Dealing with "Chaotic Neutral" PCs

[Talakeal]

I told this story in my other thread about immoral PCs, but it was mostly ignored in favor of BBEGs and stupid good PCs. Could someone please read the story and give me some advice on how should the other players have responded to this? What should I have done as a DM?

A couple of years ago I was running a low epic game. The party found a powerful cursed sword of berserking. It was a +5 sword, but as soon as you use it in a life threatening situation it would dominate the wielder and forced them to slaughter everyone nearby, allies, enemies, and innocent bystanders alike, until the wielder passed out from exhaustion.
The player's knew the swords properties and wanted to destroy it. The rogue stole the sword from the party and then went to the army of a local town, passing it off as a non cursed +10 sword. He rolled a natural 20 on his already ridiculous bluff check, they rolled a natural 1 on sense motive, and so as a DM I really couldn't say he failed. Long story short he was 100,000 gp richer and a few days later there was a massacre in town when the city (which was under siege at the time) was next attacked.
When the rest of the party found out what the rogue had done he just shrugged his shoulders and said "I am a CN rogue, it's what I do". When the other PCs threatened to attack him he once again shrugged and explained that they couldn't do it. Through a combination of PRCs and magic items he had a hide skill that none of the other party members could come close to matching, the ability to cast improved invisibility, hide in plain sight and hide while observed. He told them if they attacked him he would simply disappear, and then come back and kill them when they were weak and resting up after their next big encounter and CDG them, selling their stuff.

Simply kicking the rogue's player out of the group wasn't an option at this point, it was the end of a long campaign and we had already lost too many player's to RL, it would have simply been the end of the campaign.

[Kylarra]

CdG him while he sleeps?

[Woodsman]

Yeah, you can't pass off any action with the justification "I'm CN, I'll do what I want."

That's a lot closer to CE than CN. Had he done things like this with the same justification before?

[Loxagn]

The CN mentality of 'I can do whatever the hell I want' only works if the character has a whim to do good as often as evil.

[Chineselegolas]

The store keeper had 100k to pass off, yet didn't have access to someone to cast Analyze Dweomer, which would cost 660, at max, 2700 if the 20th level wizard didn't supply his own focus.
Think in RL, you're buying a car for 100k, you make sure it has all its warrants, an independent mechanic has seen it etcetera.
Not judging the allowing the bluff past, but possibly suggestion of how to avoid that happening. Store policy perhaps.

As for the shrugging it off as being Chaotic Neutral, hiding behind alignment is no excuse. If he'd gone with something like "Yeah, I sold it. Expected some other adventurer to buy and go off and get himself kills. I'd be richer and the sword would be gone", would have been much nicer than the just leaving it to kill stuff.

The other players, by going along and not trying to punish him for his wrong doing, they themselves were either evil, or neutral with evil tendencies. Sure they can't stop and rest of they will be in trouble, but by the time a rogue can get to the point of being unseeable, rest of the party should have defences. Even a simple rope trick to sleep in, rogue can't get in because only one person can climb it at a time, and once the party is in, pull rope up. Epic, should have better defensive set ups sat around.

[Akal Saris]

I think you probably made the best of it that you could, really. That sounds less like a "Chaotic Neutral" PC and more like a player who decided to be a jerk to the rest of the PCs at the table. After all, stealing from the party, unleashing an evil artifact, deliberately endangering a city, and then threatening to murder the other PCs in their sleep if they didn't go along with his plans definitely falls under Chaotic Evil.

As for dealing with it, I think there are two separate issues as a DM to deal with here.

The first is that your PCs and you might need to set guidelines on how much inter-PC conflict is acceptable within the campaign. I know that 1-2 antics like this would probably end a few of the campaigns I run, but then another couple I run are built around the concept that the PCs aren't necessarily working towards the same goals.

Second, I think you needed to determine the in-game consequences of the rogue's actions. Obviously he was rewarded with 100,000 GP - I think it would have been a great plot-point if the gold he had been given was itself cursed or stolen - a case of the conman being conned, so to speak. But there should be repercussions to his actions in-game - maybe negative ones, such as the town guard sending bounty hunters after the PCs, or even positive ones, with the town guard being ignorant and asking the PCs to defeat the warrior with the cursed sword, or the town guard's captain single-handedly defeating the invading army with the cursed sword.

I've had PCs who acted in a disruptive manner like this, and basically I work with it by occasionally indulging them (OK! You beat down everybody in the tavern in a bar fight, now drinks are on the house!), and other times letting them know that their actions are inappropriate - generally, attacking other PCs or deliberately trying to get the party killed are examples of that.

A lot of times, this sort of action stems from either PC boredom (not necessarily the DM's fault) or because the player is an attention hog, or because the player was angry at the others over something. If the characters had discussed selling the sword earlier, for example, and overruled the rogue PC, I could see his stealing the sword making more sense in context.

[Weimann]

That situation itself doesn't seem inherently problematic to me. The Rogue is Chaotic Neutral, and doing what he damn well pleases without thoughts about consequences might very well be what he does. On the other hand, the party is (or might be) Good aligned, and therefore, caring about consequences is what they do. Still, the sword has been sold, the damage is done.

The question is what the group would do afterwards. Do they want to right the wrongs of their party member, they could go about doing that, with or without said party member's participation, since righting wrongs is what they do. Otherwise, they could simply let it be. That village has probablyfigured the sword out now, and has it under control. Either way, they are sure to regard the Rogue in a much more suspicious light after this event. He might no longer be trusted with important matters, and well be treated more roughly, at least until he atones, which is ALSO quite within the Chaotic Neutral alignment. He doens't even have to feel sorry about the deed; he could just as well be motivated by regaining his friends' appreciations.

I see it as a roleplaying argument, which can be milked for whatever you wish.

[alchemyprime]

Even if he's playing CN "Bender Style" (which is what we call that sort of play in my group), he can still be PUNISHED. Just because he's in character doesn't mean he can't get hurt for it.

Example: My party had a CE Lesser Drow Sorcerer. He kept going around saying how awesome he was, dissecting the fallen monsters for components, saying how he was luring women into his room to... well it involved a hold person and a silence spell, do the math.

So when the old man, really a tougher NPC Aristocrat with a few hired magic users, didn't pay him for his deed, the sorcerer got pissed. Not wanting to draw any ire there, he walked off and raided the guy's room with his haversack.

Well, the guy had an alarm spell on a gem and called the guard. The player complained saying "But my sheet says I'm supposed to be CE!" And I responded to him with "You're in a town with a Paladin Order, three temples and a cathedral to LG gods, an order of white wizards, a silver dragon guardian nearby, and a dedicated town guard led by a paladin of the god of justice, AND YOU THINK THEY'D LET YOU DO IT BECAUSE IT'S A METAGAME REASON?"

Well, he left the game, but everyone else backed me up. To be fair, he wasn't the ONLY one in trouble, as the CG Ranger was in hot water as well with white wizards. They don't take kindly to impregnating half the freshman classes girls.

So yeah. Being in character is not an excuse. It's the reason. The way out should be in character too though.

(That ranger? Yeah, he had a nice little plan involving a certain spell our cleric had and a bunch of barren women. He found the third option. Like a character should when he needs to.)

[Talakeal]

Ordinarily they would have cast analyze dweomer (although I do not believe the curse showed up to such spells, it would have just looked like a +5 sword instead of a +10) but he beat their bluff check by about 80 and told them it wasn't neccesary.

Unfortunatly, the parties wizard had left the campaign, and the rogue was UMDing all the arcane spells to pick up the slack.

[Woodsman]

Unfortunatly, the parties wizard had left the campaign, and the rogue was UMDing all the arcane spells to pick up the slack.

This sounds like power abuse to me. He's essentially the party wizard; you kick him out, you have problems, so you're stuck with him.

[erikun]

Taking a sword he knew was dangerous and selling it to a town he knew it would be used in is not "neutral" by any stretch of the imagination. Your player is confusing Chaotic Neutral with Chaotic ***hole; being a ***hole isn't neutral.

As was already said, the players being killed in their sleep isn't much of a concern. Whoever's Magnificent Mansion will only allow people the caster chooses to enter, so even if the rogue follows the party around all day, he can't get them while they sleep. Lower level options, such as Rope Trick, are just as hard to get into.

I'm pretty sure that if the wizard casts Glitterdust on the rogue, he won't be hiding anywhere, and certainly can't become invisible. You didn't specify what level the party is, but I highly doubt the single rogue will be able to kill them all off and just walk away. I'm not recommending attacking the rogue and chopping off his head, but the "I have hide and invisibility so you can't get me!" is nothing more than a bluff. The party can certainly take him.

As for the player problem, has anyone asked him why he suddenly feels like being a jerk?

[edit] I didn't see that the rogue was acting as the party wizard, too.
Who else is in the party, anyways?

And I agree with Tengu Temp: if the player is disruptive, then asking him to leave is an option. Even if you have to break out the game system consoles until you find other people to play, it doesn't sound like anyone is having fun now.

[Tengu_temp]

When the other PCs threatened to attack him he once again shrugged and explained that they couldn't do it. Through a combination of PRCs and magic items he had a hide skill that none of the other party members could come close to matching, the ability to cast improved invisibility, hide in plain sight and hide while observed. He told them if they attacked him he would simply disappear, and then come back and kill them when they were weak and resting up after their next big encounter and CDG them, selling their stuff.

And none of the other PCs had access to True Seeing, or Glitterdust, or one of the many other hide/invisibility counters? Not to mention that if they decide to attack him, he can't actually use his uber-stealth until it's his initiative - good luck doing that during the surprise round.

Also, this guy sounds like a disruptive ******* who confuses CN with "I can do what I want and still not register as evil". You say kicking him out is not an option, I disagree.

[Crafty Cultist]

He threatened to kill them in their sleep if they turned on him so he is clearly a threat. if they kill him while he sleeps it would be a legitimate case of self preservation.

Or for more emphasis to the player, have him wake up bound and gagged. then have the rouges companions tell him why they are going to kill him

[Gpope]

It's kind of hard to judge without more context, but this sounds pretty borderline to me. He did something the rest of the party didn't like, but he did not directly act to harm any of them; when they threatened to attack them, he threatened to retaliate. He did commit an act of gross negligence on a scale that can only be described as evil, but the average adventurer commits a lot of thinly-justified murders in the course of their career (and the average CN problem player tends to commit random murders with no justification at all, so he's a leg up there.) If this is part of a recurring pattern of behavior I'd consider bumping him to CE and probably out of the game, but if he normally doesn't do anything this bad I wouldn't slap him with any OOC repercussions.

Really, I have to say it sounds like he's doing a decent job portraying his alignment and being a foil to his more noble-minded party members. If the other players don't like the idea of working with an unsavory ally it definitely needs to be discussed with the group, but if it was at the end of a campaign I'd say you might as well play it out.

[horseboy]

Yeah, alignments are bad. If I had a nickel for every time I've had a bad player use it as his defense for being a twit...
Personally I'd have given him a Jethro Slap to the back of the head, as player or GM.
I had a friend who would have the personification of an alignment haunt disruptive players like that.

[Foryn Gilnith]

Oh, wow, didn't catch the part where the party threatened aggression first. That changes a lot.

The rogue's evil IMO, but it's no big deal. Adventurers tend to be pretty violent anyway. As long as this side conflict doesn't explode, and you have a McGuffin to chase, the rogue shouldn't be a problem. If the rogue is smart, he'll know not to push too hard (except when there's lots of money at stake), lest his quest for the McGuffin be endangered due to party conflict.

[Commander_Vimes]

Selling a dangerous item to someone without telling them of the danger is an evil act. Threatening to kill the whole party as they sleep for calling you on unleashing a massacre on the town is an evil act. As a DM I would have changed the character's alignment to Chaotic Evil because his actions have changed his alignment.

As for the Rogue going invisible and taking on the whole party: a cleric, especially with an item granting fortification, can detect, dispel, and slay the rogue very easily. If the party does not have a caster, then they could hire one. Perhaps a high level cleric or wizard lost a loved one in the massacre and contacts the party about their evil member.

[Vitruviansquid]

Well, you're fighting an uphill battle here.

You've got to deal with an alignment system that should have been declared obsolete years ago and you're also dealing with a fighting system that uses broken mechanics so the player has effectively become invincible. You're dealing with a gaming group that isn't cooperative - every player doesn't want every other player to have fun. Finally, you have a situation where a player is mechanically allowed to grief, since the group will fall apart if anyone leaves.

So while all of the above, mechanical, in-game solutions to this problem will work, it won't solve the REAL problem at hand.

A. You're playing on a broken system.

and

B. You're playing with a jackass.


Now, the solution to problem A is to homebrew and houserule things. If the DM understands that the chaotic neutral PC is being disruptive to the gameplay (frankly, I don't see it as being disruptive. Okay, so the character does something your characters don't like. It's completely in-game, it's not stalling the adventure, and it's not really like he directly did something harmful to your PC's with in-game, rollplaying ramifications. But for the purpose of me trying to answer your question on this board, I'll assume he is.) he can make houserules and homebrews in all sorts of ways to negate the player's invulnerability. He's DM. He's pretty much literally God in this game.

Yet this doesn't solve problem B, you're playing with a jackass who's griefing your game. I think the first resort in this kind of situation is to tell the guy "hey, you're being a jackass. Cut it out." The only other option is to leave the group. It's not an ideal solution, but the square peg goes in the square hole.

[Brendan]

I play a CN character, and I just tend to occasionally open the door that we had been spending an hour checking for traps to get the game moving. I did once tackle our drow wizard for fun, but that was provoked. Sort of. Anyway, tell him that chaotic is not synonymous with devious and evil. Send a relative of whoever bought the sword after him. Someone with a rediculous spot check and dispel magic.

[awa]

now selling the sword with out telling them its dangerous is probably an evil act unless he does good acts sufficiently often to counter act the evil ones he will become chaotic evil.

When the party threatened to attack him he pointed out that they would fail. he didn't attack first he, has not directly harmed the party in any way. I have seen no reason to think hes doing any thing to hinder the other players enjoyment other then pointing out that hes more powerful then them.

hes acting in charecter you really shouldn't punish him out of charecter beyond possible turning him evil.

[Narazil]

He threatened to kill them in their sleep if they turned on him so he is clearly a threat. if they kill him while he sleeps it would be a legitimate case of self preservation.

Or for more emphasis to the player, have him wake up bound and gagged. then have the rouges companions tell him why they are going to kill him

Now now, this is all about the moral high ground. Instead of just killing him, like he would have done, incapacitate him and drag him to the nearest decent high security prison, where he's de-programmed and tied up for the rest of eternity.
Because killing is evil.

[Kylarra]

Now now, this is all about the moral high ground. Instead of just killing him, like he would have done, incapacitate him and drag him to the nearest decent high security prison, where he's de-programmed and tied up for the rest of eternity.
Because killing is evil.

Mindrape Sanctify the wicked?


*hides*

[mikeejimbo]

What if you sat him down and gently explained "I don't think you're playing Chaotic Neutrally, I think you're verging on Chaotic Evil" and explain to him these points.

And then what if he said "Oh. I suppose I'm Evil then. Better not let the rest of the party know," crossed off "Neutral" and wrote "Evil."

That's what anyone in our group would do. Granted, we usually start out neutral and slide down to evil when the DM doesn't let any of our tries at being good work.

[Narazil]

Mindrape Sanctify the wicked?


*hides*

Exactly what I was thinking. Was going to write Mindrape, but it's evil, and I couldn't recall the exactly as evil super dandy good counterpart.

What if you sat him down and gently explained "I don't think you're playing Chaotic Neutrally, I think you're verging on Chaotic Evil" and explain to him these points.

And then what if he said "Oh. I suppose I'm Evil then. Better not let the rest of the party know," crossed off "Neutral" and wrote "Evil."

That's what anyone in our group would do. Granted, we usually start out neutral and slide down to evil when the DM doesn't let any of our tries at being good work.

It's funny how you almost always start out Chaotic Neutral, and then end up in the "deep end of the alignment pool". It's a lot more rare to actually go from Chaotic Evil to Chaotic Neutral.

Guess that proves it's a lot more fun to kick puppies than feed them.

[Gpope]

Because killing is evil.

They might as well turn themselves in while they're at it, then. Unless this is one of those campaigns where the PCs don't kill anyone ever.

[Vitruviansquid]

It's funny how you almost always start out Chaotic Neutral, and then end up in the "deep end of the alignment pool". It's a lot more rare to actually go from Chaotic Evil to Chaotic Neutral.

Guess that proves it's a lot more fun to kick puppies than feed them.

Musing:

A lot of people see amorality as neutral in DnD when it really makes a lot more sense for it to be Evil... but then what would Neutral be?

[Narazil]

They might as well turn themselves in while they're at it, then. Unless this is one of those campaigns where the PCs don't kill anyone ever.

Well, take the statement lightly. There's a difference in killing a verbally threatening party member in their sleep, compared to killing Always Evil Goblins who raid villages.


.. From a D&D alignment point of view, anyway.

Musing:

A lot of people see amorality as neutral in DnD when it really makes a lot more sense for it to be Evil... but then what would Neutral be?

Well, some are amoral and knowledgeable about it. Myself RL included. I do some bad stuff from time to time, but I know this. I also do good stuff often - I see myself as Neutral.

Another could be the "I do what needs to be done" approach. I'd say a Cleric combatting the evil forces through force and death, in the namy of Good, is somewhat Neutral.
I think the crucial difference is intend.
A Neutral person can do Evil for what he deems as Good reasons and still be Neutral, while a Neutral doing Evil for the sake of selfishness is bound to turn Evil himself.



*Disclaimer* This is obviously my view on D&D alignment, and not the rulebook's variant, where killing Evil is Good.

[Thurbane]

[mikeejimbo]

It's funny how you almost always start out Chaotic Neutral, and then end up in the "deep end of the alignment pool". It's a lot more rare to actually go from Chaotic Evil to Chaotic Neutral.

Guess that proves it's a lot more fun to kick puppies than feed them.

Actually, we gave up even trying to not be evil these days. It's not that it's more fun to kick puppies than feed them, it's that it's a lot easier to.

Here, I'll give you an example of what would happen if our group tried to feed a puppy:

Me: Oh! A puppy! Let's give it some food.
DM: Your rations are all covered with chocolate.
Me: Oh, OK. I'll go to the store and buy some puppy chow.
DM: The puppy chow costs 9999 gold.
Me: Hmm, expensive but I'll fork it over anyway.
DM: OK, after buying the puppy chow you are approached by a guard. He wants to know what you're doing with the puppy chow, because feeding puppies is illegal.
Me: I, um - Bluff! *rolls a 1 and adds 1* Does a 2 beat his sense motive?
DM: ... roll initiative
*the group rolls initiative. We go first, we knock out the guard*
DM: Now a bunch of other guards are coming to arrest you for assaulting a guard
Other player: Goddamn it mikee! *kicks puppy*

[Gpope]

Well, take the statement lightly. There's a difference in killing a verbally threatening party member in their sleep,

The other party members verbally threatened the CN rogue first. Welp, guess it's throat-slittin' time!