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Chronotor
2008-10-11, 11:20 PM
My friends are idiots.

The position of party leader has more potential for creating conflict between egos than almost any other element of tabletop gaming. This particularly true in my gaming group, which has two players very similar in mindset (who also frequent these forums) constantly butting heads to prove their superiority. It's usually far more amusing than it sounds.

Before I move on to the crux of the story, consider what usually settles the issue of party leadership in a sane group. A coin toss, a quick comparison of charisma scores, or a speedy vote. It's usually that simple. Keep this in mind throughout the tale.

I run a homebrew d20 superhero humor campaign. A semi-competent team of the 4 pcs and several npcs had functioned together as a dysfunctional supergroup for several meetings now. It’s probably the second funnest thing our group has running right now. Or at least it was.

You see, an argument arose between “Pain Boy” and “Stopwatch” over a pretty basic issue of superheroics: do we capture bad guys or shoot them and dump napalm over the corpses, followed by shooting them into space. Pain Boy, being old-school wanted to dump villains in jail and go back to grabbing kittens from trees. Stopwatch, noticing the seven minutes it takes to break out of jail when you can shoot lasers from your hind quarters, favored a more permanent solution.

It might help to know a bit about these characters temperaments. Pain-boy is an idealist, who models himself off of childhood super heroic icons to the point of excess, often leading to many sharp things entering his spinal column. He’s quite unlucky. Stopwatch….is a drunken frat boy. With an inflated view of his humor and a penchant for violence and misogyny. To his credit, he gets fewer sharp objects in his spine.

The pair had already been at odds after…well…Stopwatch threw a soul-eating psychic child off of a skyscraper. After…saying he had no soul. Yeah.

Pain Boy put him on probation. The issue came up of who was team leader, ie whether or not Stopwatch could be put on probation by pain boy. The issue came to a head after the team hit “The Muskrat” (intentionally lame villain) with an SUV. There was a divide that was theoretically about killing villains, but more about who had a bigger genitalia. It came down to a vote.

Pain boy came out slightly ahead, losing votes for a teammate whose kneecaps he’d busted (long story) and a black-ops operative the team literally picked off of the street one day. Stopwatch lost the votes of a ninja heroine he’d routinely sexually harassed, one pcs atypical stoic mute loner, the pc of his own little brother, and some others.

Because democracy doesn’t work when the opposition can leave at any moment, Stopwatch ran off with his sub faction, who he called the Justiciars. I saw an opportunity for a corny Civil War parody, so I let him run with it. I figured they’d both spew some rhetoric, have a typical climactic battle, and reunite in the classic fashion when I brought in a sizeable enough supervillain. Essentially, I expected them to be reasonable.

This was a mistake.

Within moments, the Stopwatch’s justiciars had hijacked an apache helicopter and sent anyone with the misfortune to be in a mob boss’ home an express ticket to hell. At the same time, Pain Boy put together media and governmental paranoia into a set of policies that made Civil War Iron Man look like the leader of ACLU.

This wasn’t the worst part.

For reasons that still don’t make sense to me, Stopwatch left the city that had held the entire campaign thus far (think Marvel New York, Metropolis, and Gotham in a blender) and went to - take a quick guess - Africa.

It gets worse.

This was somehow supposed to be a response to Pain Boy ordering the creation of a super-prison for all the city’s criminals and supervillains to be put inside of. Somehow this makes him right. If this sounds like a bad idea to you, it’s because you have a brain.

We haven’t gotten to the worst part.

After creating (relative) order in Zimbabwe, Stopwatch decides to prove he’s right. By having his teammate destroy the prison. Causing massive riots. Then NUKING that section of the city.

I’ll let that sink in.

Naturally, this doesn’t bloody work. The major hole in his scheme, other than the ethical and logical ones, is that the teammate he asks to procure a nuke is the aforementioned US Black Ops npc. Naturally, he’s a bit peeved about a plot to destroy an American city. Stopwatch is taken down rather unceremoniously (it was getting late, and I was tired of dealing with this. Unfortunately, this doesn’t prevent the prison riot. People die.

DM’s everywhere: this is what happens when you stop railroading them for five minutes. Never again.

When the smoke and dust cleared, Stopwatch was sentenced to a quadrillion hours of community service with the party’s superteam by a UN tribunal (this is a comedy campaign, remember). To lighten his sentencing, Stopwatch cut a deal to go through a week of Chinese prison.

At some point, we’d forgotten what the original debate was even over. Pain Boy, the one who’d won the original vote, was declared Party leader. In a dispute over who gets to shout the catchphrase, the party was split, several malcontents were killed, civil rights were trampled, an African nation was put through violent upheaval and a city almost got nuked.

I recommend you flip a coin.

LordMalrog
2008-10-11, 11:26 PM
Speaking as painboy, it was hilarious though. Oh and before you say how heros should be allowed to kill in RL i'm a massive fan of the punisher. Painboy is much like our Dm said, an idealist. He went total Tony Stark style media black out on Stopwatch (staven). Long story short, during stopwatchs week in prison, painboy took a seat by a pool in a hawain shirt with an umbrella in his drink. :smallbiggrin: Love a happy ending
PS: painboy feels death should only be used when the situation really calls for it. Not for... APPREHENDING A SCHOOLYARD BULLY!!!

chiasaur11
2008-10-11, 11:27 PM
To paraphrase Morrison: Those no nonsense solutions of yours don't hold water in our complicated world of nuclear powered jetpacks and talking apes.

Sure, jail is a slap on the wrist, but death is too.

Fiendish_Dire_Moose
2008-10-12, 12:55 AM
This is solved with the almighty DM phrase: You're GOOD, are you sure that's smart?

As soon as Stopwatch defected wouldn't he have been considered a threat and taken down immediately? He's obviously a wackjob.

Anyway, this is what happens when you run a non-railroaded humor campaign.

Xero Kunai
2008-10-12, 02:57 AM
If this had been a comic, it would have been the greatest one ever.

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-10-12, 03:21 AM
If this had been a comic, it would have been the greatest one ever.Was I the only one who immediately thought of Nextwave (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nextwave)?

Irreverent Fool
2008-10-12, 03:44 AM
Flipping a coin wouldn't have provided myself and others reading the story as much amusement though.

mostlyharmful
2008-10-12, 04:07 AM
:smalleek: Thank you, thats made my day.

I'm fairly sure I've ended up as Whackjob in similar campaigns, it's the most fun role

Hal
2008-10-12, 06:56 AM
See, this almost sounds like a conflict of player personalities, not characters, which I would call the source of the problem. That's a rough hurdle to get over.

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-10-12, 07:05 AM
See, this almost sounds like a conflict of player personalities, not characters, which I would call the source of the problem. That's a rough hurdle to get over.I'm lucky. In my IRL group, we have 5 people, 3 of whom are willing to lead. 2 of those trade off GMing. But all 3 of us are willing to follow, as well, depending on whose character is the better leader. Unfortunately, this has led to a group in which there is a Warmage(player is crazy, and normally plays CE, this one is LG and...odd), Warlock(player doesn't know how or want to know how to lead), Duskblade(one of the leader players) with 6 Cha(so won't be leading) and me, a 12-year old Malkonvoker with 20 Int and 14 Cha. I'm the party leader and partial face, with the Warlock, but it has led to interesting reactions when the Duskblade insults a potential employer, the employer asks who's in charge, and they look at the kid in a blue dress. Most of the NPCs have concluded that I'm a demon spy, but fortunately, most don't mind.

JaxGaret
2008-10-12, 02:32 PM
Most of the NPCs have concluded that I'm a demon spy, but fortunately, most don't mind.

I love D&D.

chiasaur11
2008-10-12, 02:37 PM
Was I the only one who immediately thought of Nextwave (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nextwave)?

On the other hand, Nextwave does serve and protect innocent people.

They just use extreme violence against weird stuff to do it.

Man, Nextwave is awesome.

Staven
2008-10-12, 02:37 PM
Speaking of Stopwatch, the "wackjob" superhero, this was nothing more than my character taking things way too far. I get the feeling that our DM took it a little too seriously, because the only time he has ever allowed things to go this far is in another comedy campaign with next to no rules. I couldn't help but think, though, if this was player and not character personalities clashing, too, but I can't read Mr. Malrog's mind, and vice versa. I actually think our DM (chronotor) was more shaken by this than I, the character who got quantum raped (long story) was. In conclusion, it would have been funnier if this was a conspiracy on mine and malrog's part, just to see how much closer we could make our DM come to hypertension. It's funny how these things work.

EDIT: In a subsequent segment of another campaign, the discussion for party leader went something like this:

Chronotor: "Hey, you're the bard, wand to be party leader?"
Me: "Sure, what the hell."
LordMalrog: "Ok, now, back to the problem at hand."

Comparatively, it's very funny.

Raum
2008-10-12, 03:08 PM
Before I move on to the crux of the story, consider what usually settles the issue of party leadership in a sane group. A coin toss, a quick comparison of charisma scores, or a speedy vote. It's usually that simple. Really? Leadership is never that simple in my experience. Sooner or later prospective leaders learn leadership is more than simply giving orders.

<snip>


Essentially, I expected them to be reasonable.

This was a mistake.Hehe, always expect to be surprised. Always.

<more snipping>


DM’s everywhere: this is what happens when you stop railroading them for five minutes. Never again.Wow, this is out of the blue. PCs rebel against a railroading "leader" and now you need more railroading? You lost me.

Hope you all had a good time whatever happened.

Ascension
2008-10-12, 03:20 PM
I hope I get a chance to lead a party one day.

I also hope that that character gets killed in the line of duty.

Why? So my last words can be "To the strongest!"

Ideally this would result in humorous infighting, like the above story.

LordMalrog
2008-10-13, 01:28 PM
Due to a generally positive reception, i've decided to turn this in to a comic
:smallsmile: whats everyone think of the idea. i'll post actively about development

Prometheus
2008-10-13, 08:49 PM
If you make it into a comic, please, for the love of God, do not make it an Oots-style clone. I don't know how well you can draw, but sloppy cartoons would be better than another comic that is designed to look exactly like Rich's but painfully isn't. That does sound like appropriate material for a comic, so long as you throw in punchline whenever the story doesn't ordinarily have them. In my experience, the best format for D&D comedy is usually text (Oots being an important exception), but others disagree.

I find it ironic that Painboy is the one who is favor of being as humane as possible. Usually PC versus PC is over something that is not fun out of character and is quickly resolved by half of the party dying in the infighting. However, done in good humor and writing it's own plot actually makes for a very good storyline element (I've had PCs which I had decided with the DM would turn against the party and the worst possible moment, that always catches people off-guard).

Usually party leaderships isn't a problem, because no one officially has the title and decisions are generally such that whoever wins out, that solution is still better than infighting. Ironically, I find the larger the group is the less problems there is with decision making. In a group of five featuring a general crisis (in this case, two urgent situations in opposite directions) the group split up before reuniting. My group of three however, never seemed to add up to a decision because they were few enough that they felt inclined to act in consensus rather than voting, so someone either felt like they were being limited by one person or that they were the one person forced to oblige.

LordMalrog
2008-10-15, 02:59 PM
If you make it into a comic, please, for the love of God, do not make it an Oots-style clone. I don't know how well you can draw, but sloppy cartoons would be better than another comic that is designed to look exactly like Rich's but painfully isn't. That does sound like appropriate material for a comic, so long as you throw in punchline whenever the story doesn't ordinarily have them. In my experience, the best format for D&D comedy is usually text (Oots being an important exception), but others disagree.

I find it ironic that Painboy is the one who is favor of being as humane as possible. Usually PC versus PC is over something that is not fun out of character and is quickly resolved by half of the party dying in the infighting. However, done in good humor and writing it's own plot actually makes for a very good storyline element (I've had PCs which I had decided with the DM would turn against the party and the worst possible moment, that always catches people off-guard).

Usually party leaderships isn't a problem, because no one officially has the title and decisions are generally such that whoever wins out, that solution is still better than infighting. Ironically, I find the larger the group is the less problems there is with decision making. In a group of five featuring a general crisis (in this case, two urgent situations in opposite directions) the group split up before reuniting. My group of three however, never seemed to add up to a decision because they were few enough that they felt inclined to act in consensus rather than voting, so someone either felt like they were being limited by one person or that they were the one person forced to oblige.

Well i'm an art major, and i plan to stay far far away from Rich's style.
i have nothing against this style but it just doesn't pervay the level of detail or the feeling i want the comic to give. :smallsmile:

Blackfang108
2008-10-15, 03:53 PM
My laugh is that the one named Pain Boy wanted to be nice.

Calinero
2008-10-15, 07:25 PM
Wow...that's quite a story. If that hadn't been a comedy campaign, I can see how that would have been quite a plot twist, with Stopwatch becoming a misguided supervillain. My parties rarely have leaders, for some reason...we should roleplay more...

LordMalrog
2008-11-29, 11:05 AM
I've finished teh first page and i'll find a way to post it up, after i upload and refine it. It took so long cause i've been pretty busy lately