Feels bad man: Guilt and Shame in Dungeons and Dragons

[Throgg]

Have you ever, as a PC, done something that you in retrospect feel sad/awful about - even if it was justified "in character"? And I am not talking about plain and simple just ruining campaigns and stuff. I'd like you all to dig a little deeper

If any of you know "Anxe", he is my DM and damned amazing. Anyway, as my (small) group gears up for a sequel campaign, I am forced to remember the cataclysmic end to the previous one. The premise by that point in the story was that we the heroes had been hired/agreed to help a princess who was the rightful heir to throne in her (large) kingdom but had been denied the right by her brother who manipulated the Oracle at Delphi (Psuedo-Greek setting).

We started a rebellion, rallied city-states in the shadow of the looming empire and declared war. But... things began to go down hill immediately. Not only was our rebellion out manned and out supplied, but we were plagued by the Empire's "Rages" - 7 deadly warriors (20th lvl Optimized NPCs with a 24th lvl leader). Even though we were lower level (14-15th) we did manage to kill several (naturally they attacked one at a time and we were able to out think several of them).

I was playing a Favored Soul of Apollo, and with highest charisma (in and out of character), my character was at the head of the rebellion. After some furious role playing he began to crack under the pressure of it all, and soon abandoned Apollo and transferred allegiance to a Titan (epic Greek Titan, not MM Titan). Yet things continued to go down hill and our pitiful rebellion was doomed to fail.

And so we decided to surrender - however, the terms of the surrender included turning over a certain PC, a Warmage, who the Empire demand answer for his crimes against humanity. We had early engaged in an army scale battle in which we ignored the "unspoken rules" about using aggressive magic in such cases. Needless to say, a high level and fairly optimized Warmage flying about armies of mooks of varying degrees? War crimes. Plain and simple.

The party at this point was down to two from three. Our noble dwarf Occult Slayer died when his soul got sucked out by a magic dagger in the fight that prompted our asking for terms of surrender, leaving only my character, the Favored Soul and the Warmage. They were dear friends, really bonding over the whole "power and high level caster" thing. Best friends.

And so what did my character do when he found out the only way to escape from the situation was to sell out his best friend? He panicked. He let fear over come him - afraid of the might of the Empire and of the "Rages" tracking him down and ruthlessly murdering him.

He killed him. He lied about the terms of surrender (omitting that the Warmage needed to be handed over), then as he and the Warmage approached the main castle gates to surrender... He poisoned him (Black Lotus Extract) and cut off his head with a Vorpal dagger. He then presented the head to leaders of the Empire along with some stolen artifacts and such in order to allow himself to be washed clean of his sins.

Of course, without support of the heroes the rebellion crumbled. The princess was captured and executed. Various city-state leaders were ransomed back to their homes in shame. Thousands died, thousands more than necessary.

And man do I feel guilty. A little bit sad and ashamed. It sounds a little silly, yet, with a good DM and an engrossing story it can really make you feel.

Ending the campaign prematurely? Selfish player!

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The DM and I talked about it ahead of time and he allowed it. School and stuff was getting in the way soon and the campaign would end soon anyway. It was running out of steam - the story was still fine, but we as the PCs were getting tired and running out of ideas.

[Shadowknight12]

That's an amazingly climatic end to a campaign, assuming everyone was okay with that (especially the warmage's player). Greek tragedy indeed!

My anecdote is similar, but a bit simpler.

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I was playing a paladin. There was a child who may or may not have been an epic-level demon in an impenetrable disguise. There was a countdown to a potential apocalypse if the demon was allowed to live past a certain date. The campaign had been harrowing, with pressure and anxiety heaping on top of the characters like a landslide. Every character was a bit mad by then. Nerves were frayed. The pressure was unbearable.

There was a pit of acid. Right there. The answer to all our problems.

One infanticide later, my paladin Fell. Turns out the child was not, in fact, the demon. Raise Dead didn't work. She had been an orphan raised on the streets, so whatever the Upper Planes had in store for her eclipsed any reason to return.

My paladin killed himself. No fancy Atonement, no terrible grief-struck monologue, no vow to make amends. Just a sword to the throat.

[Throgg]

That's an amazingly climatic end to a campaign, assuming everyone was okay with that (especially the warmage's player). Greek tragedy indeed!

My anecdote is similar, but a bit simpler.

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I was playing a paladin. There was a child who may or may not have been an epic-level demon in an impenetrable disguise. There was a countdown to a potential apocalypse if the demon was allowed to live past a certain date. The campaign had been harrowing, with pressure and anxiety heaping on top of the characters like a landslide. Every character was a bit mad by then. Nerves were frayed. The pressure was unbearable.

There was a pit of acid. Right there. The answer to all our problems.

One infanticide later, my paladin Fell. Turns out the child was not, in fact, the demon. Raise Dead didn't work. She had been an orphan raised on the streets, so whatever the Upper Planes had in store for her eclipsed any reason to return.

My paladin killed himself. No fancy Atonement, no terrible grief-struck monologue, no vow to make amends. Just a sword to the throat.

Don't sell yourself! The horror of your story had me laughing aloud while simultaneous reeling. I can only imagine the pressure, and your poor, poor paladin. Did you your party manage to stop the demon apocalypse?

[Shadowknight12]

Don't sell yourself! The horror of your story had me laughing aloud while simultaneous reeling. I can only imagine the pressure, and your poor, poor paladin. Did you your party manage to stop the demon apocalypse?

Hah, thanks! I always find these exact kind of anecdotes to be the most interesting to read. Epic successes and triumph are all well and good, but I think conflict, drama and tragedy provide the vital contrast that makes victory all the sweeter.

We actually never found out. The paladin killed himself, so I had his squire and lifelong best friend (also a paladin, different build) step up for the final confrontation. The sorceress had been roleplaying an excellent descent into evil (the cold, amoral evil that comes from having been forced to make appalling decisions time after time; she became the poster child for the jaded 'I no longer care about good or evil' rationale), she didn't even blink as the child... um, perished.

The wizard roleplayed a descent into insanity instead. He started being haunted by the girl's ghost, which was actually a manifestation of his guilty conscience shining through (he, like the sorceress, never admitted to having done wrong. He insisted the group had made the right decision). He was an old Gandalf type with the power to rewrite reality, and did a rather impressive work at showing that no amount of cosmic power can make up for a guilty conscience.

The tough-as-nails, ruthless halfling assassin went... catatonic. Kind of. Her symptoms actually evolved a bit as the player got a better of hold of how to portray the character's mental state. She was stunned at first, then she slowly started obeying commands and directions, but she was rendered mute. She never spoke again for the rest of the campaign.

In the end, we got to the summoning place right on time, and defeated an aspect of the demon in a climatic battle. After that, the wizard secluded himself in his own demiplane ("and was never heard of again"), the sorceress buried herself in gold, lore, luxury and enslaved men, and the halfling just stood there after the final battle, alone and unmoving. The (new) paladin took her with him. They buried his mentor and made an honorary monument for the little girl.

And then the DM let slip, in true horror movie vein, that the Big Bad had not been defeated after all, that his victory had only been postponed.

I had fun, but I'm sure a lot of people would say "Geez, that SUCKS."

[Dark Kerman]

I guess the point where my mage (chaotic good... sort of, he tries. ) ended up killing a diplomat (who admittedly was evil) to start a war between two states probably counts.

That or the time he made a dare with a fellow PC for a scroll of scrying that resulted in him unexpectantly being pimped out to a gay half-orc sailor. As a character (and to some degree as a player) he's never going to live that down.

[DontEatRawHagis]

I had this in my last Spycraft campaign:

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I am playing a Russian Super villain, imagine KGB agent, suit and tie. We are robbing a bank and **** hits the fan. Like most missions nothing goes as planned. We end up escaping with only a handful of money. The police are outside and we have a few hostages. This little kid is eating ice cream and it falls onto my shoe. I promptly slit his throat. This was meant to be just a OOC joke, but it actually happened in game due to GM ruling "No take backs".

[dsmiles]

I...um...no?
I don't know, I totally separate myself from my characters' motives and actions. Yeah, a little bit of my personality goes into the character, but it's a one-way filter.

I can play the most goody-goody, stick-up-the-butt paladin, and not feel any more good, myself. I can also play the most horribly depraved, murdering, raping, pillaging sociopath, or the most scheming, dominating, take-over-the-world egomaniacal narcissist and not feel a lick of guilt.

It takes a lot of practice to get that far distanced from your characters and still be a good roleplayer. I tell you what.

[Jay R]

In my second game ever, I had a brand new paladin. In fact, it was 1975, we were playing with the first three books and the Greyhawk supplement, and the paladin class itself was brand new. (Note that Lawful meant Good and Chaotic meant Evil.)

I was all afire with the nobility and goodness of the class -- I even named him Theseus.

He had rolled poorly on cash, and couldn't afford a sword, so he was fighting with a mace. he joined an ongoing lawful party with 2nd to 5th level characters, so they had a few magic items.

After a few fights in the dungeon, all of us were down to 1, 2, or 3 hit points (and in OD&D, there's no cushion to negative 10 hit points. Zero hp meant dead.) Theseus had a single point left. The treasure we found included a sword. I asked for, and received, permission to pick it up.

The DM handed me a note. I read it, asked for a private conference, talked to him for a few minutes, and came back in to announce that the paladin had been given a quest by this Holy Sword, and had to accept it alone. I told them that it was very important that they go back the way they came, in single file, and no matter what they heard, don't turn around.

Who would dare question a paladin's holy quest? They headed out, and even though they would hear sounds of fighting behind them, they kept saying, "We don't turn around to look."

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The note had said, "You are now chaotic. The sword is a Chaotic Flaming Sword with a high enough ego to overwhelm you." In the conference, I told the DM I didn't need a conference, I just needed the other players to think I got more than one note's worth of info.

Then I made up the quest, followed them out, and backstabbed each party member until I had killed them all. The sword did a minimum of two points, and only one character had as many as three, so it never took more than one stab.

Yup - my paladin betrayed and killed his entire lawful party and looted their bodies.

One of the magic items I stole was a bag that would make identical but non-functional copies of anything. I heard about another party that had been turned to stone, so I went out, recovered their stone bodies and had them revived, but I stole all their magic items and replaced them with non-functional copies, so they never knew they'd been robbed. I understand they spent quite a while trying to find out what kind of magic would nullify all their magic items.

[NichG]

I was playing a deity stripped of all of his power except a few tricks - one of which was the ability to create souls and living things from nothing. Another party member happened upon something that would either create a being of vast power or a horrible twisted monstrosity, and couldn't be dissuaded from trying it out on someone. So I offered to create a blank entity rather than let her kidnap someone from the streets to try it on.

End result: horrible monstrosity. It was so bad that it actually drew in the soul of a particular being whose purpose for existence was to take the suffering of others in place of the blank, since it was horrible enough that I guess even a blank soul didn't deserve it. So that was pretty bad.

Another example later in the campaign, we were trying to stop a battle between two armies that were basically fighting eachother 'because every 100 years we do this!'. We ended up killing more people trying to stop the fight than the armies would have killed, due to catastrophic interactions between the various plans we each individually came up with. I think the entire table felt bad about that one.

[byaku rai]

We were hired by a rebellion to liberate an important bridge from government control. Our instructions were simple: kill everyone there and report back. When we cased the bridge, my character, a catfolk monk (fixed monk so it's actually useful) found and tried to open a door. He was captured by two of the guards and taken through the door, which happened to lead down to a small cell (while the rest of the party just continued walking... ) and trapped with one guard left to keep him from escaping. He escaped anyway, taking the manacles off and attempting several times to open the door of the cage he was put in.

After provoking several attacks of opportunity, he lied to the guard, saying that he wasn't going to attempt escape anymore and pretending that he would let the manacles put back on him. When the guard approached, he grabbed the man (grapple) and started squeezing. The guard, who was just doing his job, had his ribcage crushed completely over the course of the next five rounds. An absolutely awful way to die.

The kicker? This happened while I was trying to turn my character from NN to NG, in order to take an Exalted feat. He brutally crushed the life from a relatively innocent character for doing his duty, while trying to become Good. This has become a life-changing, extremely traumatic experience for the character. He and I both feel very bad about it.

[Throgg]

Who would dare question a paladin's holy quest? They headed out, and even though they would hear sounds of fighting behind them, they kept saying, "We don't turn around to look."

Oh God... Oh sweet Jesus no... Perhaps Orpheus would have been a better name? But that is horrifying. /weep

[Shadowknight12]

I...um...no?
I don't know, I totally separate myself from my characters' motives and actions. Yeah, a little bit of my personality goes into the character, but it's a one-way filter.

I can play the most goody-goody, stick-up-the-butt paladin, and not feel any more good, myself. I can also play the most horribly depraved, murdering, raping, pillaging sociopath, or the most scheming, dominating, take-over-the-world egomaniacal narcissist and not feel a lick of guilt.

It takes a lot of practice to get that far distanced from your characters and still be a good roleplayer. I tell you what.

I don't think we're talking about the things you think we're talking about. I interpreted this thread's topic as "When has your character felt terrible guilt or shame about something?". Whether you too feel (a degree of) guilt/shame at the character's actions depends wholly on your ability to empathise with people who are not yourself, and who are also not real (such as a character from a TV show, movie or book).

The topic that you reference is merely a by-product of the thread's original intention.

OT: Excellent anecdotes! I especially enjoyed the one about individual plans synergising for extra failure. I hope I see that in a game some day!

[Dark Kerman]

A example of that being when I tried to summon a bear to save a person from death, but there was a wild magic effect my character didn't know about, so it ripped off the npc's head instead.

[pffh]

I was playing an elf sorcerer whos main goal for adventuring was make enough money to reclaim her family farm after it had been burned to the ground and they had been forced to sell the land for next to nothing. Her family was now living in poverty in one of the larger elven cities.

In our campaign world halfling slaves are very common in the elven lands and in the last century the number of slaves had been growing and in many places the slaves outnumbered the elves by as much as 30 to 1. Another important thing to know is that around 150 years ago there was a war amongst the gods and a lot of them got killed, some got new domains, some lost their godhood and some heroes become new gods. In the war, unknown to most, the god of slaughter, undeath and torture had killed and taken over the domains of the god of halflings and gnomes leaving them in a bit of a culture shock.

Anyway my sorcerer ended up helping some halfling rights activist in freeing a lot of halflings and evertime she freed some she gave them some of the money she had been saving up to help them survive.

As the campaign got closer to ending we were called back by the religious order that the other party member were part off to fight a horde of undeath that were ravaging the burnt lands (the native lands of among other things halflings). After fighting through the hordes of undead and living gnolls and undead halflings we faced a halfling lich that explained how we were to late and nothing could stop them now. Needless to say we killed her. The loot in the liches tower got me enough cash to head back home to buy the farm so home I went.

Arriving back into the elflands I was greeted by burning town after burning town so I hurried as fast as I could do the city where my parents lived. There I was met with a huge halfling rebellion and most of the elves were dead, killed in their sleep. The remaining elves were fleeing for their lives while the former slaves danced in the blood and gore.

And there the campaign ended as she went on a bloody revenge against he halflings, the people she had spent most of her adventuring career helping, who had destroyed the elven civilization.

[Conners]

We were hired by a rebellion to liberate an important bridge from government control. Our instructions were simple: kill everyone there and report back. When we cased the bridge, my character, a catfolk monk (fixed monk so it's actually useful) found and tried to open a door. He was captured by two of the guards and taken through the door, which happened to lead down to a small cell (while the rest of the party just continued walking... ) and trapped with one guard left to keep him from escaping. He escaped anyway, taking the manacles off and attempting several times to open the door of the cage he was put in.

After provoking several attacks of opportunity, he lied to the guard, saying that he wasn't going to attempt escape anymore and pretending that he would let the manacles put back on him. When the guard approached, he grabbed the man (grapple) and started squeezing. The guard, who was just doing his job, had his ribcage crushed completely over the course of the next five rounds. An absolutely awful way to die.

The kicker? This happened while I was trying to turn my character from NN to NG, in order to take an Exalted feat. He brutally crushed the life from a relatively innocent character for doing his duty, while trying to become Good. This has become a life-changing, extremely traumatic experience for the character. He and I both feel very bad about it.

Heck man, you were already sent over there to kill everyone--didn't you character consider the fact that he was just doing his job (a very evil job, by the sounds of it--but why take it if you don't want to kill anyone?)..?

I was playing an elf sorcerer whos main goal for adventuring was make enough money to reclaim her family farm after it had been burned to the ground and they had been forced to sell the land for next to nothing. Her family was now living in poverty in one of the larger elven cities.

In our campaign world halfling slaves are very common in the elven lands and in the last century the number of slaves had been growing and in many places the slaves outnumbered the elves by as much as 30 to 1. Another important thing to know is that around 150 years ago there was a war amongst the gods and a lot of them got killed, some got new domains, some lost their godhood and some heroes become new gods. In the war, unknown to most, the god of slaughter, undeath and torture had killed and taken over the domains of the god of halflings and gnomes leaving them in a bit of a culture shock.

Anyway my sorcerer ended up helping some halfling rights activist in freeing a lot of halflings and evertime she freed some she gave them some of the money she had been saving up to help them survive.

As the campaign got closer to ending we were called back by the religious order that the other party member were part off to fight a horde of undeath that were ravaging the burnt lands (the native lands of among other things halflings). After fighting through the hordes of undead and living gnolls and undead halflings we faced a halfling lich that explained how we were to late and nothing could stop them now. Needless to say we killed her. The loot in the liches tower got me enough cash to head back home to buy the farm so home I went.

Arriving back into the elflands I was greeted by burning town after burning town so I hurried as fast as I could do the city where my parents lived. There I was met with a huge halfling rebellion and most of the elves were dead, killed in their sleep. The remaining elves were fleeing for their lives while the former slaves danced in the blood and gore.

And there the campaign ended as she went on a bloody revenge against he halflings, the people she had spent most of her adventuring career helping, who had destroyed the elven civilization.

Well.... can't exactly blame the character, for feeling that way . Of course, if you go beyond killing rebels, and just start killing anything halfling--big problem.

[Vknight]

I mainly Dm but I have 2events from not dming.

We tortured a Kobold by crucifixtion. After which my character was to heal him so he would be able to survive and walk away. Instead I killed him because from a previous heal check I'd been informed he'd never fully recover. After this we were captured by elves for killing a group of Tiamat cultists and were but on a show trial in which it was made clear that we were doomed so we burned down the forest and slaughtered the elves.
Dm later said we were to go along with the trial and that the elves thought we were apart of a cult of Bane because we had a Hobgoblin.

Different campaign different Dm. I played a sorcerer after fighting through two dozen or so goblins we come to a group of 3 hiding. My character is angry and out for blood so one encounter power and action point later 5goblins dead. Yeah the Dm said 2were pregnant and now my wizard is hated by a good god for killing innocents. He has also had his ritual caster ability taken away, his daily has as 25% instant miss chance, and is tortured in his dreams personally by Melora

[Yukitsu]

I had one character who very much regretted that she was only able to save half of the hostages. The captors were much more so by the end of it, though to my credit, I didn't kill a single one.

[Silus]

Not D&D, but in the WoD game I'm in, I had my Brujah brutally torture a girl for info, only to find out that she couldn't tell us the info, not that she wouldn't.

So, yeah....oops.

[Coidzor]

Different campaign different Dm. I played a sorcerer after fighting through two dozen or so goblins we come to a group of 3 hiding. My character is angry and out for blood so one encounter power and action point later 5goblins dead. Yeah the Dm said 2were pregnant and now my wizard is hated by a good god for killing innocents. He has also had his ritual caster ability taken away, his daily has as 25% instant miss chance, and is tortured in his dreams personally by Melora

You feel guilty because your DM wanted to nerf your character in a 4e game?

[Vknight]

No I feel guilty in character for the deaths but in character won't admit it because that means coming under the heel of a goddess and as a former slave thats something my character will never accept.

Also out of character I'm pissed at him and he won't change his desicion. His reason is that its something to roleplay. Also its Melora. A goddess of nature and the sea she should be open to change but the Dm plays her as a sadist.

My Character Talking to Melora in a dream

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Melora: Do you enjoy killing
Me: What is the cause? Good, evil, the pursuit of knowledge or protection of it.
Melora: *Stabs my hand into the wall* Do you enjoy murder
Me: To stop a greater evil then it is justified otherwise only to punish those which have done evil
Melora: *stabs other hand and puts a dagger into my belly* Will you continue your evil
Me: Freeing myself of bondage, slaying pirates, protecting villages what evils have I made?
Melora: *Drags dagger up through my throat*

I wake up. She never told me what I did and when I went to ask her she started a new session with her whip. Oh but she told the Paladin when he asked for me.

Here is a list of things she did to me

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-Somehow took a rare breed of sea goblin which the mage guild I'm apart of has never studied before and replaced it with a normal goblin
-All the goblins I killed got passes to her side in the afterlife
-The dreams which she tortures me in

Dm's Description of Melora

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A tall red head with feiry eyes and red leather armor, she carries blood red daggers and a whip of thorns

Yeah thats what most people image her as *sarcasm*

Also I feel guilty because in the next game we continue my campaign and if things go as planned his character would be cursed. And I mean big time plot relevant you will become an unholy blight upon the land curse.

[Coidzor]

...While an eye for an eye makes the world go blind, I'm going to have to defer to the phrasing Worira used in my sig here.

[Greenish]

...While an eye for an eye makes the world go blind

Wear a reinforced eyepatch until everyone else is blind. In the land of the blind, one-eyed man is the king.

[Vknight]

...While an eye for an eye makes the world go blind, I'm going to have to defer to the phrasing Worira used in my sig here.

Yup I agree.
Sadly I had already planned this so that means I can keep going or change plans so it happens but with an increased chance to effect someone else

[Choco]

...While an eye for an eye makes the world go blind..

That's why if they take your eye, you take their head

I caused a little "incident" once that I am simultaneously glad I did (cause we all, even the DM, found it awesome and hilarious) and kinda regret doing (cause it ended the campaign WAY early...).

The setup:

We are playing a supernatural game in modern times. Magic and just about anything else paranormal exists, but the vast majority of the world's population is kept in the dark about it. My character is a detective on about the same level as Sherlock Holmes, and 2 of the abilities she has are that she can play dead, to the point where even a full autopsy would fail to reveal that she is alive, and she is a master contortionist who can do things like spin her head around 360 degrees. The rest of the group did not know about these abilities because we had never been in a situation that required their use. 1 of the 4 other group members has an explosive temper, and another is very protective of my character. The other 2 go along with what the rest of the group is doing. Oh and they all work for my character .

The Story (long version):

We are attending a formal gathering with all the other bigwig supernatural types. The most powerful and influential NPC there is a total d-bag, and I suspect him of secretly being the main villain of the campaign. We had ran into the main villain before and I caught onto a little bit of foreshadowing the DM dropped for us. Funny story bout the foreshadowing, sometimes I figure out the whole 100 piece puzzle after finding the first random piece in the dumpster, other times the DM is beating me in the head with a glowing neon sign flat-out telling me what is going on and I somehow miss it....

Either way, main villain or no, this character is annoying and obviously pushing our buttons knowing that we can't do anything to him. The DM was clearly pushing onto us the fact that this guy is deplorable in every way and we should hate him. My char happened to be the one talking to him at the time and I suddenly got a flash of inspiration. From what I had figured out about his personality I knew what exactly I needed to say to piss him off, and that he would very well react violently. I succeeded marvelously and he surprisingly did exactly what I expected him to went to backhand me across the face.

The DM had a bit of a confused look on his face when I told him I would accept the hit, and the minor amount of damage, without any resistance. The confusion turned to concern when I said that right as his hand connects, I would spin my head around backwards 180 degrees. The confusion became flat out worry when I then activated my "play dead" ability and collapsed on the ground.

The rest of the group all saw this and of course the guy with the temper and the protective guy go on the attack right away, with the other 2 following suit shortly after. They would not have normally been able to kill him, as he could at least have escaped (he didn't have his epic evil artifacts of doom on him so he was fairly weakened), but I have never seen so many consecutive criticals and max damage rolls in my life. He gets completely SHREDDED. And to top it off, the entire thing was viewed as justified in the eyes of the other attendants (even the guy's supporters couldn't do anything), so the party got away with it! Sure I would have to lay low for a VERY long time cause I am supposed to be dead, but hey I could do that.

We find out at the end of the session that the guy WAS actually the BBEG, and the DM's entire campaign just went up in smoke. He didn't feel up to running it anymore so he put it on hold till he could work out where to go from there. Unfortunately that never happened....

The Story (short version):

My char taunts the guy who is secretly the BBEG (who is not at full power at the time) into attacking her, then plays dead after getting hit. This leads the rest of the party into ganking him, and the DM ends the campaign cause he basically broke.

[Pink]

Awesomeness

All I can say is, if I were GMing that game, while I would totally be gobsmacked, I would be so amazed by that excellent combo. I would just need to end the game there and figure out a new plot to follow (Perhaps some of his supporters get wind that the character isn't exactly dead or something)

You should feel no shame from that. The only shame is the GM wasn't able to follow up with it.

[Honest Tiefling]

@Choco: Your PC had reason to be suspicious, and the NPC worked as you thought he would, possibly giving you more evidence to your theory. Sometimes the train runs off of the rails and into the the wilderness. I hope your DM can recover the story enough to run it, but I do not think you should feel bad for being creative and playing attention to the plot and picking up on the DM's hints.

@Vknight: ...Um...Am I the only one thinking that you need to have an out of character chat with your DM about boundaries and good taste? If not, I think it would be hilarious if your PC pretended to enjoy the sessions. I mean, hey, you saved a bundle as Melora does this for free! Might be worth a shot. Still seems a bit off to me, especially if there were no signs of pregnancy, and why a goddess of the wilds cares about this considering what happens to helpless baby/pregnant animals all of the time.

[Vknight]

@Honest
Actually we are clearing that up. And that would be akward for her(Yes I am crossplaying). Though considering her backstory (Former Slave) Meloras sessions are basically mind ***** on a scale that she could snap.

Yeah the reason the Dm gave was he thought it should be a god one of the PC's worship and only one of us worships any god solely.

[Honest Tiefling]

I hope your DM does not make the rest of the game unfun for you. I think the crossplaying would have made it funnier, but no, does not work for an ex-slave. As a question, how do the other players take it?

[Choco]

You should feel no shame from that. The only shame is the GM wasn't able to follow up with it.

That is the only reason I regret doing that. It was a fun campaign I killed off, so I'm a bit sad about it . But on the other hand, all I did was get pimpslapped and "die", it's the other players that did the killing

@Choco: Your PC had reason to be suspicious, and the NPC worked as you thought he would, possibly giving you more evidence to your theory. Sometimes the train runs off of the rails and into the the wilderness. I hope your DM can recover the story enough to run it, but I do not think you should feel bad for being creative and playing attention to the plot and picking up on the DM's hints.

I doubt it'll ever be back, the DM moved a year or so after that. Maybe I'll use that same char again in another game though.

[Sillycomic]

Relatively minor guilty feelings here.

My party had gone exploring underground at a cave that we found. There were bars and a locked door that prevented us from going further, so of course we decided we needed to find out more. One dimension door later and we're heading down into uncharted territory.

We come to a fork in the road with two random guards protecting a door. Our barbarian goes up to the guards and asks what is going on, they say he doesn't belong here and then a fight breaks out.

I don't participate in the fight... mostly because I feel bad about the whole thing. We are the ones trespassing here. Those guards are guarding stuff they're supposed to be guarding.

So, we go through the door they were guarding and find out there's a small cult worshiping some ancient sea religion. My group looks at this as evil and decides to attack them all.

Again... I really don't participate. Once more, I feel like this is just a group of people following their own beliefs. Who are we to come in and make trouble for everyone? So, as the party wizard I am just flying around and incapacitating people with Web and whatnot, not really participating in the fight. (I even told the Gm, I'm not killing anyone)

And the cleric of this sea cult somehow mind controls our barbarian who then rages and kills our rogue.

Now I feel really guilty. Not only are we killing random church goers who are doing nothing more than evening prayers, my in-action in the whole mess caused one of my friends to be murdered (although, to be fair the barbarian felt a whole heck of a lot more guilty than I did)

So, I felt guilty for killing ocean cultists and then I felt even moreso for not stopping them from killing my friends.

An all around guilt-fest session that night.

It turns out the cultists were actually evil, but that still doesn't justify anything in my mind.