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Douche
2016-03-30, 03:13 PM
He had a female NPC as the captain of the guard in some town we were visiting. I was at the tavern with my bros when it turns out that the lord had been slain, and the first people to be suspected were the outsiders. So Marion Suella shows up at the tavern with her Joe Schmoe guard bros. They made their entrance quite obnoxiously so I hid up in the rafters. My party failed in talking their way out of it, so I fired my hand crossbow and crit her in the face, killing her instantly.

The DM was not pleased. He ended the session early, right there, and stormed off. He left his belongings and I saw like 20 printouts of some nymph-looking anime pictures or something. I asked some of the party members what was the deal with him. They said he used that character in all of his campaigns. It was his waifu. I killed her.

What do

Geddy2112
2016-03-30, 03:15 PM
Don't play with people who have pet NPC's like this.

Although if she was such a waifu, I am surprised her plot armor was not three miles thick....

Keltest
2016-03-30, 03:19 PM
Don't play with people who have pet NPC's like this.

Although if she was such a waifu, I am surprised her plot armor was not three miles thick....

Yeah, pretty much. A DM should never stat out an NPC he isn't prepared to lose.

Having said that, what level were you guys at where a single shot from a hand crossbow, even a crit, was enough to kill someone outright?

Kelb_Panthera
2016-03-30, 03:20 PM
He had a female NPC as the captain of the guard in some town we were visiting. I was at the tavern with my bros when it turns out that the lord had been slain, and the first people to be suspected were the outsiders. So Marion Suella shows up at the tavern with her Joe Schmoe guard bros. They made their entrance quite obnoxiously so I hid up in the rafters. My party failed in talking their way out of it, so I fired my hand crossbow and crit her in the face, killing her instantly.

The DM was not pleased. He ended the session early, right there, and stormed off. He left his belongings and I saw like 20 printouts of some nymph-looking anime pictures or something. I asked some of the party members what was the deal with him. They said he used that character in all of his campaigns. It was his waifu. I killed her.

What do

Nothing. Your DM is in the wrong here. You didn't do anything -entirely- unreasoable for a typical murder-hobo rogue. It's his own fault for getting overly attached to a character he puts in potentially lethal situations.

You tell him, "I'm sorry the character you liked got herself killed but what did you expect?" If he's -smart- he'll just have her raised by the local church. If not, well, **** happens.

Gildedragon
2016-03-30, 03:23 PM
Nothing. Your DM is in the wrong here. You didn't do anything -entirely- unreasoable for a typical murder-hobo rogue. It's his own fault for getting overly attached to a character he puts in potentially lethal situations.

You tell him, "I'm sorry the character you liked got herself killed but what did you expect?" If he's -smart- he'll just have her raised by the local church. If not, well, **** happens.

if he's very smart* he'll raise her into an unstoppable force. She's back from the grave and craving vengeance...
or you know, she goes on to the outer planes and becomes a goddess...

*ie: vindictive

AvatarVecna
2016-03-30, 03:23 PM
He had a female NPC as the captain of the guard in some town we were visiting. I was at the tavern with my bros when it turns out that the lord had been slain, and the first people to be suspected were the outsiders. So Marion Suella shows up at the tavern with her Joe Schmoe guard bros. They made their entrance quite obnoxiously so I hid up in the rafters. My party failed in talking their way out of it, so I fired my hand crossbow and crit her in the face, killing her instantly.

The DM was not pleased. He ended the session early, right there, and stormed off. He left his belongings and I saw like 20 printouts of some nymph-looking anime pictures or something. I asked some of the party members what was the deal with him. They said he used that character in all of his campaigns. It was his waifu. I killed her.

What do

Well loot the body for starters. If you're high enough level and of the appropriate class/alignment, you may as well put that dead body to work and animate it to carry stuff for you (if it's the captain of the guard, they're likely very strong, so this works out well).

A DM including some Mary Sue waifu character in their story should never pit said MSW against the PCs unless they have some kind of plot armor, or the PCs will try and kill the MSW, because that's what PCs do to uppity NPCs that try to get in their way.

Nerd-o-rama
2016-03-30, 03:29 PM
I never let important NPCs within Teleport distance or Rifle range of players unless they have heavy sniper protection, resurrection insurance, or plain old invulnerability to the players' weapons, as appropriate to the setting, for exactly this reason.

Of course, I judge an NPC's importance based on the plot, not emotional connection. Ultimately, anyone who opposes player characters in any way has at least a 75% chance of attempted murder, and PC allies aren't much safer. Getting attached is just asking for trouble.

JNAProductions
2016-03-30, 03:35 PM
Is the DM otherwise good? Then say "Sorry, but it made perfect sense to do."

Is the DM otherwise not so good? Express your opinion with your feet, and walk out.

Deophaun
2016-03-30, 03:38 PM
Do what I do: get a small tattoo of the NPC's face on side of your arm, next to the faces of all the other DMPCs you have killed.

noob
2016-03-30, 04:06 PM
You do not understand: you need to make the death of the dmpc definitive as quick as possible.
So for example convince a barghest or something else to eat the soul of the dmpc(I think that would count as exalted player(on the player GM axis)) and then carry the body of the dmpc on a quest to find a sphere of annihilation to prevent resurrection even more.
Or buy a scroll of trap the soul and cast it on the body.

Anonymouswizard
2016-03-30, 04:09 PM
He had a female NPC as the captain of the guard in some town we were visiting. I was at the tavern with my bros when it turns out that the lord had been slain, and the first people to be suspected were the outsiders. So Marion Suella shows up at the tavern with her Joe Schmoe guard bros. They made their entrance quite obnoxiously so I hid up in the rafters. My party failed in talking their way out of it, so I fired my hand crossbow and crit her in the face, killing her instantly.

The DM was not pleased. He ended the session early, right there, and stormed off. He left his belongings and I saw like 20 printouts of some nymph-looking anime pictures or something. I asked some of the party members what was the deal with him. They said he used that character in all of his campaigns. It was his waifu. I killed her.

Few things here:
1) good in-character call from you, as long as the party can beat the guards and get the heck out of town.
2) yeah, you really couldn't have done anything wrong here. If you had been informed of this beforehand then you could have taken precautions (I just retired my character because he clashes with the DMPC and would end up just murdering him in broad daylight, which would cause both in-game and out-of-game ****storms), but you weren't.
3) there are legitimately good reasons to cancel or pause the session here. You just killed the plot hook, so I'd need time to think up something new (some DMs wouldn't), but your DM's behaviour sounds extreme.


What do

As you asked...
1) kill the Joe Schmoe guards. Crossbows to the face while they are still surprised, and then mop them up in a couple of rounds.
2) Loot the bodies. Especially Marian Susan, she'll probably have magical goodies.
3) Get out of town, like now. If you need supplies hit the market on the way out, ideally willing to grab and run if guards try to stop you.
4) lie low for a little while, find a dungeon or something and raid it.
5) Head vaguely away from this city.

Now there are a few problems with this plan, your DM could beef up the guards to insanely high levels or Marian Susan could have a lack of goodies. But everything from step 3 onwards should be fine.

Quertus
2016-03-30, 04:34 PM
I remember running a game, and one of the PCs suddenly murder hobos a priest of his own religion. I just sat there stunned for several seconds, before the player asked, "sorry, was that one of your PCs?" My response was, "no, and I wouldn't have wanted you to change your actions if it was (I'm murder on my PCs as a GM), I just didn't expect you to murder him in cold blood, is all."

That twist was stunning for me; I can scarcely imagine what it must be like for DMs with plots and important NPCs and desired outcomes, let alone a waifu.

As to what you do now...


1) kill the Joe Schmoe guards. Crossbows to the face while they are still surprised, and then mop them up in a couple of rounds.
2) Loot the bodies. Especially Marian Susan, she'll probably have magical goodies.
3) Get out of town, like now. If you need supplies hit the market on the way out, ideally willing to grab and run if guards try to stop you.
4) lie low for a little while, find a dungeon or something and raid it.
5) Head vaguely away from this city.

I would add

6a) hope for the generosity of whoever actually killed the lord, or
6b) level up, travel back in time, and actually be the ones who killed the lord.

Which route you take depends largely on the DM.

Kane0
2016-03-30, 04:50 PM
Send him a message saying "Sorry bro, didn't realize she was important to you"

Nothing to gain from more hurt feelings, eh?

SethoMarkus
2016-03-30, 04:51 PM
OOC apologise to the GM that you killed an important NPC, but explain that you felt it was the right thing to do IC at the time, given the information you and your PC had. Following that, let the GM know that it was just an in-game action and that you weren't trying to make an attack against the GM OOC.

The GM is definitely over-reacting, but that doesn't mean that you can't try to diffuse the situation. Neither you nor your character did anything wrong, definitely not intentionally, but it still upset your GM. Before you try to do anything in-game, make sure things are good at the table.

Vitruviansquid
2016-03-30, 04:54 PM
Better start looking for another group

Final Hyena
2016-03-30, 04:55 PM
The DM stormed off because his waifu was killed when he sent her after you..... A waifu he uses in every game.... And has loads of sexy pics of....

WOW.

Your DM has some problems. Now I can understand if your PCs do some crazy **** and you need to stop before continuing but this sounds like he was emotionally hurt. I would walk out, a good DM should be willing to accept in a game of D&D that people die, that anyone can die.

Douche
2016-03-30, 05:16 PM
So you guys are suggesting I take her corpse with me and skip town, then destroy all trace of it so she can never be true resurrected?

mephnick
2016-03-30, 05:19 PM
Never get attached to anything as a DM.

Cool character die randomly? Oh well.

Players bypassed a sweet encounter? Oh well.

Players missed a cool location? Eh, re-purpose it for later if it makes sense.

This is why you don't spend too much time prepping specific things. If you spend an hour creating a cool NPC or location you're already too attached to it. You'll force it into the session even if it doesn't fit and your campaign will suffer for it. Only get into specifics if your players show an interest in that thing. I had an entire 3 month campaign arc come out of a random encounter while travelling. Guess what I had originally prepped for that? "Revenant + cultist" on a table of 20 other random encounters. Once they focused on that unwritten story I prepped more specific things for it. They got dungeon crawls, NPCs and a whole new city out of a two word thing on a list of two word things.

Kish
2016-03-30, 05:20 PM
That's not how True Resurrection works. *blinks at the OP's name*

Zombimode
2016-03-30, 05:25 PM
So you guys are suggesting I take her corpse with me and skip town, then destroy all trace of it so she can never be true resurrected?

I can't speak for everyone, but that is not at all what I would suggest. Doing so would be dealing with an out-of-game problem in-game. And that almost never works.

Douche
2016-03-30, 05:25 PM
That's not how True Resurrection works. *blinks at the OP's name*

Oh goddammit I didn't see the part where it creates a new body of there is none (5e)

So what, do I keep like her hand or something so I can kill her again each time?

Jormengand
2016-03-30, 05:30 PM
Oh goddammit I didn't see the part where it creates a new body of there is none (5e)

So what, do I keep like her hand or something so I can kill her again each time?

If 5e TR is anything like in 3.5, the entire body is remade, so you'd just have a spare hand if you cut it off. Though if scrying works anything like 3.5, the hand would be useful for that.

Anonymouswizard
2016-03-30, 05:31 PM
So you guys are suggesting I take her corpse with me and skip town, then destroy all trace of it so she can never be true resurrected?

Skip town, because it's a good idea in character. I'd suggest not taking and destroying the body, just take any goodies, because you really don't want to annoy your DM anymore (seriously, a DM can just escalate until one of you two loses, you can't).


Eh, re-purpose it for later if it makes sense.

This is the first piece of GM advice I ever give. I plan to run an Eberron campaign at uni and the first mission will be to protect an official. If he gets killed in the first session or the PCs decide not to take it I'll repurpose the encounters (including the cool one where they fight an Artificier and his horde of golems and other constructs).

Talakeal
2016-03-30, 06:54 PM
This is an odd story, and I think we are missing a lot of vital contextual information.

Whose house was this at?

If the DM stomped out and left his stuff, why are you then going through his game notes?

I would honestly be surprised if you have the chance to "do" anything, the DM is probably not going to resume the game, or at least not without some significant demands.

Also, what alignment are your characters? Because that sort of behavior requires one to be seriously chaotic and or evil, and if the DM was expecting a standard "heroic" game this is probably a bigger problem then killing NPCs.

I mean, imagine in real life if the police came in to take an innocent suspect in for questioning and one of their friends jumped out and shot the cops; there would likely be a massive manhunt and the book would be thrown at him if he was taken alive at all.

Its really odd that you have a DM who would insert a Mary Sue NPC into the game and then let her be killed so casually. In most RPGs a single hit is extremely unlikely to kill anyone no matter how well you roll, and most immature DMs would throw in all sorts of plot armor to protect their beloved NPC.

If the description is accurate I expect the DM is both extremely immature and extremely inexperienced and they never saw this coming. If the campaign resumes I imagine you will be taken to task either in or out of character. Your character will probably be hunted down and killed by the forces of law and order (who may or may not cheat to do so) and then you will be told to either make a less sociopathic character or leave the game.

The Glyphstone
2016-03-30, 06:57 PM
This is an odd story, and I think we are missing a lot of vital contextual information.

Whose house was this at?

If the DM stomped out and left his stuff, why are you then going through his game notes?

I would honestly be surprised if you have the chance to "do" anything, the DM is probably not going to resume the game, or at least not without some significant demands.

Also, what alignment are your characters? Because that sort of behavior requires one to be seriously chaotic and or evil, and if the DM was expecting a standard "heroic" game this is probably a bigger problem then killing NPCs.

I mean, imagine in real life if the police came in to take an innocent suspect in for questioning and one of their friends jumped out and shot the cops; there would likely be a massive manhunt and the book would be thrown at him if he was taken alive at all.

Its really odd that you have a DM who would insert a Mary Sue NPC into the game and then let her be killed so casually. In most RPGs a single hit is extremely unlikely to kill anyone no matter how well you roll, and most immature DMs would throw in all sorts of plot armor to protect their beloved NPC.

If the description is accurate I expect the DM is both extremely immature and extremely inexperienced and they never saw this coming. If the campaign resumes I imagine you will be taken to task either in or out of character. Your character will probably be hunted down and killed by the forces of law and order (who may or may not cheat to do so) and then you will be told to either make a less sociopathic character or leave the game.

Aaaaaaaaand how well has this worked out for you in Bizarro Gaming World, where the PCs do things far crazier than this all the time?:smallconfused:

"Sneak attack in surprise round" is neither Chaotic nor Evil, when it's clear from the OP that diplomacy of the 'lets not you and him fight' was tried and failed. There was going to be a fight regardless, and when that is inevitable, getting the first hit in against the enemies (who are going to commit lethal violence against you) is just smart.

kamikasei
2016-03-30, 06:58 PM
What do
You know those dances players in American Football do to celebrate a touchdown?

Google them. Find clips on YouTube. Find the most obnoxious, elaborate, in-your-face one out there.

Re-enact it.

RazorChain
2016-03-30, 07:02 PM
Yeah, pretty much. A DM should never stat out an NPC he isn't prepared to lose.

Having said that, what level were you guys at where a single shot from a hand crossbow, even a crit, was enough to kill someone outright?

The GM should never have a NPC that he can't abide to lose. Never love your creations because the PC's will always find a way to destroy them :smallcool:


Question to the OP, why did your character kill her?

Talakeal
2016-03-30, 07:08 PM
Aaaaaaaaand how well has this worked out for you in Bizarro Gaming World, where the PCs do things far crazier than this all the time?:smallconfused:

"Sneak attack in surprise round" is neither Chaotic nor Evil, when it's clear from the OP that diplomacy of the 'lets not you and him fight' was tried and failed. There was going to be a fight regardless, and when that is inevitable, getting the first hit in against the enemies (who are going to commit lethal violence against you) is just smart.

I didn't see anything saying there was a fight. The impression I got was that the guards wanted to take the PCs in for questioning*, and the players refused to come peacefully. If the guard attacked the PCs, AND the "waifu" was weak enough to be killed in a single hit, then she was going to die regardless of "sneaky tactics" on the part of the OP.


As for my "bizarre world" experiences, do you mean as a PC or a DM? As a DM a lot of my horror stories involved a PC doing something stupid / evil and then dying as a natural consequence of their actions and then them calling me a "killer DM". I have also gotten at least two irredeemable murder hobos to leave the game and not come back afterward to our mutual satisfaction.

If you mean as a player with my last crazy DM, I don't know. He was constantly threatening to kick people out or take away / kill people's characters for violating his "rules" but I never actually got into a situation where I wanted to test his limits.


*: I assume this is supposed to be a plot hook, with the players going on a quest in exchange for a pardon and / or to clear their names.

Leon
2016-03-30, 07:27 PM
Sounds like it was for the best.

AvatarVecna
2016-03-30, 07:44 PM
I didn't see anything saying there was a fight. The impression I got was that the guards wanted to take the PCs in for questioning*, and the players refused to come peacefully.

In real life, if the cops came to my house and told me that I was being brought in for questioning, and I knew that Donald Trump had recently been murdered in my area, I would probably go with them instead of trying to kill the cops (especially since I would not have hypothetically murdered Donald Trump). This is for a lot of reasons: firstly, the justice system is vaguely dependable enough that I'm probably not going to go to prison for a murder I didn't commit, so I have no reason to believe resisting arrest is the key to my continued long-term freedom and happiness; beyond that, escaping murder charges by murdering the investigating officers is not likely to lead to getting away with murder in modern-day society, but it turns out that technology is pretty good at catching sloppy would-be murderers like I would be if I tried to kill two cops for investigating me in regards to the murder of Donald Trump. It wouldn't look good to murder the cops for asking questions, is my point, regardless of whether or not I actually killed Trump, which I didn't, because this is all hypothetical.

So there's three really big reasons why I, as a member of modern day first-world society, would not try and kill law enforcement officers for wanting to take me in for questioning regarding another murder: murdering somebody for asking questions about a murder doesn't make me look good, the system is un-corrupt enough that I believe I wouldn't be found guilty of a crime I didn't commit, and the system is too good at tracking down criminals for me to evade if I found myself wishing to evade punishment for the hypothetical multiple murders I haven't committed (and couldn't/wouldn't commit).

These three things are not problems for adventurers: the adventurers might not be able to trust the system to be impartial and actually determined their innocence/guilt (which is evidenced by how it's assumed that the outsiders are to blame for the mayor's murder), adding more bodies to the pile when the town is going to assume they're guilty isn't going to make things worse for them, and high-level characters (especially those with magic) have a surprising number of weird and powerful abilities that make evading the law fairly trivial.

A bit more to the point, while I agree that laying down arms and going with the waifu to your "questioning" is quite Lawful, it's not necessarily a Good deed to follow the railroad like a good little caboose. Similarly, even assuming that obeying the waifu's authority and submitting to "questioning" is a Lawful act, that doesn't make it Chaotic; sure, if you're not going along just because it's the Captain of the Guard "asking" you to come in for "questioning", that's Chaotic, but if you're refusing on the grounds that they don't have enough of a case to actually force you to participate, you're exercising your legal rights (assuming they even have such things). Similarly, killing the captain of the guard for asking you to come in for "questioning" is not a Good act, but that doesn't necessarily make it an Evil one by default. Murder is bad, yes, but murder of evil-doers is the backbone of the entire game system going back to AD&D; murdering a paladin who tries to bring you in for a murder you didn't commit is probably an Evil act, but murdering a blackguard who's trying to bring you in for such a murder is essentially using you as a scapegoat...which means he started it. And unfortunately for the DM, intentions are a large part of alignment; with how the rest of this seems to have been set up, the PCs had no reason to believe the suspicion placed on them was legitimate, or that any trial they received would be anything close to fair. Sure, they had no reason to believe it wouldn't be, but you don't become an adventurer by keeping your head down and doing whatever you're told to do, at least not without aspiring to some greater ordered purpose.

Sure, there's some flaws in this argument (some intentional, some not), but that's the nature of arguing alignment. And this is the biggest point I've got: even if the DM makes every last one of them Chaotic Evil for this act, and it turns out the authorities really were trying to question them (rather than "question" them), and it turns out that the town didn't actually immediately suspect the outsiders, it doesn't really matter, because the choices the players make in-character shape the story too. This could be the start of a whole new arc in their characters lives, as outlaws evading justice for one mistake that's haunting the rest of their lives. It would lead to some interesting stories and character interaction and moral dilemmas...or the DM could just take a mulligan and rewind through time far enough to give his waifu plot armor.

Malifice
2016-03-30, 08:05 PM
Well the OP is now an outlaw and a murderer. Killing cops is generally not wise at the very least.

But yeah. Weird.

Winter_Wolf
2016-03-30, 08:05 PM
Every time I see "waifu" I think of a waif that does some kind of weird models' martial art. When I found out what it really meant, I wasn't exactly crushed, but I was disappointed. Don't worry too much about killing the character off, DMs really shouldn't be doing that stuff anyway; as a GM I deal by having a private world for my own amusement and one that I fully expect the players will thrash. Very little overlap, and doesn't really matter because specific characters don't cross over.

I think the victory dance idea is funny as hell, but probably it won't make things better.

Thrudd
2016-03-30, 08:06 PM
Is this a real story?

Talakeal
2016-03-30, 08:13 PM
Every time I see "waifu" I think of a waif that does some kind of weird models' martial art. When I found out what it really meant, I wasn't exactly crushed, but I was disappointed. Don't worry too much about killing the character off, DMs really shouldn't be doing that stuff anyway; as a GM I deal by having a private world for my own amusement and one that I fully expect the players will thrash. Very little overlap, and doesn't really matter because specific characters don't cross over.

I think the victory dance idea is funny as hell, but probably it won't make things better.

No, you are thinking of waif-fu (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WaifFu).


Sure, there's some flaws in this argument (some intentional, some not), but that's the nature of arguing alignment. And this is the biggest point I've got: even if the DM makes every last one of them Chaotic Evil for this act, and it turns out the authorities really were trying to question them (rather than "question" them), and it turns out that the town didn't actually immediately suspect the outsiders, it doesn't really matter, because the choices the players make in-character shape the story too. This could be the start of a whole new arc in their characters lives, as outlaws evading justice for one mistake that's haunting the rest of their lives. It would lead to some interesting stories and character interaction and moral dilemmas...or the DM could just take a mulligan and rewind through time far enough to give his waifu plot armor.

This goes into boundaries and expectations. If the DM wants to run a traditional "heroic" game and the players want to play GTA: Tabletop Edition someone is going to be disappointed and likely feel like everyone else was just leading them on / wasting their time.

On the other hand, if the DM puts a "DMPC" into the game without giving them plot armor it is because they trust the PCs to respect their wishes. (It is a bit weird that all of the other PCs knew about the "recurring waifu NPC" and didn't say anything to the OP until after the event was already finished).


The DM shouldn't have to humor a player's sick fantasies, especially when the target of those fantasies is someone they consider their "wife".

Imagine how this story would go down if instead of "kill with slight provocation" it was "torture, rape, and / or murder in cold blood," I don't think that would be appreciated at all.

Or how about if the "victim" wasn't a "DMPC" but just another "PC"?

It might be "what my character would do" or even "what would be fun for me as a player," but it would be a gross violation of the social contract at almost every table I have ever played at.

Winter_Wolf
2016-03-30, 08:29 PM
No, you are thinking of waif-fu (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WaifFu) .

Well, yes. That's exactly what I was thinking of. I was blissfully unaware of what "waifu" meant until this February.

SirBellias
2016-03-30, 08:32 PM
I've found that acting like any NPC is more important than any other gets my players to target them with whatever they have. That's why I make every characters' name sound hastily made up on the spot and never reveal anyone's true importance. But really, you've done nothing wrong here. Just say it was what made the most sense at the time, and then the DM should respect how the dice fall.

Keltest
2016-03-30, 08:37 PM
I've found that acting like any NPC is more important than any other gets my players to target them with whatever they have. That's why I make every characters' name sound hastily made up on the spot and never reveal anyone's true importance. But really, you've done nothing wrong here. Just say it was what made the most sense at the time, and then the DM should respect how the dice fall.

My group is almost neurotic about remembering obscure NPCs that really serve no purpose beyond acting as a mouthpiece for someone important. Ask them to remember a name though....

We have such marvelous NPCs as Shiny Dwarf, Snooty Elf, Blue Dragon Guy and That Wizard. Most of them have names, and I am the only one who will remember them.

RazorChain
2016-03-30, 08:56 PM
My group is almost neurotic about remembering obscure NPCs that really serve no purpose beyond acting as a mouthpiece for someone important. Ask them to remember a name though....

We have such marvelous NPCs as Shiny Dwarf, Snooty Elf, Blue Dragon Guy and That Wizard. Most of them have names, and I am the only one who will remember them.

I keep a campaign log, that helps. And of course the players know that calling the Baron Rotchfort something else than his name, title or m'lord can have serious consequences, that is to his face of course.

Lawleepawpz
2016-03-30, 09:14 PM
Losing a lot of respect for these guys bashing the DM here.

Did he overreact? Yes.

Is he a bad DM throwing in DMPC's? I see no evidence of a DMPC. I see an NPC he liked. There is literally nothing wrong with that.

Like seriously, he even let the NPC die. You guys need to chill out and stop blaming DM's for every problem a player has.

And "not following the railroad" are you joking? Your definition of railroading must be "Playing D&D with a DM at all" for this to be considered railroading.

I'd do quotes but I'm on mobile.


OP, just play it out as if you had murdered an officer of the law. Because you did.

Kelb_Panthera
2016-03-30, 09:16 PM
This goes into boundaries and expectations. If the DM wants to run a traditional "heroic" game and the players want to play GTA: Tabletop Edition someone is going to be disappointed and likely feel like everyone else was just leading them on / wasting their time.

This has a bit of truth in it. It is important to get in a discussion about expectations and boundaries before the game starts in such a social game.


On the other hand, if the DM puts a "DMPC" into the game without giving them plot armor it is because they trust the PCs to respect their wishes. (It is a bit weird that all of the other PCs knew about the "recurring waifu NPC" and didn't say anything to the OP until after the event was already finished).

This, on the other hand, feels a bit presumptuous. I, for one, would put the rules ahead of -any- character on either side of the screen because I'm a gamist that way. I make that clear to my players up front and they're free to participate in the game or not based on whether that's the kind of game they like. I don't see much need for a DMPC but if I was to include one, I'd no more expect him not to be ganked for doing something stupid than I expect the players to refrain from ganking each other if one of them does something stupid. PVP is A-okay at my table as long as it's kept within reason.



The DM shouldn't have to humor a player's sick fantasies, especially when the target of those fantasies is someone they consider their "wife".

If they consider someone -they made up- to be their wife, I'd be questioning their ability to function as a human being, nevermind a DM.

That said, I do agree that anyone trying to push past the agreed upon boundaries that the group has set needs to get smacked down, figuratively, for the presumption. You don't get to make everyone else uncomfortable to get your jollies and this is one of the extremely few places where I feel that a DM saying, "No. Your character does -not- do that," is appropriate. Murder, however, would rarely constitute crossing that line IME. There's a reason we call them murder-hobos.


Imagine how this story would go down if instead of "kill with slight provocation" it was "torture, rape, and / or murder in cold blood," I don't think that would be appreciated at all.

False equivalence. It's very much expected that you'll be killing in most adventure games. It's quite another thing to capture, abuse, and execute a victim in graphic detail. The OP's 'victim' was someone in a pseudo-medieval setting, in a dangerous occupation, approaching suspected murderers, and approaching members of a known to be extremely dangerous occupation. That she was resisted forcefully isn't even a little surprising or she wouldn't have brought backup. It was nothing but the luck of the dice that she happened to eat a crossbow quarrel to the face and died in one shot.


Or how about if the "victim" wasn't a "DMPC" but just another "PC"?

What about it? Behaving differently for PC's than you do for NPC's is just metagaming. There's also no indication that the OP's target -was- a DMPC rather than just a pet NPC.


It might be "what my character would do" or even "what would be fun for me as a player," but it would be a gross violation of the social contract at almost every table I have ever played at.

It was a perfectly reasonable, genre-appropriate response to the situation. This isn't even "it's what my character would do" territory. It's just how these games are played for the most part. You approach murder-hobos with force, they respond with force. The problem here is a DM being entirely too attached to an NPC, nevermind an NPC in a high-risk profession.

Ralanr
2016-03-30, 09:40 PM
Apologize, say you didn't know and that it was the best action from your point of view at the time.

I'm pretty sure you can deal with whatever happens next.

Pyrous
2016-03-30, 10:35 PM
(It is a bit weird that all of the other PCs knew about the "recurring waifu NPC" and didn't say anything to the OP until after the event was already finished).


It's not weird at all: let the new guy try to kill Mary Sue.

It's rude, sure, but not weird.



Like seriously, he even let the NPC die.


This is weird.

He simply let the OP shoot her, confirmed an instakill headshot, and then stormed off.

Fair, unbiased, and weird.

Talakeal
2016-03-30, 10:48 PM
I am really curious about what level everyone was, assuming this is even D&D or a similar game.

The NPCs were almost certainly low level given the one-shot death. If the PCs were likely low level then they are probably going to die; murdering the captain of the town guard in public is not something people are quick to forgive and few low level PCs can survive mob justice or a determined manhunt by the local militia / sheriff's posse.

If the PCs are high level they are just kind of jerks, as they should have easily been able to escape or find a non-lethal option. Or even gone with the guards to see what they had to say and THEN busting out the violence.


@Kelb:

I am not trying to say it is equivalent. I am just saying that people have lines they don't like to see crossed in game. Clearly the OP crossed the DM's line, and I don't think people need to give him so much scorn for that.

And yes, it is "meta-gaming" not to upset other players at the table. But the game is supposed to be fun; not all meta-gaming is bad. (almost) No one would enjoy a game where the DM just randomly threw an overwhelmingly deadly encounter against the PCs right away because "CR appropriate encounters are meta-gaming", and likewise the DM has every right to not enjoy a game where the PCs kill random NPCs that they have put a lot of work into, respect needs to go both ways.

I personally have seen players break down in tears or even leave the game over their favorite NPCs dying.

While I agree that considering a fictional character your wife is extremely weird, it is apparently a thing, and I guess I can't judge too harshly. There are several fictional characters that I have grown extremely fond of over the years, and seeing them senselessly murdered would probably upset me a great deal even if it is all make believe.

goto124
2016-03-30, 11:19 PM
He simply let the OP shoot her, confirmed an instakill headshot, and then stormed off.

Fair, unbiased, and weird.

I think the DM isn't going to let her stay dead one way or another, and allowed the shot only because he was rather angry.

Better to not play a game than to play a bad game with an egotistic DM. Leave and find a better group, things will only get worse if you stay.


(It is a bit weird that all of the other PCs knew about the "recurring waifu NPC" and didn't say anything to the OP until after the event was already finished).

They probably thought it was normal DM behavior.

SethoMarkus
2016-03-30, 11:39 PM
They probably thought it was normal DM behavior.

I believe he meant in regards to, "no, dude, we don't kill that NPC, the GM has like, a thing, and we go along with it". Letting the new guy know that it would be unwise to take an action, as opposed to a warning that the GM is weird.

Malifice
2016-03-30, 11:45 PM
Have all the players buy this:

http://www.stampcommunity.org/uploaded/PostmasterGS/20120217_arrow_head.jpg

Ensure youre all wearing it when the DM arrives for the next session.

NichG
2016-03-30, 11:50 PM
Lots of posters here are saying 'don't have an NPC if you can't stand to lose them', but the DM in question did in fact allow things to play out and lost the NPC. A bad DM in that situation could have done any number of game-damaging things to protect their NPC, but this DM said 'okay, that happens and it pissed me off, so lets end here tonight since otherwise if I keep running the game in a pissed off state I won't be able to run things impartially'. Given the alternatives, be happy you have that kind of DM rather than the one who says 'nu-uh, rocks fall and you die'.

Players get pissed off when their characters get disrespected, railroaded, mind-controlled, or killed; especially if it happened in a way that it doesn't feel like they did anything wrong. DMs get pissed off when players do equivalent things to their settings, characters, and stories. Both sides need to accept that some degree of all of those things are going to happen (either by accident or just because the possibility of unpleasantness happening is needed for the game to have any tension whatsoever), and both sides need to accept that the other side is going to feel something negative when it happens. If that results in mockery, it just invites the person being mocked to feel a bit more justified to be unreasonable in the future. The DM who tries to shame the players about being murderhobos is just going to get even more murderhobo behavior out of those PCs, and the players who try to shame the DM for being attached to their characters and setting are just going to find the DM being a lot less considerate or forgiving of the PCs when they do something stupid that should get them killed.

Mr Beer
2016-03-30, 11:52 PM
Is this a real story?

I doubt it.

Lacco
2016-03-31, 03:15 AM
It was his waifu.

Just a question. What does "waifu" mean...?

I have seen the term several times, but the meaning is unclear to me. Anyone care to explain? :smallsmile:

Kelb_Panthera
2016-03-31, 03:22 AM
Just a question. What does "waifu" mean...?

I have seen the term several times, but the meaning is unclear to me. Anyone care to explain? :smallsmile:

Some people find themselves wishing they could marry certain fictional characters. When the fictional character is a lady from an anime and the person is particularly enamored of otaku culture they might refer to the object of their affection as their "waifu," a mispronunciation of 'wife' with an affected japanese accent.

Lorsa
2016-03-31, 04:08 AM
Is it bad that I had to google waifu?

Regardless of the events, unless it involves actual physical threats, people who respond to conflict by suddenly storming out of the room demonstrate a level of childishness that you should avoid hanging out with them. Unless they are five, but why would you like your five-yeah-old friend DM in the first place?

Lacco
2016-03-31, 04:10 AM
Some people find themselves wishing they could marry certain fictional characters. When the fictional character is a lady from an anime and the person is particularly enamored of otaku culture they might refer to the object of their affection as their "waifu," a mispronunciation of 'wife' with an affected japanese accent.

Ooook.

Thanks for clearing that up for me. Just one additional question:

While I understand the concept from certain point of view, I can't understand one thing.

Why would a sane GM put any fictional character they really like into such hazardous situation as confronting the PCs? Or anywhere near the confrontation (collateral damage is the new black)?? Or anywhere near PCs??? :smallbiggrin:

EDIT:

Is it bad that I had to google waifu?

Regardless of the events, unless it involves actual physical threats, people who respond to conflict by suddenly storming out of the room demonstrate a level of childishness that you should avoid hanging out with them. Unless they are five, but why would you like your five-yeah-old friend DM in the first place?

If it's bad, I'm guilty too. And I didn't want to google it - in some cases it's safer not to. My friends like pranks like that - "just google it", so I'm bit paranoid.

Malifice
2016-03-31, 04:13 AM
Ooook.

Thanks for clearing that up for me. Just one additional question:

While I understand the concept from certain point of view, I can't understand one thing.

Why would a sane GM put any fictional character they really like into such hazardous situation as confronting the PCs? Or anywhere near the confrontation (collateral damage is the new black)?? Or anywhere near PCs??? :smallbiggrin:

Dont worry. She'll be back reincarnated as an uberpowerful badass, replete with dual katanas to enact vengance on the PC's.

Kalmageddon
2016-03-31, 04:56 AM
Is this a real story?

Obviously not, but this has never stopped this forum from discussing it anyway.

Fizban
2016-03-31, 05:19 AM
The DM was not pleased. He ended the session early, right there, and stormed off. He left his belongings and I saw like 20 printouts of some nymph-looking anime pictures or something. I asked some of the party members what was the deal with him. They said he used that character in all of his campaigns. It was his waifu. I killed her.
I'd just like to point out that this is the only testimony we have of there being a so-called "waifu." Note that even in this quote the pictures are not directly connected to the NPC. If the OP would like to elaborate on their choice of terminology then please do so. Otherwise I would expect that he has assumed the connection between the pictures and the NPC, and chose the term "waifu" because it's catchy. I sincerely doubt that the DM's connection follows the proper definition of the term, so everyone basing their judgements upon that might want to reconsider.

As has been asked above, why were you going through his stuff? Frankly, while I'd not consider it a good idea mixing group game with personal projects, it's still none of your business what he does with his characters on his own time. You can read that both euphemistically and not: a fiction writer shouldn't go shoving their characters into games any more than whatever you're implying with "nymph-looking anime pictures" and "waifu" should.

So the DM has used this NPC a lot in other games, maybe this is a persistent campaign world? And said NPC has been rather important? And you just murdered her because "waug, NPCs cramping my style, die!" Yeah he's got plenty of right to storm off. As far as I'm concerned, the default of the game is *not* murdering NPCs who approach you non-violently (within city limits even), and the person committing the offense is at fault for not asking if that kind of behavior is okay at the table. So you should be apologizing at the least.

Oh, and as for the authenticity of the story in general: accusing someone of making things up on the internet never produces anything useful. Even if it's 100% fabricated, I'm 100% sure either that or something similar enough has happened in the past to someone, so I'll respond to it properly anyway trolls or no. Of course in this instance I'm mostly just pointing out that it's not a good idea to take a cultural slang word at face value with so little information. Bluntly, almost every time I see someone mention another person's "waifu," they're leveling an enormous amount of hate in that direction, for something that's none of their business (why yes I am a huge anime nerd reacting strongly to a word from that sphere). Weather or not there's a real DM on the other side of that accusation, I'm not cool with giving them a potentially undeserved label and then stigmatizing them for it. Everyone's been mostly polite so far but unless the OP wishes to defend his use of the word I'd say we switch over to something else.

Bonus: I think he mentioned the game is 5e, which should make it considerably more difficult to one-shot people since important NPCs can be afforded the same three death saves that PCs are. Which does continue to imply the DM is probably inexperienced in the rules required to protect important NPCs. I think sneak attack damage is multiplied on crits in 5e? That would make it more plausible.

neonchameleon
2016-03-31, 05:34 AM
I didn't see anything saying there was a fight. The impression I got was that the guards wanted to take the PCs in for questioning*, and the players refused to come peacefully.

It's well known that in any system where equipment is a large part of a character's power PCs will fight to the death to avoid a simple weapons check, never mind being captured. And that the best way to capture PCs in most systems (Fate being an exception) is to start the session "You are in the town jail. How did you end up there?" (Be prepared for epic yarns about what happens when mid-level PCs get drunk).

Lvl 2 Expert
2016-03-31, 06:12 AM
I don't think anyone really did anything wrong. Yeah, the DM uses a character he's too attached to in a combat role, sure. But he plays her like a champ, by not giving her plot armor and not turning back time to save her. Then he's a little too upset to think on his feet and immediately think of how the story continues at that point, but he makes the correct call in ending the session there to get some time to think things over. That all sounds like a good way to handle the situation. He probably realizes you didn't go after the character because you hate her, or him, but because it was a good solution to your predicament. That's gaming. From the players side: give him a little space, subtly check if he's okay/not turning into a revenge DM from hell and see what cool stuff he comes up with next. Honestly, he sounds like a good game master, be it one with a pretty particular quirk.

Going through his stuff may have been a little uncool, but you were probably meaning well, trying to see if there was anything there he'd need the next day.

Lorsa
2016-03-31, 06:21 AM
So the DM has used this NPC a lot in other games, maybe this is a persistent campaign world? And said NPC has been rather important? And you just murdered her because "waug, NPCs cramping my style, die!" Yeah he's got plenty of right to storm off. As far as I'm concerned, the default of the game is *not* murdering NPCs who approach you non-violently (within city limits even), and the person committing the offense is at fault for not asking if that kind of behavior is okay at the table. So you should be apologizing at the least.

As far as I'm concerned, there isn't a default game, which is why such restrictions need to be communicated ahead of time, and it's the DMs fault for not being clear what kind of behavior is okay at the table. It's not really feasible to require people to ask what sort of in-game actions are permitted or not.

I also stand by my earlier statement that noone has the "right" to storm off. It's a childish move that solves nothing. If your feelings are hurt you should talk about it, explain what upset you and why.

Talking about behavior that is default, I would say some OOC behavior can be assumed to be default, while in-game one is extremely table-dependent.

Gamgee
2016-03-31, 06:52 AM
I didn't see anything saying there was a fight. The impression I got was that the guards wanted to take the PCs in for questioning*, and the players refused to come peacefully. If the guard attacked the PCs, AND the "waifu" was weak enough to be killed in a single hit, then she was going to die regardless of "sneaky tactics" on the part of the OP.


As for my "bizarre world" experiences, do you mean as a PC or a DM? As a DM a lot of my horror stories involved a PC doing something stupid / evil and then dying as a natural consequence of their actions and then them calling me a "killer DM". I have also gotten at least two irredeemable murder hobos to leave the game and not come back afterward to our mutual satisfaction.

If you mean as a player with my last crazy DM, I don't know. He was constantly threatening to kick people out or take away / kill people's characters for violating his "rules" but I never actually got into a situation where I wanted to test his limits.


*: I assume this is supposed to be a plot hook, with the players going on a quest in exchange for a pardon and / or to clear their names.
This is what I got as well. Honestly if this is the case and it was my PC's I would have nothing less than the police hunting them down. Well the guilty one. The innocent ones in for questioning for two things now. However even if she was going to start a fight you struck first and lawful types can use that against you if you feel its justified or not. That's my take on the situation.

Cluedrew
2016-03-31, 07:12 AM
Is this a real story?Someone told it, so the story is real. And I don't think it actually matters if the events actually happened in real life.


Dont worry. She'll be back reincarnated as an uberpowerful badass, replete with dual katanas to enact vengance on the PC's.Or at least that is the tone I got.

Personally, I would say try to patch things up. People say that the GM is being childish, and in terms of this character that is true. But the GM ran the scene where their favourite NPC was killed fairly and then left (which is not ideal) rather than taking it out on the players. That's not great but that is still pretty good.

goto124
2016-03-31, 08:10 AM
Actually, stick around for a bit and see if the DM's really that bad. More evidence required.

Douche
2016-03-31, 08:40 AM
Oh gee, I wrote a long post responding to a lot of comments but I lost it.

Basically, though, we didn't go through his belongings without permission. We were playing at a bookstore. He left his folders and such all spread across the table. We saw multiple copies of the pictures (he was probably going to hand them out) as we were gathering his things so it didn't get stolen or thrown away.

To the Trump assassin - this isn't real life. To act as if all the rules of real life apply and you have to act like a normal person is a lack of empathy. I, for one, am roleplaying a lawless rogue who isn't going to jump through hoops for the satisfaction of some pitiful guard captain of a backwater hamlet.

We are level 17 and, as I stated, the town was out in the middle of nowhere. It wouldn't have made any sense for the guards to all be the Terminator.


Don't remember if I had any more details to offer but I'll try to respond if you guys need more details... We're playing again tonight, btw. Will probably give an update tomorrow.

daremetoidareyo
2016-03-31, 08:46 AM
So you guys are suggesting I take her corpse with me and skip town, then destroy all trace of it so she can never be true resurrected?

Defile the heck out of it in graphic detail.

Keep the brain in a jar, you might want to trade it to a mind flayer one day. Sell the heart to a local butcher, or just drop it in his display case. Turn the bladder into a wineskin. Cook the lungs into a stew. Feed the rest of the body to wild dogs.

goto124
2016-03-31, 08:50 AM
Thanks for letting us know! Can't wait to hear what happens next *twiddles thumbs*

Nerd-o-rama
2016-03-31, 09:24 AM
Answering this seriously (since apparently this was in fact a thing that really happened and not bad 4chan copypasta), in all honesty, the DM was probably more mad that you killed the plot hook than the character. Although why he thought "falsely accused by local yokel town guards" was going to be a feasible plothook for a group with access to 9th level spells just raises further questions.

Ralanr
2016-03-31, 09:26 AM
Obviously not, but this has never stopped this forum from discussing it anyway.

The words of a sage right here.

Segev
2016-03-31, 09:38 AM
Answering this seriously (since apparently this was in fact a thing that really happened and not bad 4chan copypasta), in all honesty, the DM was probably more mad that you killed the plot hook than the character. Although why he thought "falsely accused by local yokel town guards" was going to be a feasible plothook for a group with access to 9th level spells just raises further questions.

As this is the most generous interpretation, and assumes the most reasonable nature of the person involved, I'd go with this one, absent evidence to the contrary. People are generally a lot more reasonable than you think they are, at least in Western society. (Cultures full of people are often a lot LESS reasonable than you think they would be, because their cultural expectations are alien to yours. This is not in general a negative statement about either culture involved, but just a note that this blanket rule only applies when there is a shared culture. And I mean "culture," not "subculture.")

And yeah, expecting 17th level adventurers to "just go along" with a local authority figure because it's an authority figure is...a little silly. Honestly, 17th level adventurers in a tiny hamlet probably should be being treated much like if a known polymorphed great wyrm were visiting: with great respect and not a little caution. Not unlike how The Bad Guy of most Westerns gets treated when he comes into town. Even if they lack a reputation for villainy, the fact that 5 living nuclear devices that are capable of ruining lives on anything from a personal to a village-wide (and beyond) scale are walking around town should make locals want to make darned sure those devices don't have their metaphorical buttons pushed. Who knows which one might detonate at what level?

Âmesang
2016-03-31, 10:12 AM
We are level 17 and, as I stated, the town was out in the middle of nowhere. It wouldn't have made any sense for the guards to all be the Terminator.
Unless you're in Britannia; to qualify as a knight/guard you have to kill a number of high-level monsters single-handedly, including a balrog. :smalltongue: Forget the Shadow Lords, the real threat of Ultima V were the guards.

ngilop
2016-03-31, 10:22 AM
read every post in here to find out what a waifu is. was extremely disappointed.

Anonymouswizard
2016-03-31, 11:34 AM
And yeah, expecting 17th level adventurers to "just go along" with a local authority figure because it's an authority figure is...a little silly. Honestly, 17th level adventurers in a tiny hamlet probably should be being treated much like if a known polymorphed great wyrm were visiting: with great respect and not a little caution. Not unlike how The Bad Guy of most Westerns gets treated when he comes into town. Even if they lack a reputation for villainy, the fact that 5 living nuclear devices that are capable of ruining lives on anything from a personal to a village-wide (and beyond) scale are walking around town should make locals want to make darned sure those devices don't have their metaphorical buttons pushed. Who knows which one might detonate at what level?

Assuming you can tell this (in 3.X it wouldn't be hard due to all the extra glowing magical gear, but in a system such as Anima which doesn't rely on gear as heavily it could be impossible before combat begins). If they were identified it would be less 'come in for questioning' and more 'did you do this? No? Okay, now my next suspect is on the other side of town' unless they brought serious mojo (which in some settings makes sense for a hamlet, and in others doesn't). But it all depends.

Adeon Hawkwood
2016-03-31, 11:38 AM
read every post in here to find out what a waifu is. was extremely disappointed.
It basically just means a fictional character that the person has a crush on. I've occasionally seen it applied to a real person but in general in that case it's still referring to a fictionalized version of a person (i.e. the stage persona of a performer as opposed to the performer themselves).

Pyrous
2016-03-31, 11:46 AM
We are level 17 and, as I stated, the town was out in the middle of nowhere. It wouldn't have made any sense for the guards to all be the Terminator.


If this is the case, they couldn't do anything harmful to you. The worst that could happen was plot exposition. You could let the other PCs go with the cops and, if needed, break your friends out of jail. Or they could fight the cops without killing them.

Apologize OOC and (optionally) pay for a resurrection IC.

@Segev: Do the people in the hamlet know that these are The Legendary Heroes that everyone is talking about?


Defile the heck out of it in graphic detail.

Keep the brain in a jar, you might want to trade it to a mind flayer one day. Sell the heart to a local butcher, or just drop it in his display case. Turn the bladder into a wineskin. Cook the lungs into a stew. Feed the rest of the body to wild dogs.

"Tear down the world! Murder everyone! Piss on their graves!"

Mr.Moron
2016-03-31, 12:04 PM
It was probably just a difference play styles. He was probably expecting a game where characters act somewhat cooperatively when confronted with legitimate authority figures who present no real threat and are willing to entertain at least mild, temporary inconveniences to avoid shedding innocent blood.

You were expecting a game where the first and most reasonable reaction to anything and anyone you find obnoxious is swift and lethal retaliation, even when they stand no chance of posing any real threat to you.

These are incompatible expectations and so when broken led to the party on the wrong side of that expectation break to get upset. He certainly then handled it a bit poorly. His reaction is a problem, but at the same time you guys wanted to be in playing entirely different games to begin with. Nothing will ever end well when two or more parties come to the same table wanting different things out of it.

Red Fel
2016-03-31, 12:07 PM
read every post in here to find out what a waifu is. was extremely disappointed.


It basically just means a fictional character that the person has a crush on. I've occasionally seen it applied to a real person but in general in that case it's still referring to a fictionalized version of a person (i.e. the stage persona of a performer as opposed to the performer themselves).

Yeah, this. It's an "Engrish" version of the word "wife," and emerged in various fandoms (primarily anime and video games) where fans would talk about a particular female character they would want to marry or protect or what-have-you. Sort of like an imaginary girlfriend crossed with a porcelain doll.

sktarq
2016-03-31, 12:11 PM
If this is the case, they couldn't do anything harmful to you. The worst that could happen was plot exposition. You could let the other PCs go with the cops and, if needed, break your friends out of jail. Or they could fight the cops without killing them.

Apologize OOC and (optionally) pay for a resurrection IC.

not really. If you're that powerful showing up with a bunch of guards and trying to tel a group of people who you suspect have not only just declared war on the town but could win a mob war....expecting them to come along nicely is pretty silly. I'd have said "If you want to talk we can talk here" which sounds like what this party did.

what do? Congrats you just killed an officer of the law. your options are limited. Option one is take over the town, hand it to an ally and move on. Option two is to just bail and spread word that someone is attacking powerful people there and call in backup....your backup. Option three if you are already evil and the town isn't that big you could just wipe it off the face of the planet. Option four just tell the remaining guards that if they want to talk about the lords death they should go off raise this lady (which may not be possible in this town) and come back and ask politely.

Anonymouswizard
2016-03-31, 01:28 PM
Sort of like an imaginary girlfriend crossed with a porcelain doll.

In other words, a Canadian porcelain doll?

(Apologies to Canadians and those with Canadian partners, I think I can see the door over there)

Segev
2016-03-31, 01:33 PM
If this is the case, they couldn't do anything harmful to you. The worst that could happen was plot exposition. You could let the other PCs go with the cops and, if needed, break your friends out of jail. Or they could fight the cops without killing them.

Apologize OOC and (optionally) pay for a resurrection IC.Good advice on paying for a resurrection. Especially if you have a cleric in the party; get him to cast it for you and reimburse him for the gem.


@Segev: Do the people in the hamlet know that these are The Legendary Heroes that everyone is talking about?

Possibly not, but 17th level adventurers tend to be...pretty obvious. Unless they're making pains to be inconspicuous. Even if they don't have famous faces, the fact that there is amazing-looking gear dripping off of them is clue #1. If they didn't know, and thought "the strangers in town" looked like any other seedy group of random travelers...lots of people failed Sense Motive checks, methinks.

Kelb_Panthera
2016-03-31, 01:37 PM
As this is the most generous interpretation, and assumes the most reasonable nature of the person involved, I'd go with this one, absent evidence to the contrary. People are generally a lot more reasonable than you think they are, at least in Western society. (Cultures full of people are often a lot LESS reasonable than you think they would be, because their cultural expectations are alien to yours. This is not in general a negative statement about either culture involved, but just a note that this blanket rule only applies when there is a shared culture. And I mean "culture," not "subculture.")

I'd apply this to both culture and subculture. There's at least one subculture that I'm aware of that is comprised almost entirely of half-insane ideologs that regularly turn on each other when they're not condemning the world at large.


And yeah, expecting 17th level adventurers to "just go along" with a local authority figure because it's an authority figure is...a little silly. Honestly, 17th level adventurers in a tiny hamlet probably should be being treated much like if a known polymorphed great wyrm were visiting: with great respect and not a little caution. Not unlike how The Bad Guy of most Westerns gets treated when he comes into town. Even if they lack a reputation for villainy, the fact that 5 living nuclear devices that are capable of ruining lives on anything from a personal to a village-wide (and beyond) scale are walking around town should make locals want to make darned sure those devices don't have their metaphorical buttons pushed. Who knows which one might detonate at what level?

Level 17 adventurers are best treated like natural disasters waiting to happen, IMO. When you see them coming you give them a wide berth and hope they blow-over without destroying too much of your town.



Ooook.

Thanks for clearing that up for me. Just one additional question:

While I understand the concept from certain point of view, I can't understand one thing.

Why would a sane GM put any fictional character they really like into such hazardous situation as confronting the PCs? Or anywhere near the confrontation (collateral damage is the new black)?? Or anywhere near PCs??? :smallbiggrin:

If you can figure that one out then you're a wiser man than I.

Talakeal
2016-03-31, 01:38 PM
It was probably just a difference play styles. He was probably expecting a game where characters act somewhat cooperatively when confronted with legitimate authority figures who present no real threat and are willing to entertain at least mild, temporary inconveniences to avoid shedding innocent blood.

You were expecting a game where the first and most reasonable reaction to anything and anyone you find obnoxious is swift and lethal retaliation, even when they stand no chance of posing any real threat to you.

These are incompatible expectations and so when broken led to the party on the wrong side of that expectation break to get upset. He certainly then handled it a bit poorly. His reaction is a problem, but at the same time you guys wanted to be in playing entirely different games to begin with. Nothing will ever end well when two or more parties come to the same table wanting different things out of it.

This pretty much sums up my feelings on the matter.

The Fury
2016-03-31, 03:32 PM
Just two questions: When you and your crew climbed up into the rafters, were there no other patrons in the tavern to point you out to the guards? If so, this raises further questions. If not, I guess it was a tavern that had fallen on some real hard times.

Second question: What the heck kind of Mary Sue dies in one lucky shot?

Talakeal
2016-03-31, 03:45 PM
This thread reminds me of the classic "Old Man Henderson" story. The player tries to get one over on the GM, but for some reason the GM goes out of his way to let it happen.

Douche
2016-03-31, 03:47 PM
Just two questions: When you and your crew climbed up into the rafters, were there no other patrons in the tavern to point you out to the guards? If so, this raises further questions. If not, I guess it was a tavern that had fallen on some real hard times.

Second question: What the heck kind of Mary Sue dies in one lucky shot?

The tavern had other people in there.... And I would like to know how you imagine that I got a sneak attack in when the NPC interrogating us, about to take us into custody, was having a conversation with us while everyone is just hanging out in the rafters.

I was the only one up there. And I got up there cuz I'm great.


Also, I don't like all these people ITT implying that I'm evil.

Lurkmoar
2016-03-31, 03:54 PM
This thread reminds me of the classic "Old Man Henderson" story. The player tries to get one over on the GM, but for some reason the GM goes out of his way to let it happen.

Player ego stroked DM until all the pieces were in place. Old Man Henderson was a long burn. This was a fire cracker.

Talakeal
2016-03-31, 04:56 PM
Player ego stroked DM until all the pieces were in place. Old Man Henderson was a long burn. This was a fire cracker.

True, but they do require the DM not only abandoning all plot armor but the basic rules of the game to allow plans to work. Dynamite wont perma kill a great old one in CoC and one crossbow bolt won't kill someone in 5e.

Although I guess the latter could happen if there is a huge gap in levels between the attacker and the defender, but that skill requires the DM to send such an underleveled challenge against the PCs.




Also, I don't like all these people ITT implying that I'm evil.

I get you there. I personally hate it when people insist my character turns evil for using a spell with the (evil) descriptor for a good purpose or say that I objectively did the wrong thing when I choose between the lesser of two evils.

I am not saying you are evil, either as a player or character.

In my opinion attacking a lawful representative of the law who is just doing their job is a chaotic act, and killing a good person who poses no immediate threat to you or others is an evil act.

One act doesnt neccesarily mean that your character is evil or a bad person, but it might be enough to throw the DM off his game if everyone is playing a character with a good alignment written on their character sheets as he expected a standard "heroic" campaign.

Nerd-o-rama
2016-03-31, 05:11 PM
Also, I don't like all these people ITT implying that I'm evil.

Well, fatally shooting his way out of a basic police questioning is literally the only data point we have for your character. I'm not saying your character is evil, but it speaks to a certain callous pragmatism, and we have absolutely nothing else to go on.

Obviously no one should be making assumptions about you as a player, though.

Pyrous
2016-03-31, 05:20 PM
Obviously no one should be making assumptions about you as a player, though.

The username doesn't help, though...

Kelb_Panthera
2016-03-31, 05:26 PM
Also, I don't like all these people ITT implying that I'm evil.

No one is implying that -you- are evil. Your character, on the other hand, might be. He's clearly got no problem with killing to avoid an inconvenience, unless you have some reason to believe, beyond authority = bad, that you would have been sold up the river and hung if you surrendered. One data point is no where near enough to say for certain but the one we have speaks in that direction, if only slightly.

Also note that, while he may not be evil, he's certainly ignoble. You can have a sneaky, anti-authoritarian hero but shooting a town guard in the face simply for being a town guard is not remotely heroic. There's a rather expansive gray area between 'not a hero' and evil but you're definitely in that gray area.

Coidzor
2016-03-31, 05:43 PM
"It was a mercy killing." - Dr. Frank-N-Furter.

Anyway, I'd have one of the other players remind the DM about revenants and see where this rabbit hole leads.

Vinyadan
2016-03-31, 06:32 PM
Keep the brain in a jar, you might want to trade it to a mind flayer one day. Sell the heart to a local butcher, or just drop it in his display case. Turn the bladder into a wineskin. Cook the lungs into a stew. Feed the rest of the body to wild dogs.

Make a drinking glass out of the skull, a flute out of the tibia, a harp of the chest bone, a bagpipe of the stomach (to be daily greased with honey to grant elasticity), peruse the smaller bones to be encased in gold and sold away to the local temples as reliquaries, use one of the fingers as a token of luck for your character's loved one... The Middle Ages were pretty full of ideas.

Winter_Wolf
2016-03-31, 06:50 PM
Make a drinking glass out of the skull, a flute out of the tibia, a harp of the chest bone, a bagpipe of the stomach (to be daily greased with honey to grant elasticity), peruse the smaller bones to be encased in gold and sold away to the local temples as reliquaries, use one of the fingers as a token of luck for your character's loved one... The Middle Ages were pretty full of ideas.

Man I'm sorry, but "chest bone"? Like, singular, like just the sternum? Again, sorry, but I gotta be that guy. There's a lot of bones in the chest region. Ooh, ribcage xylophone!

Coidzor
2016-03-31, 07:46 PM
Ornamental batons out of the femur and other long limb bones.

Rings and bracelets for teensy races made from the finger and toe bones.

Mr.Moron
2016-03-31, 08:04 PM
The tavern had other people in there.... And I would like to know how you imagine that I got a sneak attack in when the NPC interrogating us, about to take us into custody, was having a conversation with us while everyone is just hanging out in the rafters.

I was the only one up there. And I got up there cuz I'm great.


Also, I don't like all these people ITT implying that I'm evil.

Nobody is implying it. Your character's actions are blatantly and unambiguously evil.

You shot someone who has no threat to you because they were "Obnoxious":


They made their entrance quite obnoxiously so I hid up in the rafters. My party failed in talking their way out of it, so I fired my hand crossbow and crit her in the face, killing her instantly.

and because you were a just to bad-ass jump through administrative hoops


To the Trump assassin - this isn't real life. To act as if all the rules of real life apply and you have to act like a normal person is a lack of empathy. I, for one, am roleplaying a lawless rogue who isn't going to jump through hoops for the satisfaction of some pitiful guard captain of a backwater hamlet.

Your character killed another human being simply because not doing so would be inconvenient. He killed someone because his inflated ego wouldn't let him stoop to humouring someone he saw as beneath him. Someone just doing their job walked in posed no threat and wanted compliance with a simple process of law that your character could of walked walked away from any point (17th level party vs bumpkin guard captain).

That's cold-blooded murder plain and simple at the very best. It's evil with a capital "E" no ifs and ors buts. "It'd hurt my self-image" and "I don't have the patience" to deal with this are as petty and inexcusable reasons you could have to kill a person.

That isn't to say playing a reprehensible, arrogant murderer is bad. Suchy charactes can make for engaging fiction. However let's not pretend the events you've described in your own words paint a picture of anything but that.



Just two questions: When you and your crew climbed up into the rafters, were there no other patrons in the tavern to point you out to the guards? If so, this raises further questions. If not, I guess it was a tavern that had fallen on some real hard times.

Second question: What the heck kind of Mary Sue dies in one lucky shot?

One that isn't at all. Let's face it if the DM was acting in bad faith here and wanted to have some kind of fanfiction wankery for what the op insists terming as his "Waifu" he would have done just that. The fact that the dice were allowed to fall where they did is de facto proof she wasn't some mary-sue super NPC. Those don't die to single arrow shots, no matter how bad the DM is at charOP. It was just a regular NPC, one that happened to share a name and appearance with others that the DM has used before.

If she's dead there was no special hand of god (the DM) protecting her or giving her favor.

Pyrous
2016-03-31, 08:45 PM
Nobody is implying it. Your character's actions are blatantly and unambiguously evil.

Technically, the OP is implying their character is Evil.

Malifice
2016-03-31, 08:48 PM
The tavern had other people in there.... And I would like to know how you imagine that I got a sneak attack in when the NPC interrogating us, about to take us into custody, was having a conversation with us while everyone is just hanging out in the rafters.

I was the only one up there. And I got up there cuz I'm great.


Also, I don't like all these people ITT implying that I'm evil.

Your character clearly is. Or a least I'd certainly note in my DMs notes that you were evil If I was the DM.

But thats up to individual DMs. Just saying in my campaign what you did was clearly an act of arbitrary violence and murder. If I was playing in that campaign as a good aligned PC I would probably refuse to adventure with such a callous monster whose prepared to murder someone so readily.

But thats just me. YMMV.

Pyrous
2016-03-31, 09:02 PM
Nobody is implying it.

Also, I was implying it here:


If this is the case, they couldn't do anything harmful to you. The worst that could happen was plot exposition. You could let the other PCs go with the cops and, if needed, break your friends out of jail. Or they could fight the cops without killing them.

Apologize OOC and (optionally) pay for a resurrection IC.

That parenthesis make it clear.

@OP: pay for 2 resurrections.

Mr.Moron
2016-03-31, 09:17 PM
Also, I was implying it here:



That parenthesis make it clear.

@OP: pay for 2 resurrections.

I stand corrected. Allow me to rephrase:
"It's no surprise at least one guy is implying, but for clarity let me explicitly lay it down for you kid"

Can now stand in place of the first sentence in my previous post.

Pyrous
2016-03-31, 09:23 PM
I stand corrected. Allow me to rephrase:
"It's no surprise at least one guy is implying, but for clarity let me explicitly lay it down for you kid"

Can now stand in place of the first sentence in my previous post.

Much better...

Edit: I was going to post something similar to your post, but my frigging cellphone was not cooperating.

8BitNinja
2016-03-31, 09:28 PM
He had a female NPC as the captain of the guard in some town we were visiting. I was at the tavern with my bros when it turns out that the lord had been slain, and the first people to be suspected were the outsiders. So Marion Suella shows up at the tavern with her Joe Schmoe guard bros. They made their entrance quite obnoxiously so I hid up in the rafters. My party failed in talking their way out of it, so I fired my hand crossbow and crit her in the face, killing her instantly.

The DM was not pleased. He ended the session early, right there, and stormed off. He left his belongings and I saw like 20 printouts of some nymph-looking anime pictures or something. I asked some of the party members what was the deal with him. They said he used that character in all of his campaigns. It was his waifu. I killed her.

What do

Nice bro

No seriously, do you know how much I would love to kill someone's pet NPC they were way into. It's kind of weird and I would love to bring justice to my fellow PCs

What did the pictures look like? I'm curious

Talakeal
2016-03-31, 09:39 PM
Out of curiosity, how long had the game been going onat this point?

If the guy is really so obsessed with the NPC and uses her in every game it is odd that he would wait a while before introducing her, but level 17 seems like an odd place to start the game.

Pyrous
2016-03-31, 09:43 PM
Nice bro

No seriously, do you know how much I would love to kill someone's pet NPC they were way into. It's kind of weird and I would love to bring justice to my fellow PCs

What did the pictures look like? I'm curious

And you call yourself a Paladin?! What is wrong with you?

The Fury
2016-03-31, 11:15 PM
The tavern had other people in there.... And I would like to know how you imagine that I got a sneak attack in when the NPC interrogating us, about to take us into custody, was having a conversation with us while everyone is just hanging out in the rafters.

I was the only one up there. And I got up there cuz I'm great.


Also, I don't like all these people ITT implying that I'm evil.

Ah, OK then. I have seen strategies attempted that could be described as "Let's all get up in the rafters like ninjas and suckerpunch these bozos!"

Usually plans like that don't go well which is the reason for my question.

I guess I must've missed the part about the party failing to talk their way out of the situation, I see it now I went back and reread your original post. I guess I originally imagined the NPC walks into the tavern-- SPLAT! Oh, she's dead now.

Lacco
2016-04-01, 01:02 AM
If you can figure that one out then you're a wiser man than I.

Well, the potential motivation could be to share the gorgeousness of this NPC with the others. But clearly the intent for her to be the "friendly NPC you really should get to know" wasn't communicated enough (i.e. she didn't try to fight for the PC's immediately).


Nobody is implying it. Your character's actions are blatantly and unambiguously evil.

While I don't play with alignments so no character is clearly "evil" in my games, I can get behind the assessment Mr.Moron gave (at least the first part). The actions of your character would be perceived as evil even at my table - and most other PCs would immediately turn against you.

They have been in similar situation - a captain of guard has ordered them to follow him on account of them being arrested. They were armed, and could have taken him and his escort down. And they had quite the legend in the world already.

The barbarian leader stood his ground - and refused to leave the inn on account they did not do anything. Nobody touched their weapons, even the assassin, and they calmly explained the captain that they will not go.

After getting common understanding that they could wipe the floor with him and his forces, the captain politely asked them to come with him - fully armed - to discuss their crime. They went, on their own conditions.

I talked to the group leader after the session and he explained - if they attacked him, he would have defended himself and his companions. But they did not - and the fact that they were arrogant at the beginning does not give him right to kill them.

It was wonderful moment and I was proud of him. Then he started to count the things it gave him right to (including cutting of their right hands...)... so, step forward, step backward... :smallbiggrin:

Kelb_Panthera
2016-04-01, 01:25 AM
Nice bro

No seriously, do you know how much I would love to kill someone's pet NPC they were way into. It's kind of weird and I would love to bring justice to my fellow PCs

What did the pictures look like? I'm curious


And you call yourself a Paladin?! What is wrong with you?

Gonna have to echo Pyrous here. I'm certainly not above ganking an insufferable DM expy or mary sue NPC but this speaks to a certain level of pavlovian response and is -entirely- out of bounds for a paladin, barring at -least- a positive detect evil ping if not significantly more proof of smite-worthiness.

Coidzor
2016-04-01, 03:47 AM
Well, his username does involve ninja.

Vinyadan
2016-04-01, 04:12 AM
Man I'm sorry, but "chest bone"? Like, singular, like just the sternum? Again, sorry, but I gotta be that guy. There's a lot of bones in the chest region. Ooh, ribcage xylophone!

I take no responsibility (http://www.celticlyricscorner.net/oldblinddogs/cruelsister.htm) :P I also remember a "they made harp pins of her fingers fair", but that must be another version.

Centik
2016-04-01, 04:31 AM
Dont worry. She'll be back reincarnated as an uberpowerful badass, replete with dual katanas to enact vengance on the PC's.

That killed me. :biggrin:

AvatarVecna
2016-04-01, 09:04 AM
To the Trump assassin - this isn't real life. To act as if all the rules of real life apply and you have to act like a normal person is a lack of empathy. I, for one, am roleplaying a lawless rogue who isn't going to jump through hoops for the satisfaction of some pitiful guard captain of a backwater hamlet.

Presuming you're talking about me (despite the fact that I did not bludgeon Donald Trump to death with an oversized poodle mannequin), I would like to point out that this was, in fact, the point of that post:


So there's three really big reasons why I, as a member of modern day first-world society, would not try and kill law enforcement officers for wanting to take me in for questioning regarding another murder: murdering somebody for asking questions about a murder doesn't make me look good, the system is un-corrupt enough that I believe I wouldn't be found guilty of a crime I didn't commit, and the system is too good at tracking down criminals for me to evade if I found myself wishing to evade punishment for the hypothetical multiple murders I haven't committed (and couldn't/wouldn't commit).

These three things are not problems for adventurers: the adventurers might not be able to trust the system to be impartial and actually determined their innocence/guilt (which is evidenced by how it's assumed that the outsiders are to blame for the mayor's murder), adding more bodies to the pile when the town is going to assume they're guilty isn't going to make things worse for them, and high-level characters (especially those with magic) have a surprising number of weird and powerful abilities that make evading the law fairly trivial.

The emphasized part of my argument (the bolded parts) are basically saying "this is why I wouldn't do this IRL, but literally none of those reasons would be an issue for adventurers".

Thialfi
2016-04-01, 09:39 AM
This thread has two elements. A DM who is overly attached to his NPC and a player who is overly attached to being a choas loving murder hobo and expects no consequences.

In any scenario I would ever run killing the captain of the guard who is investigating a crime is the equivalent of begging me to kill your character.

8BitNinja
2016-04-01, 09:52 AM
And you call yourself a Paladin?! What is wrong with you?

I just usually play with really messed up DMs, so the pet NPCs I run into are ususally evil

Segev
2016-04-01, 10:09 AM
This thread has two elements. A DM who is overly attached to his NPC and a player who is overly attached to being a choas loving murder hobo and expects no consequences.Where did the OP say he expected no consequences? I mean, I get where one can feel for the DM, here, if one assumes the DM is expecting heroic, upstanding types who play along with legitimate authorities, but it's a bit unfair to accuse the OP of expecting no consequences. He's not whining that the DM had his character jailed or otherwise punished in game for his actions.


In any scenario I would ever run killing the captain of the guard who is investigating a crime is the equivalent of begging me to kill your character.You expect a relatively narrow band of alignments from your PCs, then. Which is fine, but is a personal preference, not a blanket requirement for "good players" to obey at all, or even necessarily most, tables.

OldTrees1
2016-04-01, 10:09 AM
What do?

Here are the relevant facts:
1) You did not intend or expect to cause your friend(the DM) distress [You were not malicious]
2) Independent observers using the same information you had agree that distress was not expected. [You were not negligent]
3) Your friend was distressed. [Obviously an outcome you dislike since they are your friend]
Conclusion: Apologize. You neither intended nor expected the distress but you regret the distress(actual word choice may very with important differences but the general message of actively not wanting your friend to suffer is important). This will help soften but not cure the wound they feel.


Oh, and of course expect the reasonable in game outcome of your in game actions(letting go of an apple causes it to fall, attacking/killing an officer ...)

johnbragg
2016-04-01, 10:46 AM
I think OP may have over-reacted, unless the character is evil. A Rogue 17 dropping from the ceiling with an unarmed strike still does a handful of 9d6 nonlethal Sneak Attack damage minimum, and has the Tumble ranks to pull it off brilliantly.

So yeah, he killed the captain of the guard when he didn't particularly have to.

There are moral and pragmatic reasons to not use lethal violence in town. I just introduced my players (my 8-10 year old children) to an NPC party in a tavern in a no-weapons-out, magic-basically-not-allowed town. (The NPC party are more-or-less typical amoral murderhobos). The town guards were royal jerks, as high school villain-ish as I could make them, mocking the PCs. The guards started harassing the NPC wizard, asking her to dance (there was specifically no bard in the tavern), and after the guards made physical contact (hand on shoulder "Don't touch me") she dropped a sleep and then a glitterdust spell on the guards. The PCs tried to make peace, then got in the escaping the NPCs way and fought them for a few rounds, then took a bribe to stop fighting and let the NPCs go. (I'm so proud. Sniff.) Then they gave the bartender half the bribe so that He, also, didn't see the PC cast a spell, or the PC who drew a weapon or the PCs who took a bribe.

So the NPC party tries to fight their way out of the tavern--with unarmed attacks. Because assault on a guard or public mayhem or what have you is a minor crime (fatten the local captain-of-the-guard's treasury with a big fine) compared to, say, murder. Even where the crime might be the same (unauthorized magic within the town walls), there's going to be a difference with how the authorities react to dropping a guard or a townsperson with sleep and how they react to killing a townsperson or guard with magic missile.

Which reminds me I need to make sure the NPC party lets the PCs know that they'll work out their legal troubles in STronghold when they get the cash. 6 counts of assault on a guard, 4 counts of illegal spellcasting, 6 counts of fleeing from justice tolls up to 1600 silver. Captain can take a discount, or the NPCs can keep avoiding the town without much difficulty. (Of course the PCs are going to encounter the NPC party again. Duh.)

Douche
2016-04-01, 11:04 AM
We ended up killing the entire village. Pretty anticlimactic, tbh.

It wasn't my fault though. The barb in the party just started chopping heads off, and when he starts raging he doesn't want it to drop so he killed innocents when it was necessary. The town ended up forming a militia or whatever, had farmers with pitchforks swarming us.

Our party cleric was opposed to this so he walked away. I went into damage control and started mutilating corpses like you guys suggested. It was the only way to ensure that this did not come back to haunt us.

In the end our DM said this is bullcrap and made us all NPCs. Then he said we can continue the campaign as survivors of this massacre. Only the cleric got to keep his character. The rest of us are level 2 and have to make new characters.

Vinyadan
2016-04-01, 11:12 AM
In the end our DM said this is bullcrap and made us all NPCs. Then he said we can continue the campaign as survivors of this massacre. Only the cleric got to keep his character. The rest of us are level 2 and have to make new characters.

Is there some sort of Murderin class? This would be a nice time to try it out.

Is the cleric level 17? How do you handle a party with big differences in level?

Pyrous
2016-04-01, 11:20 AM
Is the cleric level 17? How do you handle a party with big differences in level?

With a level 17 cleric opposed to murder.

Geordnet
2016-04-01, 11:38 AM
Is there some sort of Murderin class? This would be a nice time to try it out.

Is the cleric level 17? How do you handle a party with big differences in level?
Cleric acts as the leader/shepherd instead of an equal party member. His goal is to guide everyone else to make sure they don't end up like his former party members.

Think of him like the Inquisitor in Dark Heresy, only as the One Sane Man in a campaign where the acolytes are crazier than the cultists.

johnbragg
2016-04-01, 11:53 AM
We ended up killing the entire village. Pretty anticlimactic, tbh.

Umm, Evil.


It wasn't my fault though. The barb in the party just started chopping heads off, and when he starts raging he doesn't want it to drop so he killed innocents when it was necessary.

And it's totally impossible for a level 17 party to take down a raging level 17 barbarian. UMD and scrolls of calm emotions don't exist or anything.


The town ended up forming a militia or whatever, had farmers with pitchforks swarming us.

Our party cleric was opposed to this so he walked away. I went into damage control and started mutilating corpses like you guys suggested. It was the only way to ensure that this did not come back to haunt us.


In the end our DM said this is bullcrap and made us all NPCs. Then he said we can continue the campaign as survivors of this massacre. Only the cleric got to keep his character. The rest of us are level 2 and have to make new characters.[/QUOTE]

Lvl 2 Expert
2016-04-01, 12:37 PM
With a level 17 cleric opposed to murder.

So many non-lethal incapacitating spells, so little party members.

I feel absolutely sorry for the cleric. Now he's going to have to be the stop having fun guy when everyone else decides genocide is fun. The GM is going to say "see?" to that cleric a lot.

It could turn out as a great campaign though. I really hope they make it to the point where their old characters show up again as antagonists. That's some Darth Vader level sjit.

Kish
2016-04-01, 12:43 PM
I almost regret that I don't believe for one moment that this was ever a serious thread or that any of this stuff happened. If this DM existed, he would be hilariously good at making lemonade out of lemons.

Anonymouswizard
2016-04-01, 12:48 PM
In the end our DM said this is bullcrap and made us all NPCs. Then he said we can continue the campaign as survivors of this massacre. Only the cleric got to keep his character. The rest of us are level 2 and have to make new characters.

Eh, to be honest I disagree with your GM here. He should have called the campaign to a close, and established how your names became feared far and wide as the guys willing and able to wipe out any towns that disagreed with them. Eventually you all achieve your goals, and so on and so forth.

Then he should have requested you all make new characters. A level 17 cleric in a party of level 2s is just asking for a disaster, as either the cleric will be able to defeat every challenge thrown at you, or the rest of you will keep getting killed. It's really only fair to ask the cleric to roll up a new character.

(It also sounds like your DM might not like 'heroes' willing to cause such a level of destruction, talk to him about this)

It's not the worst situation, and it sounds like he's actually more concerned with the fact you destroyed the town than killed the guard captain (because you don't seem to have been specifically punished, yet). I would personally have hoped for a slightly more mature outcome than 'everybody who did what I don't like gets a new level 2 character', but if the games fun than it hasn't become bad gaming yet.

Lvl 2 Expert
2016-04-01, 12:57 PM
I almost regret that I don't believe for one moment that this was ever a serious thread or that any of this stuff happened. If this DM existed, he would be hilariously good at making lemonade out of lemons.

As far as I'm concerned it's a good story. Even if it is fake, all it did was entertain me. Fake stories meant to enrage people, those are generally an annoyance. But this...

My only comment on the quality is that the story is too disjointed. There's not enough of a single red string tying the story together. It randomly goes from having to rethink the campaign after an important NPC got killed to the whole town getting slaughtered and the players having to roll new characters. It's too much like the work of real people. If we are making up stories here we should make them up a little neater.

Geordnet
2016-04-01, 01:14 PM
As far as I'm concerned it's a good story. Even if it is fake, all it did was entertain me. Fake stories meant to enrage people, those are generally an annoyance. But this...

My only comment on the quality is that the story is too disjointed. There's not enough of a single red string tying the story together. It randomly goes from having to rethink the campaign after an important NPC got killed to the whole town getting slaughtered and the players having to roll new characters. It's too much like the work of real people. If we are making up stories here we should make them up a little neater.
Unless, of course, the OP thought of this, and purposefully took measures to make it seem more 'genuine'.

Then again, they may have thought of this counter-argument and decided to counter it by making the story more artificial...

8BitNinja
2016-04-01, 01:19 PM
Well, his username does involve ninja.

There is a version of me that is a ninja.

That was the ninja version of me speaking. I'm not bipolar and I do not have multiple personalities, but in an a parallel universe I am a ninja.

Vknight
2016-04-01, 02:28 PM
Your a monster a horrendous monster how could you to another man's waifu! :smalltongue:

I all seriousness Gm's can have a pet NPC as long as it does not ruin the game or force things in certain ways.

I use a World of Darkness Vampire I played as the whip in a underground magical creature society so the party had a friend and from there they could meet the other NPC's or just deal with her.
Liking a character and wanting to reuse them is not a crime its when you constantly want to re-use them when you've played out there story already that it becomes troublesome.

One group I was a part of had major issues with 1 player who, played the same character I guess you could call it a waifu-idea constantly
And lets just say it went poorly.

Ralanr
2016-04-01, 02:41 PM
We ended up killing the entire village. Pretty anticlimactic, tbh.

It wasn't my fault though. The barb in the party just started chopping heads off, and when he starts raging he doesn't want it to drop so he killed innocents when it was necessary. The town ended up forming a militia or whatever, had farmers with pitchforks swarming us.

Our party cleric was opposed to this so he walked away. I went into damage control and started mutilating corpses like you guys suggested. It was the only way to ensure that this did not come back to haunt us.

In the end our DM said this is bullcrap and made us all NPCs. Then he said we can continue the campaign as survivors of this massacre. Only the cleric got to keep his character. The rest of us are level 2 and have to make new characters.

Oh, exciting! A whole new adventure to screw with!

Coidzor
2016-04-01, 03:22 PM
The twist ending was a bit disappointing, but ultimately not quite as bad as a Shymalanesque one, I think.

Piedmon_Sama
2016-04-01, 07:25 PM
Bro...

*dons shades, grits teeth*

You never disrespect a man's Waifu for Laifu.

sktarq
2016-04-01, 07:57 PM
I suspect this story is genuine. . .
I heard from some of my players about their previous game where something somewhat similar happened. They basically said that if the guards drew their weapons they would take it as a declaration of war as they were having nope of this accused of crime type line. . . passed the intimidate check? - nope but the DM read the table and saw the players were dead serious. If the DM had been distracted by an NPC he had too much invested in being the target I could see him failing to read the table. So yeah this kind of thing does happen and I see no reason to disbelieve OP.

Kelb_Panthera
2016-04-01, 08:50 PM
We ended up killing the entire village. Pretty anticlimactic, tbh.

XD Hillarious. I'm not even a little surprised this is how it played out.


It wasn't my fault though. The barb in the party just started chopping heads off, and when he starts raging he doesn't want it to drop so he killed innocents when it was necessary. The town ended up forming a militia or whatever, had farmers with pitchforks swarming us.

Don't kid yourself. You bear no small portion of the guilt here. You fired the first shot that turned this from a mexican standoff into a massacre. Congrats there "trigger." :smallamused:

The barb was definitely evil here though. Attacking non-combatants just to keep his rage bonuses going isn't even defensible as neutral.


Our party cleric was opposed to this so he walked away. I went into damage control and started mutilating corpses like you guys suggested. It was the only way to ensure that this did not come back to haunt us.

A) How does one "walk away" from a pitchfork wielding mob?

B) How the heck did you think mutilating corpses would help the situation?


In the end our DM said this is bullcrap and made us all NPCs. Then he said we can continue the campaign as survivors of this massacre. Only the cleric got to keep his character. The rest of us are level 2 and have to make new characters.

The cleric needs to role up a new character. That level gap is utterly insurmountable.

That said, your group needs to have a talk about expectations and boundaries. Now. This sort of thing -will- happen again if you don't all get on the same page. It may be that there's a conflict in desired playstyles here that will necessitate compromise or simply disbanding as a group. If you're wanting to play murder-hobos with extra murder and he wants to run a game for fantasy super-heroes then you're going to have problems.

8BitNinja
2016-04-01, 08:52 PM
Was the NPC over 18?

Just checking, because all children are exempt from death

Âmesang
2016-04-01, 10:57 PM
That reminds me of wanting to integrate a little Ultima dark humor into an adventure. :smalltongue: Have a dungeon room filled with kidnapped children locked up in cells with an obvious switch near the entrance way. Flip the switch…

…and watch as the floors in the cells open up, dropping the children into pools of lava.

8BitNinja
2016-04-01, 11:08 PM
That reminds me of wanting to integrate a little Ultima dark humor into an adventure. :smalltongue: Have a dungeon room filled with kidnapped children locked up in cells with an obvious switch near the entrance way. Flip the switch…

…and watch as the floors in the cells open up, dropping the children into pools of lava.

Have you seen Spoony's Ultima retrospective? He talks a lot about this

Lvl 2 Expert
2016-04-02, 12:57 AM
A) How does one "walk away" from a pitchfork wielding mob?
By being a 17th level cleric when the mob is already in too deep. Also, the DM thinks it's the right choice.


B) How the heck did you think mutilating corpses would help the situation?
Okay, some parts of the story are pretty trolling.

Kelb_Panthera
2016-04-02, 02:20 AM
By being a 17th level cleric when the mob is already in too deep.

While that would certainly allow you to "walk over" such an encounter (barring the mob template from DMG2), it doesn't actually explain how one literally just walks away, which is the impression I got. I suppose he could've simply meant the cleric ducked out using some spell but if that's the case it wasn't terribly clear.


Also, the DM thinks it's the right choice.

I'm, personally, of the opinion that a DM is overstepping his role a little if there's a "right" choice to make in a scenario like this. The PC's act, the NPC's react and vice versa. As long as the world responds in a way that doesn't wreck verisimilitude the PC's should be free to act how they want.

Setting boundaries and expectations for what kind of game you want is a discussion that should take place -before- the game starts and someone deliberately crossing those boundaries or flaunting those expectations is being a d-bag OOC.



Okay, some parts of the story are pretty trolling.

In fairness, mutilation was suggested by several of the people in this thread. I just presumed they were being hyperbolic and that this was so obvious that most anyone would presume the same. On the otherhand, I -could- see it as advice toward preventing the NPC that kicked this whole thing off coming back as a revenant or being raised easily.

Fizban
2016-04-02, 02:39 AM
Was the NPC over 18?

Just checking, because all children are exempt from death
An interesting tangent actually. Many people complain about video games making kids unkillable (Fallout 3, Skyrim etc), that's another thing that might be worth putting on the list of boundaries to establish. Further muddied if you've got any kid characters in the party, and wyrmling dragons and all sorts of stuff. I suppose there is the common "we've murdered all the goblin warriors now what do we do with the women and children," but that's a specific scenario rather than a general ruling on if kids can be targeted on-screen or ever.

Templarkommando
2016-04-02, 02:55 AM
I have a couple of Pet NPCs running around, and I've had to face the question of what do I do if the party decides to kill them.

So, for example, we have Duchess Tessa, who is a powerful wizard and is one of the few nobles opposing the BBEG. What are the consequences then if someone kills her?

1. Immediately and obviously, there's probably a man-hunt for them.
2. Tessa's brat nephew that has fallen under the sway of the BBEG inherits the Duchy.
3. People that care about Tessa are going to come looking for the party. She has adventurer friends, so it's safe to say that more than just the city guard would be after her would-be killer.
4. The Characters have to deal with the realization that they just killed an innocent person - this might not be so bad for an evil character, but there you go.


Losing the good character in the campaign is not a formula for less adventure, it can be a formula for more. It also gives you a good opportunity to make a dungeon themed around that character, so the party is always coming up with positive qualities off of a person that they murdered in cold-blood. If that character is gone, what rushes in to fill the whole? Usually it's the forces of evil.

goto124
2016-04-02, 03:33 AM
We ended up killing the entire village. Pretty anticlimactic, tbh.

http://i.imgur.com/Ix50joi.png

Ah, the joys of level 17 characters :smalltongue:

Keltest
2016-04-02, 06:46 AM
While that would certainly allow you to "walk over" such an encounter (barring the mob template from DMG2), it doesn't actually explain how one literally just walks away, which is the impression I got. I suppose he could've simply meant the cleric ducked out using some spell but if that's the case it wasn't terribly clear.

Don't clerics have several spells that are basically "You cant affect me as long as I leave you alone"?

Quertus
2016-04-02, 07:36 AM
Don't clerics have several spells that are basically "You cant affect me as long as I leave you alone"?

Like sanctuary. You can't attack me... unless you make your save... which you auto succeed on a 20...and there are lots of you... and you still get in my way. So... not a great way to escape the middle of an already formed mob.

However, just walking away while the party is killing the first guards and random villagers, before the mob forms, sounds legit.

AvatarVecna
2016-04-02, 08:03 AM
Was the NPC over 18?

Just checking, because all children are exempt from death

I assume the NPC is over 18, both because they actually died, and because they were the DM's waifu; if he was lusting after a person he made up, who he specifically designed to be underage, I'd have more concerning questions than why he insists on putting her in all his games.

Âmesang
2016-04-02, 10:55 AM
Have you seen Spoony's Ultima retrospective? He talks a lot about this
Lord British says: "The path of the virtuous man is to punch children in the face"

The Fury
2016-04-02, 11:36 AM
I have a couple of Pet NPCs running around, and I've had to face the question of what do I do if the party decides to kill them.


I had an NPC that was based around a retired Player Character I had made. Red flag right there I know, but I've never claimed to be a good GM. Likewise, I addressed the question of what would happen if the party decides to kill her-- probably nothing. She's basically a nobody, her employer seems to think of her as expendable and she doesn't really have any friends. It doesn't seem likely though, because oddly enough the player party seems to actually like her.


I assume the NPC is over 18, both because they actually died, and because they were the DM's waifu; if he was lusting after a person he made up, who he specifically designed to be underage, I'd have more concerning questions than why he insists on putting her in all his games.

How she became a guard captain when she's not old enough to buy cigarettes would be another good question. Assuming we're not operating under moe anime rules here.

Anonymouswizard
2016-04-02, 12:51 PM
I have a couple of Pet NPCs running around, and I've had to face the question of what do I do if the party decides to kill them.

I've had to learn to stop putting the campaign villain in front of the PCs and giving them plot armour instead of just working out what happens if they die. I've never really had the problem with non-villain NPCs, as I've never invested as much in them as the BBEG, but I hate seeing my pet villains cut down 8 sessions too early. My main solution has been if I can't take a character's death they should stay out of swording range.


I assume the NPC is over 18, both because they actually died, and because they were the DM's waifu; if he was lusting after a person he made up, who he specifically designed to be underage, I'd have more concerning questions than why he insists on putting her in all his games.

Underage will vary based on the country the story takes place in, but I agree that unless he's relatively young himself it would be creepy (especially as most people stop lusting after teenagers somewhere in their twenties). Oh, and I'd definitely be recommending getting out of the game if that was the case, but that's mainly due to the fact that I can't except guard commanders under about 25, and even that feels like pushing it (mine average around 30, and you can generally find ex-commanders of any age as either farmers or high-ranking members of personal guards*, although tending towards the mid-forties, by 50 they'll have taken a deskbound position).

* the setting considers ex-military unreliable for guard activities, as they're assumed to have wanderlust, so city guards are preferred.

8BitNinja
2016-04-02, 01:31 PM
Lord British says: "The path of the virtuous man is to punch children in the face"

Justice

Honor

Humility

Honesty

Valor

Sacrifice

Compassion

Spirituality

Love

Truth

Courage

Killing children with a battle axe

-Richard Garriot, Ultima VIII: Pagan

goto124
2016-04-03, 08:04 AM
I've had to learn to stop putting the campaign villain in front of the PCs and giving them plot armour instead of just working out what happens if they die.

Next villain will be based around "Just how many decoys DO you have?!"

Anonymouswizard
2016-04-03, 09:09 AM
Next villain will be based around "Just how many decoys DO you have?!"

Good idea, but I'm working more around 'this isn't even my final underling!' for my next one, plus skill at teleportation magic with high initiative (and this is well known).

EDIT: 8BitNinja, you forgot searching their corpses.

Geordnet
2016-04-03, 09:12 AM
Next villain will be based around "Just how many decoys DO you have?!"
http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r294/sgoneaday/BaalClones.jpg

The Fury
2016-04-03, 12:27 PM
Justice

Honor

Humility

Honesty

Valor

Sacrifice

Compassion

Spirituality

Love

Truth

Courage

Killing children with a battle axe

-Richard Garriot, Ultima VIII: Pagan

That's what it was! I couldn't remember the quote exactly, thanks for that.


Next villain will be based around "Just how many decoys DO you have?!"

Heh, heh. I like it. It sounds frustrating, but hilariously frustrating.

Lvl 2 Expert
2016-04-03, 02:00 PM
While that would certainly allow you to "walk over" such an encounter (barring the mob template from DMG2), it doesn't actually explain how one literally just walks away, which is the impression I got. I suppose he could've simply meant the cleric ducked out using some spell but if that's the case it wasn't terribly clear.
Even if he didn't use a spell or a mount or anything: if I was a farmer out to kill a group of super villains and some guy who may have been part of the group in the past walks away from my village I would mentally file him as "not a priority". If I was an NPC being controlled by a GM that thinks walking away is the right choice I would ignore him even harder.

Illven
2016-04-03, 05:34 PM
Was the NPC over 18?

Just checking, because all children are exempt from death

What if the game rules allow for children adventurers? :smallconfused:

Anonymouswizard
2016-04-03, 05:48 PM
What if the game rules allow for children adventurers? :smallconfused:

They get taken out/sent to the advent void/scared and go and hide.

nedz
2016-04-03, 05:52 PM
Next villain will be based around "Just how many decoys DO you have?!"

OR
Don't use BBEGs - use organisations.

Then Cutting the head of the snake will just reveal that you have awakened a Nest of vipers rather than Sending the plot to the Morgue.

Keltest
2016-04-03, 05:59 PM
OR
Don't use BBEGs - use organisations.

Then Cutting the head of the snake will just reveal that you have awakened a Nest of vipers rather than Sending the plot to the Morgue.

That's how I do it. The party will, of course, have a nemesis, but they are a frequent opponent, not a driving character who's death ends the plot. I actually had the Big Bad Evil Faction resurrect the corpse of a party member they (literally) threw to the wolves. They turned him into some sort of spirit wraith that wasn't all that difficult to kill, but kept following them and causing them problems. Oh, and since he was undead they just kept sticking him in a new body and throwing him at the party again and again until they finally exorcised it.

slowplay
2016-04-03, 08:36 PM
Now kill the dm's wife irl, anon. Anyone else smell the 4chan funk?

8BitNinja
2016-04-03, 10:42 PM
Now kill the dm's wife irl, anon. Anyone else smell the 4chan funk?

I already hear the wave of insults that will crash into the OP.

Yep, that's 4chan


That's what it was! I couldn't remember the quote exactly, thanks for that.

No problem, it was from The Spoony Experiment episode on Ultima VIII.

Kelb_Panthera
2016-04-04, 03:38 AM
Question to those who think this is a troll topic: why do you think that's the case? It's not an unbelievable story. It's not even an unlikely story. How many of us haven't seen similar incidents in person?

I don't get why you guys think this is trolling. It just looks like a genuine plea for advice to me.

8BitNinja
2016-04-04, 09:56 AM
Question to those who think this is a troll topic: why do you think that's the case? It's not an unbelievable story. It's not even an unlikely story. How many of us haven't seen similar incidents in person?

I don't get why you guys think this is trolling. It just looks like a genuine plea for advice to me.

Then give him some advice if you have some

I honestly have none to give

Nerd-o-rama
2016-04-04, 10:17 AM
That's how I do it. The party will, of course, have a nemesis, but they are a frequent opponent, not a driving character who's death ends the plot. I actually had the Big Bad Evil Faction resurrect the corpse of a party member they (literally) threw to the wolves. They turned him into some sort of spirit wraith that wasn't all that difficult to kill, but kept following them and causing them problems. Oh, and since he was undead they just kept sticking him in a new body and throwing him at the party again and again until they finally exorcised it.

Big Bad Evil Faction with one particular nemesis has been working well for me in Star Wars. Even if you off the ambitious, named Inquisitor who's taken an interest in your shenanigans, that's just going to cause you further problems because you've done nothing to actually stop the Empire by killing one guy (unless the guy is named Sheev, but player characters don't get to be in the same system as him).


Question to those who think this is a troll topic: why do you think that's the case? It's not an unbelievable story. It's not even an unlikely story. How many of us haven't seen similar incidents in person?

I don't get why you guys think this is trolling. It just looks like a genuine plea for advice to me.

I originally thought so because of the 4chan formatting and catchphrases ("waifu", "what do?") in the OP, and the fact that the OP doesn't seem to be asking for (or accepting) advice so much as telling a vaguely humorous story. As more details developed, though, it got a bit more plausible.

Douche
2016-04-04, 10:22 AM
Next week I was thinking of making my character admire my old rogue and become like a copy-cat criminal. I will dedicate myself to emulating all the great feats of villainy that my old character performed and getting senpai to notice me.

Also, to all those doubting the veracity of my story - a lot of truth is said in jest. This is a 100% real story, but regardless, I have made some outrageous troll topics before which have led to a great discussion.

Kish
2016-04-04, 10:23 AM
Question to those who think this is a troll topic: why do you think that's the case? It's not an unbelievable story. It's not even an unlikely story. How many of us haven't seen similar incidents in person?

I don't get why you guys think this is trolling. It just looks like a genuine plea for advice to me.
First--wait, let me start over. First look at the screen name.

Second, note that after asking "what do," they came back and acted like 1) they'd only seen the "mutilate the corpse" comments, and 2) it didn't occur to them that those comments were anything but perfectly serious. They also complained in the same post that people were telling them their character was evil.

(I'd also note that they've related two different, contradictory versions of how they came to see the alleged pictures of the alleged waffle.)

Geordnet
2016-04-04, 10:33 AM
It's not an unbelievable story. It's not even an unlikely story. How many of us haven't seen similar incidents in person?
That's why. The best trolls are the most believable ones.

Look what he's done here: he's ignited a discussion that has reached over 150 replies in less than 5 days, and is still going. This thread would be worth 79 points in a game of Troll: The Provoking (http://www.criticalmiss.com/issue9/troll1.html) (as of this post). If he's the type that get a rise out of seeing people react to him, he has succeeded.

Additionally, the tone of his posts hasn't done much to dissuade accusations. The OP reads very much like the infamous "Greentext" often seen on 4chan, consisting of many independent statements in sequence. See what I mean:
>female NPC as the captain of the guard in some town we were visiting
>I was at the tavern with my bros
>turns out that the lord had been slain
>the first people to be suspected were the outsiders
>So Marion Suella shows up at the tavern with her Joe Schmoe guard bros
>They made their entrance quite obnoxiously
>I hid up in the rafters.
>My party failed in talking their way out of it
>I fired my hand crossbow
>crit her in the face
>killing her instantly

>DM was not pleased
>ended the session early, right there, and stormed off.
>left his belongings
>I saw like 20 printouts of some nymph-looking anime pictures or something
>asked some of the party members what was the deal with him
>They said he used that character in all of his campaigns

>It was his waifu.
>I killed her.

What do /tg/?
Very little editing makes it look like something copy-pasted from 4chan. Not saying it was, or even that the OP even visits that site, just that the resemblance is noticeable.

His later posts don't do much to improve his image. It becomes evident that the OP was biased in such a way as to make the GM look bad. Again, not saying this was intentional, but it's also a common trolling tactic (the strength of which lies in how easily can be done unintentionally, thus masking the troll's true nature).

Everything he says seems directed at fanning the flames, as a troll would be expected to do. He initially doesn't state what level the party is, allowing a debate of whether or not that was an appropriate response to form. When that dies down, he 'stirs the embers' by making it clear that the guards weren't a serious threat, but then goes on to light a new argument with the remains of the old one by saying "this isn't real life". By presenting a new "counter-argument" that doesn't actually counter the old argument (that this wasn't an appropriate response), he sets the stage for people to shout at each other without making any 'progress' at all.

He also makes the statements "To act as if all the rules of real life apply and you have to act like a normal person is a lack of empathy." (which is a nonsense phrase for any dictionary definition of "empathy") and "I, for one, am roleplaying a lawless rogue who isn't going to jump through hoops for the satisfaction of some pitiful guard captain of a backwater hamlet." (which still doesn't justify his actions) he just adds to the confusion, providing more fuel to the fire. Again, he might not be doing it intentionally, but is still acting like a good troll would.

I could go on, but this post is getting long enough as it is. So, I'll restrain myself to one more paragraph.

When he mentions mutilating corpses "because we told him to", (again, something you'd expect to see on 4chan) the vibe given off is rather vindictive, and makes him look like a jerk (his name doesn't help here). This fits the stereotype of the "internet troll" rather well. In fact, by doing so he has even provoked people (including me) into more discussion about whether or not he is a troll! A masterful piece of trolling if ever there was one.

mikeejimbo
2016-04-04, 11:05 AM
My favorite NPC has plot armor, admittedly, but he only comes up if the players go looking for him. And he's not an asset at all, he's comedic relief.

Segev
2016-04-04, 11:08 AM
My favorite NPC has plot armor, admittedly, but he only comes up if the players go looking for him. And he's not an asset at all, he's comedic relief.

This makes me want to find him and strap him to a tower shield as an invincible barrier. >_> <_< ;)

Douche
2016-04-04, 11:15 AM
This makes me want to find him and strap him to a tower shield as an invincible barrier. >_> <_< ;)

That reminds me of an episode of Rick & Morty where an evil Rick creates a barrier of hundreds of Mortys for his evil laboratory or something...

You'd have to watch the show to understand, but basically Rick is a super genius whose brain has, like, wavelengths or something that makes it easy for bad guys to find him. But Morty is such an idiot that when they are together the wavelengths cancel each other out, so he can do his hijinks without being pursued.


So you strap the plot-armored NPC to your shield (or wear him as a backpack!) and no harm can come to you, otherwise the NPC could get hurt as well!!

Anonymouswizard
2016-04-04, 11:19 AM
I'm not even here for the OPs topic anymore, I'm scouring for noncheating NPC protection tricks (I am loving 'how many decoys do you have?', obviously said to a decoy).

Vinyadan
2016-04-04, 11:26 AM
That's why. The best trolls are the most believable ones.


Troll, troll, troll your boat... My greatest discovery in adult life was that "troll" actually comes from the method of fishing. Troll used to be the verb, and troller the troll.

It's probably pretty obvious, but English isn't my mother language.

Segev
2016-04-04, 11:28 AM
I'm not even here for the OPs topic anymore, I'm scouring for noncheating NPC protection tricks (I am loving 'how many decoys do you have?', obviously said to a decoy).

And now I'm amused by the realization that a simulacrum of a simulacrum would not even have the original's body part (hair/blood/whatever) when it was destroyed and melted, because the "part" from the simulacrum that was its own original is also just snow.

The Fury
2016-04-04, 11:53 AM
Question to those who think this is a troll topic: why do you think that's the case? It's not an unbelievable story. It's not even an unlikely story. How many of us haven't seen similar incidents in person?

I don't get why you guys think this is trolling. It just looks like a genuine plea for advice to me.

I actually don't think it's a troll, at first I was a little baffled at how a GM's Mary Sue NPC can die in one shot from a crossbow. After the OP mentioned that the player party massacred a village, I'm begining to suspect that the GM actually isn't that upset about about the NPC getting killed. It seems like he might've been more upset about the whole murdering the village thing.

...Unless killing villages full of people was normal for the campaign up until that point.


I'm not even here for the OPs topic anymore, I'm scouring for noncheating NPC protection tricks (I am loving 'how many decoys do you have?', obviously said to a decoy).

How about "I'm secretly a Lich?" Sure, as a Lich someone is normally either a gross rotting corpse or a bare skeleton. Yet with some application of illusion and/or transmutation magic they can look like a normal person! Thought you killed this NPC? Nope! They reform at they're phylactery in an undisclosed location and they'll be back.

Lacco
2016-04-04, 12:12 PM
How about "I'm secretly a Lich?" Sure, as a Lich someone is normally either a gross rotting corpse or a bare skeleton. Yet with some application of illusion and/or transmutation magic they can look like a normal person! Thought you killed this NPC? Nope! They reform at they're phylactery in an undisclosed location and they'll be back.

How about "I have secretly a full organization of liches that serve as my decoys"?

Or a whole village? As your sword pierces the heart of the evil mage, the image before you dissolves and you see a motherly woman, dying and sobbing 'I failed and now he'll kill my kids...' :smallbiggrin:

mikeejimbo
2016-04-04, 12:12 PM
This makes me want to find him and strap him to a tower shield as an invincible barrier. >_> <_< ;)

On the one hand I'd be inclined to say that his plot armor doesn't quite work like that. (He could be destroyed, or at least the body he possesses could be; his shtick is that he exists in all the dimensions at once so you could kill him in one but run into him in another.) But on the other hand it'd be hilarious and in-character for him and he'd be like "I'm a shield now guys."

The Fury
2016-04-04, 12:34 PM
How about "I have secretly a full organization of liches that serve as my decoys"?

Or a whole village? As your sword pierces the heart of the evil mage, the image before you dissolves and you see a motherly woman, dying and sobbing 'I failed and now he'll kill my kids...' :smallbiggrin:

Possibly funny/horrific, though I'm not sure how well it goes with "non-cheating NPC protection." Not that it couldn't be done by the rules, especially if this was meant to be appropriate for a level 17 party, but some players might be giving you the side-eye at something like this. Just hope that you don't have any rules lawyers at the table, unless you feel like spending the rest of the session going over splatbooks with them and possibly answering a few e-mails from them the next day.

...Rules lawyers...

Keltest
2016-04-04, 01:12 PM
Possibly funny/horrific, though I'm not sure how well it goes with "non-cheating NPC protection." Not that it couldn't be done by the rules, especially if this was meant to be appropriate for a level 17 party, but some players might be giving you the side-eye at something like this. Just hope that you don't have any rules lawyers at the table, unless you feel like spending the rest of the session going over splatbooks with them and possibly answering a few e-mails from them the next day.

...Rules lawyers...

Clearly if we make lichs out of all the rules lawyers and use them as decoys, we will be able to complete our evil plan!

8BitNinja
2016-04-04, 01:18 PM
You guys accuse this guy of making up a story on here.

I've made up a ton of stories on here, about 50% of them are fake.

Except the one about the time I played a D&D game DMed by Gary Gygax, that totally happened

Lvl 2 Expert
2016-04-04, 01:21 PM
Also, to all those doubting the veracity of my story - a lot of truth is said in jest. This is a 100% real story, but regardless, I have made some outrageous troll topics before which have led to a great discussion.

I don't think you're a part of that discussion anymore. However, if you are a troll, all that paranoid troll hunting is pretty much the best outcome you could have hoped for, in which case high five.

8BitNinja
2016-04-04, 01:26 PM
There are ways of telling if he's a troll.

What do we do with trolls?

OldTrees1
2016-04-04, 01:38 PM
There are ways of telling if he's a troll.

What do we do with trolls?

Cut off clippings?
Transmute into armor?
Dance the tango?
Compare their weight to a duck?

Nerd-o-rama
2016-04-04, 01:54 PM
there are ways of telling if he's a troll.

What do we do with trolls?

Build a bridge out of them!

Segev
2016-04-04, 02:01 PM
I've made up a ton of stories on here, about 50% of them are fake.

Bah, that's a statistic on the internet. And 93% of statistics on the internet are made up on the spot!

Douche
2016-04-04, 02:05 PM
Cut off clippings?
Transmute into armor?
Dance the tango?
Compare their weight to a duck?

I'd suggest using fire on me to see if it cancels my regeneration, but that would be considered flaming and is against forum rules

Segev
2016-04-04, 02:07 PM
I'd suggest using fire on me to see if it cancels my regeneration, but that would be considered flaming and is against forum rules

Using fire tends to prevent most things from regenerating. Often because they don't regenerate to begin with.

And besides, this is an internet forum. We could use caustic language and see if the acid shut off your regen, too.

8BitNinja
2016-04-04, 02:17 PM
Compare their weight to a duck?

If he's the same as a duck

HE"S A TROLL

OldTrees1
2016-04-04, 02:20 PM
I'd suggest using fire on me to see if it cancels my regeneration, but that would be considered flaming and is against forum rules

Bah, why would I want to cancel the regeneration? If I wanted a Troll sans regen, I would go looking for a Bugbear or an Ogre.

Vinyadan
2016-04-04, 02:28 PM
I'd suggest using fire on me to see if it cancels my regeneration, but that would be considered flaming and is against forum rules

Actually, even calling another user a troll is against forum rules, so that barrier has already been crossed.

slowplay
2016-04-04, 02:39 PM
Legit or not, I loled, so i love you regardless, op.

Piedmon_Sama
2016-04-04, 02:43 PM
It's very good GMing 101 advice: never get too attached to your NPCs. Never expect your precious plots and plans to survive First Contact with the party. If you want to have a reliably recurring NPC make sure they either A) have beefy security, B) a lotta lotta HitDice or C) some way of making face-time with the players without actually being present (illusions, teleconferencing, whatever).

This is a subheading of the primary GM's rule: always expect things to go wrong. Instead of taking the quest from the old man in the tavern, be prepared for the PCs insult him and barf in his lap; instead of fighting the bandit leader they'll try to burn down the forest; instead of traveling to the dungeon they'll open up a shop in the town; instead of fencing her stolen goods to the Thieves' Guild, expect the Rogue to try and start her own gang at level 1.

Any plotted out adventure needs a strong of what I'm going to call FIREBREAKS. Essentially they need to be good, plausible ways for keeping the PCs alive when they do something that should get them killed. I mean, some GMs will just let their players burn through their PCs until they learns good but I have a feeling if I tried going all hardcore like that my friends would get irritated. Making a character in Pathfinder is a chore and a bit of an investment, not like old-school D&D. It's not that my players mind if they lose a character from taking a risky course of action, but if it happened every time they did something wicked stupid that'd be a lot of characters!

So an example of a firebreak would be, if the level 1 Rogue tries to start a gang with the lvl 1 commoners she can manage to recruit and carve out some turf from the territory of an already-established gang, rather than having her ruthlessly eliminated have the boss of the older gang invite her to a personal meeting (rare honor!) to explain that actually, he quite in fact admires her initiative, wishes the men who work for him showed that kind of moxie, but really talent like hers could be put to better use if she had come to him in the first place... etc. etc. (and if the Rogue's player decides that's a good moment to attack, then it's gonna be time for him to pull out a new character sheet).

The reason it's good to work out a list of these firebreaks (IF the PCs double-cross the quest giver he will.... IF the PCs try to negotiate with the monster it will...) is because it's incredibly hard for most people to think up something just as good on the spot as what they originally had planned. For example, it never would have occurred to you the PCs would betray the questgiver because you know the questgiver is a 10th level wizard and that's incredibly stupid, but do they know that? It is always good to look at the actions in a given scenario that seem to you terrifically wrongheaded and think about what will happen when/if your players do that.

And if they actually make a smart choice? Well that's icing on the Adventure Cake!

Traab
2016-04-04, 03:03 PM
This is off topic, but I read a harry potter grows up in a D&D universe then comes back story, where he captured the troll from book 1 with the intent of, upon hearing it was good for potion ingredients, farming it endlessly as it regenerates from removing the sellable parts, only to be incredibly disappointed that nothing he cut off seemed to grow back because trolls in harry potter world dont work that way.

Strigon
2016-04-04, 04:49 PM
(I'd also note that they've related two different, contradictory versions of how they came to see the alleged pictures of the alleged waffle.)

It's been a while since this was said, I know, but I just have to find out; is this a mocking way of saying waifu, or is it autocorrect?
Because if it's the latter, it might be my favourite typo of all time.

8BitNinja
2016-04-04, 05:17 PM
Actually, even calling another user a troll is against forum rules, so that barrier has already been crossed.

Is it okay to call them a troll as in the fantasy creature (such as in the play by post games)?

Kelb_Panthera
2016-04-04, 05:41 PM
Then give him some advice if you have some

I honestly have none to give

Already did.


First--wait, let me start over. First look at the screen name.

Hardly the oddest I've seen. There are, in fact, people that take great pride in being offensive or antagonistic to others. That doesn't mean they only ever troll without ever making a genuine request for help or genuine statement in general.


Second, note that after asking "what do," they came back and acted like 1) they'd only seen the "mutilate the corpse" comments, and 2) it didn't occur to them that those comments were anything but perfectly serious. They also complained in the same post that people were telling them their character was evil.

There was quite a lot of it and text doesn't convey tone well. It -is- a tad odd that someone would take them seriously because of this but, "Never attribute to malice that which can be attributed to ignorance." That someone would take such 'advice' seriously isn't implausible.

As for taking umbrage at being called evil, it's something -most- people would take umbrage at being called if it was directed at them, personally, and some people over-identify with their characters.


(I'd also note that they've related two different, contradictory versions of how they came to see the alleged pictures of the alleged waffle.)

Where? I just reread douche's posts to make sure I didn't overlook any contradictions and it looks consistent to me. (also, waffle?)

Mordar
2016-04-04, 05:51 PM
Hardly the oddest I've seen. There are, in fact, people that take great pride in being offensive or antagonistic to others. That doesn't mean they only ever troll without ever making a genuine request for help or genuine statement in general.

[SNIP]

As for taking umbrage at being called evil, it's something -most- people would take umbrage at being called if it was directed at them, personally, and some people over-identify with their characters.

I think the "most people" from paragraph two and the "people who take great pride" in paragraph one don't have much overlap.

- M

8BitNinja
2016-04-04, 05:52 PM
Ironically, Douche seems like one of the nicest people on the forum

Kish
2016-04-04, 06:29 PM
It's been a while since this was said, I know, but I just have to find out; is this a mocking way of saying waifu, or is it autocorrect?
Because if it's the latter, it might be my favourite typo of all time.
'Fraid it's the former.

(A certain webcomic writer responded to people calling one of his character a "waifu" with a commentary about how he wasn't even sure offhand what that meant, ending it, "It kind of sounds like waffle? I don't think she's a waffle, guys. How do you even come to that conclusion?")

Beyond that, well, Kelb, you have my answer to why I don't believe the story he's relating really happened (though for the benefit of any moderators who might read this, I want to point out that I didn't say it was trolling, just that I don't believe the story actually happened--I think it's meant to be humorous, not trolling--and why, which I obviously hope is not against the forum rules). I'm not interested in trying to convince you.

Tvtyrant
2016-04-04, 08:41 PM
Having been in a somewhat similar situation as this DM, I think a brief "sorry bro" would help a lot.

I made a whole region based upon a war between two forces, one led by a group of Hags and the other by a creature called The Leather. It was actually an Ogre Mage in a full suit of Manticore armor, which let it summon them a few times a day and fling spikes at-will. As an Ogre Mage he could fly and turn invisible at-will, so they couldn't see him coming and he could strafe them from the sky.

The Hags had this big wooden dock-fortress built on pylons where they ran a kingdom of lizardfolk and had giant crocodiles in the water to prevent people from swimming up on them, and contracted the party to fight the Leather.

They had their first fight where he summoned a Manticore, shot some darts at the wizard and left. The party Ranger found the guys base after a series of very good checks, they strung a bunch of traps across the entrances of the base and then set it on fire. Flies out, gets knocked onto the ground, cue Office Space destroying the printer.

I had to leave the room for a few minutes, as I had no idea what to do without the recurring enemy to continue the plot.

The Fury
2016-04-05, 02:30 AM
Clearly if we make lichs out of all the rules lawyers and use them as decoys, we will be able to complete our evil plan!

Rules lawyer liches... there's a terrify thought. Maybe they paralyze PCs to inaction by way of always asking, "How are you doing that? Did you take the feat?"

and continuing to press, "No, no, there's totally a feat you need to take for that-- it's in one of these books... hold on... Don't get snippy with me! Yeah, I know you're just trying to add interest to the scene, but there's actually a type of feat that's specifically just for looking cool. Even a prestige class that gives you bonus Looking Cool Feats. Let me just find it."

And so on and so forth, diabolical! Rules lawyer lich does have one weakness though-- straightforward and universally understood tactics. If nothing else, if your campaign's villain uses this sort of thing as a decoy there's plenty of incentive to stop them.



Hardly the oddest I've seen. There are, in fact, people that take great pride in being offensive or antagonistic to others. That doesn't mean they only ever troll without ever making a genuine request for help or genuine statement in general.


No, no. It actually makes some things make a lot of sense in retrospect. Most folks dismiss me as a caustic rage-head-- now I know why!

Vknight
2016-04-05, 02:37 AM
You guys accuse this guy of making up a story on here.

I've made up a ton of stories on here, about 50% of them are fake.

Except the one about the time I played a D&D game DMed by Gary Gygax, that totally happened

Fake stories happen.
I just tell my actual stories because they are factual and strange enough they deserve it told straight rather then waltzing around the issue
I change names to protect the innocent and this is all.

Lorsa
2016-04-05, 02:52 AM
Fake stories happen.
I just tell my actual stories because they are factual and strange enough they deserve it told straight rather then waltzing around the issue
I change names to protect the innocent and this is all.

Are there any "innocent" as far as roleplaying goes?

Lacco
2016-04-05, 03:03 AM
Possibly funny/horrific, though I'm not sure how well it goes with "non-cheating NPC protection." Not that it couldn't be done by the rules, especially if this was meant to be appropriate for a level 17 party, but some players might be giving you the side-eye at something like this. Just hope that you don't have any rules lawyers at the table, unless you feel like spending the rest of the session going over splatbooks with them and possibly answering a few e-mails from them the next day.

...Rules lawyers...

I usually deal with rules lawyers by letting them tell me how I did it.

RLP (rules-lawyer-player): "That can't be - my character would have seen it coming with his divination-magicky-doohicky!"
SAGM (smartass-GM): "Normally yes. Can you guess why not this time?"
RLP: "Only if you did this...blablablabla"
SAGM: "Are you sure that's the only way...?"

Continue at your own expense.

Oh, yes, I have no rules lawyers at the table because of this :smallbiggrin:

EDIT:
Are there any "innocent" as far as roleplaying goes?

The dice, maybe...? :smallbiggrin:

Sith_Happens
2016-04-05, 03:40 AM
This is the best thread.

That is all.

Douche
2016-04-05, 08:36 AM
Thanks for the support, guys :smallsmile:

I decided I don't want to be a copy-cat criminal anymore. I'm going to try being a necromancer instead. Maybe I can use the DMs waifu as my mindless slave

Segev
2016-04-05, 08:40 AM
Thanks for the support, guys :smallsmile:

I decided I don't want to be a copy-cat criminal anymore. I'm going to try being a necromancer instead. Maybe I can use the DMs waifu as my mindless slave

Don't live down to your forum name at a table, dude. Even from a self-interest standpoint, pissing off the DM is a bad idea. From a more generous standpoint, don't deliberately ruin others' fun.

Necromancers are cool, though. Just make sure your PC works with the rest of the party. Talk to the other players and work out how you'll fit in.

Vknight
2016-04-05, 08:41 AM
Are there any "innocent" as far as roleplaying goes?

Rarely.
More to the point its a relative term all things said and done. I do agree whose really innocent at the end of the day i mean Eclipse Phase has Carnivale of all locations...

I mean G is an innocent in many fashions of the word. He was also an idiot because he never quit the idea he could do solo commando raids on enemies no matter the genre.

He was the bard who invaded the fortress city well the Druid and Rakasha stealth-ed there way in.
He was the superhero with a 2 rank time-stop, wings and about 7 other powers in the story where he chased down 1 minion thug in Mutants and Masterminds and lost
He was the illegal warforged in a setting where all warforged were made by 1 church. And he was not constructed by them.
He was the Alchemical exalted in a all solar group(i have yet to tell this story)
He was the Ace Investigator who never tried to investigate anything and instead kept using preparedness to try and pull out progressively bigger guns. He did pull out a cannon though(also have yet to tell this story in full)
He was the guy who ran the one session long campaign where I went solo with a White Dragon in 4th edition and won with my rouge.
He made a guy who could transform into 3 different forms in Wild Talents(my goodness that was annoying because it was a standard transformation just with 3 different appearances; one had flight, one had fire breath, and the last could go invisible); and that is a funny story how that went down
He was a Monk in a Anima Beyond Fantasy game where he got into a fight with the Ranger and was shot with a critical arrow and died because the party did not want to say this jerk who attacked the ranger.
And more that I have forgotten and some involving bad dice

Douche
2016-04-05, 08:41 AM
Don't live down to your forum name at a table, dude. Even from a self-interest standpoint, pissing off the DM is a bad idea. From a more generous standpoint, don't deliberately ruin others' fun.

Necromancers are cool, though. Just make sure your PC works with the rest of the party. Talk to the other players and work out how you'll fit in.

We've already decided we're all going to be super evil as revenge for losing our old PCs. We're also not going to follow the storyline no matter what, so we're just gonna be having fun til the apocalypse hits.

Segev
2016-04-05, 08:56 AM
We've already decided we're all going to be super evil as revenge for losing our old PCs. We're also not going to follow the storyline no matter what, so we're just gonna be having fun til the apocalypse hits.

Is the DM okay with this, or is he being "punished?" If the latter...just don't. It's not worth it. Imagine you put a lot of effort into making a meal for your friends to come over and enjoy with you, but because they felt that you'd been unfair for abruptly ending the last dinner party when they didn't compliment you for your dessert, they are showing up this time with the intent of getting into a food fight and not eating a thing.

It's...just bad behavior, and cruel. Especially if the DM is looking forward to the meal, himself, because it's one he likes.

Winter_Wolf
2016-04-05, 09:10 AM
We've already decided we're all going to be super evil as revenge for losing our old PCs. We're also not going to follow the storyline no matter what, so we're just gonna be having fun til the apocalypse hits.

Yeah buddy, that's not cool. I mean really, it is not. I'm glad we don't game together.

Douche
2016-04-05, 09:30 AM
But the party has spoken. What can I do? I am only one man, I cannot stop the sway of 4 other people!

Nerd-o-rama
2016-04-05, 09:40 AM
We've already decided we're all going to be super evil as revenge for losing our old PCs. We're also not going to follow the storyline no matter what, so we're just gonna be having fun til the apocalypse hits.

It's good to know that, even if this isn't a troll topic, you're at least trolling your GM. gl;hf


This whole discussion - the meta-discussion of the thread, I mean - does bring up an interesting point about Stories. Stories don't have to have actually happened to be true, as long as they reveal or comment on or demonstrate some more general truth (or have entertainment value). It's why we have fiction in the first place, including myths and parables. Regardless of whether this happened or not, it's still a fun parable about "what happens when you have people at the same gaming table deliberately antagonizing each other, and why it's sometimes fun rather than awful, at least for one side".

8BitNinja
2016-04-05, 09:46 AM
Thanks for the support, guys :smallsmile:

I decided I don't want to be a copy-cat criminal anymore. I'm going to try being a necromancer instead. Maybe I can use the DMs waifu as my mindless slave

If you do, I'll be right behind you

hunting you down

goto124
2016-04-05, 09:51 AM
Why not be an undead cat necromancer?

8BitNinja
2016-04-05, 09:52 AM
Why not be an undead cat necromancer?

I don't think you understand, necromancy only works with things with one life

Nerd-o-rama
2016-04-05, 10:03 AM
I don't think you understand, necromancy only works with things with one life

I'm pretty sure Schroedinger's Cat is a form of undead.

Anonymouswizard
2016-04-05, 10:18 AM
But the party has kspoken. What can I do? I am only one man, I cannot stop the sway of 4 other people!

Taking the high road only has benefits. Also, you're going in to play the game the GM will always win at, and that way lies frustration. If you're lucky you'll just end up having to make a new level 2 character. The best way is to just miss the rails with completely legitimate actions (I do this by accident a lot), and it's even better if they have a fight you're supposed to lose later on, because making them speed the battle up and lose the speech will annoy them.


Why not be an undead cat necromancer?

Don't you mean... nekomancer? :smallcool:

OldTrees1
2016-04-05, 10:31 AM
But the party has spoken. What can I do? I am only one man, I cannot stop the sway of 4 other people!

If 2 people swayed you, then you + them can sway another, then you and the 2nd can sway the 3rd. Then the 3 of you can sway the last 2.

Segev
2016-04-05, 10:38 AM
But the party has spoken. What can I do? I am only one man, I cannot stop the sway of 4 other people!

In the "if all your friends jumped off a bridge" line of argument...

If the party had decided to egg your DM's house, would you participate because you cannot sway 4 other people? What if they decided to key his car? Or kill his pet? Or commit and then frame him for murder?

The point being: if your fellow players are planning to do something that you know to be wrong, you should oppose them and tell them not to do it. And refuse to participate if they insist on doing it anyway.

Douche
2016-04-05, 10:44 AM
In the "if all your friends jumped off a bridge" line of argument...

If the party had decided to egg your DM's house, would you participate because you cannot sway 4 other people? What if they decided to key his car? Or kill his pet? Or commit and then frame him for murder?

The point being: if your fellow players are planning to do something that you know to be wrong, you should oppose them and tell them not to do it. And refuse to participate if they insist on doing it anyway.

Woah, man.... You're right. I shouldn't be a follower. I just thought it would be good to show solidarity but I didn't realize that it might be bad for the DM. I mean, they're the ones who helped me out when I killed the captain by slaughtering the rest of the village. I can't just betray them like that.


Taking the high road only has benefits. Also, you're going in to play the game the GM will always win at, and that way lies frustration. If you're lucky you'll just end up having to make a new level 2 character. The best way is to just miss the rails with completely legitimate actions (I do this by accident a lot), and it's even better if they have a fight you're supposed to lose later on, because making them speed the battle up and lose the speech will annoy them.

So I should be like the cleric and brown nose the DM in hopes of rewards? Brilliant! That way I might get my level 17 rogue back. Now I just need to figure out how to steer the party into actually doing the quest the DM has planned while making them think we are still trolling him.

Talakeal
2016-04-05, 10:49 AM
Thris thread does seem a bit suspect, but I am willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. I am known for telling gaming horror stories, all of which really happened, but many of which stretch the bounds of credulity, and I have been accused of trolling more than once as a result.

I do find it kind of strange that the OP goes from being mad at having his PCs actions being called evil to decideding to revel in playing a super evil PC in a manner which seems to be based on ooc malice toward the DM.

Also, if you have a DM vs. Players setup like that you probably cant run a game at all. I saw something like that in real life when I first started out. The DM just started being your stereotypical killer Dm, to which the players responded by just ignoring the DM and writing XP and magic items on their character sheet. It ended up with everyone shouting "No you dont! Yes I do!" Back and forth like kids playing cops and robbers and didnt last even a single session.

SethoMarkus
2016-04-05, 10:53 AM
If by some chance the DM in this story really exists and makes his way to this thread, I have a message for you. Run away. Run away and never look back.

Anonymouswizard
2016-04-05, 11:16 AM
So I should be like the cleric and brown nose the DM in hopes of rewards? Brilliant! That way I might get my level 17 rogue back. Now I just need to figure out how to steer the party into actually doing the quest the DM has planned while making them think we are still trolling him.

Not quite (although if you can pull that off, well done, it's an awesome bluff), I intended more of a 'play along, but not entirely' (which, being honest, is what I like my players doing). Go along with the quest, but don't let him force you, and don't go directly against him (so in the village murdering sort of situation I'd recommend trying to calm down the Barbarian). Don't be actively disruptive, but don't suck up to the GM. Yadda yadda yadda.

8BitNinja
2016-04-05, 01:34 PM
"I was peer pressured" is a bad excuse

Vinyadan
2016-04-05, 02:00 PM
Thris thread does seem a bit suspect, but I am willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. I am known for telling gaming horror stories, all of which really happened, but many of which stretch the bounds of credulity, and I have been accused of trolling more than once as a result.

I do find it kind of strange that the OP goes from being mad at having his PCs actions being called evil to decideding to revel in playing a super evil PC in a manner which seems to be based on ooc malice toward the DM.

Also, if you have a DM vs. Players setup like that you probably cant run a game at all. I saw something like that in real life when I first started out. The DM just started being your stereotypical killer Dm, to which the players responded by just ignoring the DM and writing XP and magic items on their character sheet. It ended up with everyone shouting "No you dont! Yes I do!" Back and forth like kids playing cops and robbers and didnt last even a single session.

Are you The Stabbed One?

EDIT: Ops, that was That Lanky Bugger (Return of Lanky).

8BitNinja
2016-04-05, 02:14 PM
Are you The Stabbed One?

No, I am The Stabbed One

(I hope this starts up like a Spartacus thing)

Talakeal
2016-04-05, 02:37 PM
Are you The Stabbed One?

EDIT: Ops, that was That Lanky Bugger (Return of Lanky).

No, that was Lanky. But I have been told several times that my gaming group is the second most messed up thing anyone has ever heard of on these forums.

8BitNinja
2016-04-05, 05:55 PM
I have been told several times that my gaming group is the second most messed up thing anyone has ever heard of on these forums.

What is the first?

Do I want to know?

Kish
2016-04-05, 06:16 PM
I'm pretty sure Schroedinger's Cat is a form of undead.
The cat is both alive and dead
Undead Undead Undead

What is the first?

Do I want to know?
Either a story in which the poster, That Lanky Bugger, indicated the DM had come back (...while he was posting...) to assault him physically, or this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?282462-The-SUE-Files-Part-II).

Kelb_Panthera
2016-04-05, 07:12 PM
I think the "most people" from paragraph two and the "people who take great pride" in paragraph one don't have much overlap.

- M

There's a difference between being called evil and being called Evil. It's the line between hyperbole and factual statement. I take mild amusement in my friends saying, "dude, you're evil," when I catch them out with something devious and clever. It'd be quite another thing altogether for some religious zealot to say I was evil for taking part in this hobby.

Stupid english language quirks. :smalltongue:


We've already decided we're all going to be super evil as revenge for losing our old PCs. We're also not going to follow the storyline no matter what, so we're just gonna be having fun til the apocalypse hits.

Hold on there friend. This is a bridge too far, IMO. It's one thing if this guy is generally a d-bag and/or you've discussed taste and boundaries and he won't play ball with the group's desires. In general, however, trying to 'teach someone a lesson' or take vengeance will only lead to bad-blood in the long-term and make him that much worse for the next group. If you're not enjoying his game, explain why and then withdraw from play. It's a classier move that will have everyone come out better than being petty and screwing up his game.

8BitNinja
2016-04-05, 07:19 PM
Either a story in which the poster, That Lanky Bugger, indicated the DM had come back (...while he was posting...) to assault him physically, or this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?282462-The-SUE-Files-Part-II).

Wow, that DM feel he had to do more than just a TPK

Pyrous
2016-04-05, 07:23 PM
What is the first?

Do I want to know?

Probably How Lanky got himself stabbed (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?95189-New-Worst-Session-How-Lanky-got-hisself-stabbed!&highlight=lanky).

8BitNinja
2016-04-05, 07:26 PM
Probably How Lanky got himself stabbed (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?95189-New-Worst-Session-How-Lanky-got-hisself-stabbed!&highlight=lanky).

My condolences Lanky

Talakeal
2016-04-05, 09:09 PM
The cat is both alive and dead
Undead Undead Undead

Either a story in which the poster, That Lanky Bugger, indicated the DM had come back (...while he was posting...) to assault him physically, or this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?282462-The-SUE-Files-Part-II).

Either of those. I guess that really means I am more of a third.

The Glyphstone
2016-04-05, 09:58 PM
Woah, man.... You're right. I shouldn't be a follower. I just thought it would be good to show solidarity but I didn't realize that it might be bad for the DM. I mean, they're the ones who helped me out when I killed the captain by slaughtering the rest of the village. I can't just betray them like that.



So I should be like the cleric and brown nose the DM in hopes of rewards? Brilliant! That way I might get my level 17 rogue back. Now I just need to figure out how to steer the party into actually doing the quest the DM has planned while making them think we are still trolling him.

Honestly, yeah. Don't double down on the problem (your screenname aside) by intentionally being a jerk along with the rest of them. If you don't want to play with the DM anymore, better to just quit than waste his time out of spite because your high-level characters got nuked for being serial killing psychos.

Alternatively...try talking to them, and/or the DM. Evil campaigns are a thing, and if the players are agreed OOC to not be backstabbing weasels to each other IC (even Evil can have friends), they can work out very well with a DM who's willing to run one. That lets everyone get their psycho-killing on, without spitefully ruining the DM's game out of some juvenile idea of revenge. If the group refuses to consider it, walk away safely rather than stick with what is obviously a toxic and dysfunctional game group.

Geordnet
2016-04-05, 10:43 PM
Either a story in which the poster, That Lanky Bugger, indicated the DM had come back (...while he was posting...) to assault him physically, or this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?282462-The-SUE-Files-Part-II).
Ah, yes; I remember that story fondly. I was there, you see (in the first thread, not the game); my most cherished moment on this forum was bestowing upon that DM the moniker "Chief Circle". :smallcool:

8BitNinja
2016-04-06, 12:13 AM
I also forgot to say this

Lanky, your group is messed up

Lorsa
2016-04-06, 03:53 AM
"I was peer pressured" is a bad excuse

I feel like this thread is peer pressuring me into being against peer pressure.

Clearly I should go against it and say that peer pressure is good! Go with the flow!

Vinyadan
2016-04-06, 04:24 AM
I feel like this thread is peer pressuring me into being against peer pressure.

Clearly I should go against it and say that peer pressure is good! Go with the flow!
No! Flow with the go!

Jormengand
2016-04-06, 06:01 AM
Don't you mean... nekomancer? :smallcool:

Dammit, you beat me to the joke.

nedz
2016-04-06, 07:38 AM
Are there any "innocent" as far as roleplaying goes?

Yes, they are normally used as material components in certain rituals, etc.

8BitNinja
2016-04-06, 09:46 AM
Are there any "innocent" as far as roleplaying goes?

Yes, but they are usually killed by the not innocent

SpoonR
2016-04-06, 10:04 AM
Ya know, I never heard of this version of waifu till now. Guess I don't hang out on 4chan enough. I thought it was waif-fu, so "I accidentally killed the little girl who could fingerpoke me to death." :smallconfused:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Tam

Nerd-o-rama
2016-04-06, 10:42 AM
I feel remiss in any horror story sharing of bad groups (specifically regarding players who appear to be out to get the DM, like these jokers) without sharing the Saga (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=284231&postcount=36) of Shiyuan (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=284356&postcount=38) (which I am very glad hasn't been lost in the half dozen intervening software upgrades and database crashes), if only because it forever gave me the inspiration for Doing Orcs Right.

There was also the time the Greasepig fellow almost beat someone to death with a bokken, elsewhere in that thread, but I don't want to try and challenge Lanky Got Stabbed on even terms.

8BitNinja
2016-04-06, 11:28 AM
And so starts a new thread on top of this one

D&D Horror Stories

Mordar
2016-04-06, 12:57 PM
There's a difference between being called evil and being called Evil. It's the line between hyperbole and factual statement. I take mild amusement in my friends saying, "dude, you're evil," when I catch them out with something devious and clever. It'd be quite another thing altogether for some religious zealot to say I was evil for taking part in this hobby.

Stupid english language quirks. :smalltongue:

I assume though that you are not a griefer who looks for ways to annoy, harass and otherwise ruin the legitimate fun of others while taking pride in being called any array of bad names. "Dude, you're evil" as you refer above is a way of saying "Good job - that was a nicely done gambit that was fun for all despite being in opposition to my character"...much the way "Dude, that's sick!" means "Wow, that's cool!". I think that's on a completely different part of the spectrum...maybe even a different spectrum...from the antagonizers that are doing so just to cause grief/pain/annoyance.

M

8BitNinja
2016-04-06, 01:18 PM
I assume though that you are not a griefer who looks for ways to annoy, harass and otherwise ruin the legitimate fun of others while taking pride in being called any array of bad names. "Dude, you're evil" as you refer above is a way of saying "Good job - that was a nicely done gambit that was fun for all despite being in opposition to my character"...much the way "Dude, that's sick!" means "Wow, that's cool!". I think that's on a completely different part of the spectrum...maybe even a different spectrum...from the antagonizers that are doing so just to cause grief/pain/annoyance.

M

English language, why mst you be so weird

AvatarVecna
2016-04-06, 01:50 PM
English language, why mst you be so weird

That's what happens when your language is the Frankenstein merging of several other languages; you end up with a convoluted, exception-filled grammar rules system, confusing pronouns, and an insistence on using the worst kind of measuring systems.

Mordar
2016-04-06, 02:07 PM
English language, why mst you be so weird


That's what happens when your language is the Frankenstein merging of several other languages; you end up with a convoluted, exception-filled grammar rules system, confusing pronouns, and an insistence on using the worst kind of measuring systems.

Or, colloquialisms. Darn people speaking the language ruin the language. :smallwink:

8BitNinja
2016-04-06, 02:21 PM
That's what happens when your language is the Frankenstein merging of several other languages; you end up with a convoluted, exception-filled grammar rules system, confusing pronouns, and an insistence on using the worst kind of measuring systems.

The worst system is not U.S. Customary, it Qxrsnr, a measuring system with no numbers and is incomprehensible to humans

AvatarVecna
2016-04-06, 03:08 PM
The worst system is not U.S. Customary, it Qxrsnr, a measuring system with no numbers and is incomprehensible to humans

While it may be technically less useful as a measuring system, the imperial system the US uses works juuuuust well enough for people not to ditch it for being too useless, and is ingrained in our education/upbringing enough that replacing it would be quite the chore. It may not be technically the most useless measuring system, but it's the worst by virtue of being diabolically difficult to replace with a new system.

Anonymouswizard
2016-04-06, 03:37 PM
I feel remiss in any horror story sharing of bad groups (specifically regarding players who appear to be out to get the DM, like these jokers) without sharing the Saga (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=284231&postcount=36) of Shiyuan (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=284356&postcount=38) (which I am very glad hasn't been lost in the half dozen intervening software upgrades and database crashes), if only because it forever gave me the inspiration for Doing Orcs Right.

There was also the time the Greasepig fellow almost beat someone to death with a bokken, elsewhere in that thread, but I don't want to try and challenge Lanky Got Stabbed on even terms.

I'd forgotten that story, I really do like it. I'd use mongol orcs in my game, except that the current world-state has no 'fantastic races' and everything outside of the Europe stand in has been separated mystically (it's the intended campaign plot). I've discovered that I don't have to worry about doing X right if I don't use X (while many people in-setting believe in angels and demons, the only thing that's clear is that they might be Void Spirits), which is why I've just abandoned the magic system I was going to use and am sticking to the Fate System Toolkit Voidcallers rules for magic (which is, of course, hated and feared, and entire villages have been wiped out to remove infections before).

I have, thankfully, not had any horror stories myself from either side of the table, just a couple of examples of bad GMing or railroading, and one of a far too lenient GM (where I've decided to abandon the out-there concepts and provide a party healer, a half-elf swashbuckler valour bard).

Kelb_Panthera
2016-04-06, 05:39 PM
I assume though that you are not a griefer who looks for ways to annoy, harass and otherwise ruin the legitimate fun of others while taking pride in being called any array of bad names. "Dude, you're evil" as you refer above is a way of saying "Good job - that was a nicely done gambit that was fun for all despite being in opposition to my character"...much the way "Dude, that's sick!" means "Wow, that's cool!". I think that's on a completely different part of the spectrum...maybe even a different spectrum...from the antagonizers that are doing so just to cause grief/pain/annoyance.

I'm not generally the trolling type but I'm not above the occcasional instance of griefing to make a point. I tend to stick to internet videos of people getting hurt by their own stupidity for my indulgence in shaudenfreude, though.

Nevertheless. There's still a difference as well between being called 'evil' by the victims of your japes and jests and being called 'evil' in all seriousness by people you've come to for help. No matter how true it may be, it grates to hear something that's equivocal to "you deserve to have bad things happen to you."

8BitNinja
2016-04-06, 05:41 PM
While it may be technically less useful as a measuring system, the imperial system the US uses works juuuuust well enough for people not to ditch it for being too useless, and is ingrained in our education/upbringing enough that replacing it would be quite the chore. It may not be technically the most useless measuring system, but it's the worst by virtue of being diabolically difficult to replace with a new system.

Then replace it with Qxrsnr

Mordar
2016-04-06, 06:12 PM
Nevertheless. There's still a difference as well between being called 'evil' by the victims of your japes and jests and being called 'evil' in all seriousness by people you've come to for help. No matter how true it may be, it grates to hear something that's equivocal to "you deserve to have bad things happen to you."

Well, does it help if the scale of bad things runs from "Get a papercut" to "Erasure of your existence"? It could correspond with the scale of evil from "Never refills the copier" to [insert whatever you think the most evil thing is here]...

FWIW, I don't think Douche is evil. I also don't think he came here for help, though.

- M

Icewraith
2016-04-06, 06:26 PM
I keep on scrolling past this thread, misreading the last word as "wife", and doing a double-take.

I had a DM that did this sort of thing. What these DMs never realize is that players immediately pick up on this kind of DMPC and instinctively try to kill it, and that protecting such DMPCs with plot armor just makes the instinct worse.