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View Full Version : Advice needed : Chaotic? Evil? Or Chaotic Evil? (long story)



Airo Valeth
2007-10-01, 02:43 PM
Hi guys. I was running a game last night. The group I'm hosting right now is using alignment system that's similar to Star Wars' Darkside point thing. That means if you do something good, you will get a "Good alignment point"; if you disobey the law, you will get a "Chaotic alignment point". If the difference between Good/Evil Law/Chaos is greater then 3, then you are considered as a creature of that alignment.

For about a year I've been running this game, without giving out any Evil point since they didn't really do anything I consider to be evil(or evil enough). I'm kinda proud of them so far as most of them trying to be good.

But there's a situation last night and now I'm truly thinking about giving out Evil points. Here we go:

The PCs are on their way north on a mission uncovering the mystery between a mystical soul-sucking blade and a group of soul harvesting witch. They have stopped at Port Darwin, a city belongs to the most powerful noble of the north. They can only stay there for one night as the ship to north will depart next morning.

Once they have arrived they discovered that the noble is preparing to go to war with those soul harvesting witches, try to remove the threat of those witches once and for all. Beside hiring people for official military position, there's also something called "Contract Bounty Hunter"(CHB) for those who don't want to stay in the military, yet work for the noble with basic salary and bonus after completing mission assigned by the official. PCs decided to sign that contract since they kinda working for the noble already and wouldn't mind to get some "official salary" from the noble:smallbiggrin:
(actually they are working for 3 different nobles, and those nobles are plotting again each other. But that's another story)

Once they've signed the contract, they found out that every CHB has some sort of minor diplomatic immunity. Which means if they have broke some minor laws, they could get away with it by paying the officials, a.k.a. legal bribing. Of course that could only work a few times, but they think that this is a good "beat the crap out of someone with no problem once per day" pass.

As they walk on the street for informations, they have spotted a group of 3 children with a banner said "Make love, not war". Those children are working for a group of war victim to collect funds to "prevent war to start".

Those children, they're from a small village a few miles away from Port Darwin. As their village had been assaulted by a group of half-orc, the official sent out a group of CBH (Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, and Cleric) to deal with those half-orcs and defend the village for a while.

However, once those half-orc have been driven out, the CBHs start to take advantage of their diplomatic immunity and bully those poor villager. Some villager rebel against those CBHs, result in 6 death. And those are the parents of that 3 children.

PCs decide to check that village out since it's quite close to the port. Once they've arrived, they found out that all villagers are staying at their home. No one' on the street except a group of official militia patrolling, and a group of CBH "welcome" them. One CBH suggest them to leave since there's no more trouble in the village and no need of another group of CBH around.

One of the PC(male half-elf ranger) tries to taunt those CBHs to start a fight but failed. While the others were still trading words with those CBHs, he and another PC (female human rogue) sneak around in the village, knock on a villager's door and ask about those CBHs. However that villager seems to hate every adventurers, she did not cooperate and talk.

Next they visit the elder of the village. The elder doesn't want too associate with adventurers too, but not as hostile as the previous villager.

However, something totally unexpected happens.

The rogue decided to tell a lie: those 3 kids from this village were dead while they're in Port Darwin. As the elder heard that, he's totally shocked and angry. He calls out everyone in the village, explain that horrible news he has just heard, blame everything on those CBHs who course troubles, and rally everyone to kick those CBHs out of the village. There's 20 angry village with torch moving to gang those CBHs (just like what happen to Leon in RE4:smallbiggrin: )

Those CBHs see what's coming for them, warn them "disperse or we fire(ball)". The gang stays behind the PCs, with no intent to leave. Official militia try to calm both sides down, but basically stay out of the way. The rogue join back to her group, while the ranger sneaking somewhere, tries to ambush those CBHs. The rest of the PCs try to stop those villager since they stand no chance against those CBHs.

Then I call for the initiative, PCs goes first.

First goes the team wallet's(Male human sorcerer/fighter who keep track of the team's cash). He throws a durian bomb he created but miss. Then the rogue shots the wizard for sneak attack and she crit. In rage the wizard fireball the PCs. Then got sliced into half by the ranger.

Full scale war breaks out, CBH fighter charge in and drop the rogue into -1. Gang move in and start beating the crap out of the fighter (surprisingly those villagers deal huge amount of damage...). Fighter starts to cleave his way out, killing another 3 villagers before he's been killed by other PCs. CBH cleric has been killed too a few rounds later as he tried to escape, and CBH rogue escaped successfully by drinking potion of invisibility.

After that, villagers loot all of the CBHs' corpses. Team wallet suggest that he would like to buy those loots from them since cash will worth more to them. He pays about 2/3 of the price listed on PHB for weapons and armor, about 10gp per scroll and potion, and 50gp for spellbook of a 5th level wizard.

And then ANOTHER surprise action occurs.

The ranger tells the elder the truth: those kids actually still alive.

Actually PCs agree to bring back those kids from Port Darwin and explain what had happened. But didn't expect the ranger to tell the truth that soon.

Shocked yet again, poor elder shouts:"what the?" Then died of a heart attack.

Other villagers have no idea what had happened, only know that the elder died all of a sudden. They start crying and asking why, but the ranger's gone already with no sight of him.Some PCs stay to help those villagers to bury those death, while a Knight in Training (Male elf fighter) and the rogue get back to the port and take those kids back to their village.

Finally, the knight and rogue are back, with those 3 kids. The knight explains everything to the villagers: Everything was a lie. Elder died because he knew the truth. Conflicted by rage, sorrow and joy, villagers just asked the PCs to leave the village peacefully and never comeback.

The End of the session. it's a long story and i hope it's not too confusing.

So how would you judge the PCs action?
Will you call them evil? Or just chaotic? If you can award up to 3 points of alignment points, how much would you award to each individual PC? the ranger, rogue, knight, and wallet?
There is actually another 2 PCs involved in this story, the chef and wizard, but they didn't do anything except in the combat. Will you award them some alignment points too?

Feel free to ask if there's anything unclear, I'll explain as clearly as I can.
Thanks in advance.

Tyrael
2007-10-01, 03:00 PM
....I don't know of any Wallet class...but anyway, that's a heckuvan entertaining story there. I'd give 3 evil points to the rogue who lied and provoked the entire affair, since her lies resulted in the deaths of innocent villagers. I'd give 1 evil point to the ranger, since going up afte the battle and telling the elder about the lie was essentially saying "yeah, your people died for nothing because we're all jerks."

As for the rest of the party, the combat descriptor got a little confusing, but they didn't seem to do anything wrong. So, bonk the rogue, bonk the ranger, leave everyone else be.

Telonius
2007-10-01, 03:13 PM
Three evil points for the Rogue. The motivation matters for the Ranger. Was it, "We need to tell the truth, no matter what?" If so, that sounds like a Lawful Neutral act to me. If it was more like, "I'm going to tell this guy just to torment him," then that's definitely on the Evil side. 1 point.

Zombie pixe
2007-10-01, 03:46 PM
yea, deffo 3 evil points to the rouge. id say 1 chaotic point to the part as a whole. and depending on the motives of the ranger 1 evil point.



hmmmmm thats quite a funny story, how much of it was spontanious?

Lemur
2007-10-01, 05:05 PM
I don't think the ranger deserves an evil point for telling the truth. It may have been belated, but he eventually did the right thing, I'd think. There was no way he could tell that the elder would die after hearing it.

I don't know if 3 evil points are in line for the rogue just yet, since while he did tell a major lie, I think 3 points at once should represent an incredibly major evil action. I'd give him one evil point for the lie, and a second evil point for going all the way through with inciting the violence. Also, since what he was trying to accomplish through all this seems kind of unclear, give him a chaotic point as well.

On a completely unrelated note to the topic at hand, what sort of setting do you have? Anti-war protesters sound kind of like an anachronism in a typical fantasy setting.

Airo Valeth
2007-10-08, 11:36 PM
Hey guys, thanks for your advice.
I was out of town for a few day that's why could make any reply.:smallsmile:

My decision for the rogue is chaotic +2 and evil +2, for ranger chaotic +1 evil+1.
I gave the ranger 1 evil cos he just kinda run away when the elder died, without telling people why the elder suffer such fate.



hmmmmm thats quite a funny story, how much of it was spontanious?

Well from the point where they decided to make a trip to the village, almost 90% where made on fly. I didn't really expect them to visit it and take care of the CBH trouble since they didn't have the time for it.(and I'm a sadistic GM:smalltongue: )

Unexpectable player always cost trouble and fun:smallbiggrin:


On a completely unrelated note to the topic at hand, what sort of setting do you have? Anti-war protesters sound kind of like an anachronism in a typical fantasy setting.

Well the world setting is Earth itself a billion years ago (Laurasia). It has some kind of Ebbreon istyle in it, with some mix of 16-17 centure Japan element where new things and ideas were importing from somewhere else (yes I said import)

The anti-war thing was really out of the time. That's why no one was paying attention to it(except the PCs).