situation, there are basically only two solutions to this problem that I have personally tried. The first is out-of-game, and best case, you work with the other players try and brainstorm a way that everyone can have fun together. More likely, you'll be told to suck it up - that's what I was told.

At this point, you can either be mature about this and bow out of the game, or, you can be a vindictive little bastard like I was, and make Mr. New PC a completely irredeemable CE monster. You know the type - kicks old ladies down stairs, lights the wizard's cat familiar on fire, uses pickpocket to drop cursed magical items in other PC's loot piles, and drops a blade barrier on the fighter when he can't cough up the gold pieces for a healing spell (hey, you're E, you can't afford to cast those for free! They call it extortion, you call it good business sense.) When the other players complain, drink up their tears as they choke on their own medicine. Basically, if I can't have fun playing this game, no one will.

No, I'm not still bitter.

Beta Centauri
2015-01-05, 06:26 PM
Basically, if I can't have fun playing this game, no one will. An all too common outcome. In fact, maybe that's what the player of the evil character already decided to do. Only way to find out is to talk to them.

cobaltstarfire
2015-01-05, 06:31 PM
Even if I reroll to a more Neutral alignment character, having a character in the group who is willing to kill town guards on a whim is kind of annoying. Playing a Paladin is not really my issue here. Playing any kind of character who isn't OK with murder is. If the Barbarian stays in the group, how do I RP a neutral or good character who can stay in a group with such a person?


I think you should be asking that of your table more, maybe you and that other character can put together a way his and yours interact and such. That or if you're that uncomfortable and annoyed and can't work anything out you should just find a new table.

Otomodachi
2015-01-05, 07:33 PM
Of course I'm in agreement that you need to talk this out OUT of character.

What I'd probably try to propose, in your shows, in this order...

1) Your paladin will try to challenge the barbarian to an unarmed fight, trial by combat, to decide who is the LEADER. If the barbarian character has any dignity or pride whatsoever, he'll abide by it... if your paladin wins, the barbarian has to listen and start reforming. If the paladin loses, he falls and I'd suggest becomes an NPC. I know this has a risk of your character changing in a way you dislike, but... consider, the barbarian might be really excited about where HIS character is going. It could end up sort of like Roy and Belkar in the comic, and *I* could find a lot of fun in playing a barbarian being reformed by a paladin, as long as everybody acted like adults.

2) Paladin and barbarian duel to the death.

3) Flip a coin to see who gets hit by a stray meteor. ;)

Remember- fighting evil DOES NOT have to mean SLAYING evil! Not saying you didn't already know that, though.

Othniel
2015-01-05, 08:02 PM
I think you should be asking that of your table more, maybe you and that other character can put together a way his and yours interact and such. That or if you're that uncomfortable and annoyed and can't work anything out you should just find a new table.

I don't think I'll be finding a new table, as I prefer to game with people I know well, at least in person. (I am curious about how people play-by-post though, so I may check that out eventually.) I sent a message to our DM to get his take on the situation. I don't think he was entirely satisfied with the outcome of our last session either, so I wanted to let him know my concerns, and see what he says. I'll talk to the Barbarian player (and the Ninja player, who is my best friend) before I decide anything, and try to work it out. I think what bothers me most about his character is the irrational behavior (Stupid Evil, if you will). It reminds me of playing games like Knights of the Old Republic, where to be Dark Side, you essentially had to play a Stupid Evil character (murdering for the fun of it and such).


What I'd probably try to propose, in your shows, in this order...

Naw, the Barbarian would wipe the ground with my Paladin. The only reason I beat him before was that he was attacking a door instead of my character. Also, I'd rather keep the character alive in case I want to reuse him later. It would be especially amusing some day if I ever DM the group, and make him a quest-giver.


make Mr. New PC a completely irredeemable CE monster

Somehow, I don't think that'll go over all that well, although it does give me an idea. I could reroll my Bard* (my previous character) to a Skald, and chronicle the Barbarian's deeds everywhere we go, only to recount them in towns and villages in epic manner. Not to out-evil him, but to embellish the stories about him. Killing 5 guards on a whim because he wanted to be paid just turned into fighting off the entire town guard because the Mayor looked at him funny. Basically, the Skald's motive is that he loves a great story, and good stories sometimes need embellishing in order to make them great.

*The Bard was a fun character, but unfortunately, at the time we were a party of A) The Ninja, B) A Gunslinger, and C) My Bard. We were kind of a squishy group, so both the Gunslinger and myself rerolled to a Barbarian and Paladin respectively. As I said above, I was under the impression that the Barbarian was going to be Chaotic Neutral, rather than Chaotic Evil when I made the Paladin. Alas that the Barbarian fell. :P In retrospect, it may have been a better idea for only ONE of us to reroll to either a Barbarian OR Paladin, and leave the rest of the party as it was. If I remake the Bard to a Skald, that may fix the issue somewhat (even if I don't go the "recount his evil deeds and make them more impressive" route). Besides, we miss having some arcane spell casting.

Otomodachi
2015-01-05, 08:08 PM
I could reroll my Bard* (my previous character) to a Skald, and chronicle the Barbarian's deeds everywhere we go, only to recount them in towns and villages in epic manner. Not to out-evil him, but to embellish the stories about him. Killing 5 guards on a whim because he wanted to be paid just turned into fighting off the entire town guard because the Mayor looked at him funny. Basically, the Skald's motive is that he loves a great story, and good stories sometimes need embellishing in order to make them great.
.



Personally, I think this is a FANTASTIC idea.

Honest Tiefling
2015-01-05, 08:10 PM
Question is, are you doing this to annoy him OoCly, or because the bard would be a fun character and you think the two of you would enjoy the interaction?

Othniel
2015-01-05, 08:15 PM
Question is, are you doing this to annoy him OoCly, or because the bard would be a fun character and you think the two of you would enjoy the interaction?

The latter. I honestly don't think he'd be annoyed by it, but would probably enjoy it, and it seems that Barbarians and Skalds would have good synergy together. Doesn't mean I wouldn't tweak him here or there with storytelling though. ;)

Honest Tiefling
2015-01-05, 08:18 PM
Then go ahead with the plan. Sorry to assume, but sometimes people get upset and make bad decisions. Sorry to hear that the preferences don't match up, but I'd like to hear how the Barbarian and Skald get along.

Othniel
2015-01-05, 08:24 PM
Then go ahead with the plan. Sorry to assume, but sometimes people get upset and make bad decisions. Sorry to hear that the preferences don't match up, but I'd like to hear how the Barbarian and Skald get along.

Believe me, I understand. I prefer peaceful resolution to problems in life whenever possible.

icefractal
2015-01-05, 08:44 PM
It seems to me that such a problem can exist without a Paladin in the group. If you have a CE character causing strife by murdering town guards, and another member of the party respects the law (and doesn't appreciate murdering people in cold blood), you have a problem whether there is a Paladin or not.This. I think every non-Evil character I've played would either:
A) Ditch this guy at the nearest opportunity.
B) Kill him myself.

And as for the evil ones - a couple would be fine with his actions. The rest would either be horrified (the ones who don't think of themselves as evil), think he's drawing too much attention to the group, and/or feel he'd serve better as an undead minion.

"Crazy berserker who kills anyone he feels like, including nominal allies" is about as extreme a concept as "pacifist who expects the rest of the party to follow suit". If it works at all, it's because the rest of the players decided to specifically make characters that are ok with it.

goto124
2015-01-05, 09:12 PM
What to do about the Barbarian who's now in jail for killing guards? Is a backtrack to pre-guard-killing in order?

Othniel
2015-01-05, 09:57 PM
What to do about the Barbarian who's now in jail for killing guards? Is a backtrack to pre-guard-killing in order?

He and the Ninja are going on trial in the town next session. The DM insinuated that they wouldn't be either A) Executed, nor B) Imprisoned as possible punishments. Exile seems likely (to my mind, that isn't much of a punishment for multiple counts of murder), but the DM may come up with something else interesting.

goto124
2015-01-05, 10:08 PM
Is it played play-by-post, on an Internet Relay Chat, or in RL? I was wondering why things had escalated so quickly.


He and the Ninja are going on trial in the town next session. The DM insinuated that they wouldn't be either A) Executed, nor B) Imprisoned as possible punishments. Exile seems likely (to my mind, that isn't much of a punishment for multiple counts of murder), but the DM may come up with something else interesting.

And your paladin won't fall.

How would exile affect gameplay for those 2
people and the rest of the team? Would be difficult if the party blames them whenever they run into a roadblock due to exile. The party might have to move far, far away from the place afterwards.

Any plans to turn the Barbarian back to Neutral?

Othniel
2015-01-05, 11:36 PM
Is it played play-by-post, on an Internet Relay Chat, or in RL? I was wondering why things had escalated so quickly.



And your paladin won't fall.

How would exile affect gameplay for those 2
people and the rest of the team? Would be difficult if the party blames them whenever they run into a roadblock due to exile. The party might have to move far, far away from the place afterwards.

Any plans to turn the Barbarian back to Neutral?

It's RL play, and there are three regulars (the Ninja, Barbarian, and myself) as well as 3 others who make it whenever they can (Rogue, Druid, and Magus), and it's been at least 3 sessions since there were more than the three of us regulars. There was also a summoner who quit playing a few sessions ago to run Shadowrun. The last was too bad because he was playing a Lawful Good character as a sort of sheriff-type. My Paladin would've got along well with him. The whole episode from Barbarian and Paladin meeting in the group up to this point has happened over three sessions, with the last session being where the Barbarian and Ninja killed guards and ended up in jail. Even if I wanted to turn the Barbarian back to neutral, I doubt the player would go for that. I think he enjoys what he's doing far too much.

Tengu_temp
2015-01-06, 12:15 AM
And this is why things like "let's not play evil characters who kill NPCs that look at them funny" should be agreed on beforehand and characters shouldn't be made in a vacuum.

Personally? In this situation I'd kill the barbarian, and the ninja. This is a case where it's either them or me, and I have no desire to play in a party that's okay with murdering innocents.

Frenth Alunril
2015-01-06, 01:02 AM
Take your dm aside, explain this to him, "I want to gather all the family members of the town guards killed, and promise them that they will have justice. I want to hire a group of bards to write an outlaw ballad of evil barbarians and ninjas, make a mockery of justice, because I know they are going to get of the hook, and when the trial happens every day, I will pay for the bards to perform their show every night, to disgrace the people who are going to let the barbarian and ninja off with simple banishment. Then, if they are let of with banishment, as they are lead out of town, I want to get on a soapbox, with the angry crowd of townsfolk I've ginned up behind me, and call for justice, call for those corrupt forces to be removed from office, call for a bounty on the heads of the barbarian and ninja, and if I don't become the new mayor of town, then the new sheriff or judge! I will gladly hand in my paladin as an npc, as long as you allow me a say in how the justice system is run in this town here after."

Then roll up an evil monk or something, and job them on the run.

BWR
2015-01-06, 02:29 AM
Fix this OOC. Things rarely get better if handled IC only.

Don't listen to people claiming that this is somehow the paladin's fault - that is utter BS from any sensible point of view. This is entirely a player problem. Big question: did you bring the paladin in the group before or after the barbarian? If you came in first you have a strong case for getting the barbarian to mend his ways or have to retire. Why should your character and your fun as a player suffer because someone else has to go and be a ****?
Conversely, if the barbarian was there first and you brought in a paladin, well, make sure characters and classes you bring in to an existing group are going to work with what's there (an LG person with a bunch of morally neutral and chaotic people is a risky idea). If there is an irreconcilable conflict and the other PC was there first, you should retire your character.
If they were both brought in at the same time, then you should get in the habit of making sure characters will be able to work together before the game starts, and your only recourse now is to settle it OOC.

lytokk
2015-01-06, 08:27 AM
What appears to be going on here is two different playstyles. The barbarian and ninja appeared to want to play an anything goes game, where you as a paladin wanted to be an upstanding good guy. As has been said, this really needs to be handled OOC, with a meeting with the DM regarding where he planned on the game going, and where all the players wanted to go. Granted, this is one of those things that should have been decided long before anyone rolled up a character.

If the DM doesn't really have an opinion as to the nature of the game, then it comes down to the rest of the players. You don't want to reroll, the barbarian doesn't want to reroll, but the ninja is willing to. It really comes down to him as the deciding vote on what the alignment of the party should be. If he rolls evil, then you're going to have to change. If he goes good, the barbarian has to change. But this should all be handled outside of the game, between the players and not the characters.

Mr.Moron
2015-01-06, 10:26 AM
I'd either ignore it, change characters, or leave the game. This is clearly a problem that can be blamed on the GM/Game Organizer who didn't get everyone on the same page in terms of tone & content before the game started.

At this point the best you can do is try to find a way to make it not a problem, rather than trying to solve the problem.

EDIT: If you just can't be on board with being Shanks McBabyKiller or at least, being an accessory to them this just isn't the group for you. The only option is to leave the game.

Beta Centauri
2015-01-06, 10:28 AM
Fix this OOC. Things rarely get better if handled IC only. 100% agreed.


Don't listen to people claiming that this is somehow the paladin's fault - that is utter BS from any sensible point of view. If the player was being blamed, yes. But this is clearly triggered by the class. No other class has requirements that pressure players to police other player characters (as well as building in the means to do so). Find me even one thread in which a specific alignment-restricted class is in conflict with other party members and it's NOT the paladin, and I'd believe that the class isn't a direct cause of things like this.

Don't get me wrong: there's a lot more about the game that is causing problems. Such as:

Adventuring in a city. That immediately sets a table up for problems with non-Lawful characters, or anyone who just wants to act out.
The GM picking a fight with the barbarian. If that goes away the entire triggering event goes away.
The GM capturing PCs. At best it's boring, and at worst it's punitively boring.
The use of alignment at all.

There's also lack of follow through in how the world works. In a world in which alignment is a real thing, and counter-alignment magic exists, people would have wards up all the time. Even in the real world people perform rituals that are designed to protect them from enemies and evil. This mayor would absolutely have some kind of protection from chaos and evil around his house. I don't really blame the GM for this, as I've never seen that followed through in any other game, but it is an alternative (or at least an augmentation) to having to police the city against objectively evil or chaotic beings.


This is entirely a player problem. Big question: did you bring the paladin in the group before or after the barbarian? If you came in first you have a strong case for getting the barbarian to mend his ways or have to retire. Why should your character and your fun as a player suffer because someone else has to go and be a ****? Sounds to me like the barbarian is acting completely in character and is not harming the paladin in any way. Not that acting in character is an excuse for either character's reactions in this case.


Conversely, if the barbarian was there first and you brought in a paladin, well, make sure characters and classes you bring in to an existing group are going to work with what's there (an LG person with a bunch of morally neutral and chaotic people is a risky idea). If there is an irreconcilable conflict and the other PC was there first, you should retire your character.
If they were both brought in at the same time, then you should get in the habit of making sure characters will be able to work together before the game starts, and your only recourse now is to settle it OOC. Solid advice.

Drakefall
2015-01-06, 10:28 AM
I agree with everyone who has suggested talking this through OOC.

Its one thing to have party conflict, and another to have characters that are at such odds that they cannot realistically exist in the same party even with OOC compromise. Having an open and calm discussion with the group is the way to go. You seem to have presented your position and thoughts on the matter here in a non-aggressive manner so your good to go on that front.

For what its worth, I do empathise with wanting to play a good guy only to be surrounded by criminals and murderers.

Since you seem at least willing to bite the bullet if necessary and make a new character/bring back your bard, perhaps you could make a suggestion to your group along these lines: "Okay, so I'll retire my paladin and bring in a character who jazzes better with the group for this campaign, but in return I'd like to be able to play an awesome good guy in the next campaign we play and for you guys to make characters who could be in a party with such a character without causing too much drama and/or OOC frustration. Sound fair?"

Beta Centauri
2015-01-06, 10:42 AM
When you do talk to the group or the player, I think some of us would like to hear how it went.

Kato
2015-01-06, 11:07 AM
Just another possible suggestion: If the Barbarian-player (and at this point the ninja as well) are willing for it, it would not be out of the question to have them show/pretend remorse. Of course it depends on all of you agreeing, but your paladin could even be chosen as their "probation officer" and they need to keep their future crimes hidden from you/him. (Finding a reason for you not to use Detect Evil, say, a promise to trust your comrades.) It could make for some interesting roleplaying if you agree on it...
Otherwise... kill the bastards or die trying :smalltongue:

Razgriez
2015-01-06, 11:58 AM
Talk it out with your group OOC first, explain your issues to them as you've done here.

as for the situation, if the barbarian, and/or ninja suddenly find themselves staring down the wrong end of your paladin's lance, that's their fault, not the Paladin's for existing and having a code of honor they are sworn to. The Exile option your DM is looking at/chosen, is quite blunt, a poor choice in this situation. It's trying to gloss over their actions while ignoring the fact that as a Paladin, you've got a moral code to uphold. A better solution by the DM, would be to have some more substantive punishment, especially with a body count that high. First off, I imagine the payment for the quest was lost as cost for the deaths of the guards. Second, off, I would honestly be surprised if they escaped execution, at this point. Third, if they are being let go, Mark of Justice, Geas/Quest, or for a mundane option, branded as an Outlaw, giving the writ explaining their crimes to the Paladin. In historical terms, this means they would lose all legal protections.

That said though, do understand, there is a very likely PVP conflict to come out of this. If that happens, remember, it was their choice to take those actions in game, any action you are taking against them, or to defend your self from them, is because of those actions they committed. (and hopefully not just out of a petty desire to really annoy the Paladin player. If that is the case, either they need to apologize, or they need to go, or you need to find a new group that will respect your choice to play the upstanding knight)

Beta Centauri
2015-01-06, 12:09 PM
Talk it out with your group OOC first, explain your issues to them as you've done here. Yes.


as for the situation, if the barbarian, and/or ninja suddenly find themselves staring down the wrong end of your paladin's lance, that's their fault, not the Paladin's for existing and having a code of honor they are sworn to. The Exile option your DM is looking at/chosen, is quite blunt, a poor choice in this situation. It's trying to gloss over their actions while ignoring the fact that as a Paladin, you've got a moral code to uphold. The paladin's class requirements are not the fault or the problem of the other characters or players.


A better solution by the DM, would be to have some more substantive punishment, especially with a body count that high. First off, I imagine the payment for the quest was lost as cost for the deaths of the guards. Second, off, I would honestly be surprised if they escaped execution, at this point. Third, if they are being let go, Mark of Justice, Geas/Quest, or for a mundane option, branded as an Outlaw, giving the writ explaining their crimes to the Paladin. In historical terms, this means they would lose all legal protections. The issue with this is that the intent appears to be to make the game boring for the supposedly transgressing character or characters, who were apparently acting out their alignment just as the paladin feels compelled to. I'm NOT saying that there shouldn't be consequences for actions, but consequences can be interesting or boring for a player and boring consequences are easy to interpret as punitive attempts to change player behavior.


That said though, do understand, there is a very likely PVP conflict to come out of this. If that happens, remember, it was their choice to take those actions in game, any action you are taking against them, or to defend your self from them, is because of those actions they committed. Cool, if everyone's on board with that kind of PVP conflict. If not, it's no more justified and no less disruptive than anything the other players are doing.


(and hopefully not just out of a petty desire to really annoy the Paladin player. If that is the case, either they need to apologize, or they need to go, or you need to find a new group that will respect your choice to play the upstanding knight) If it's not out of a petty desire to annoy the paladin player, then the paladin player need to make sure that any action they take is in no way based on a desire to see the other player (player, not character) pulled up short or punished, and that the other player isn't going to take it personally. If it is intended at all personally then it's no better than if the other player was also being personal, and the player should find or create some reason to take another course of action. Really be honest with yourself here, and don't hide behind "It's what my character would do!" just to get payback.

Lord Torath
2015-01-06, 02:50 PM
Sounds to me like the barbarian is acting completely in character and is not harming the paladin in any way. Not that acting in character is an excuse for either character's reactions in this case.I'd say this is a case where the Barbarian's player could easily have chosen to act differently (http://www.giantitp.com/articles/tll307KmEm4H9k6efFP.html), while still staying in character. It rather depends on the culture the barbarian came from, of course, but generally they can be patient enough to wait for daylight. Most barbarian cultures I'm familiar with are primarily diurnal societies. Would the barbarian wake his chief up in the middle of the night for something that is not urgent? Highly unlikely. Before I let him go harass the mayor's guards, I'd ask him (as the DM) where he saw his actions leading him, and what outcome he expected to achieve, and then explain the likely consequences. Because it really just sounds like the Barbarian's player just wanted to stir up trouble.

Beta Centauri
2015-01-06, 02:57 PM
I'd say this is a case where the Barbarian's player could easily have chosen to act differently (http://www.giantitp.com/articles/tll307KmEm4H9k6efFP.html), while still staying in character. Yet the paladin seems to have only one choice.


Before I let him go harass the mayor's guards, I'd ask him (as the DM) where he saw his actions leading him, and what outcome he expected to achieve, and then explain the likely consequences. Because it really just sounds like the Barbarian's player just wanted to stir up trouble. They're not really "likely" consequences are they? They're consequences the GM is going to do their best to make sure come about. Because when a player just wants to stir up trouble, it's easier to punish them through their character and claim that the consequences were just the logical reaction to their behavior, than it is to stop and ask them not to stir up trouble and leave if they continue. But one of those options stands a much smaller chance of wasting everyone's time.

aspekt
2015-01-06, 03:35 PM
I personally have doubts about a DM in this situation who refuses to execute and cannot come up with a more imaginative answer than exile. It is a community of saints that wouldn't have already lynched the lot of them.

No DM worth their salt wants to be a TPK DM but when players force your hand there have to be either consequences or general agreement that hilarity and over the top actions are the theme of the campaign.

Why mention the DM when the OP is just a player? Because the CE player isn't the only issue here. Resolving the issue with the player is great but will only arise again if the DM is onboard with this playstyle.

And to be clear this is one more reason for an OOC conversation with everyone involved.

Razgriez
2015-01-06, 03:53 PM
I disagree about the idea the article raises, that you linked, Lord, in regards to this case. We're not just simple talking about a non-violent crime or dishonor. We're not talking about "The paladin shouldn't act Law Stupid, it's something minor, they just went behind the Paladin's back to enrich themselves of extra items.". We're talking dead guards protecting the mayor of the town because:
A. The barbarian was impatient, and decided killing a guard to get the reward would be a swell idea. And B. A ninja arrested because he was impatient to let a trial happen.

I've played games where the DM was ready to send guards to arrest the party over public disturbances the party was calling, and for similar hot headed demands to the powers that be. This is a situation that has shot way past the "Are you sure you really want to keep doing this?" question DMs "ask" (warn) their players when they're about to do something that's bound to see them rolling up a new character. What the situation here is, the DM, and the party need to agree upon 1 of two paths.

1. To heck with punishment for violent murderers! The game must go on"

2. "Uh, yea, you broke several laws, murdered a bunch of guards, you're going to be lucky to not be rotting in jail or sent to the gallows soon"

Cold blooded murder simply because payment wasn't being delivered in the dead of night is not an issue a Paladin can overlook in this case. This is not a "we can bend the rules, for the greater good" moment, this is a "The Greater Good is that these two guys murdered others out of greed and impatience, and they deserve to be punished harshly, and if they want to save their skin at all, they need to go on a quest of redemption.

Beta Centauri
2015-01-06, 03:58 PM
No DM worth their salt wants to be a TPK DM but when players force your hand there have to be either consequences or general agreement that hilarity and over the top actions are the theme of the campaign. The great thing about a fictional fantasy setting is that there is almost always a way for those consequences to be cool, rather than boring.

Beta Centauri
2015-01-06, 04:06 PM
if they want to save their skin at all, they need to go on a quest of redemption. Good idea!

The GM could also have the town be attacked, in any one of a number of ways, or have something else happens that gets the character out of jail, but retains the "logic" of the game setting. There's a reason why Pirates of the Caribbean wasn't two hours of Jack Sparrow sitting in a jail cell and having a trial.

If GMs and players aren't out to punish, there are lots of fun outcomes that can be dreamed up.

GMs: do you really want to play out jailtime and a trial for even just one member of the party? Wouldn't you rather the players were involved in something cool and adventurous? Wouldn't you rather not have to follow through with the threat of arrest and yet another fight with the woefully under-equipped town guard, especially when most of the party isn't able to get involved anyway? Don't you think there might be a better way to deal with this kind of behavior, which has been around for decades and isn't likely to go away soon?

Talking is hard, especially for many of the people our community tends to attract. So look at the adventure and setting you have planned and try to spot and remove elements of it that require you to make your own game boring in response to player actions. No one wants to run a boring game, do they?

Othniel
2015-01-06, 04:38 PM
I appreciate all the ideas and input, folks. I really do. I'm waiting on a response back from our DM, and I'll be talking to my Ninja friend today. I'll see what they think, and then talk to the Barbarian. I'll let you guys know how the issue is resolved.

aspekt
2015-01-06, 04:57 PM
The great thing about a fictional fantasy setting is that there is almost always a way for those consequences to be cool, rather than boring.

Agreed which is why I pointed that out in my first sentence. Lack of imagination kills tables not just individual games.

veti
2015-01-06, 05:14 PM
Many good points made in this thread, but the one thing I'm picking up on is:

there are only 3 regular players
2 of them are against you
therefore, you're the odd one out. From the perspective of "party unity", if that's a thing anyone cares about, it's the paladin that's the problem.

The paladin can't overlook this. He can't continue to adventure with these murderers - that's explicitly stated in RAW, and should be fairly obvious from a roleplaying perspective too. I think the idea of retiring the character (staying in the town after the others are booted out, to help the bereaved families and maybe serve in the town guard) is about the least-disruptive way of ending the current situation reasonably, but it will leave a bigger problem unresolved, viz. that the party is now effectively being led by this lunatic.

The other three players need to be canvassed at some point to see which side they'd come down on. And then the DM, and players, need to make a collective decision: are you aiming for high, heroic fantasy, or mindless fun? (Both are perfectly fine, but it's tough to make them coexist.) Based on that decision, you'll then know whether it's you or the barbarian (and possibly the ninja, although it sounds like s/he at least should be redeemable) who needs to reroll.

If you try to introduce another good character to the barbarian-led group - good luck with that, I've been there. I played it as a rather passive character who tried to mitigate their mayhem as much as he could. It's a thankless and unpleasant role, and will result in you being hated by civilians, and despised and very likely bullied by your fellow PCs, but it can have an upside, and it's this:

If your DM is any good, "being a successful evil party" isn't easy. "Being good" might seem like a lot of hassle and restraint, but it buys you the support of a huge network of good (and most neutral) characters in the setting. And even the bad guys will often practise restraint around you, because they don't want to invite too much attention from that network. "Being evil" means going it alone, and that means alone alone. Bad guys, good guys, neutral guys - they'll all be out to get you, and the bad guys - knowing you're outlaws - will take off the gloves and really show what they can do. If you're not prepared for it, the campaign can rapidly become unsurvivable. Sooner or later the barbarian and his cohorts may realise that, and decide they want some way to buy back into society - and at that point, your passive, 'respectable' healbot (or whatever) suddenly finds herself in a very pivotal position.

Wardog
2015-01-06, 05:31 PM
100% agreed.

If the player was being blamed, yes. But this is clearly triggered by the class. No other class has requirements that pressure players to police other player characters (as well as building in the means to do so). Find me even one thread in which a specific alignment-restricted class is in conflict with other party members and it's NOT the paladin, and I'd believe that the class isn't a direct cause of things like this.


Paladin is the only class that cannot by RAW adventure with an evil party, but any good person would find random murder unacceptable.

***

As for a solution, I have thought of one other way: play it for laughs.

You are the upstanding paladin trying to do the right thing, but every time you try, it always gets undone by the crazy antics of your companions.

Perhaps the LFG comic (http://www.lfg.co/page/1/)could be used for ideas.

Segev
2015-01-06, 05:35 PM
Talk to the group OOC. See what they think would be fun and acceptable. One possible keep-all-characters solution would be if the exile came with a requirement that they be prisoners of your Paladin, who will enforce their better behavior. This will only work if the PLAYERS are on board with this, though; they have to be willing to play along with your paladin having authority (and, if necessary, the power) to make them stop when their behavior is unacceptable.

If they're determined to play Evil, it just won't work, because it will turn into PvP of the unfun kind as you can't have your character be good and put up with their evil, and your trying to stop them would count as impinging on their fun.


If they're not okay with playing a more good-aligned (or at least neutral-aligned) game (even if the IC reason is that the Paladin can and will force good behavior), then you will need to play something that can tolerate their murderous ways, even if you don't condone or like them. If you can't play a character with the ability to at least look the other way at casual murder, and they don't want to play characters who are willing to be constrained from casual murder, then you just can't play in this game, unfortunately.

I would, if you can, aim for a TN to NE character who has a strong dose of enlightened self-interest. He's fine with murders...but he's NOT fine with stupidity. And doing things that get the law down on the party is stupid. Stand up for peace and mercy in public, and even maybe in private. It gets you good will. And just be willing, when it genuinely won't hurt you or the party, to let them get away with murder.

icefractal
2015-01-06, 08:30 PM
If the player was being blamed, yes. But this is clearly triggered by the class. No other class has requirements that pressure players to police other player characters (as well as building in the means to do so). Find me even one thread in which a specific alignment-restricted class is in conflict with other party members and it's NOT the paladin, and I'd believe that the class isn't a direct cause of things like this.Just ... not even close. I've never played a Paladin, and seldom anyone LG. 90% of the characters I have played, including some of the evil ones, would not want to ally with some psycho who stabs people for being mildly inconvenient to him.

Now maybe you're talking about a very beer-n-pretzels style game where nobody gives a **** about the characters' personality (or only uses it for humor), in which case sure, no rule, no problem.

But in a game where you're actually trying to get into your character's shoes? Who the hell would want to be buddies with a serial killer? Who would want to aid and abet their highly public and not even profitable crimes? Well, a character designed with that in mind would, which is fine if the other players are on board to support the murder-stabby lifestyle. It's just not something you should expect "any non Paladin" to do.

aspekt
2015-01-06, 10:15 PM
Another good point that keeps cropping up and it ties into my original response about competent DMs.

It's one thing to have a hack'n'slash game or an evil campaign or even just a goof off let's see where this goes kind of approach. All of which of course ate perfectly acceptable and can be fun.

But games with any specific bent in them, even a we're all goody two shoes characters, is something clearly discussed by the table before anyone starts playing that way.

"Hey I'm kinda bored with the generic campaign let's do x as an alyernate playstyle just for kicks."

"Sounds great. I quit knocking on the door and start knocking heads!"

Without this mutual understanding no one knows what's going on. The DM has to step up and facilitate the table's cohesion. Even if it's offering to switch up the game some so the players are enjoying themselves more.

I think overall campaign coherence can resolve a lot of these kinds of issues.

Beta Centauri
2015-01-06, 10:24 PM
But in a game where you're actually trying to get into your character's shoes? Ah, I see. Are you a bit like those people who need everything to fit their idea of internal consistency, who can't enjoy The Lord of the Rings until they or someone else comes up with a reason why the Eagles weren't used to just fly to Mount Doom? If so, we're not going to be able to agree on this, even though I'm sure we're both reasonable and intelligent.

What you describe is a fine way to play, right up until someone out-of-game takes issue with what someone is doing in-game. Ideally, no one does. I've heard people claim they can do that, and maybe they can. Maybe you can. Most people, though, seem to have things that, while reasonable and realistic in-game, result in a boring experience for the people actually playing the game, and cause them to want that thing to stop. And more than a few people do make a conscious effort to needle other people via in-character actions. That may very well be what is going on here, though we don't know. In any case, the paladin player isn't in the character's shoes and seems to think that they can make the other player stop controlling their character in an annoying way by being annoying back. That, historically, doesn't work, hence the heartwarmingly copious amounts of advice (which, I'm happy to see, is being taken) to address this out-of-game.


Who the hell would want to be buddies with a serial killer? Who would want to aid and abet their highly public and not even profitable crimes? Well, a character designed with that in mind would, which is fine if the other players are on board to support the murder-stabby lifestyle. They don't need to support it, they just need not to police it. It's decent of you to admit that there are characters who could play in the same game with such a character. It wouldn't need to be determined during character creation, though. Facts could come to light showing that the character has some thing or some quality that is crucial to some plan, and must therefore be kept alive and free. Or a powerful person could just tell the other characters to let the character do their thing and treat them as a valuable teammate, for reasons the PCs aren't privvy to. That person could even make it worth the characters' time.

Those are just examples. Two or more people with more knowledge about the characters and the setting could doubtlessly come up with dozens of more ideas that work for them. Those ideas might not work for anyone else, but fortunately they don't have to.


It's just not something you should expect "any non Paladin" to do. It's quite likely that the barbarian player is not acting in good faith. Out-of-game discussion will address that. In the meantime though, it's reasonable to expect the paladin player to find (perhaps with the GM's help) reasons not to police another character.

The GM in this game isn't helping matters, and possibly even wants to get at the barbarian player in game. We don't know, but the GM could be making different choices that would have prevented this.


Now maybe you're talking about a very beer-n-pretzels style game where nobody gives a **** about the characters' personality (or only uses it for humor), in which case sure, no rule, no problem. This was unnecessary. You're smart enough to know that there's a range between the kind of game you deride and your kind of game. Lots of people play quite seriously while giving consideration to both the in-game and out-of-game situations. My goal as a GM is that everyone have fun out-of-game, and enjoy what's happening in the game (even if they are also in-character as someone going through something awful), and I position myself (and everyone else) to be able to bring that about. The GM in this game painted everyone into a corner, by choosing outcomes that limited everyone's choices.

In short, lots of smart, creative, capable roleplayers don't find it worth immersing themselves in a game, if the game itself isn't about something that interests them.


But games with any specific bent in them, even a we're all goody two shoes characters, is something clearly discussed by the table before anyone starts playing that way.

"Hey I'm kinda bored with the generic campaign let's do x as an alyernate playstyle just for kicks."

"Sounds great. I quit knocking on the door and start knocking heads!"

Without this mutual understanding no one knows what's going on. The DM has to step up and facilitate the table's cohesion. Even if it's offering to switch up the game some so the players are enjoying themselves more.

I think overall campaign coherence can resolve a lot of these kinds of issues. Yes indeed. The barbarian player has the hallmarks of someone who is bored and wants a different pace to the game. If a person can recognize this about themselves and talk honestly about what they want (which can be hard), then maybe their boredom can be relieved, or maybe they need to do something entirely different. Just making them more bored isn't likely to improve matters, though.

GungHo
2015-01-07, 08:57 AM
If the story is about the continuing adventures of the crazy ninja and his crazier barbarian buddy, I'd probably pick a different character to join them on their crazy adventures. You guys essentially created characters that aren't complementary. At all. I'm all for everyone agency when playing tabletop, but sometimes it helps to all get together before you roll characters to ensure you're on the same page. The Don King/Varric Tethras skald idea sounds like it would be a great complement to this group, and sufficient karmic punishment for bad deeds when the embellishment itself starts to get the barbarian and ninja in trouble.

Segev
2015-01-07, 09:13 AM
You have to realize that, if something "comes to light" or otherwise creates a reason why psychobarb needs to be allowed to continue being a serial murderer, that still takes OOC agreement amongst the players to set the social contract for what kind of behavior is "acceptable" in the game.

It isn't "everything must fit neatly." It's not even "you just shouldn't police their behavior." Will their behavior ever reflect back on my character? Then my character has a right to do something about it. The attitude of "just let them do their thing" becomes problematic if you're trying to role-play at all, at least to the extent that you need to acknowledge there is an issue and come up with a reason why the LG guy is going to stay in the party and not police the CE guy.

You have to be very careful with the "just let them do what they want, or you're being stuffy" attitude, because it can easily lead to, "they can do anything they want, but you can't because what you're doing is impeding their fun." This has the probably-unintended message that their fun is more important than yours.

I don't say this to denigrate the idea of "kick-in-the-door, your-characters-are-game-pieces, just-have-fun" play. That's valid. But it is very much a game-only, no-role-play approach, and if you want some role-play, you have to be able to justify your character's actions as a character.

I, for one, find it utterly frustrating in a book or movie when a character decides to defect to the other team for no reason other than the writer decided he needed them there. (Turn-A Gundam, I'm looking at you.)

Jay R
2015-01-07, 10:12 AM
Talk to the other player and the DM. Maybe talk to the entire table.

This is an impossible situation. A character turning evil after there is a Paladin in the party is as deliberately destructive to the party as adding a Paladin to an evil party, and for the same reasons.

If the players don't agree to play in a compatible manner, there is no game. [Or the game is PvP.]

You can't have one player playing a hero and one player playing a villain and keep the party together.

Since the Paladin was there before the other player decided to turn his Barbarian into a murderer, I think it's the Barbarian player's job to fix it. But if you can't make him; you can only try to convince him.

[Note that if the Barbarian were evil before the Paladin appeared, I'd be saying it's the Paladin's fault. But that's not the case this time.]

There are lots of solutions to the specific problem: the Paladin leaves, the Barbarian leaves, the Barbarian reforms, the Barbarian and Paladin fight to the death, etc. But those are all just addressing the immediate symptom, not the actual problem.

The general problem is this. In this one case, the player decided to take an action knowing it would destroy the party. If he is willing to do that once, will he do it again?

If I were in the game, I would tell the players and DM that I don't like to play PvP, and I believe that D&D is a cooperative game. Unless that player agrees to never play in a way that will destroy party unity again, I'd leave the game.

You need to find a way to play in which every player lets every other player play. Or surrender your right to have a say in your character.

This is one of the reasons I like having a Paladin in the party. It makes it clear that we've agreed not to be the monsters.

Beta Centauri
2015-01-07, 11:56 AM
You have to realize that, if something "comes to light" or otherwise creates a reason why psychobarb needs to be allowed to continue being a serial murderer, that still takes OOC agreement amongst the players to set the social contract for what kind of behavior is "acceptable" in the game. It sounds like you're saying that, even if everyone is (or claims to be) acting entirely in-character, that there are some in-game choices that not everyone at the table will enjoy, depending on what the social contract is. The choices might be perfectly logical or reasonable in-game, but the players witnessing them from outside the game would find them "unacceptable." Is that what you're saying?

If so, I agree. But what we might disagree on is the "acceptable" way to deal with behavior that is not "acceptable" in the game. I would think that most people would agree that any approach that only exacerbates the strain on the social contract would also be deemed unacceptable, in which case in-game punishment would not be a good idea.


It isn't "everything must fit neatly." It's not even "you just shouldn't police their behavior." Will their behavior ever reflect back on my character? That's up to the GM. A GM who punishes players, though their characters, for not doing something about another character, is encouraging policing.


Then my character has a right to do something about it. Not everyone will agree with this, because not everyone will agree to what extent (if any) characters have "rights." You imply above that a character doesn't have a right to do something deemed unacceptable in the social contract. Their "rights" end there and a character taking such an action will be blocked, either in or out of game. Well, for my part, I deem players (including the GM) directly blocking other players choices, either in or out of game, as unacceptable in the social contract. That is, very basically, if a player does something and another player negates that thing, prevents it from happening, threatens punishment if it's not reconsidered, etc, then the second player is in the wrong, even if the first player is too.

Before anyone gets bunched up about how that approach doesn't make sense, or makes the game unplayable, let me assure you that the game works just fine that way. If anyone doesn't see how, I'm open to honest questions that keep the uncharitable assumptions to a minimum.


The attitude of "just let them do their thing" becomes problematic if you're trying to role-play at all, at least to the extent that you need to acknowledge there is an issue and come up with a reason why the LG guy is going to stay in the party and not police the CE guy. I don't see why acknowledging there is an issue and coming up with that reason (or just assuming there is a reason) is problematic. Anyway, it's not more problematic than a game that turns into a PvP arms race, or something worse.


You have to be very careful with the "just let them do what they want, or you're being stuffy" attitude, because it can easily lead to, "they can do anything they want, but you can't because what you're doing is impeding their fun." This has the probably-unintended message that their fun is more important than yours. One player's fun is not more important than another, so it should be unacceptable for anyone to impede anyone else's fun. What we have to be careful about is tying "fun" to a single course of action or series of events, because if that course or series is prevented it then seems as though our fun is being impeded. When "fun" be achieved via a number of different courses it's harder to impede and there's therefore less perceived need to block other player's actions. Finding a different course of action is generally pretty easy in D&D, with a little foresight and collaboration.

What clogs that up are rules (or interpretations of them) and GMs that punish players for trying to do something else, thereby constraining them to one course. The paladin player could choose not to police the paladin, but the result would be, at least, a loss of class abilities, so there's not really a choice there. The only real choice is to block the barbarian player. To impede their fun. Someone's fun is going to be impeded, and that's wrong.

Why am I not suggesting that the barbarian player take a different course? Because that player is the initiator. They took the first action (to seek out immediate payment) which, in and of itself, doesn't impede anyone else's fun. The posting of guards doesn't impede the player's fun in a meaningful sense, because the player apparently finds fighting guards fun. Capture, imprisonment and trial (by PCs or NPCs) do impede the player's fun, because they almost entirely constrain free choice. Even death would be preferable, since at least then the player could choose another character to play.


I don't say this to denigrate the idea of "kick-in-the-door, your-characters-are-game-pieces, just-have-fun" play. That's valid. But it is very much a game-only, no-role-play approach, This is rather irrelevant, as no one is advocating such an approach here. "Just have fun," yes, obviously: it's a game. But that doesn't imply anything else.


and if you want some role-play, you have to be able to justify your character's actions as a character. You appear to be describing only one extremely narrow and, as we see here, fragile form of roleplaying, though your meaning depends what you mean by "justify." But you seem to say above that roleplaying doesn't trump the social contract, so if the social contract includes not brook deliberate blocking of actions, then even justified actions may not be acceptable.

Of course, the barbarian could alsoI, for one, find it utterly frustrating in a book or movie when a character decides to defect to the other team for no reason other than the writer decided he needed them there. (Turn-A Gundam, I'm looking at you.)[/QUOTE] This is also rather irrelevant. I have specifically stated that reasons for a course of action a player wants to take (that doesn't block a previously initiated action) can and should be supplied, by the player or GM.

I thought of another option. If a player wants to do what they think their character can do, but doesn't want to block anyone else's fun, they can just say that they fail to achieve what they intended. Exactly how and why they fail would depend on circumstances, but the point is that they attempted to do what was in-character, but were unable to achieve it. Hey, it happens, right?

That assumes that the only reason someone would want to stop another player's character's choice is for roleplaying reasons. If one has out-of-game objections to the actions, then of course this wouldn't address their concerns and the out-of-game discussion would need to happen. But otherwise, immersion and character personality can be easily preserved without blocking someone else.

Based on past discussions of this nature, I expect (despite my constant advocation for out-of-game discussion) to be interpreted as saying that anyone can do anything they want and that chaos should reign and that people just have to put up with things they don't like. That's not what I'm saying. If you don't see how that can be, I welcome civil questions.

Beta Centauri
2015-01-07, 12:08 PM
Talk to the other player and the DM. Maybe talk to the entire table. Yes.


This is an impossible situation. A character turning evil after there is a Paladin in the party is as deliberately destructive to the party as adding a Paladin to an evil party, and for the same reasons. Yes. The paladin class is a problem. No other class has rules that appear to limit what other characters other players can use at the same table.


You can't have one player playing a hero and one player playing a villain and keep the party together. Ooh, I bet you could, if everyone was into it.


The general problem is this. In this one case, the player decided to take an action knowing it would destroy the party. If he is willing to do that once, will he do it again? Whether he knew it would destroy the party is unknown until we hear back (and probably even then). The barbarian heading out to get the payment isn't, by itself, destructive. The GM giving the barbarian a rather lame choice (back off, or kill the guards) and the paladin class requiring the destruction of any party containing both a paladin and a guard killer is what destroyed the party.


If I were in the game, I would tell the players and DM that I don't like to play PvP, and I believe that D&D is a cooperative game. Unless that player agrees to never play in a way that will destroy party unity again, I'd leave the game. Fair enough. Though that player might not agree that they were the one to destroy the party, and they'd have a case.


You need to find a way to play in which every player lets every other player play. Or surrender your right to have a say in your character. The paladin class basically states that there are situations (and not uncommon ones at that) in which the player (and potentially other players around them) must surrender their right to have a say in their character. The alternatives (paladin loses their powers, other characters oppose the paladin) aren't generally viable.


This is one of the reasons I like having a Paladin in the party. It makes it clear that we've agreed not to be the monsters. This situation shows that that doesn't really follow.

Segev
2015-01-07, 12:18 PM
I...think you're reading something I'm not saying.

My point is that this problem cannot be solved merely IC, because there is no set of choices the Paladin can make that:

1) Keep both him and the Barbarian in the party
2) Do not involve the Paladin constraining the Barbarian's future actions, possibly with threat of violence (leading back to 1)
3) Allow the Paladin to remain true to his character (without FAlling, anyway)

Constraining the Barbarian's actions can allow for 1 and 3 to work, but requires OOC interaction and social contracting, because it will require that the player of the Barbarian be okay with it. If he isn't, it becomes PvP and stops being fun. If he really pushes it, it becomes PvP that leads to one or the other character leaving the party (possibly via funeral procession).

My responses to which you seem to be responding are merely stating that it is foolish to assume that you can "live and let live" without discussing this problem OOC. I have seen that attitude - and perhaps I am misreading what you mean by it - lead to tables where, essentially, the biggest bully (sometimes not even realizing they're bullying) setting the tone, because they are willing to push the social contract much further than the other guy(s).

I have seen tables where the CE barbarian's actions up to and including killing NPCs who are important, personally, to other characters are "okay" because "that's just how they have fun," but taking any IC actions to stop them or punish them for it is totally unacceptable as it's "PvP" and "mean."

It ignores that this behavior has rendered it impossible for the other player (analogous to our Paladin, here) to play their character they way THEY have fun.

I am not advocating the DM explicitly exact punishments, IC, on characters via DM fiat. Though obviously the natural IC consequences for actions should befall them (and seem to, here).

What I am saying is that this is something that requires the social contract be actively discussed, OOC, because the players need to decide amongst themselves and with DM help how they wish to proceed. They need to know what they are okay with in terms of constraints on their characters, and what is acceptable behavior when it comes to intra-party interaction (which may or may not include PvP).

Solutions that keep both characters in the party are limited, and will require that one have power over the other to either enforce behavior or, as a possible alternative, force them to stay in the party. (If the Barbarian, for some reason, wanted to force a Paladin to serve him, and could find the means to do so.) But "The barbarian is hte paladin's prisoner and will be kept from committing evil" can be unfun for the barbarian's player, as could "The Paladin is being extorted into putting up with the evil barbarian, somehow" for the paladin's player.

So they HAVE to agree on how their characters can stay in the same party, OOC, and how that will manifest IC. If they can't, then one or the other needs to make a new character who will fit in with the party.

The Grue
2015-01-07, 12:44 PM
Paladin is the only class that cannot by RAW adventure with an evil party, but any good person would find random murder unacceptable

Hell, any of the Evil characters I've used in the past would find random murder unacceptable. This sounds to me like the Barbarian player wanted to be disruptive, possibly for comedic effect(in other words he meant well), and created a CE character in order to shield himself from criticism or metagame consequences.

In fact the last IRL game I played also ended up being derailed because a player wanted to run a disruptive character and, coincidentally, attempted to use Chaotic Evil as a shield from criticism or consequence. While in both cases any individual could have decided for their character to act differently, my case there was a mismatch of expectations and I suspect the same is true here as well.

Beta Centauri
2015-01-07, 12:50 PM
I...think you're reading something I'm not saying. Could be.


My point is that this problem cannot be solved merely IC, because there is no set of choices the Paladin can make that:

1) Keep both him and the Barbarian in the party
2) Do not involve the Paladin constraining the Barbarian's future actions, possibly with threat of violence (leading back to 1)
3) Allow the Paladin to remain true to his character (without FAlling, anyway) Not merely "in-character," no, but it can be solved in-game, assuming no one is actually trying to cause trouble (which we don't know yet). As I mentioned, the GM can bring facts to light or take other steps that allow all three of those to be achieved.

And as I mentioned, the player can also decide to fail to constrain the barbarian, or to wait for a more opportune time, or to have faith in the essential power of his own goodness and example to eventually change the barbarian's mind. Or probably other things.


Constraining the Barbarian's actions can allow for 1 and 3 to work, but requires OOC interaction and social contracting, because it will require that the player of the Barbarian be okay with it. If he isn't, it becomes PvP and stops being fun. If he really pushes it, it becomes PvP that leads to one or the other character leaving the party (possibly via funeral procession). Yes, don't constrain the barbarian. I recommend that the GM get the game away from civilization. It was pretty silly for the GM to put a barbarian in a civilized area in the first place.


I have seen tables where the CE barbarian's actions up to and including killing NPCs who are important, personally, to other characters are "okay" because "that's just how they have fun," but taking any IC actions to stop them or punish them for it is totally unacceptable as it's "PvP" and "mean." It's unacceptable because it's blocking: it's uncreative, and it's a halt to the action, and it implies that one person's idea is objectively worse than another's, in a setting in which any idea can be made fun and workable.


It ignores that this behavior has rendered it impossible for the other player (analogous to our Paladin, here) to play their character they way THEY have fun. Not by itself it hasn't. It takes inflexibility on the party of the GM, the other player, and the play style to make it impossible. A GM who can keep options available and open, a player who can see more than one way to have fun (and who has taken off the table the option of directly constraining someone else's character) and a play style that allows players to contribute to the narrative and the fiction can overcome this behavior ASSUMING everyone is acting in good faith. We don't know if that's the case here, and it's probably not the way to bet, but if it is then very little is impossible.


I am not advocating the DM explicitly exact punishments, IC, on characters via DM fiat. Though obviously the natural IC consequences for actions should befall them (and seem to, here). That's not obvious. I don't care how natural and logical something is: if my choice as a GM would make my game boring, I will not have it occur, by either die roll or fiat. Capturing the barbarian would be boring for me and probably for the barbarian player (I'd check). Therefore, it will, for some reason we deem plausible, not occur. Other consequences will occur, but they will be ones we deem both plausible and interesting.

As soon as someone says "That's just the natural consequence," I know that they know that their choice was questionable, and they're distancing themselves from it.


What I am saying is that this is something that requires the social contract be actively discussed, OOC, because the players need to decide amongst themselves and with DM help how they wish to proceed. They need to know what they are okay with in terms of constraints on their characters, and what is acceptable behavior when it comes to intra-party interaction (which may or may not include PvP). If there are to be no constraints, then there's nothing to have to be okay with.

I'm not saying that out-of-character conversation shouldn't at least happen prior to the game getting started. I don't even have a problem with it happening during the game. I'm just saying that it isn't required to occur in game, if the GM is open to certain options and approaches.


Solutions that keep both characters in the party are limited, By the rules for the paladin, coupled with the GM's choice-limiting decisions.


and will require that one have power over the other to either enforce behavior or, as a possible alternative, force them to stay in the party. (If the Barbarian, for some reason, wanted to force a Paladin to serve him, and could find the means to do so.) But "The barbarian is hte paladin's prisoner and will be kept from committing evil" can be unfun for the barbarian's player, as could "The Paladin is being extorted into putting up with the evil barbarian, somehow" for the paladin's player. Yes, both of those are bad options and the GM should find ways to offer more alternatives.


So they HAVE to agree on how their characters can stay in the same party, OOC, and how that will manifest IC. If they can't, then one or the other needs to make a new character who will fit in with the party. It's fine to discuss it out-of-character, and that's my preferred approach. But it doesn't HAVE to happen that way.

It requires a GM who probably would have found ways to avoid this situation in the first place, and who is willing to improvise in a big way (or is more copiously prepared than any GM I've ever seen), but it's possible. I'm hoping people will at least admit the possibility, and start thinking about this kind of thing differently.

Beta Centauri
2015-01-07, 12:55 PM
The long and the short of it for me is: It would be pretty great if things like this could be handled by a GM without breaking stride, so what would that look like and how can we get at least partway there?

Red Fel
2015-01-07, 01:32 PM
Hell, any of the Evil characters I've used in the past would find random murder unacceptable. This sounds to me like the Barbarian player wanted to be disruptive, possibly for comedic effect(in other words he meant well), and created a CE character in order to shield himself from criticism or metagame consequences.

In fact the last IRL game I played also ended up being derailed because a player wanted to run a disruptive character and, coincidentally, attempted to use Chaotic Evil as a shield from criticism or consequence. While in both cases any individual could have decided for their character to act differently, my case there was a mismatch of expectations and I suspect the same is true here as well.

This. So much.

Look, the bottom line is that while an argument can be made that the Paladin is the albatross around the party's neck, in that his Code is indirectly imposed on the rest of them, an argument can also be made that the "for the evulz" character is the albatross, inasmuch as his actions are designed to disrupt, and would be problematic irrespective of the Paladin's presence or absence.

And to be quite honest, there are only two things a DM can do about this, and only one of them entails in-game action. One is to establish a "no disruptive characters" rule, but that's an out-of-game option. The other is to have a character suffer realistic consequences for his actions. In this case, execution would have been reasonable. So what if it derails the campaign? That's not the DM ending the campaign, it's the PC ending the campaign by provoking a perfectly reasonable and expected response from the authorities.

I'm not saying that DMs need to be super-lethal, or that killing off characters is a proportionate response in all situations. But if a PC stands directly in front of a dragon and provokes it, does anybody bat an eye when he gets roasted and eaten? No. If a PC with no way to fly leaps headfirst off of a cliff miles in the air, is anybody surprised when you need a shovel and a mop to clean up what's left at the bottom? No. If a PC decides to go on a merry murder spree, and gets caught, why should anyone be surprised if he gets the axe for it?

The problem wasn't the Paladin. The problem wasn't the CE character. The problem was a player who wanted to run amok, and to a lesser extent a DM that allowed it with minimal consequence. This sends the message that the PCs are, to a certain extent, consequence-immune. Unfortunately, that puts the Paladin in a position where he has to leave. It's not fair, but basically, if the CE character had been executed, the Paladin could continue his adventuring career. Because he lives, however, there is no way for the Paladin to stay. Pally's gotta go.

After that, your options depend on how spiteful you want to be.

Beta Centauri
2015-01-07, 01:51 PM
Look, the bottom line is that while an argument can be made that the Paladin is the albatross around the party's neck, in that his Code is indirectly imposed on the rest of them, an argument can also be made that the "for the evulz" character is the albatross, inasmuch as his actions are designed to disrupt, and would be problematic irrespective of the Paladin's presence or absence. You're probably right that they're designed to disrupt in this case, but sometimes things that seem disruptive are actually being done in good faith. Punishing those actions with boring consequences would be a bad idea.


And to be quite honest, there are only two things a DM can do about this No, but there are only two things most GMs try.


and only one of them entails in-game action. One is to establish a "no disruptive characters" rule, but that's an out-of-game option. Nothing wrong with that.


The other is to have a character suffer realistic consequences for his actions. In this case, execution would have been reasonable. Why does it have to be reasonable, I wonder? So the GM can't be seen as being punitive?


So what if it derails the campaign? That's not the DM ending the campaign, it's the PC ending the campaign by provoking a perfectly reasonable and expected response from the authorities. It seems like you're saying that as long as it comes about in a totally reasonable and expected way, it's okay for a game to be "ended." Is that what you're saying? Because that seems rather spiteful to me.


I'm not saying that DMs need to be super-lethal, or that killing off characters is a proportionate response in all situations. But if a PC stands directly in front of a dragon and provokes it, does anybody bat an eye when he gets roasted and eaten? No. That doesn't mean it's the right thing to do, or the only thing to do. I would do something else, unless that PC wanted to be roasted and eaten.


If a PC with no way to fly leaps headfirst off of a cliff miles in the air, is anybody surprised when you need a shovel and a mop to clean up what's left at the bottom? No. This example always comes up. My friends and I call it the Cliff Clavin Fallacy.


If a PC decides to go on a merry murder spree, and gets caught, why should anyone be surprised if he gets the axe for it? Surprised? No. Bored? Yes.

You're assuming the player doing these things is being deliberately disruptive. What if they're not? Is it worth slapping them down, or even slowing them down, when they're making an honest effort. Of course there should be consequences, but the GM has more options than just the totally reflexive "natural" consequences.


The problem wasn't the Paladin. The problem wasn't the CE character. The problem was a player who wanted to run amok, and to a lesser extent a DM that allowed it with minimal consequence. We don't know for sure, but the GM also appears to have set things up to allow the character to run amok. Maybe not deliberately, but did they really think the barbarian wasn't going to just kill those guards? Anyone should have seen this coming a mile off when they heard the words "paladin," "barbarian," and "town."


This sends the message that the PCs are, to a certain extent, consequence-immune. Yes. If a GM leaves themselves only boring consequences then there can either be no consequences or the game will turn boring.

Consequences, yes. Boring or punitive consequences, no. Unless someone finds atonement interesting, paladins come with an easily triggered boring consequence.

Guards bar the way. Lots of options there but the "reasonable" and "natural" ones for a barbarian are to leave (boring) or kill the guards and be jailed (boring). The game gives the impression of being designed to punish the barbarian player.

Segev
2015-01-07, 02:13 PM
Not merely "in-character," no, but it can be solved in-game, assuming no one is actually trying to cause trouble (which we don't know yet). As I mentioned, the GM can bring facts to light or take other steps that allow all three of those to be achieved.Except that, if he does so without talking to the players about it, it can wind up "ruining" one or more of the characters. The barbarian could be revealed to be under a curse that the paladin has to help him lift, and now the barbarian is constrained...or going to suffer the curse. But that could annoy the barbarian's player if he neither wants to deal with the curse nor be constrained. The paladin could be ordered by his order to stay with the barbarian and try to mitigate the harm he does. But that could annoy the paladin to always have to watch helplessly as the barbarian does things anyway...or the barbarian as the paladin actively polices and resorts to violence if needs be.

These things need to be discussed OOC, because the problem is one of party composition. Characters are incompatible, and need to be made compatible by some means. Possibly including having one or the other be replaced.


And as I mentioned, the player can also decide to fail to constrain the barbarian, or to wait for a more opportune time, or to have faith in the essential power of his own goodness and example to eventually change the barbarian's mind. Or probably other things. Not...really. Ignore that he's a paladin. Just have him be LG. Make him a fighter, instead.

He sees this barbarian continue to commit evil acts of murder and mayhem. Acts at least as bad as those of the various monsters the party faces periodically. Why is it that the LG guy has to swallow his alignment while the CE guy can do whatever he wants? The LG guy should be defending the innocent, turning the CE guy in to authorities, and generally making the CE guy's life miserable. Not because he's trying to make the CE guy suffer, but because the LG guy sees what the CE guy is doing and has to put a stop to it.

If that's not possible, he still shouldn't be travelling with and helping defend the CE guy if the CE guy cannot be constrained nor prevented from doing evil. Similarly, if the whole party were N to G, and kept stopping an evil character from doing anything that promotes his self-interest, it would be hard to justify why a) the evil guy would willingly stay with the party and b) the party would willingly keep the evil guy around and free.

OotS handled the latter situation, but it's notable that the evil guy IS CONSTRAINED by his membership in the party. If Belkar's hypothetical player insisted he had to be able to actually act on Belkar's impulses all the time, Roy would have long ago, IC, put Belkar down.


Yes, don't constrain the barbarian. I recommend that the GM get the game away from civilization. It was pretty silly for the GM to put a barbarian in a civilized area in the first place.This could work, if the barbarian doesn't plan to murder more NPCs just for his convenience or the DM can keep him away from them.


It's unacceptable because it's blocking: it's uncreative, and it's a halt to the action, and it implies that one person's idea is objectively worse than another's, in a setting in which any idea can be made fun and workable.

Not by itself it hasn't. It takes inflexibility on the party of the GM, the other player, and the play style to make it impossible. A GM who can keep options available and open, a player who can see more than one way to have fun (and who has taken off the table the option of directly constraining someone else's character) and a play style that allows players to contribute to the narrative and the fiction can overcome this behavior ASSUMING everyone is acting in good faith. We don't know if that's the case here, and it's probably not the way to bet, but if it is then very little is impossible....buh?

So... "I murder the girl you spent the last few sessions wooing. But you can't respond to my character with any violence, because that's PvP," is totally how you think games should be run? Because the DM should have "other options" for the young sorcerer who was exploring his first love to just get over her, but the CE fighter who killed her to torment him can't be expected to have to deal with more than petulence from the sorcerer? Because that's "blocking?" Really?


That's not obvious. I don't care how natural and logical something is: if my choice as a GM would make my game boring, I will not have it occur, by either die roll or fiat. Capturing the barbarian would be boring for me and probably for the barbarian player (I'd check). Therefore, it will, for some reason we deem plausible, not occur. Other consequences will occur, but they will be ones we deem both plausible and interesting.If "other consequences will occur," then you've agreed with me. I'm not sure why you're being so argumentative. I do take offense to having "natural consequences" interpreted as me being a hypocrit by "recognizing" that I'm making a bad choice. "Natural" consequences include "the paladin reported your crime to the authorities. The authorities are now coming after you." Or are you saying that because I view that as "natural" I am doing it wrong, and should rewrite the whole city to not care about barbarians murdering guards?

I'm really baffled by your comments. THey seem to be, "No, you'd do it wrong. Do it this one true way that allows the player who plays disruptively to dictate how the party has to run, because actually discussing the kind of game and tale everybody wants to tell at the table is somehow bad."



If there are to be no constraints, then there's nothing to have to be okay with.Ah, okay, so you're advocating PvP as a solution. You do realize that can cause bad feelings OOC, right? If it's not discussed, OOC, before hand?


I'm not saying that out-of-character conversation shouldn't at least happen prior to the game getting started. I don't even have a problem with it happening during the game. I'm just saying that it isn't required to occur in game, if the GM is open to certain options and approaches.I'm afraid you're wrong. When a problem arises that involves party composition and character compatibility, OOC discussion is required before the DM starts to invent IC solutions. This is because IC solutions designed to shoehorn incompatible personalities together can often wind up impacting characters in ways that ruin the conception of them in the mind of the player. Sure, you could get lucky and do it right without input from the players, but you really shouldn't take the chance, because if you screw up by guessing wrong, you're the jerk who ruined his character through writing the game to "screw him over."


By the rules for the paladin, coupled with the GM's choice-limiting decisions.Uh, no. By virtue of one character being CE and acting like a murder-hobo in civilized lands, and the other being LG and acting like a responsible and heroic individual.

Again, it doesn't matter that he's a paladin. A lawful good fighter would have the same dilemma. Which is only a dilemma because of OOC considerations: the CE barbarian is a fellow PC. If this OOC consideration weren't there, it wouldn't matter if fighting to the death or leaving the party happened.


It's fine to discuss it out-of-character, and that's my preferred approach. But it doesn't HAVE to happen that way.It really does, unless you're content to shoot your pistol in the dark and hope that it was down the shooting range and not at the next stall over. The consequences to the game for a mis-aimed "alternative" based IC are as grave as the consequences to your friends if you shoot wildly in the dark: the game could be maimed or even die.


It requires a GM who probably would have found ways to avoid this situation in the first place, and who is willing to improvise in a big way (or is more copiously prepared than any GM I've ever seen), but it's possible. I'm hoping people will at least admit the possibility, and start thinking about this kind of thing differently.Differently how? "HAve a conversation OOC" is such an offensive thign, despite being your preferred method, that it must be thrown out as a bad way to think about the solution?

The solution is to talk and figure out how people would like to see the game to forward. What do they see their characters doing, and what are they willing to have happen to or around their characters to contrive to keep the party together? Or is it just better to pick a way to play - good or evil or whatever - and remake the characters taht don't fit that, replacing them with ones that do?

Why is that such a horrible thing that you have to "think about [it] differently?"

Jay R
2015-01-07, 02:22 PM
Segev, give it up. You will never convince Beta Centauri to treat this act of disruption as an act of disruption, because of how much he disapproves of Paladins.

We've all expressed our views. That's well and good. But there haven't been any new ideas in the last few exchanges. We've gotten all the good out of that subthread that we can.

Segev and Beta Centauri obviously shouldn't play in the same game, just as Beta Centauri and I shouldn't. I therefore gently suggest that you agree to disagree, and Segev should seek game advice from somebody whose gaming style isn't inconsistent with Segev's.

Garimeth
2015-01-07, 02:26 PM
Not going to enter the debate, but to the OP:

I DM, and I had this happen in my last game, a campaign that had been going for a year, and everyone loved. The group had a plot TPK, and were resurrected years later in game. We had been playing 13th Age for the first time and I decided to let them reroll their classes if they wanted as a "resurrection gone wrong" since when we started the game we were all new to it, and we understood it better now.

The Party's paladin decided to reroll ranger, and said he was no longer a paladin of the god of war because the god had let him fall in battle. A little bit later they take a job guarding a caravan to travel across the kingdom. The paladin's player, now a ranger, convinces the rogue that the two of them should rob the merchant in charge and they sneak in to do it, using an excessively complicated plan that wakes the merchant. Long story short they kill the merchant and get caught in the act by the party's brand NEW paladin, who used to be a barbarian. Oh yeah this Paladin's deity? The goddess of justice. They fled so there was no PVP, but it ruined the game.

We tried having their guys be "exiled" and they rolled two new characters, but that sucked and nobody got into it. So then I retconned the whole thing and we pretended it never happened. The whole murder-hobo incident (how we referred to it in our group) completely took the wind out of our sails, the campaigns momentum was lost, and the game just wasn't fun anymore - especially not for me as the DM. I talked to my group about it, and we all agreed it had ruined the game. So I had to scratch the whole campaign and start a new one.

TL;DR: I had something similar happen and it ruined the game.

Lord Torath
2015-01-07, 02:41 PM
Before I let him go harass the mayor's guards, I'd ask him (as the DM) where he saw his actions leading him, and what outcome he expected to achieve, and then explain the likely consequences. Because it really just sounds like the Barbarian's player just wanted to stir up trouble.They're not really "likely" consequences are they? They're consequences the GM is going to do their best to make sure come about. Because when a player just wants to stir up trouble, it's easier to punish them through their character and claim that the consequences were just the logical reaction to their behavior, than it is to stop and ask them not to stir up trouble and leave if they continue. But one of those options stands a much smaller chance of wasting everyone's time.You just made my point. The DM asks the Barbarian what he hopes to accomplish by his midnight visit, tells him there is no possibility of it going well, and would he please do something less disruptive. "Likely consequences" are the things that will logically follow in the setting. The guards will NOT allow a barbarian to trouble the mayor in the middle of the night for anything less than an emergency. That's why the mayor has guards - to protect him from threats on his life and wastes of his time. A person who kills guards is going to be tried and executed. "Reasonable consequences," as Jay mentioned, are those that make sense in the setting. And as MANY others have mentioned, this has nothing to do with having a Paladin in the party, and everything to do with the disruptive actions of the barbarian.

(Sorry, Jay. Last try)

The Grue
2015-01-07, 02:53 PM
At the very least, can we please not do that thing where every clause of every post gets broken into a separate quote with a full counterpoint, and we end up with monstrously long post pursuing a hundred parallel arguments?

Segev
2015-01-07, 02:58 PM
It's also worth noting that, if a DM warns a player with "likely consequences," and the player still feels his goal is something to pursue in something like the fashion he outlined, the player can offer, "Well, what if I do [something] to deliberately avoid those consequences?"

For instance, "what if I sneak past the guards?" ("You're welcome to try, but your barbarian's not very stealthy.")

Or, "I'll rage outside the gate and make enough noise for two men fighting, then call to the guards that somebody got over the wall and is coming up the side of the building." ("Um, why?" "So they'll go investigate, and I can burst into the door while they're distracted." "You realize that's also illegal?" "It's not murder, though." "It's also not likely to get you paid any faster." "I'll intimidate him!" "...okay, you can try, just keep in mind that they'll be reporting this to the authorities at the very least, unless you can convince them not to.")


You can make an adventure out of it. Likely consequences extend from the most basic interpretation of what somebody says they're going to do. The more they change it, the more the consequences alter.

The Grue
2015-01-07, 03:05 PM
Well said. The best way to avoid undesired consequences is to tell your DM not only what your character is doing, but also what that action is intended to accomplish. Too often I've seen players try to be subtle and clever, only to have their scheme fail spectacularly because the DM thought they were just ****ing around.

The only reason to conceal your goal from the DM is if you're trying to trick them, and for several reasons that should never be necessary.

Beta Centauri
2015-01-07, 03:06 PM
I think the discrepancy is around the term "in-character." I don't think of out-of-character considerations as, themselves, taking a player out-of-character, but I think that's because I'm thinking of it from the point of view of the other players. If a player appears to do something in-character, then they're in-character.

I take an acting approach. No one actually is their character, and no one actually wants to be their character, at least not completely, but everyone wants everyone else to be making a good faith effort to appear to be their character (or at least to be describing a consistent character, in the case of an RPG).

But for some reason, it's common for players to only believed to be playing in-character (using the above sense) if they have only the most obvious, bog-standard reactions to things. Same with the setting: if the response from the setting isn't what everyone could have mumbled in their sleep that it would be, then it's not "realistic."

That's a big part of what I'm getting at, and why I'm so down on the paladin class. It pretty much only allows a single, obvious, bog-standard reaction to a wide range of common things, forcing the player to either act out-of-character (in the eyes of the other players) or have that reaction. The player of every other character at least has a real option of thinking outside the box.

Or they would have that option, if everyone else at the table would be okay with them choosing it.

That idea, that playing in-character, playing to expectations, means not taking any risks drives almost every aspect of this situation. The barbarian player (and others, its sounds like) have the paladin player as an easy target: they bait him to see if he's going to break character. They also have the world as an easy target: will the GM wreck the realism of the world to keep the game together? The paladin player is stuck, by the rules and himself: he sees (and was given) only one way to be in-character.

It's a crime in role-playing for someone to act out-of-character, and even being suspected of doing so is just as bad. They'll be relegated to the despised "beer-and-pretzels" rabble, and dismissed. So, they huddle inside their natural, reasonable, unquestionable reactions so that no one ever has a reason to say committed that heinous transgression.

What if we thought about it differently?

Segev
2015-01-07, 03:18 PM
Nonsense. Nobody is suggesting that one odd reaction is "out of chracter" to the extent that a character would never do it.

What's being suggested is that an ongoing pattern of behavior that is at odds with what the character is said to be puts lie to the claim about the character. "I am opposed to murdering innocent people" stops sounding like a true statement when you hang around somebody you know does this regularly, don't do anything to stop him, and keep working side-by-side with him after he just did it again. And again.

That's why this is a party composition problem. If it's one incident, agreements can be made and it won't be an issue. The goal is to ensure it doesn't become a pattern or, if it does, that it's one the game can live with.

Beta Centauri
2015-01-07, 03:19 PM
You just made my point. The DM asks the Barbarian what he hopes to accomplish by his midnight visit, tells him there is no possibility of it going well, and would he please do something less disruptive. "Likely consequences" are the things that will logically follow in the setting. The guards will NOT allow a barbarian to trouble the mayor in the middle of the night for anything less than an emergency. That's why the mayor has guards - to protect him from threats on his life and wastes of his time. A person who kills guards is going to be tried and executed. "Reasonable consequences," as Jay mentioned, are those that make sense in the setting. And as MANY others have mentioned, this has nothing to do with having a Paladin in the party, and everything to do with the disruptive actions of the barbarian. Nothing about any of the barbarian's actions is inherently, unavoidably disruptive or impactful to the paladin. It appears (we don't know for sure) the GM just decided (as other here have) that they were disruptive and made every effort to make the player pay for that.

What the paladin class caused was the whole situation of the unworkable party.

Red Fel
2015-01-07, 03:22 PM
You're probably right that they're designed to disrupt in this case, but sometimes things that seem disruptive are actually being done in good faith. Punishing those actions with boring consequences would be a bad idea.

I disagree. When I say disruptive, I mean disruptive of the game and of the table. A character who has been legitimately provoked and responds accordingly isn't being disruptive; a character designed to flip out and murder people at the drop of a hat is disruptive. And I can't see a "good faith" way to say "I'm making a character who will completely screw over the party at random."


Why does it have to be reasonable, I wonder? So the GM can't be seen as being punitive?

That's part of it. The other reason is verisimilitude. If your PC is executed for murdering a half dozen guards, it's believable. It makes sense, in context. If he's executed for stealing a loaf of bread, it doesn't make sense (unless you're in a society where every infraction receives maximum punishment). The point is that a PC really has no room to complain about the reasonable, foreseeable outcomes of his deliberate choices. It's like my illustration with the dragon and the cliff - if you know it will end badly for you and do it anyway, you're asking for it. If you know it will end badly for the party and do it anyway, you're being disruptive.


It seems like you're saying that as long as it comes about in a totally reasonable and expected way, it's okay for a game to be "ended." Is that what you're saying? Because that seems rather spiteful to me.

If my players are doing things that would get their PCs killed - and I don't just mean engaging in combat, I mean engaging in stupid stuff - I take that as a signal that they don't like the campaign. Either they don't like this particular campaign, or they don't like the other players, or they don't like the DM's style, or they just don't want to game anymore. If you jump in front of the dragon, you're saying you don't want to play. If you lunge off of the cliff, you're saying you don't want to play. And if you kill the king, desecrate the corpse, and then laugh maniacally when the army comes to put you before a firing squad, you're saying you don't want to play. That's not spite.

Telling players that they can do whatever they want, without consequence, is in my mind worse than ending the campaign when they deliberately get themselves killed. It's giving the PCs plot armor. I don't go that far. I give my players the chance - I pull the "are you sure" gambit, maybe even warn them that things may go badly - but if they insist on going through with things that will logically end badly for them, I let them, and I impose the appropriate consequence. And if that means the campaign ends, the campaign ends.


That doesn't mean it's the right thing to do, or the only thing to do. I would do something else, unless that PC wanted to be roasted and eaten.

Let me take this to the logical extreme, then. If a PC stands in front of a hostile dragon, is it safe to say that the dragon would attack? In my book, it would. It's hostile, you're a target, it attacks. If you get killed by the attack, you get killed. This is a thing that happens. Are you saying this is a "wrong" outcome if the player doesn't want his PC to die?

I'm not trying to straw-man your position; I want to be clear. In my mind, if a PC plops himself in front of a hostile dragon and gets killed, nobody will be surprised, because there's nothing illogical or punitive about the idea of a dragon killing a PC who has made himself a target. I'm not saying I'd make it an insta-death - there would be the usual rolls. If the PC survives, good for him. If he doesn't, though, it's no surprise.

That's the point. There is a logical consequence for turning yourself into a target - you get targeted. And there is a logical consequence for murdering a half dozen guardsmen - if you're caught, you get arrested, tried, and executed.


This example always comes up. My friends and I call it the Cliff Clavin Fallacy.

Okay, I'll bite. In what way is this a fallacy? Or do you just use the word the way some people use the word "Opinion?"


Surprised? No. Bored? Yes.

You're assuming the player doing these things is being deliberately disruptive. What if they're not? Is it worth slapping them down, or even slowing them down, when they're making an honest effort. Of course there should be consequences, but the GM has more options than just the totally reflexive "natural" consequences.

It's hard for me to imagine how a player isn't being deliberately disruptive. Just like the DM has more options in terms of consequence, the player has more options in terms of behavior. A Barbarian doesn't have to instinctively murder everything that breathes in his general vicinity. A CE character doesn't have to be an axe-crazed lunatic with a literal blood addiction. When the player chooses to murder an NPC who has inconvenienced him, he is choosing that option, as opposed to talking to the NPC, ignoring the NPC, knocking the NPC out, leaving and returning when the NPC is gone, or any number of other outcomes. The player has chosen to be disruptive when he does something like this, knowing that it will likely end badly for both him and his party.

By contrast, if the DM doesn't employ "totally reflexive 'natural' consequences," he is giving the PCs plot armor. As I've said, this is problematic; creating a consequence-free world breaks immersion. More importantly, if a DM later decides to employ consequences, it creates an unpleasant double-standard - why later, and not earlier?


We don't know for sure, but the GM also appears to have set things up to allow the character to run amok. Maybe not deliberately, but did they really think the barbarian wasn't going to just kill those guards? Anyone should have seen this coming a mile off when they heard the words "paladin," "barbarian," and "town."

Now who's making assumptions? I've been in parties with all three of those things - Paladins, Barbarians, and towns - with an absolute absence of civilian casualties. I don't assume that Barbarians are omnicidal axe-murderers. I don't assume Paladins take issue with anything that draws blood. And I don't assume that every NPC exists to be slaughtered. And that has worked fine in my groups. Perhaps your experience is different, which is fine, but don't assume that everyone has seen the same thing at their tables.


Yes. If a GM leaves themselves only boring consequences then there can either be no consequences or the game will turn boring.

Consequences, yes. Boring or punitive consequences, no. Unless someone finds atonement interesting, paladins come with an easily triggered boring consequence.

Guards bar the way. Lots of options there but the "reasonable" and "natural" ones for a barbarian are to leave (boring) or kill the guards and be jailed (boring). The game gives the impression of being designed to punish the barbarian player.

I'm confused. So, no boring consequences and no punitive consequences - doesn't that leave only positive consequences? Does that mean that the PCs get rewarded no matter what they do?

The game that I describe isn't designed to punish Barbarians. It's designed to impose realistic consequences. One of those consequences is that if you enter a law-abiding society and commit a series of conspicuous murders, you are likely to be arrested and executed. That doesn't punish Barbarians, it punishes sloppy murderers. I refuse to accept what appears to be your assumption - and correctly if I'm mistaken - that Barbarians must and should be permitted to kill anything that draws their ire.

Let us not forget that the Barbarian at issue began at CN, and then dropped to CE. Clearly, the DM was willing to acknowledge (1) that the PC in question was engaged in Evil acts, and (2) that those acts carried some form of consequence (in this case, an alignment shift). Given that the PC in question started at CN, and demonstrated axe-crazy tendencies, it seems quite probable that the PC in question was using the traditional "CN on paper, CE in practice" gambit that has so stigmatized that particular alignment. As a rule, I find that PCs designed with the sole purpose of murdering anything in their way tend to be disruptive and problematic. At a certain point, allowing this character to go without any "boring" or "punitive" consequences amounts to tacit approval of that behavior. And when you reach that point, it's no party for a Paladin, or frankly any character with serious moral compunctions.

Beta Centauri
2015-01-07, 03:28 PM
What's being suggested is that an ongoing pattern of behavior that is at odds with what the character is said to be puts lie to the claim about the character. "I am opposed to murdering innocent people" stops sounding like a true statement when you hang around somebody you know does this regularly, don't do anything to stop him, and keep working side-by-side with him after he just did it again. And again. Stops sounding that true to whom? Who's judging that, and why are they that concerned about it? This is an extreme case, yes, but in general creative people are really good at finding reasons why something they enjoy is actually true, despite glaring holes. Or overlooking them entirely.

The GM and the paladin player don't want the barbarian player to act this way. I get that. But if they prioritized not making the issue worse over not making it less "true," this problem goes away almost entirely.

Segev
2015-01-07, 03:37 PM
Stops sounding that true to whom? Who's judging that, and why are they that concerned about it? This is an extreme case, yes, but in general creative people are really good at finding reasons why something they enjoy is actually true, despite glaring holes. Or overlooking them entirely.What?

No, seriously, what?

You can honestly tell me that if you witnessed a co-worker running children down in the street one morning because they'd bounced a ball off his parked car last night, you would be okay with working with them at work that day? But that you're totally opposed to killing children, especially for such minor infractions?

It's not straining credulity to claim that you're opposed to it and would want it to stop, even though you're doing nothing about it because doing something about it would be "constraining," and not the right, "alternative" solution that lets your party (your workplace) continue working together?


The GM and the paladin player don't want the barbarian player to act this way. I get that. But if they prioritized not making the issue worse over not making it less "true," this problem goes away almost entirely.No...

The DM allowed the barbarian to walk up to the mayor's house and demand to see him. The DM had the guards take the reasonable action of doing the job they're paid to do: tell the barbarian to shove off because it's night and the mayor is sleeping. The barbarian chose to attack them. The DM let the fight play out. The paladin found out what happened, and chose to help bring the barbarian to justice. The DM, in the name of not just ending the barbarian, is having "exile" be the punishment he'll face, IC. This is, if anything, one of those "alternative" options, since execution would not be unreasonable in this circumstance.

The Paladin's player is now trying to decide what his Paladin would do. The fact he's a Paladin has little to do with it; the fact that he's LG has a lot more to do with it. Remember that Paladins are not any more restricted, in practice, than other LG characters. They just lose more if they stop being LG. The player doesn't want to play this character as slipping out of LG.

Are you saying it is the responsibility of the player of the LG character to let his character stop being LG in order to accommodate the CE player, but not the CE player's responsibility to pull his character up out of CE to accommodate the LG player?

Or are you just trying to say that the LG character can be perfectly fine with hanging out with an axe-crazy murderer he doesn't prevent from committing murders? That axe-crazy murdering should be treated as a foible that gets scolded occassionally, rather than something an LG character should either stop or avoid?

Mr.Moron
2015-01-07, 03:48 PM
Or are you just trying to say that the LG character can be perfectly fine with hanging out with an axe-crazy murderer he doesn't prevent from committing murders? That axe-crazy murdering should be treated as a foible that gets scolded occassionally, rather than something an LG character should either stop or avoid?

It's seriously starting to feel like what he's advocating for is that the relationship between the CE player and the other parties (particularly the GM) be like that between Eric Cartman and his mother.

Beta Centauri
2015-01-07, 03:54 PM
I disagree. When I say disruptive, I mean disruptive of the game and of the table. A character who has been legitimately provoked and responds accordingly isn't being disruptive; a character designed to flip out and murder people at the drop of a hat is disruptive. And I can't see a "good faith" way to say "I'm making a character who will completely screw over the party at random." We don't know that's what the player was saying. Maybe they were saying "I'm making a character who has no patience, and doesn't respect anyone who can't best him in combat." That's basically the Klingon race from The Next Generation. Works fine. If people let it.


That's part of it. The other reason is verisimilitude. The neat thing I've discovered about verisimilitude is that I get to decide how well I need verita simulated.


If my players are doing things that would get their PCs killed - and I don't just mean engaging in combat, I mean engaging in stupid stuff - I take that as a signal that they don't like the campaign. Either they don't like this particular campaign, or they don't like the other players, or they don't like the DM's style, or they just don't want to game anymore. If you jump in front of the dragon, you're saying you don't want to play. If you lunge off of the cliff, you're saying you don't want to play. And if you kill the king, desecrate the corpse, and then laugh maniacally when the army comes to put you before a firing squad, you're saying you don't want to play. That's not spite. I'm not necessarily saying any of that.


Telling players that they can do whatever they want, without consequence No one is suggesting this.


Let me take this to the logical extreme, then. If a PC stands in front of a hostile dragon, is it safe to say that the dragon would attack? In my book, it would. It's hostile, you're a target, it attacks. If you get killed by the attack, you get killed. This is a thing that happens. Are you saying this is a "wrong" outcome if the player doesn't want his PC to die? Yes. Why would a GM do something the player doesn't want to have happen? That's boring, at best.


I'm not trying to straw-man your position; I want to be clear. In my mind, if a PC plops himself in front of a hostile dragon and gets killed, nobody will be surprised, because there's nothing illogical or punitive about the idea of a dragon killing a PC who has made himself a target. I'm not saying I'd make it an insta-death - there would be the usual rolls. If the PC survives, good for him. If he doesn't, though, it's no surprise. Just because something is no surprise doesn't mean it's correct. Surprising things can be correct, too.


That's the point. There is a logical consequence for turning yourself into a target - you get targeted. And there is a logical consequence for murdering a half dozen guardsmen - if you're caught, you get arrested, tried, and executed. Logical, but not inevitable. It's entirely in the GM's control, if we let it be. If the GM knows they won't be flogged for not being "logical."


Okay, I'll bite. In what way is this a fallacy? Or do you just use the word the way some people use the word "Opinion?" False equivocation, reductio ad absurdum, false dilemma. Probably others. Not that I'm not fallacious, it's just that the hypothetical cliff-jumper is such a common move for people in these discussions that we named it.


It's hard for me to imagine how a player isn't being deliberately disruptive. Just like the DM has more options in terms of consequence, the player has more options in terms of behavior. A Barbarian doesn't have to instinctively murder everything that breathes in his general vicinity. A CE character doesn't have to be an axe-crazed lunatic with a literal blood addiction. All true, but I'm taking that circumstance as read. It has happened and I'm talking about how to react to it.


When the player chooses to murder an NPC who has inconvenienced him, he is choosing that option, as opposed to talking to the NPC, ignoring the NPC, knocking the NPC out, leaving and returning when the NPC is gone, or any number of other outcomes. The player has chosen to be disruptive when he does something like this, knowing that it will likely end badly for both him and his party. Probably, but not certainly. I prefer to assume they're not when I GM, since punishing them or doing the "logical thing" isn't going to work. If I really can't see how not to make the game boring I'll take it out-of-character, maybe ask the players, but usually it's not that hard and often the issue ends.


I'm confused. So, no boring consequences and no punitive consequences - doesn't that leave only positive consequences? No. Negative consequences can be quite interesting. But not all of them are to everyone.


Does that mean that the PCs get rewarded no matter what they do? No. It means the players get rewarded no matter what they do, with an interesting adventure. If they do certain other things they get in-game rewards too, but whether or not their time is spent in an interesting way should never be at issue.


I refuse to accept what appears to be your assumption - and correctly if I'm mistaken - that Barbarians must and should be permitted to kill anything that draws their ire. No. Barbarian players - all players - must and should be permitted to play their character how they want without worrying that the game will become a boring waste of their valuable gaming time AS LONG AS they are considered to be playing in good faith.

veti
2015-01-07, 04:00 PM
If my players are doing things that would get their PCs killed - and I don't just mean engaging in combat, I mean engaging in stupid stuff - I take that as a signal that they don't like the campaign. Either they don't like this particular campaign, or they don't like the other players, or they don't like the DM's style, or they just don't want to game anymore.

Obviously I speak from a position of massive ignorance about this specific campaign, but I think this is a real possibility that needs to be considered in this case.

Symptoms:

Half the players don't regularly turn up. For the last two sessions, all three of them have been absent the whole time. That suggests the rate of attendance is declining.
One of the players who does turn up, goes off the rails and does something completely lunatic.
One of his companions chooses to play along with him.
The DM doesn't punish them.


(1) and (2) may be explained by general boredom with the campaign. (3) is a reasonable reaction for someone who's not particularly invested or interested in proceedings. And (4)... is how a DM might react if they themselves suspect their campaign isn't particularly gripping, and they're afraid to assert authority because it might just lead to the players walking out.

Put it all together, and I suggest "just fold up the whole thing and try something else, possibly with a different DM" is an option that should be considered. Persisting with a campaign that people aren't really enjoying, is just throwing good time after bad.

Beta Centauri
2015-01-07, 04:06 PM
You can honestly tell me that if you witnessed a co-worker running children down in the street one morning because they'd bounced a ball off his parked car last night, you would be okay with working with them at work that day? But that you're totally opposed to killing children, especially for such minor infractions? No. But the question is irrelevant.


It's not straining credulity to claim that you're opposed to it and would want it to stop, even though you're doing nothing about it because doing something about it would be "constraining," and not the right, "alternative" solution that lets your party (your workplace) continue working together? The paladin can claim he's opposed to murder if he's stopping murder. He's not required to stop every murder, even if it involves someone close to him. Heck, in the modern justice system, a co-worker of a murderer would probably not be allowed to take on the case. Meanwhile, the paladin can be working on some actual adventure. It's logical and natural that a town in D&D would be suddenly attacked by a vicious force that will do far more harm than the barbarian.


This is, if anything, one of those "alternative" options, since execution would not be unreasonable in this circumstance. Yes, but by that time the problem had already been caused.


The Paladin's player is now trying to decide what his Paladin would do. The fact he's a Paladin has little to do with it; the fact that he's LG has a lot more to do with it. Remember that Paladins are not any more restricted, in practice, than other LG characters. They just lose more if they stop being LG. The player doesn't want to play this character as slipping out of LG. I was giving the player the benefit of the doubt, assuming he was doing what he was doing because otherwise he would lose his paladinhood. If that's not the case, then it's the player of the paladin causing the player of the paladin's problems.


Are you saying it is the responsibility of the player of the LG character to let his character stop being LG in order to accommodate the CE player, but not the CE player's responsibility to pull his character up out of CE to accommodate the LG player? No. Bear in mind that the player doesn't change a character's alignment. Nor do the rules, outside of certain items. The GM does it, or doesn't as they judge.

Garimeth
2015-01-07, 04:10 PM
Put it all together, and I suggest "just fold up the whole thing and try something else, possibly with a different DM" is an option that should be considered. Persisting with a campaign that people aren't really enjoying, is just throwing good time after bad.

I totally agree, hence my sea story further up. Even if it wasn't the intention at the time, this campaign is probably unsalvagable now. DM's best bet is start a new game, make sure everybody wants to play, clearly communicate with each other what kind of game they want to play, and make a new team of PCs that can co-exist. Sad to say it, but this campaign is dead OP.

Red Fel
2015-01-07, 04:14 PM
We don't know that's what the player was saying. Maybe they were saying "I'm making a character who has no patience, and doesn't respect anyone who can't best him in combat." That's basically the Klingon race from The Next Generation. Works fine. If people let it.

There is a line between "has no patience, and doesn't respect anyone who can't best him in combat," and "going to straight-up kill every ****er in this place." I've played the former. It can have an almost romantic, chivalrous quality. The Klingons, as you illustrate, don't default to axe-murder. They're proud, but not stupid.


Yes. Why would a GM do something the player doesn't want to have happen? That's boring, at best.

Because that's how it works. That's how the game works. Otherwise, it just becomes a game of "Push button to win." Sometimes the PCs do well, and sometimes they do poorly; if all that happens is what the players want, it's no longer a game, it's just a form of self-gratification.


False equivocation, reductio ad absurdum, false dilemma. Probably others. Not that I'm not fallacious, it's just that the hypothetical cliff-jumper is such a common move for people in these discussions that we named it.

I'll bite. How is it false equivocation? In one scenario, a PC jumps off a cliff with no means to fly, and goes splat. In another, a PC commits a capital offense, gets arrested, and gets executed. Both are presented to demonstrate logical, foreseeable, cause-and-effect scenarios. Where is the false equivocation? The fact that the DM has the option of breaking immersion by refusing to impose the foreseeable consequences?


No. It means the players get rewarded no matter what they do, with an interesting adventure. If they do certain other things they get in-game rewards too, but whether or not their time is spent in an interesting way should never be at issue.

And what if "what they do" is disrupt everyone else's game? I cannot accept that a player who plays a PC in such a manner that it interferes with everyone else's enjoyment must nonetheless be rewarded for his actions.


No. Barbarian players - all players - must and should be permitted to play their character how they want without worrying that the game will become a boring waste of their valuable gaming time AS LONG AS they are considered to be playing in good faith.

The problem is your qualifier, and how it may conflict with your earlier statement. What if "how they want" isn't "playing in good faith?"

Let me backtrack a moment - what does "playing in good faith" actually mean, for you? Because it's possible we're speaking with different definitions. When I see "playing in good faith," I think that a player Is committed to the experience of the game, however it is mutually defined Recognizes that the game is also a social exercise Is committed to not only his own enjoyment of the game, but that of others at the table, players and DM included
"Fun" is the mutual responsibility of everyone at the table - every player, as well as the DM, has the obligation to do what they can, within reason, to help ensure that others are enjoying themselves, or at least to avoid doing things that they know would ruin everyone's good time. When a single character neglects that obligation, he becomes problematic. When a player creates a character for purely self-indulgent purposes, to the extent that he is disruptive and has no regard for whether he is interfering with the enjoyment of others at the table, he is not "playing in good faith," in my mind, and his behavior should not be rewarded.

And if something happens to his PC that he doesn't like, as a direct and foreseeable result of his actions, tough. Bad things happen to the PCs. Bad things have happened to my PCs. Stuff that I would rather not have happened has happened to my PCs, as a direct result of my actions. I don't consider it a "boring waste of my valuable gaming time," even if it's something I didn't want to happen; I consider it part of the gaming experience.

Now, if you run your games in such a manner that nothing happens to a PC that the player wouldn't want, that's fine. That's your choice. If your DM runs games that way, that's fine, that's his choice. I don't know many games, in my personal experience, that run in that manner. As a player, I wouldn't find such a game rewarding; as a DM, I wouldn't run my games that way. But if that's what works for you, fine.

Please don't state your preferences, however, as if they were universal truths. Because I'm not so sure that they are.

veti
2015-01-07, 04:23 PM
Yes. Why would a GM do something the player doesn't want to have happen? That's boring, at best.

How is the GM supposed to know what the player "wants" to happen?

Ask them? Then there'll never be any surprises, and everyone might as well stay home and play by themselves. Assuming the player can even muster enough ideas to come up with a coherent answer, which is a big assumption in my experience.

Maybe what would really make the player happiest in this case - is for the DM to fold up her screen and take everyone outside for a game of volleyball. I don't know. Possibly the player could give a coherent answer, but he's not likely to unless someone asks him.


Just because something is no surprise doesn't mean it's correct. Surprising things can be correct, too.

You use words ("boring", "correct") that I recognise, but I can't for the life of me fathom what you mean by them.


No. Barbarian players - all players - must and should be permitted to play their character how they want without worrying that the game will become a boring waste of their valuable gaming time AS LONG AS they are considered to be playing in good faith.

That's the most ridiculous thing I've read this year. You're literally arguing that there should be no consequences to anything "AS LONG AS they are considered (by whom?) to be playing in good faith (which means what exactly?)".

To me, "not worrying about the consequences" would be the Number One Huge Red Flag indicating the opposite of "good faith". Good faith implies integrity, integrity implies following through. Consequences. If there are no consequences, it's literally impossible to play "in good faith".

Beta Centauri
2015-01-07, 04:24 PM
I'm afraid that when it comes to my real life responsibilities and trying to see if some of my fellow gamers can see past the biases common to our hobby and think about things like boring vs. interesting negative consequences, I must at some point choose the former, despite the unfortunate impression it might give a group of strangers about my bravery.

That point is now.

Thank you for helping me look at my own biases in a new light, and good day.

Rakoa
2015-01-07, 04:54 PM
I'm...I'm really, really confused about what just happened. Red Fel and Veti, you've done an admirable job at making your arguments in the face of...something? Yeah.

Is anyone else reminded a bit of Jedipotter? Not in content, per se, but style?

The Grue
2015-01-07, 04:56 PM
I was about to comment on what a brief respite that was from colossal multi-quote parallel-argument posts, but I think I will instead point out that Beta literally just said 'I'm going to leave now because I have a life'.

When exactly did GitP become GameFAQs?

Wardog
2015-01-07, 05:26 PM
Is anyone else reminded a bit of Jedipotter? Not in content, per se, but style?

Maybe they should game together?

Barbarian: I attack the guards, because I am an angry barbarian should not suffer any boring consequences of behaving in-character.
DM: Suddenly, Orcus.

Rakoa
2015-01-07, 05:44 PM
Maybe they should game together?

Barbarian: I attack the guards, because I am an angry barbarian should not suffer any boring consequences of behaving in-character.
DM: Suddenly, Orcus.

Barbarian: What an interesting consequence!

Red Fel
2015-01-07, 07:42 PM
I'm a bit disappointed by Beta's passive-aggressive departure, but that's his call to make. Let's not resort to snide remarks about him or anyone else, hmm?

Now that the gratuitous multi-quote posts (of which I am also guilty) are done with, perhaps we could get back to the original topic? Let me try...

Basically, my thought is that your issue isn't the CE character. It's the player, and the DM who tacitly endorses this conduct by insulating the CE character against the consequences of the player's decisions.

And at this point, unfortunately, your LG Paladin really can't deal with it. There's not much you can do. The authorities have passed judgment - they've sentenced them to exile - so bringing him back to serve his punishment won't work. Confronting him directly may well be suicidal. Frankly, your Paladin's only three choices, as I can see them, are: Passive-aggressively clear the road for the CE Barbarian, by warning away travelers and advising the authorities of the threat he poses whenever you approach a town. Throw down. Challenge him to a duel, to prevent future massacres. Leave. Your Paladin can't really abide this kind of conduct in good conscience, but perhaps he'll avoid challenging him directly out of a sad loyalty to the person he once called friend. Perhaps that little heartstring tug will make the Barb's player think twice.
Whatever you choose, be final with it. You're not trying to persuade him. This isn't a negotiation. Commit to an action and do it. Because the alternative, in essence, is that you cease to be a Paladin.

Mr Beer
2015-01-07, 10:04 PM
Just wanted to say I completely agree with the need for verisimilitude in a game and applaud Red Fel's cogent posts on the subject. For my part, I think it's difficult enough to suspend disbelief in a fantasy game with wizards and dragons etc. without adding in additional challenges such as ordered societies inexplicably deciding to temporarily suspend the rule of law when faced with homicidal maniacs.

Jay R
2015-01-07, 10:12 PM
Oh, good. Let's get back to the subject.

Killing guards at their duty has been a capital offense in virtually all civil (meaning within a city) societies in the history of the world. The barbarian character broke the law in the most heinous way, while traveling with a character known to obey the law.

OF COURSE this destroys the party.

This barbarian cannot now be in a party with a paladin. Or with any lawful good character. Period. Or any character who wants to belong to the society. He's a known would-be murderer. Anybody who stays with him has declared himself publicly an outlaw of society.

The solution can be in character (the barbarian repents, the paladin falls, they fight to the death), or it can be out of character (one player changes character and the old character leaves, one player leaves the game). But the murderer and the paladin cannot remain in the same party.

goto124
2015-01-07, 10:25 PM
The solution can be in character (the barbarian repents, the paladin falls, they fight to the death), or it can be out of character (one player changes character and the old character leaves, one player leaves the game). But the murderer and the paladin cannot remain in the same party.

One solution: The 'crazy axe murderer' gets toned down to a level the paladin can take. Perhaps the barbarian gets a mark of justice, or the paladin has to remind him every so often not to kill innocents. Either way, you can't really have a completely unrestrained CE in the same party as an LG.

You could also swap out the paladin for a character who doesn't have the LG responsibilites- an option the OP had considered, and would also be a good option. But the OP's already against his paladin falling, and if you have a fight to the death you might as well go straight to the OOC consequences of swapping out characters/player leaving.

Othniel
2015-01-08, 02:26 AM
Minor update:

1) I spoke with my Ninja friend. He blames the DM and Barbarian mostly, with a bit of himself for trying to break out the Barbarian. Apparently his original plan was to attempt to commit petty crimes of thievery and such without my knowing. Obviously, that didn't work out. :P He thinks the player behind the Barbarian is being impulsive and just enjoying his character, but not intentionally trying to cause the party problems. Agrees with me that things would have been workable if a) the barbarian had remained CN and not been homicidal, and b) the DM would have not given the barbarian a chance to murder the town guard.

2) No reply from the DM yet. He's crazy difficult to get ahold of sometimes.

3) Waiting to talk to the DM before I talk to the Barbarian.

4) Sounds like we may be starting a new campaign anyway, possibly as soon as next session (which is the Sunday following this coming Sunday). One of the folks that hasn't been able to join us for a few weeks is interested in taking over as DM (He's pretty good at it, and apparently prefers to DM over playing, which might explain his absence recently), and several of us have expressed interest in a pirate campaign. This would mean new characters for all, and more importantly, a fresh start for everyone. Probably the best solution overall, though I'd still like to resolve the current problem.

Mr.Moron
2015-01-08, 06:42 AM
4) Sounds like we may be starting a new campaign anyway, possibly as soon as next session (which is the Sunday following this coming Sunday). One of the folks that hasn't been able to join us for a few weeks is interested in taking over as DM (He's pretty good at it, and apparently prefers to DM over playing, which might explain his absence recently), and several of us have expressed interest in a pirate campaign. This would mean new characters for all, and more importantly, a fresh start for everyone. Probably the best solution overall, though I'd still like to resolve the current problem.

If you do start a new game I'd strongly suggestion having a group discussion about the kind tone people want the game to have and the kind of content people want to explore before the game starts. Set expectations on what kind of archetypes would work well and what are probably not the best.

If everyone is one the same page ahead of time, it'll go a long way to avoiding these problems. Otherwise everyone is going to have slightly different ideas about what a "Pirate" campaign means. One person might be thinking about high-spirited merry band out of outlaws on the high seas, while another might be thinking of terrifying band of stone-cold warriors taking any chance to dominate or kill those that enter their waters. One person might be thinking treasure hunts and and taming monkeys, another might be thinking a realistic examination of trade routes and crew management.

Jay R
2015-01-08, 08:22 AM
In a game a few years ago, I had to continually remind the DM that my 2E Thief was not Lawful. He just found that traveling with a Paladin was far more lucrative than petty theft, and so wasn't going to do anything to risk the relationship.

Eventually I started asking him the value of anything we got close to in town. I wasn't planning to steal anything. But as long as Ornrandir was always casing out the joint, the DM never forgot that he was Neutral.

Segev
2015-01-08, 09:47 AM
No. But the question is irrelevant.It's entirely relevant, as the way you attempt to twist and squirm around it later demonstrates.


The paladin can claim he's opposed to murder if he's stopping murder. He's not required to stop every murder, even if it involves someone close to him. Heck, in the modern justice system, a co-worker of a murderer would probably not be allowed to take on the case.But he IS required to cooperate with the authorities, legally, in the investigation, including testifying as to what he knows. He IS legally responsible if he aids and abets the murderous co-worker in evading the law, even if it's just by refusing to help the authorities find them. Morally, choosing to continue to pal around with said co-worker rather than immediately acting to get the authorities' attention when he knows the guilty fugitive is right here is neutral, not good.

Consistent neutral behavior WILL cause you to slip in alignment. Neutral behavior that leads to greater evil will also plague the conscience of a good person. A good person must either actively continue to constrain - that is, as you put it, police - the actions of an evil compatriot to prevent evil, or must do his best to stop said evil person once and then extricate himself. That is, leave the party.

Therefore, the question is relevant. The LG character cannot remain true to his conscience, in-character, and remain lawful and good, if he does not act to see that justice is brought to his barbarian acquaintance. Or at LEAST see that said acquaintance no longer perpetrates such lawless, evil actions.


Meanwhile, the paladin can be working on some actual adventure. It's logical and natural that a town in D&D would be suddenly attacked by a vicious force that will do far more harm than the barbarian.I see that, when you accused others of using "logical and natural consequences" as a cop-out to hide that they know their answer is bad, you really meant that that's how you use them.

Tongue-in-cheek aside, that's actually quite irrelevant. The LG hero still would only work with a known murderer he knows will seek to commit more murders and whom he cannot, for whatever reason, prevent from doing so under duress. He might have to save the town with this guy...now. If that's the punishment exacted on the barbarian, great; the party has one adventure to try to work through this.

But that still will require that either the LG or CE guy give, somewhere. Both might have to give a bit. If the CE guy won't give, then the LG guy has to either start actively, in-character, policing the behavior of the CE guy, or leave the party. Or, I suppose, allow his alignment to slip towards TN as he lets his conscience erode by the justification that the Barbarian apparently has a right to do whatever he wants to NPCs without interference from PCs.


Yes, but by that time the problem had already been caused.You'll have to elaborate on this. The statement doesn't make sense to me, either alone or in response to what you quoted.


I was giving the player the benefit of the doubt, assuming he was doing what he was doing because otherwise he would lose his paladinhood. If that's not the case, then it's the player of the paladin causing the player of the paladin's problems.Um... no. You seem to assume that players of CE characters have more right to play how they want than do players of LG characters. Why is this?

LG characters are good, heroic types who stop evil from befalling the innocent. Refusing to allow them to prevent evil just because it's being done by another PC is refusing to allow them to play their characters how they want to.

Let's turn it around. You obviously feel policing the CE barbarian's actions is uncalled-for and bad behavior by the LG player for having his character do so. Would you feel, therefore, that it was bad behavior on the CE barbarian's player's part to have the barbarian stop the LG character from confiscating the CE barbarian's share of all loot and rewards to use to establish a charity to recompense those harmed by the CE barbarian's actions? The CE barbarian would have to engage in violence to stop the LG character from taking the stuff, just as the LG character would to prevent the CE character from murdering innocents. Is the CE character allowed to police the LG character's actions in that fashion?


No. Bear in mind that the player doesn't change a character's alignment. Nor do the rules, outside of certain items. The GM does it, or doesn't as they judge.This is factually incorrect. The rules provide straightforward guidelines as to what causes alignment shift. It is very clear that consistent acts in accordance with one alignment pulls the character into that alignment. A DM substitutes for the CPU in a computer in being the judge as to when this happens, but that does not mean that the DM is the one "who does it." The DM merely is the one who recognizes and acknowledge that the actions of the PC have caused it according to the rules.

To claim otherwise is to claim that the DM can just decide the barbarian in question is LG. I am unsure what your view of how this impacts the game would be. Maybe "alignment" is just a label, to you, and has no reflection of nor bearing on behavior, in which case you've invalidated the subsystem in your interpretation of the game, and it is meaningless to discuss this problem in terms of it with you.

If alignment truly is a meaningless label to you, then stop thinking in terms of it, and just think in terms of how a person who wants to prevent murder and doesn't like hanging around murderers will behave. You're demanding that, in order not to "cause a problem," the player of the paladin decide that he is okay with hanging around with an unrepentant murderer who he knows will do it again, and is okay with doing nothing to stop it.

It is, somehow, the player of the paladin causing the problem if he insists on playing his character the way he wants to: as a colloquially good man who does not wish to hang out with murderers while doing nothing to stop them.

Why, therefore, do you insist that only the barbarian has a right to play his character as he wishes? That the paladin's player does not?

Garimeth
2015-01-08, 01:36 PM
I'm going to repeat this because I think it got swallowed in the debate but:

Even if it wasn't the intention at the time, this campaign is probably unsalvagable now. DM's best bet is start a new game, make sure everybody wants to play, clearly communicate with each other what kind of game they want to play, and make a new team of PCs that can co-exist.

Trying to salvage this is most likely not going to be fun for anyone involved.

EDIT:

Minor update:

1) I spoke with my Ninja friend. He blames the DM and Barbarian mostly, with a bit of himself for trying to break out the Barbarian. Apparently his original plan was to attempt to commit petty crimes of thievery and such without my knowing. Obviously, that didn't work out. :P He thinks the player behind the Barbarian is being impulsive and just enjoying his character, but not intentionally trying to cause the party problems. Agrees with me that things would have been workable if a) the barbarian had remained CN and not been homicidal, and b) the DM would have not given the barbarian a chance to murder the town guard.

2) No reply from the DM yet. He's crazy difficult to get ahold of sometimes.

3) Waiting to talk to the DM before I talk to the Barbarian.

4) Sounds like we may be starting a new campaign anyway, possibly as soon as next session (which is the Sunday following this coming Sunday). One of the folks that hasn't been able to join us for a few weeks is interested in taking over as DM (He's pretty good at it, and apparently prefers to DM over playing, which might explain his absence recently), and several of us have expressed interest in a pirate campaign. This would mean new characters for all, and more importantly, a fresh start for everyone. Probably the best solution overall, though I'd still like to resolve the current problem.

Missed this before I posted. I think that a new campaign is your best bet, but you guys should still have a pow wow about what happened and why it happened, and work to make a more cohesive party for your next game, or this could just happen all over again. Also:


In a game a few years ago, I had to continually remind the DM that my 2E Thief was not Lawful. He just found that traveling with a Paladin was far more lucrative than petty theft, and so wasn't going to do anything to risk the relationship.

Eventually I started asking him the value of anything we got close to in town. I wasn't planning to steal anything. But as long as Ornrandir was always casing out the joint, the DM never forgot that he was Neutral.

I've found that there are a few people on here who I agree with most of the time, and Jay R is one of them. His above example is a great way to handle this stuff in the future. The thief's player doesn't need to hide stuff from you the player, just your character. To quote the 13th Age manual, "telegraph your intent" if the DM and the party understands what everybody's end goal is, its alot easier to make sure everybody ends up with the game you all want. Obviously this lesson need not necessarily apply to you, but you should pass it on to your group.

Anyway curious to see how this all plays out.

Kato
2015-01-08, 01:47 PM
Even if it wasn't the intention at the time, this campaign is probably unsalvagable now. DM's best bet is start a new game, make sure everybody wants to play, clearly communicate with each other what kind of game they want to play, and make a new team of PCs that can co-exist.

Trying to salvage this is most likely not going to be fun for anyone involved.


I think depending on what the players want there are plenty of ways to fix this :smallconfused: Of course, if the players just can't agree on a way to fix this, no, it won't work, but if they are willing to cooperate there are many, PvP being just the most simplistic.

Susano-wo
2015-01-08, 03:35 PM
Minor update:

1) I spoke with my Ninja friend. He blames the DM and Barbarian mostly, with a bit of himself for trying to break out the Barbarian. Apparently his original plan was to attempt to commit petty crimes of thievery and such without my knowing. Obviously, that didn't work out. :P He thinks the player behind the Barbarian is being impulsive and just enjoying his character, but not intentionally trying to cause the party problems. Agrees with me that things would have been workable if a) the barbarian had remained CN and not been homicidal, and b) the DM would have not given the barbarian a chance to murder the town guard.



Wait, so he should have, what, had there be no guards? None of this (aside from perhaps allowing your character knowng he would likely come into conflict with either of the other two characters) is the DM's fault. Barb chose to go immediately, chose to ignore the guards instructions to go away, and then killed 6 guards. Not anyone's fault but the Barb

And I would like to second the people rightly arguing that the LG char has as much right to play his character as the CE has to play his, and the Paladin-ness is irrelevant

lytokk
2015-01-08, 03:39 PM
Wait, so he should have, what, had there be no guards? None of this (aside from perhaps allowing your character knowng he would likely come into conflict with either of the other two characters) is the DM's fault. Barb chose to go immediately, chose to ignore the guards instructions to go away, and then killed 6 guards. Not anyone's fault but the Barb

And I would like to second the people rightly arguing that the LG char has as much right to play his character as the CE has to play his, and the Paladin-ness is irrelevant

DM could have always jacked up the guards levels, made them much more difficult to kill. Just saying. OF course, that would have just resulted in the barb's death or capture, but with less dead guards.

Gotta remember that no matter how big the stick a player has, the DM has a bigger one.

veti
2015-01-08, 04:53 PM
DM could have always jacked up the guards levels, made them much more difficult to kill. Just saying. OF course, that would have just resulted in the barb's death or capture, but with less dead guards.

Gotta remember that no matter how big the stick a player has, the DM has a bigger one.

Yeah, but if your basic guard grunts are any more than about 3rd level, I for one would start wondering why this ecosystem needs (tolerates) "adventurers" at all.

I guess he could have had the guards - just run away when the first one went down. But that wouldn't make the barbarian any less culpable.

Edit: what the guards needed was some kind of magical taser - some doohickey that can non-lethally incapacitate even a much stronger opponent. I wonder why there aren't more of those around...

Mr Beer
2015-01-08, 05:06 PM
Yeah, but if your basic guard grunts are any more than about 3rd level, I for one would start wondering why this ecosystem needs (tolerates) "adventurers" at all.

I agree with that, in my campaigns large towns and cities tend to have elite, rapid response guards (i.e. levelled mages and fighters) for dealing with recalcitrant adventurers though. It's hard to keep order with level 2 guards when a bunch of level 10 adventurers can just pop in and cause havoc. But the basic guys are just fine for normal law and order.

Kato
2015-01-08, 05:13 PM
I agree with that, in my campaigns large towns and cities tend to have elite, rapid response guards (i.e. levelled mages and fighters) for dealing with recalcitrant adventurers though. It's hard to keep order with level 2 guards when a bunch of level 10 adventurers can just pop in and cause havoc. But the basic guys are just fine for normal law and order.

Yup, it just sets up the possibility of the adventurers marching in, taking over the local government for as long as they see fit and then leave with the treasury. Not that I would have any experience with that.

Segev
2015-01-08, 05:37 PM
I agree with that, in my campaigns large towns and cities tend to have elite, rapid response guards (i.e. levelled mages and fighters) for dealing with recalcitrant adventurers though. It's hard to keep order with level 2 guards when a bunch of level 10 adventurers can just pop in and cause havoc. But the basic guys are just fine for normal law and order.


Yup, it just sets up the possibility of the adventurers marching in, taking over the local government for as long as they see fit and then leave with the treasury. Not that I would have any experience with that.

I just read the second novel in Brandon Sanderson's Reckoners series. The story takes place in a post-apocalyptic Earth. The cause of the Apocalypse was the advent of super-villains. With a lack of any super-heroes to stand up to them. They just took over.

They are, basically, level 10-20 adventurers in a world of level 1-3 mortals.

Susano-wo
2015-01-08, 06:27 PM
DM could have always jacked up the guards levels, made them much more difficult to kill. Just saying. OF course, that would have just resulted in the barb's death or capture, but with less dead guards.

Gotta remember that no matter how big the stick a player has, the DM has a bigger one.

Either way the guards were as high as they were, and the Barb still chose what he chose. (and if you jack them up enough to stomp him, the question remains: why did they need this group to do the quest? couldn't spare 3 guards?)

lytokk
2015-01-09, 08:20 AM
Obviously these are the elite guards who's only job is the protection of the mayor. Its how I would have run it at least. Or had the royal court wizard incapacitate the barbarian. The reason he didn't do the quest, is because it's beneath him. All I'm saying is it's an alternative.

Jay R
2015-01-09, 10:12 AM
A lot of people are assuming that the DM was perfectly free to change the guards from who they were somebody else in the middle of the encounter. I find that assumption a little jarring.

They aren't heroes; they're ordinary city guards. Furthermore, these are the grunts who don't have enough pull in the barracks to get transferred to a day shift. They're the new guys.

goto124
2015-01-09, 10:34 AM
tMeanwhile, my Paladin arrives on the scene, and (having been suspicious of the Barbarian in the first place) Detects Evil on him. Barbarian comes up as Evil,

Did the Barbarian player knew he was doing an act that would change his alignment? Had the DM at least warned the Barbarian about turning Evil? Who decided that the Barbarian's alignment had changed?

Jay R
2015-01-09, 10:56 AM
Did the Barbarian player knew he was doing an act that would change his alignment?

Is there a single D&D player anywhere who doesn't know he will turn evil if he commits a deliberate murder against inoffensive people doing their job correctly in a civil society?

This isn't a judgment call. If murder isn't evil, nothing is evil.

It's murder.

It's not self-defense. It's not defeating an enemy in battle. It's not stopping a monster. It's not a duel. It's not a tragic misunderstanding.

It's murder.


Had the DM at least warned the Barbarian about turning Evil? Who decided that the Barbarian's alignment had changed?

How can it not change? One of the reasons that Beta Centauri seemed off the mark is that the presence of the Paladin had no effect, to my mind. *Any* Lawful Good character - really, any Good character - must try to take down the Barbarian and bring him in.

Any Neutral character I ever play would do the same, unless he was planning to become an outlaw, forever cut off from society and hunted down by all decent folks. If I were playing an Evil character who wanted to be allowed to live in town occasionally, he would also bring the Barbarian to justice.

Segev
2015-01-09, 11:18 AM
To be fair, a neutral or evil character could decide that it's easier to pretend not to know him, or, if pressed, to state (truthfully) that he had nothing to do with it and wished them well in catching him. Maybe offer some suggestions on where to look if it will get them out of his hair faster and keep him from being too inconvenienced.

Othniel
2015-01-09, 03:55 PM
New update!

I talked to the DM. He's not particularly happy with the way things turned out either. There will be repercussions for the Barbarian and the Ninja...eventually. Next session we're switching to the Skulls and Shackles campaign and all rolling new characters. One of our members that hasn't been around lately will be DMing I believe. We're also going to discuss what happened next time and get on the same page for where the party wants to go for this future campaign to avoid any unpleasantness like last time.

Jay R
2015-01-09, 06:14 PM
Perfect! You really need to talk.

A game of outlaws can be fun.

A game of law-abiding adventurers can be fun.

Combining the two is a recipe for PvP and disaster.

Tragak
2015-01-11, 12:37 PM
You deal with a Chaotic Evil party member the same way you deal with a Lawful and/or Good party member.

If the player chooses to use his character concept in a way that enhances the game instead of disrupting it, then you don't need to stop him from doing so. If the player chooses to use his character concept in a way that disrupts the game instead of enhancing it, then you talk to him out-of-game to make sure he understands that he's not the only person playing.

dps
2015-01-11, 01:12 PM
the Paladin-ness is irrelevant

Yeah, there were some posts in this thread that basically said, "See, this is the problem with Paladins, always trying to tell other players what they can and can't do" but the player had already specifically said that he didn't want his character to associate what a character that just murders innocent people in cold blood, even if his character hadn't been a Paladin.

Straybow
2015-01-12, 01:21 AM
New update!

I talked to the DM. He's not particularly happy with the way things turned out either. There will be repercussions for the Barbarian and the Ninja...eventually. The DM error was letting the Barb be captured. If any of the guards were NN or NL, they'd have shot an arrow or two, or three or five, to make sure the Barb wasn't faking (and wouldn't be any trouble keeping in jail, etc). Especially if actually friends with any of the slain guards.

Heck, a NG or even LG guard might shoot one extra arrow in the heat of anger, maybe even one for each friend: "SoB killed my best friend, Wally! [thwip] And cousin Fred, too! [thwip]" (He'd feel kinda bad about it the next day, but not much.)

Depending on the legal customs, it might even be expected that guards kill such a dangerous felon on the spot. And they'd take custody of the body, so that there'd be a trial if the idiot's companions insisted on raising him.

BTW, were those guards wearing red shirts, perhaps? ;)

Othniel
2015-01-12, 01:54 AM
The DM error was letting the Barb be captured. If any of the guards were NN or NL, they'd have shot an arrow or two, or three or five, to make sure the Barb wasn't faking (and wouldn't be any trouble keeping in jail, etc). Especially if actually friends with any of the slain guards.

Heck, a NG or even LG guard might shoot one extra arrow in the heat of anger, maybe even one for each friend: "SoB killed my best friend, Wally! [thwip] And cousin Fred, too! [thwip]" (He'd feel kinda bad about it the next day, but not much.)

Depending on the legal customs, it might even be expected that guards kill such a dangerous felon on the spot. And they'd take custody of the body, so that there'd be a trial if the idiot's companions insisted on raising him.

BTW, were those guards wearing red shirts, perhaps? ;)

Town guards are always red shirts, aren't they? Actually, at the moment, I was trying to disarm the situation, so my Paladin stepped in and cuffed the Barbarian with my masterwork manacles (and regular manacles on his feet) before hauling him off to jail. If I'd been thinking more about solving the problem in the end, I would've held off and let the town guard handle it.

Razgriez
2015-01-12, 08:05 AM
I'd argue that you instead had a Critical Success on that, given the heat of the moment, especially when one guard being murdered like that would be grounds already for most Good aligned characters to draw their weapons (which wouldn't be wrong either in-character)

It's not your job to guess how your DM is handling someone taking a head first dive into the Chaotic Evil abyss, it is your job as a Paladin though, to stop them. Which you did.

Segev
2015-01-12, 08:40 AM
It's not your job to guess how your DM is handling someone taking a head first dive into the Chaotic Evil abyss, it is your job as a Paladin Good-aligned individual though, to stop them. Which you did.

Being a paladin is not necessary for it to be the right move, IC, to morally and ethically object to murder to the point of thwarting it.

Razgriez
2015-01-12, 09:30 AM
Being a paladin is not necessary for it to be the right move, IC, to morally and ethically object to murder to the point of thwarting it.

Oh I agree, There's little excuse for any Good aligned character to not stop it, there's even less/none for Paladin. The idea that any good aligned character is supposed to go blank/catatonic/suspended animation/somewhere else in town and clue less whenever an evil character commits evil, because for them to act to their alignment, and stop them might "Ruin a player's fun" is a hypocritical double standard. What about the Good alligned player's fun? What about them being able to act their alignment?

goto124
2015-01-12, 09:35 AM
Oh I agree, There's little excuse for any Good aligned character to not stop it, there's even less/none for Paladin. The idea that any good aligned character is supposed to go blank/catatonic/suspended animation/somewhere else in town and clue less whenever an evil character commits evil, because for them to act to their alignment, and stop them might "Ruin a player's fun" is a hypocritical double standard. What about the Good alligned player's fun? What about them being able to act their alignment?

The party could discuss the matter, and try to come up with a better solution that's Good, or at least not Evil.

JaminDM
2015-01-14, 07:25 PM
You do not "deal" with a chaotic evil party member.

You watch their every move, always staying at least not too many steps behind.

And hope like you have never hoped before that they do not end up dealing with you.

icefractal
2015-01-15, 03:07 PM
You do not "deal" with a chaotic evil party member.

You watch their every move, always staying at least not too many steps behind.

And hope like you have never hoped before that they do not end up dealing with you.Or you find an opportune moment to "deal" with them before they get a chance to "deal" with you. :smallwink:

Paladin-like? It depends - probably not. But there's the rest of the part as well ...

Segev
2015-01-15, 03:20 PM
I know my NE Necromancer would find a time to "deal" with CE party members that behaved so dangerously. Preferably in a way that the LG paladin never found out about, because he'd rather not have that conversation with the gentleman.