Another CE Fighter?

[Rolaran]

Hello!

Alright, here is the issue. I have played in three campaigns where a friend of mine had a PC. In each campaign, he has played essentially the same character- a Chaotic Evil fighter who kills on a whim, attempts to bed everything described as female, wields the biggest sword he can carry, and generally screws over everyone he meets including other PCs. When confronted, he claims that he's "just roleplaying his alignment". It should be noted that this is the limit of his interest in roleplaying; if someone asks why exactly he acts this way, he smirks and says, "He's just a prick." In addition, the character is minmaxed to ridiculous levels, and his rolls for stats and HP seem just a little too good to be random chance.

It's not so much the fact that he does this (I think I could handle one character like this... maybe), it's the fact that in all three campaigns where he's rolled up a player character, it's been cast from this same cookie-cutter mold. About the only important difference between them is that each of his atrocities gets a different name and slightly varying (but always high) stats. So my questions to you:

1. As a DM, what do you do with this? I hate the character and want him dead, but what's the point if the next character will have all the same annoying traits?

2. As another PC, what do you do with this? It wrecks a large part of the fun for me that our normally heroic party is forced to rationalize exactly why they hang around with a guy whose idea of a fun afternoon is killing anything that looks sideways at him, then sticking its head on a pike in the middle of town.

3. What possible fun could this character be? All he does is hack things to death (hostile or otherwise), get the rest of the party in trouble, shout obscenities at NPCs during roleplaying encounters, and otherwise engage in truly cringe-inducing jackassery; how long can this continue before it gets boring?

And finally,

4. How can I convince him to try something else?

[loopy]

Suggestions in no particular order:

-Talk to the player, share your concerns.
-*character name* finds the big-ass sword of opposite alignment. LG fighter on the horizon, see if he is more partial to the big swords or the CE. Oh, and penalise him for his behavior if he reverts to CE while wielding the sword, or you'll solve nothing.
-Have him roll a new character, have his current character betray the party and then become an NPC villain. It should be fun for him and get the character out of the party.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

I don't know about your group, but when someone in my group is a radically diff. alignment from everyone else and a prick, generally the CN thief backstabs him and takes his stuff, then tells the rest of the party a kobold did it. The player usually rolls up something different the third or fourth time that happens.

[Rad]

My humble advice is to NEVER try to solve in-game an out-of-game problem.
The problem with D&D is that it can be played in many ways and most people only enjoy some of them; bring the problem up to the table and have everybody say out loud and clear what kind of game they want. Then make all the characters and the adventure accordingly.
As things are, I'd say that either you or those characters probably should go, at this point what the other people in the group think and feel like about the whole situation is crucial.

As a side note: in this issues do not use DM intervention or fiat; his opinion has to be taken into account as everybody else's, neither he should be left alone to deal with the problem player if the intent is shared by the other players at the table.

[mapexman115]

Kill him. (The character, I mean...) If he rolls up the same ass-clown fighter as he previously had, kill him again until he rolls up something else.

It might be a good idea to get the rest of the party in on this. Back-up helps.

To avoid him "Munchkining," his new characters, insist that his stat/HP rolls be done in front of everyone.

If this doesn't work, pick up the nearest copy of the Spell Compendium and proceed to beat him viciously about the head and shoulders until you feel better.

[Talic]

I don't know, I prefer positive encouragement to negative.

I offer a roleplaying award in all of my groups, where I offer each player opportunity to give constructive criticism to each other player, highlight their favorite parts of the session, and vote on the Role playing MvP for the session. Sometimes it's best character, sometimes it's best roleplaying, sometimes it went to the player with the most improvement. The players decided. And they got to say WHY they decided.

When it's done, the winning character got a bonus of between 100-200 xp. Every non-winner gets 10-20 xp per vote.

This encourages players to roleplay well, and to roleplay in a fashion that makes their fellow players happy.

[Devils_Advocate]

our normally heroic party is forced to rationalize exactly why they hang around with a guy whose idea of a fun afternoon is killing anything that looks sideways at him, then sticking its head on a pike in the middle of town.
No, they aren't. They're forced to do jack.

I would encourage the other characters to believably roleplay their characters' alignments and personalities, which probably means not just putting up with whatever this guy does. Depending on how bad he is, they might respond with a stern lecture, subduing him and taking him to the authorities, outright killing him, or just parting ways with the guy. Note that a lot of these basically translate to "roll up a new character".

If he goes around randomly killing people in town, then the local law enforcement is going to do the best they can to stop him. Etc. Sometimes PCs engage in inappropriate behavior because the gameworld just doesn't respond in a realistic fashion. There are very good reasons not to randomly slaughter people in real life that have nothing to do with morality, and many of those reasons should frequently apply in D&D. But if it's somehow possible to openly murder people and get away with it, well, that encourages players to play that sort of character.

At some point, though, it may come down to the DM looking at yet another new character sheet and saying "No. No, you can't play this. Because all of the previous characters like this that you've made have been extremely disruptive and have ruined our fun by keeping us from playing the sort of game we want to play. You are not in fact entitled to create and play whatever sort of character you want in this game. If that's the only sort of character you're willing to play, then I'd rather you not play at all. Sorry."

[Miles Invictus]

4. How can I convince him to try something else?

"You're acting like a prick and pissing off everyone. Stop it, or we're going to kick you in your undersized jewels and throw you out of the group."

On second thought, you should kick him first. Then he'll know you mean it.

[Tequila Sunrise]

Tell him to stop. Immediately. Screwing over other PCs is just not cool, even in evil campaigns. And tell him if he's not into roleplaying that's fine, but don't pretend that what he's doing is roleplaying--all he's doing is acting out all the id urges that he has to supress in real life.

If he doesn't stop, kick him out. It's really that simple.
TS

[Fiery Diamond]

My recommendations, not in order of importance:

As a DM: (addressing stated issues and questions 1,3,4)
1) Force him, whenever he rolls stats and HP, to do it in front of the rest of the group. I always make even the perfectly trustworthy players do that on basic principle (or at least make them roll in front of me, since I'm the DM)

2) Forbid alignments. I do it all the time. If someone decides to pout about it, then they probably aren't going to be very fun to play with anyway. Just explain why you are banning the alignment.

3) Roleplaying bonus XP - it is a good thing. I give it to players when they deserve it.

4) On question 3 - it isn't fun. At all. You have acknowledged this already.

5) Talk to him out of game. Talk to the rest of the group out of game first. If they agree with you, take him aside and tell him that. It isn't necessary to "kill off his character." If he doesn't agree to create a new character, boot him out, gently. Unless he cusses at you, then you can do it forcefully. If he does agree, then it isn't hard to come up with some story-related reason for his death: the city police or something.

As a player:
1) I would talk to the DM, and use the DM as a mediator between me and the CE player. I would present my case very clearly and try to get the backing of the other players. I wouldn't want to have to leave a good group because of a j-a player.

2) Roleplay it out. Show that your character detests this CE fighter. If I were a CG character, I might surprise attack him and kill him. NG, and I might talk the party into it. LG - turn him over to the authorities. Any neutral and I'd do the same things. Only do this if #1 fails. When he's dead, try #1 again.

Does that help any?

-Fiery Diamond

[horseboy]

1) Buy a sack full of oranges.
2) Rent Scarface.
3) Substitute sack of oranges for baseball bat.
4) Eat oranges
5) Dump body on sheet of plyboard, douse in gas, set on fire, kick into lake.

[Lord Tataraus]

First off, I don't want this to sound like "It's all your fault", it is only partially your fault (as far as I can tell with the info you've given).

It sounds like everyone except Mr. Killsalot is your "Average" Good to close-to-good-but-not neutral character. As others have said, there is no reason they should let that guy be in their group, they need to kick him out and you need to support them. However, the fact that this character exists in gameplay is partially your fault. I always make sure everyone in the group doesn't have opposite alignments and we usually arrange for certain campaigns to be good and others to be evil. The opposite alignment characters are not allowed into play without a lot of convincing based on RP reasons for both this character to want to be with these people and why they don't kill him right off. You need to say up front "No evil". Secondly, as others have mentioned, Mr. Killsalot needs to have the world respond to him in the appropriate manner. Unless he is in a city where people are killing others all the time (I've had such cities, they are fun) the law enforcement and every citizenry vigilantes should rough him up if not lynch him on sight after a few atrocities. If he is so big and bad that he can take on any law enforcement, you have a few options. 1) the local governement issues orders for the army/militia to take him out, 2) the local government hires a bloodhound/bounty hunter/assassin after him (who is of course an adventurer himself), or 3) pick up Cityscape, flip to page 124 and throw as many mobs as you wish at him. All you need is one mob which does 5d6 damage per round it occupies Mr. Killsalot's space and 135 hp is not too bad (even funnier if you use the Throng of Children to kill him).

[TheElfLord]

The Simplest solution to a disruptive evil PC is to not let your PCs be evil.

[Rolaran]

Wow, thanks for all the advice!

In the one campaign at least, the problem may have, rather amusingly, sorted itself out. Tonight, when I was running my campaign, the friend sheepishly admitted that he had lost his character sheet, and asked if he could roll up a new character to play until he found it. I agreed, and was pleasantly surprised to see him roll up a Chaotic Good wizard, with reasonable stats, who helped the group immensely and got in some entertaining banter with the NPC villains instead of just bellowing semi-incoherent threats. Much more enjoyable than his previous character, and I made a point of telling him afterward that it was way more fun dealing with this than Stabby McPsycho the Fourth. We'll see how it pans out from here, but I'm enjoying it so far.

As for the other campaign (where I'm a PC), we'll have to see what happens. I have to admit that the majority of his bad behavior so far has been in my campaign (possibly solved; see above), and in a campaign I ran last summer which is now over (so that's just water under the bridge). While the current character is (at least on paper) a Chaotic Evil fighter, so far the worst he's done is ogle female party members, swear a blue streak during combat to get an opponent's attention, and tell the unsuspecting rogue about a "locked treasure chest full of gold" that is, in fact, a mimic. This was enough to worry me, given previous trends, but the fact that he has at least shown himself willing to try something different leads me to believe that perhaps this will be a less unpleasant character than the previous two. In any case, if he does turn out to be as bad as previous incarnations, my character, a Lawful Good bodyguard assigned to protect the party from trouble, will be quick to recommend that he leave the party... and quick to "help" him on his way... :smallwink:

[Adumbration]

I just had the strangest feeling that the player reads this thread. Is it possible?

[Yami]

The Simplest solution to a disruptive evil PC is to not let your PCs be evil.

It's people like you that make me shake my head and sigh. I've had some real good fun with evil characters. Also, I happen to hate elves, so maybe I'm just overreacting.

You see, the problem with this response is he'll just say, "Fine!" sulk a bit, and then craft a CN fighter and play him the same damn way. The problem isn't the Evil.

The problem is that the player actually wants to play a prick.

This makes him something of a prick.

My solution? Cut him from your active players list. If you don't like confrontation just drop the game altogether, grab someone else, start something new, and ask all the players you like back in. Tell mr. problem character the game is full when he hears about it. Not the best way, but it should do.

Edit; Aha, I see things have worked themselves out. Excellent. I'm just glad it got resolved before you gaming group, sans problem, got together for lunch one day and found out everyone else in the group had also decided to backstab said problem character.

[Rolaran]

I just had the strangest feeling that the player reads this thread. Is it possible?

Come to think of it, it is... but I wouldn't have pegged him as the kind of person who would react the way he did. Normally I'd expect him to tell me that he'd seen this and ask if I wanted him to change it (he's a decent guy out of character). Instead, he didn't even mention it. Either way, for the moment I'm just happy it's been worked out.

[Draz74]

Another option is just to play Munchkin instead of D&D. So that his annoying character will actually be appropriate/encouraged. :smallwink:

[paigeoliver]

I don't care what anyone says about how they like to roleplay properly played evil PCs, I have found that letting in evil PCs generally ruins the game.

I have allowed evil PCs about 12 times, with players ranging in age from their teens to their 30s, and every single time one of them had an evil PC they ruined the game. Sure you or some other mythical person might have the ability to play an evil character without ruining the game, but I have never seen it go off that way in reality. In reality they always end up slaughtering townsfolk, attacking the party, attempting rape, attack city guards or doing something else to ruin the fun for everyone.

My answer to evil characters now is always no. In fact, I try to stress that the campaign is to be HIGHLY good aligned, and that PCs must be the type willing to save kittens out of trees and help old ladies across the street. That at least minimizes the evil character problem.

Also, I now have a general ban on enchanter characters, warlocks with the charm ability and the charm person spell, since enchanters are just as likely to ruin games as evil characters are, always because they try to charm someone who makes their save.

[hewhosaysfish]

In the one campaign at least, the problem may have, rather amusingly, sorted itself out. Tonight, when I was running my campaign, the friend sheepishly admitted that he had lost his character sheet, and asked if he could roll up a new character to play until he found it. I agreed, and was pleasantly surprised to see him roll up a Chaotic Good wizard, with reasonable stats, who helped the group immensely and got in some entertaining banter with the NPC villains instead of just bellowing semi-incoherent threats. Much more enjoyable than his previous character, and I made a point of telling him afterward that it was way more fun dealing with this than Stabby McPsycho the Fourth. We'll see how it pans out from here, but I'm enjoying it so far.

Make sure that NPCs react to his newer, nicer character in kind, being nicer and more helpful. Give him a metaphorical cookie. A bit of positive reinforcement (but don't go mad with it). I'm sure others here may have some ideas for that.
He might decide it's worth his while to change his other character too.

[Tengu]

When confronted, he claims that he's "just roleplaying his alignment". It should be noted that this is the limit of his interest in roleplaying; if someone asks why exactly he acts this way, he smirks and says, "He's just a prick."

Oh god, I hate when someone uses roleplaying as an excuse to act like a total jerk! Good that the problem solved itself, though, but if it didn't, the best course of action would be to encourage other characters not to put up with him and kill him. Or make NPCs do it - many people stop playing Stupid Evil characters when suddenly the world reacts to their action instead of being idle.


I don't care what anyone says about how they like to roleplay properly played evil PCs, I have found that letting in evil PCs generally ruins the game.


I agree. Evil characters can belong in a generally good team, but it takes a lot of hassle - too much to be worthwhile for me.

[Jimblee]

...kills on a whim, attempts to bed everything described as female, wields the biggest sword he can carry, and generally screws over everyone he meets including other PCs.... he smirks and says, "He's just a prick."


This guy is a Freudian wet dream


I don't care what anyone says about how they like to roleplay properly played evil PCs, I have found that letting in evil PCs generally ruins the game.

The trouble with evil PCs is that typically they arise from players wishing to be something different for once. They're always being the good guys, but for once they want to trip up the good guys. Thats why they turn on their own team - because they're not being given enough opportunities to be evil towards NPCs, which is a healthier outlet.

Evil characters are a lot harder to motivate. Adding evil to the PC side of the table makes it far more complex, and usually unpleasant (as everyone wants to go kill some monsters, not deal with your friend). Its one of those things that few people can pull off, and is usually sought after at least once

[Miles Invictus]

Evil characters are a symptom of the problem, not the cause. Jerk players gravitate towards Evil, because they can hide behind the veil of "roleplaying". I think groups would be better off if they regulated behavior through a code of conduct, rather than banning certain alignments. (I don't have a problem with restricting alignments in general, since some campaigns are designed with alignment in mind. Alignment restrictions are just a poor way to regulate player behavior.)


Code of Conduct:
You may play a character of any alignment. Your character must cooperate with the rest of the party on a basic level (e.g. no backstabbing), and your character must be a plausible addition to the party (e.g. no Blackguards joining a party of Paladins, or vice versa). Your character may not be disruptive to the campaign setting (e.g. no wanton slaughter). A character that grossly violates these tenets will become an NPC.

[Neek]

This guy is a Freudian wet dream

Sometimes a cigar's just a cigar. It seems he likes playing an arrogant bastard. It's a flavor, not any sort of perverse psychological trend (though it does too Freudian for my taste, to be honest).

If he, without reading this thread, made the Wizard character, it seems more than likely he can roleplay other things, he just doesn't like to. That's not who he wants to be when he sits down at the gaming table.

I agree with the less violent, more diplomatic approaches made on this thread: If it becomes a trend, talk to him. Smacking him down over and over again will only make the problem worse.

my brother used to roleplay and create real characters, that is, until our DM created TPKs all the way. Then he created characters that couldn't be killed. He was notorious for min-maxing coffin nails capable of simply breaking the game. This wasn't out of a desire to be the best, it was out of a desire to keep a character alive. In less tame campaigns, he turned out to be a total munchkin.

[Yami]

Evil characters are a lot harder to motivate. Adding evil to the PC side of the table makes it far more complex, and usually unpleasant (as everyone wants to go kill some monsters, not deal with your friend). Its one of those things that few people can pull off, and is usually sought after at least once

How hard is it to rationalize evil for someone whose job description is 'breaking into peoples houses and stabbing them in the face'. That is what an adventurer generally does. I find it's the good characters hardest to work with.

I mean, an evil character hired to wipe out a goblin party says 'sweet, legal slaughter'. The good character emphathizes with the poor downtrodden
goblins.

[Quietus]

Evil characters are a symptom of the problem, not the cause. Jerk players gravitate towards Evil, because they can hide behind the veil of "roleplaying". I think groups would be better off if they regulated behavior through a code of conduct, rather than banning certain alignments. (I don't have a problem with restricting alignments in general, since some campaigns are designed with alignment in mind. Alignment restrictions are just a poor way to regulate player behavior.)

I disagree with this. I've played evil characters before, not because I'm a jerk, but because I thought that they were genuinely interesting characters that wanted to come to life. Now, a Stupid Evil character... is something entirely different. But someone like my NE halfling rogue, who grew up among followers of Erythnul, found the random slaughter to be distasteful to him, isn't necessarily a symptom of some problem with me. He left the Erythnul temple, went to a Nerull one, where he found their attitudes met with his - everyone dies eventually, and his skills lent him to being capable of helping them along their way. He even tried to join the clergy, but found that the whole book-learning and quiet supplication wasn't to his taste. Quiet? Sure. He likes being the knife in the dark. But rather than serving Nerull as a cleric, he serves as an enforcer, of sorts. He and one of the clerics (the other PC) intend to go clear out a tower of some nasty things, set up a new temple, and expand Nerull's influence in the world.

How does that suggest that there's some problem with me?

[VanBuren]

How hard is it to rationalize evil for someone whose job description is 'breaking into peoples houses and stabbing them in the face'. That is what an adventurer generally does. I find it's the good characters hardest to work with.

I dunno. I like to try and explain it terms of, "why is this person evil" instead of "what makes them evil". For instance, a CE Fighter who likes to overdo things and not only win, but crush the opposition relentlessly to prove his own superiority, a behavior that stems from an excessive inferiority complex coupled with the paranoia that everyone's out to keep him down.

Maybe a good reason, maybe not. But I like to keep the genuine "kicked puppies because he's just a complete void of soulless evil" confined to a select group of villains, who should be well-motivated for the majority of occasions anyway.

[Felius]

If you talk to him, just don't let him play a Paladin. I feel he will do the stick-in-back if he gets it.

Now, remember evil characters doesn't mean he have to hate everyone, and be just waiting the opportunity to kill his party. A evil person can have friends that he deeply cares for. He be nice to his friends, and even keep a good PR to keep the paladins out of his back.

[Rolaran]

This is why I think a blanket ban on evil characters is unfair. It looks like I didn't mention this up above, but he's not the only evil character in the campaign I'm running; he's just the only one who was being a jerk about it. One of the other characters is a tiefling rogue who enjoys killing things a little more than he should; but he likes having a roof over his head, so he restricts his killing to the party's mercenary work. In fact, Kami's line up above about "legal slaughter" was very similar to something he said recently after being asked to deal with the local assassin's guild- "So I get to kill stuff and you give me money? Sign me up!" He's entertaining. The party's evil cleric who plays like a cross between a Jehovah's witness and a Lovecraftian Cthulhu cultist? He's entertaining. An old party member who was a half orc, and believed that pretty much any creature was edible if you fried it long enough? He was entertaining.

The guy who maimed a casino dealer because he lost a poker game, described in graphic detail how he intended to seduce the queen, and demanded a double share of treasure because the party was pretty sure he would murder them all if they pissed him off? Not so entertaining. That's not because these actions are evil; it's because they're the actions of a jerk. Evil characters can be fun to interact with; jerks rarely are.

[horseboy]

How does that suggest that there's some problem with me?
The problem isn't you, it's the other 99 stupid evil characters you run into that makes just a blanket ban viable.

[EvilElitest]

1. As a DM, what do you do with this? I hate the character and want him dead, but what's the point if the next character will have all the same annoying traits?

2. As another PC, what do you do with this? It wrecks a large part of the fun for me that our normally heroic party is forced to rationalize exactly why they hang around with a guy whose idea of a fun afternoon is killing anything that looks sideways at him, then sticking its head on a pike in the middle of town.

3. What possible fun could this character be? All he does is hack things to death (hostile or otherwise), get the rest of the party in trouble, shout obscenities at NPCs during roleplaying encounters, and otherwise engage in truly cringe-inducing jackassery; how long can this continue before it gets boring?

And finally,

4. How can I convince him to try something else?

1. I'd simple handle every character the same if he insisted on rolling them up (see my point three) but i would ask him why he keeps doing this, dock roleplaying exp, and try to fobid him from playing that guy. I would also force him to roll his stats in front of him
2. I wouldn't rationalize it, i'd tell the rest of the party to kill him for being a crimal phycopath and try ot hurt him
3. I'd make the world react to him. the party would fine wanted posters of him, city guards will attack him on sight, bounty hunters and employied knights will be hunting them, locals will run away from him and angry mobs will chase the party. Local bandits will ask them to join up, while rumors are spread of a total serial killer looting the lands. If he goes with the bandits and goes off on his phyco ranges, Adventures will show up and try to take him out. Eventually whole armies will be after him
4. talk to him, tell him how disruption he is being, and try to tell him how to play a realisitic CE fighter, or inform him that your going to have NPCs react realisticlly to him. this isn't Grand theft auto after all
from
EE

[Voyager_I]

Of course, when faced with expectable reactions from the game world (Law Enforcement is not a Level-Appropriate encounter), sufficiently Stupid Evil would tend to filter itself out fairly quickly. You're never obligated to save PC's from their own actions, especially when they go that far out of their way to piss off everything they encounter capable of feeling anger.

[Tengu]

How hard is it to rationalize evil for someone whose job description is 'breaking into peoples houses and stabbing them in the face'. That is what an adventurer generally does. I find it's the good characters hardest to work with.

I mean, an evil character hired to wipe out a goblin party says 'sweet, legal slaughter'. The good character emphathizes with the poor downtrodden
goblins.

I couldn't disagree more! Boring HNS 'adventures' are usually "walk around and kill monsters for no reason". Good adventures give PCs motivations to do what they are doing - also for the good ones. Only an idiot will empathize with goblins that are going to raid a defenseless village in 2 days (and which village he was hired to protect).

[EvilElitest]

Yami, you really seem to play a weird version of D&D, good player can sympathize with goblins if they goblins aren't doing anything to hurt people, but they can also sympathize with the people the goblins are raiding
from
EE

[Ganurath]

Make the big prize of the next crawl the intelligent greatsword of a late paladin of freedom. This way, you present an opportunity to change without demanding a heelfaceturn. Or is it faceheelturn?

[thorgrim29]

Wow, I've had that problem with one of my pals, he usually played the betrayer. At the first opportunity he'd betray the party, turn evil and make of with the loot. He's actually matured recently, and now he's fun to play with. So no evil trouple with my group, even though we're playing an evil game (sure, we're screwing eachother, but when in combat we stick together, works out pretty well). No the real trouble is the guy that wants to ply a female character and has "her" acting as a slut. You know..... that character: http://goblinscomic.com/d/20050819.html

[Illiterate Scribe]

The party's evil cleric who plays like a cross between a Jehovah's witness and a Lovecraftian Cthulhu cultist?

Tell. Me. More. Plz. :smalltongue:

[Yami]

Yami, you really seem to play a weird version of D&D, good player can sympathize with goblins if they goblins aren't doing anything to hurt people, but they can also sympathize with the people the goblins are raiding
from
EE

Let's see... why would a small race choose to attack people twice thier size? Banditry and raiding, although profitable, is a dangerous proposition. People choose to steal when either lazyness, greed or circumstances keep them from getting what they want through more peaceful methods.

Now, think about where most goblin clans live. Well defended mountain strongholds, caves, what have you. Now that 'poor defenseless village'? Where do they live? Meadows, plains? That right, that human village that hired us to take care of thier problems forced those goblins into the mountains so that they could keep all the good land for themselves.

So, forced to raid for supplies, so I should defend the ones that pushed this upon them? As a good character I would be respectful of both sides and try and find a solution that doesn't involve wholesale slaughter. Perhaps a tribute to the goblins in return for protection? A symbiotic relationship like such could be quite beneficial for both sides.

[VanBuren]

Let's see... why would a small race choose to attack people twice thier size? Banditry and raiding, although profitable, is a dangerous proposition. People choose to steal when either lazyness, greed or circumstances keep them from getting what they want through more peaceful methods.

Now, think about where most goblin clans live. Well defended mountain strongholds, caves, what have you. Now that 'poor defenseless village'? Where do they live? Meadows, plains? That right, that human village that hired us to take care of thier problems forced those goblins into the mountains so that they could keep all the good land for themselves.

So, forced to raid for supplies, so I should defend the ones that pushed this upon them? As a good character I would be respectful of both sides and try and find a solution that doesn't involve wholesale slaughter. Perhaps a tribute to the goblins in return for protection? A symbiotic relationship like such could be quite beneficial for both sides.

Wilken, the poor farmer who's struggling to make ends meet to feed his family, didn't ask or take part in the driving off of the goblins. He inherited the farm and land from his father and his from his father and so on for several generations. The goblins may have a good reason to raid the farm, but it doesn't change the fact that Wilken can't feed his family because of it.

[kamikasei]

The goblins may have a good reason to raid the farm, but it doesn't change the fact that Wilken can't feed his family because of it.

In which case the Good act would be to mediate between these two apparently desperate groups who are both motivated by simple survival, rather than to kill one for the sake of the other because you happen to be of the same race as him.

If human bandits in the mountains are stealing crops because their village was driven off its lands by a warlord and they have no means of making their own food, is it good to massacre them to get the crops back?

This is all supposing that the goblins really can't sustain themselves and aren't simply raiding for profit and for the pleasure of murdering humans. Thing is, basic D&D doesn't put any thought into why monsters do anything. They're there, they're monstrous, they are bad and that's all there is to it. If you try to give them realistic motivations, you have to take into account that you may invalidate a lot of standard approaches to gameplay.

[Laurellien]

Hello!

Alright, here is the issue. I have played in three campaigns where a friend of mine had a PC. In each campaign, he has played essentially the same character- a Chaotic Evil fighter who kills on a whim, attempts to bed everything described as female, wields the biggest sword he can carry, and generally screws over everyone he meets including other PCs. When confronted, he claims that he's "just roleplaying his alignment". It should be noted that this is the limit of his interest in roleplaying; if someone asks why exactly he acts this way, he smirks and says, "He's just a prick." In addition, the character is minmaxed to ridiculous levels, and his rolls for stats and HP seem just a little too good to be random chance.

It's not so much the fact that he does this (I think I could handle one character like this... maybe), it's the fact that in all three campaigns where he's rolled up a player character, it's been cast from this same cookie-cutter mold. About the only important difference between them is that each of his atrocities gets a different name and slightly varying (but always high) stats. So my questions to you:

1. As a DM, what do you do with this? I hate the character and want him dead, but what's the point if the next character will have all the same annoying traits?

2. As another PC, what do you do with this? It wrecks a large part of the fun for me that our normally heroic party is forced to rationalize exactly why they hang around with a guy whose idea of a fun afternoon is killing anything that looks sideways at him, then sticking its head on a pike in the middle of town.

3. What possible fun could this character be? All he does is hack things to death (hostile or otherwise), get the rest of the party in trouble, shout obscenities at NPCs during roleplaying encounters, and otherwise engage in truly cringe-inducing jackassery; how long can this continue before it gets boring?

And finally,

4. How can I convince him to try something else?

1) Kill the character off. Next time he goes on a killing spree, have one of his victims turn out to be a frenzied berserker. Or you could always put the party against a spellcaster who has lots of save-or-die will spells.

2) Wait until he is asleep, then if I am a rogue, full-attack sneak attack. If I am a fighting character. Frenzy/rage/power attack/smite to the full. If I am a wizard or cleric, hold person then polymorph or Divine power myself into a combat machine to bulldoze through him. If I am a druid ROAR!!! Eat Dire bear full attack. Alternatively, you could play a LE bastard who is even more evil and nasty than him.

3) Watching how you all react?

4) By doing what he does but better, telling him to his face (in front of the other players) how unacceptable his behaviour is, or you could just kill his character. Also, if it is the same campaign, just ban carbon copies.

[Yami]

Wilken, the poor farmer who's struggling to make ends meet to feed his family, didn't ask or take part in the driving off of the goblins. He inherited the farm and land from his father and his from his father and so on for several generations. The goblins may have a good reason to raid the farm, but it doesn't change the fact that Wilken can't feed his family because of it.

Indeed and quite right. They both have reasons for what they are doing. As a good character who respects life I would do my best for both sides. Perhaps there is another force, even more reviled we could loot. At the worst we could try to defend agains tan attack, rather than trying to kill the other side. As a neutral character, I would help who-so-ever offers me the best reward, and not care who dies.