Is my chivalrous character problematic?

[Dr.Samurai]

He literally dumped her outside of the ring thinking she'd be DQ'ed.

How do you call that refusing to engage?

[gbaji]

I'd also like to point out that the expectations of the scenario were clearly that it was supposed to be a colosseum battle, and that the PC really just refused to engage with that.

In a game system that has no actual rules for managing non-lethal combat situations well. But with a condition that "if you accidentally kill someone, you get disqualified", and then describing someone as "old/frail" and "80 years old and skin and bones". Any sane person would hold back with full on attacks in that situation IMO.

A clever person might even try to come up with ways to get this old, frail, skin and bones looking person to surrender by convincing them they have no chance to win the fight rather than risk disqualification by whaling on them, and risking the DM going "Ok. You hit them, and they're dead now. You lose".

The kind of meta assumption is that you go along with whatever the basic expectations of the game are. And, whenever possible, you find a way to do so.

My meta assumptions are that if the GM puts a non-lethal tourney scenario in front of me, that the GM will provide clear instructions and rules for how to manage a non-lethal tourney scenario. It's unclear from Trask's posts what, if any, special rules the GM actually provided, but given his confusion at attempting something "non-lethal" to end the fight (pushing her out of the arena, then trying to immobilize her, both perfectly valid tactics), and having the GM basically say "Nope", and "Nope, but... Ok, I'll go along with it because the other players are getting annoyed with this" somewhat suggests said GM didn't actually think this through very well, or provide sufficient instruction to the players as to exactly what constituted "non-lethal victory".

I'm honestly curious here. The default rules of D&D (not sure what edition was being played though) provide that characters are fully functional until they reach zero HPs, at which point they are bleeding to death (and only have a 10 hp range, which is not very large at higher levels). How exactly are you supposed to do a non-lethal combat unless there are some means to "defeat" the opponents other than just hitting them until they stop? And if the NPCs are not stopping until you do sufficient damage to "make them stop", how are you supposed to avoid accidentally killing people?

Now maybe the GM said something like "Ok. There's some magic on the tourney field that makes all damage non-lethal, so any damage taken below 0HPs just knocks people out", and the point is moot. However, Trask's actual post suggested that this was not the case, and that death was a possibilty. So...

He literally dumped her outside of the ring thinking she'd be DQ'ed.

How do you call that refusing to engage?

Exactly. That's absolutely "engaging". It's also "thinking outside the box" and "being quite clever". Again, setting aside the potentially questionable motivations for doing so in the first place (cause that's been discussed to death already), his ideas were very sound, and should have been rewarded instead of essentially penalized. I'll repeat again that this feels to me (admittedly reading between the lines here) like the GM intentionally had the early round opponents fight long past the point at which a sane/real person would have surrendered purely to make those early rounds a resource consumption proceess, with the intention of making the final round(s) more difficult. And yeah, the other players recognized this fact and played to it (and were annoyed that Trask was not), but from an honest actual roleplaying POV? Should not have happened that way.

I find a number of things problematic about how the GM ran this session. And yeah, that's outside the question Trask proposed, but it certainly seems to have amplified the problem presented in the OP itself. Had there been clearer rules as to how to actually do this non-lethal fighting, perhaps Trask would not have been as concerned about his character's actions, and the entire situation may have been avoided.

Or maybe not? We don't know. But the apparent absense of such clear special rules certainly muddies the waters a bit IMO.

[Rynjin]

He literally dumped her outside of the ring thinking she'd be DQ'ed.

How do you call that refusing to engage?

I blame 5e as a system TBH. Its players are so conditioned to understand that HP damage is the only way to end a combat that when the once in a blue moon circumstances occur to make something that isn't "I attack" or "I cast damage spell" a viable way to contribute to a combat the instant, visceral response is "Bro is trolling, throwing the game, I can't believe this".

[KorvinStarmast]

Its players are so conditioned to understand that HP damage is the only way to end a combat that when the once in a blue moon circumstances occur to make something that isn't "I attack" or "I cast damage spell" a viable way to contribute to a combat the instant, visceral response is "Bro is trolling, throwing the game, I can't believe this".

Painting with a rather broad brush there, Bro.
As soon as you make a sweeping statement like that, you open yourself up to the fair criticism of being wrong because if some groups do that others do not.

More to the point, the CRPG mindset has conditioned a lot of players (be it from WoW, Diablo, various FPS games, Guild Wars, before PvP games, LoL, and more that teaches the health-bar-based-on-off-switch, summarized as:
"have HP it's not over" versus "have no HP and it's over"
(And yes, thanks for asking, I am enjoying the heck out of Diablo IV's little beta, which may be why this come so quickly to mind).

I've been play D&D for a while. I have DMs in 5e who will - once the tide of the battle has decisively turned- either have the enemies flee, surrender, or they will end the battle as "and now there are none" or similar concluding remark.

There is also the D&D 5e rule for Knocking them out from the PHB/Basic Rules that every group I have been in has used at various times in order to take a prisoner rather than kill an opponent.

Do I wish that the game still had the formal mechanism of the morale check that I got used to in the original game? Personal taste wise, yes. I still use a 2d6 morale check now and again when I, as a DM, can't decide on how the NPC/Monster Fight or Flight response should go.

(As I don't have the DMG with me right now, I can't share where in the DMG a "they might flee" bit is, but I do have numerous published adventures with "if this happens, NPC x will try to flee" to include the Lost Mines of Phandelver)

[GloatingSwine]

Yeah, it's much more likely that "enemy must run out of HP in gameplay even if they survive in the cutscene afterwards" is videogame thinking not 5e thinking.

[Tanarii]

It doesn't help that bypassing HPs to remove a creature from a fight for any significant amount of time is usually considered OP by rules designers (for good reason), so such effects can be very limited or hard to pull off.

So I think it's fair to say that when the rules of combat for a game primarily focus on whatever form of damage the rules use to remove a creature from a fighting, and the scenario requires or strongly encourages using other methods than that default, some players may not adapt to the change gracefully. And/or the rules may actively fight trying to use those other methods to the point where they get frustrated at someone else using them.

[KorvinStarmast]

It doesn't help that bypassing HPs to remove a creature from a fight for any significant amount of time is usually considered OP by rules designers (for good reason), so such effects can be very limited or hard to pull off.

So I think it's fair to say that when the rules of combat for a game primarily focus on whatever form of damage the rules use to remove a creature from a fighting, and the scenario requires or strongly encourages using other methods than that default, some players may not adapt to the change gracefully. And/or the rules may actively fight trying to use those other methods to the point where they get frustrated at someone else using them.

My current rant on how the devs are messing up the 5e banishment spell in their D&Done UAs is related to this. For beings not from the plane where the encounter is happening, it is kind of neat that you can 'send them away' without the HP grind provided the save is missed and concentration is not broken. That's a way to defeat an enemy without the HP grind.

That the devs are more or less requiring the HP grind for that spell now makes me go and it makes me empathize with the critics of this iteration of the game who point to "they are making it too video gamey" - somewhat.

[Ionathus]

Although she was kind of right, I didn't really see it that way. I think my character would just have a difficult time doing combat with a woman, especially an old one, due to his simple nature and origins from a small isolated village, and that was a reasonable and pretty mild character flaw all things considered...I could always just pass off this incident as a one-time thing and that my character has learned to push past his reluctance at hurting women and the elderly when they're a threat.

Even though it's a real thing and it makes perfect sense in context, something about the phrasing of pitching "finally learned how to hurt women and the elderly" as a source of character development really tickled me.

My fellow players got very annoyed at me during this whole fight which surprised me a lot, because I was having a good time roleplaying what I perceived as a pretty classic kind of character trait. The female paladin player got especially upset at me, even saying that my character was acting sexist for not respecting this old lady as a warrior.

This quote pairs nicely with this response:

Your characters idea of chivalry does not really fit an equal world. When a fighter can expect that half of all enemy mercenaries, bandits, soldiers etc. are women and as deadly as men, it would be foolish to not fight them properly. And someone who does not properly fight against a significant part of enemies will probably annoy his comrades or even enrage them if this produces real danger.

See it like this : With perfect gender equality your idea of chivalry makes as much sense as a character who doesn't want to fight red-haired people. Does this seem sensible ?

Now not every game world really has gender equality. And you obviously didn't expect one if you consider a "typical gladiator" to e male. I don't know what the GMs world really has. But when everyone else expected realized gender equality, chances are tha is the premise.

So in short : You did nothing wrong but it is very possible that your character concept does not fit the world.

(Emphases mine)

There are 2 things at play here.

1. "Not accepting the conceit of the tournament" has been fairly well analyzed here. Sometimes it can be fun to refuse the basic premise of an encounter, as long as your PC's alternate solution is interesting and moves the story forward (rather than just pissing about for 4x as long and wasting everyone's time). It depends on your table and only you can answer that.

2. The other thing, and my biggest takeaway, is that your PC concept doesn't fit this world and the play experience everyone else signed on for.

If you want to play with prejudice in RPGs (or fiction in general, really), you have two main options: either create a world that acknowledges and explores those issues, or create a world that normalizes equality.

The problem might be that you chose "acknowledge and explore" for gender and everyone else chose "normalize."

The two approaches are incompatible because it's impossible for you to roleplay your "country bumpkin unlearning his prejudice" if nobody else even agrees that country bumpkins would struggle with this. To build on what Satinavian said above, it'd be like someone rocking up to my D&D campaign going "I'd really love to play someone who has to slowly get over his disgust of people with red hair" -- unless they want to play it for humor or treat it like cult brainwashing, I'm not gonna be very interested in running that world for them. And if we have a redhead player, I definitely wouldn't blame them for getting annoyed with that player's choice.

Doubly so for your paladin player, who is already treated differently in real life for being a woman. I give it 100:1 odds that she sees D&D as an escape, where her paladin can throw down just as effectively as everyone else and never has to navigate a social minefield in relation to her gender. She probably sees gender equality as "normalized" in this fantasy world, and she doesn't want you bringing real-world "chivalry" prejudice into it as a character flaw...even if your ultimate goal is to affirm gender equality.

Yeah you're right, I just wanted to get more takes on it because I don't think it would be wise to immediately get back into a discussion about it with the group. I think posting here in this way can be helpful for people (like me) who sometimes don't realize when they've been insensitive or stubborn.

Props for the self-awareness. Not everyone is willing to pick apart their own behavior like this.

[icefractal]

I'm honestly curious here. The default rules of D&D (not sure what edition was being played though) provide that characters are fully functional until they reach zero HPs, at which point they are bleeding to death (and only have a 10 hp range, which is not very large at higher levels). How exactly are you supposed to do a non-lethal combat unless there are some means to "defeat" the opponents other than just hitting them until they stop? And if the NPCs are not stopping until you do sufficient damage to "make them stop", how are you supposed to avoid accidentally killing people?

Now maybe the GM said something like "Ok. There's some magic on the tourney field that makes all damage non-lethal, so any damage taken below 0HPs just knocks people out", and the point is moot. However, Trask's actual post suggested that this was not the case, and that death was a possibilty. So...

In 1E/2E maybe? In 3E through 5E, you can knock people out nonlethally by hitting them -

3E: Choose to do nonlethal/subdual damage, taking -4 unless you're using certain weapons which have that specified
4E/5E: When you land the finishing blow, you determine whether it's lethal or not. Some GMs house-rule otherwise in 5E, but the default rule is that not only can you knock someone out but it's equally easy to do as killing them.


That said, my personal feeling that the party's reaction is over the top here, but there's a lot we don't know - did the OP's actions result in the fight taking much more real-time than it otherwise would? Did it cause that character to look good at the expense of the others? Did it lead them to think that character expected a Paladin-esque code of conduct for the whole group? Lots of reasons they could potentially be upset.

And for that matter - while I'd personally run like hell from a group so obsessed with tactical excellence that they'd get pissed over un-optimal combat behavior in a low-stakes fight that still resulted in a win, because that sounds miserable - it is a playstyle, and if the rest of the group has that playstyle then either put on your combat hat or look elsewhere.

[gbaji]

That the devs are more or less requiring the HP grind for that spell now makes me go and it makes me empathize with the critics of this iteration of the game who point to "they are making it too video gamey" - somewhat.

Which is itself tied to the game "balanced" around X encounters of Y difficulty per day/long-rest. Once you have that math as a core balancing component, there's a strong incentive present to eliminate anything that may trivialize or bypass any of the "X encounters", because it affects the entire "days" difficulty calculation. Personally, I hate such calculationes (maybe "hate" is a strong word), and avoid them as often as possible. My encounters in my games are designed to challenge the players on an intellectual/RP level, not so much their characters physically/magically. Sure, I use such calculations as a guideline for when I'm crafting something intended to be a difficult grind situation (pushing through a series of tough encounters to get to the prize, rescue the prince, save the day, whatever). But I'm perfectly fine having like one encounter in a day, and maybe serveral days between encounters. I just like to make that one encounter "interesting" for the players instead of just a HP/exp grind.

The two approaches are incompatible because it's impossible for you to roleplay your "country bumpkin unlearning his prejudice" if nobody else even agrees that country bumpkins would struggle with this. To build on what Satinavian said above, it'd be like someone rocking up to my D&D campaign going "I'd really love to play someone who has to slowly get over his disgust of people with red hair" -- unless they want to play it for humor or treat it like cult brainwashing, I'm not gonna be very interested in running that world for them. And if we have a redhead player, I definitely wouldn't blame them for getting annoyed with that player's choice.

Hah! I must have a lot of just crazy/lax players though. If someone did that, the redhead would not only not take offense, but would make a point of making a redheaded character just to mess with the other person as much as possible. Probably including romantic overtures as well... And heaven help that character if the party ever comes across some hair dye.

Doubly so for your paladin player, who is already treated differently in real life for being a woman. I give it 100:1 odds that she sees D&D as an escape, where her paladin can throw down just as effectively as everyone else and never has to navigate a social minefield in relation to her gender. She probably sees gender equality as "normalized" in this fantasy world, and she doesn't want you bringing real-world "chivalry" prejudice into it as a character flaw...even if your ultimate goal is to affirm gender equality.

Yeah. I think that "know your fellow players" is really important here. It would be really nice if every player were capable of actually leaving "real world hangups/issues/foibles" at the door and outside the fanstasy world. But a lot of players just can't. And you have to be aware of that and deal with it.

In 1E/2E maybe? In 3E through 5E, you can knock people out nonlethally by hitting them -

3E: Choose to do nonlethal/subdual damage, taking -4 unless you're using certain weapons which have that specified
4E/5E: When you land the finishing blow, you determine whether it's lethal or not. Some GMs house-rule otherwise in 5E, but the default rule is that not only can you knock someone out but it's equally easy to do as killing them.

Yeah. I think even 1e had some subdual damage rules as well. But it was with similar minuses and not often used IIRC. Wasn't aware of the 4e/5e "killing blow" thing (never played 4e, and only played a couple one day dungeon delve 5e games). Though I have to question how, if that rule exists and is universal, there could ever be a disqualification as presented in the OP? If you can just retroactively respond to "opponent killed" with "Ok. That was a non-lethal killing blow instead", then that should never come up.

So yeah. Still a bit confused as to the "rules" the GM actually used for this. Or maybe just Trask was at the time? Dunno.

That said, my personal feeling that the party's reaction is over the top here, but there's a lot we don't know - did the OP's actions result in the fight taking much more real-time than it otherwise would? Did it cause that character to look good at the expense of the others? Did it lead them to think that character expected a Paladin-esque code of conduct for the whole group? Lots of reasons they could potentially be upset.

And for that matter - while I'd personally run like hell from a group so obsessed with tactical excellence that they'd get pissed over un-optimal combat behavior in a low-stakes fight that still resulted in a win, because that sounds miserable - it is a playstyle, and if the rest of the group has that playstyle then either put on your combat hat or look elsewhere.

Yup. If another player is having fun, why should it matter? It was Trask making the less effective attacks, and Trask taking whatever damage he was taking as as result. I mean, unless it was literally a "you're taking up too much time" thing?

I have run into players before who insist on using only the most quick and efficient means to win any combat situation possible. One particular player at my table leans this direction (but is not too bad). He'll do things like get frustrated that the combat is taking too long, and start using "occasional use" spells/items to rush things along, often in encounters that we are going to win anyway, when he really should save them for something where victory is more in doubt. But hey. His character, he can do what he wants. I recall one time I was playing one of my more powerful characters, and had her dual wielding some new swords she got. She was somewhat skilled with one hand use, but got a pair of them (and had only recently regained use of her off hand - long story), so wanted to practice off hand use, since she actually had another skill that would provide additional benefits when dual wielding but had never been able to take advantage of it before (so basically spreading her capabilities out for different combat situations). We were fighting some realtively wimply foes (but a fair number of them), so I figured this was a great time to do this. I remember he kept commenting as to why she wasn't just using her spear (which she was silly level good at) instead. Yeah. Would have made the fight go faster. But my character would have learned nothing from it (skill based game, and we don't hand out skill increases if you are too much more skilled than your opponent). No one was in any danger at all, so why not?

But yeah. Some players just see those encounters as obstacles to be overcome as quickly as possible. Not sure why. I enjoy combat situations in games. I think most players do (and certainly most RPGs spend a lot of time on combat rules, so...). Social interaction and roleplay is great, but you do kinda want to occasionally beat on some bad guys, right? So why not have fun with it?

[Ionathus]

Hah! I must have a lot of just crazy/lax players though. If someone did that, the redhead would not only not take offense, but would make a point of making a redheaded character just to mess with the other person as much as possible. Probably including romantic overtures as well... And heaven help that character if the party ever comes across some hair dye.

Haha, an equally likely outcome! I can absolutely see a redheaded player taking that other player's choice and playing with it. I just meant to say that I would also understand if the redhead player went "...dude, really?" and asked the player to not fixate on that.

Yeah. I think that "know your fellow players" is really important here. It would be really nice if every player were capable of actually leaving "real world hangups/issues/foibles" at the door and outside the fanstasy world. But a lot of players just can't. And you have to be aware of that and deal with it.

Agreed. "Redheaded" is probably a little too innocuous for my example: redheads get comments on their appearance and the occasional Ginger Joke, and I do know some redheads who are annoyed by that, but overall these days it's a pretty minor thing in most communities. On the flip side, women very obviously experience a different₁ social dynamic than men do, and I don't begrudge any female D&D player who doesn't want to be reminded of that real-world dynamic in a world where she can pretend to be literally anything. Especially if it's a guy doing the reminding.

And that's not implying any malice or bad behavior on the part of the dude, btw. It sounds like an honest misalignment of what the two players expected from the tone of the game. But one of them's gonna have to change their expectations to keep playing or these problems will keep resurfacing. In this context, I think it would be best for Trask to alter his character concept slightly. With a small tweak, he can improve his fellow player's experience and sense of being welcome at the table for little to no loss of his character concept.

1. I'm being intentionally vague here to avoid starting a whole debate. Regardless of the degree to which you agree with this statement, I consider the baseline statement pretty irrefutable. Women experience a different social world than men do, and many women consider that difference negative in many situations. Including "treating a capable fighter with kid gloves just because she's female and old - in a world where those factors are explicitly irrelevant to fighting ability."

[Telonius]

Late to the comment on this one. I'm seeing this as basically a Toph/The Boulder situation. At some point the character will either get over his conflicted feelings, or get tossed out of the ring when he underestimates (and disrespects) his foe.

[animorte]

Late to the comment on this one. I'm seeing this as basically a Toph/The Boulder situation. At some point the character will either get over his conflicted feelings, or get tossed out of the ring when he underestimates (and disrespects) his foe.

Haha, nice. Literally just watched this episode last night on my 87th (or more) run through.

[gbaji]

Agreed. "Redheaded" is probably a little too innocuous for my example: redheads get comments on their appearance and the occasional Ginger Joke, and I do know some redheads who are annoyed by that, but overall these days it's a pretty minor thing in most communities. On the flip side, women very obviously experience a different₁ social dynamic than men do, and I don't begrudge any female D&D player who doesn't want to be reminded of that real-world dynamic in a world where she can pretend to be literally anything. Especially if it's a guy doing the reminding.

And that's not implying any malice or bad behavior on the part of the dude, btw. It sounds like an honest misalignment of what the two players expected from the tone of the game. But one of them's gonna have to change their expectations to keep playing or these problems will keep resurfacing. In this context, I think it would be best for Trask to alter his character concept slightly. With a small tweak, he can improve his fellow player's experience and sense of being welcome at the table for little to no loss of his character concept.

1. I'm being intentionally vague here to avoid starting a whole debate. Regardless of the degree to which you agree with this statement, I consider the baseline statement pretty irrefutable. Women experience a different social world than men do, and many women consider that difference negative in many situations. Including "treating a capable fighter with kid gloves just because she's female and old - in a world where those factors are explicitly irrelevant to fighting ability."

Yeah. It's a tricky subject, and I'll also try to be vague as well. Let's imagine two players: A and B. And let's imagine player A is running character A, and player B is running character B.

If character A does or says something while interacting in the game with other characters and objects within the game, which player B feels is offensive or upsetting due to some historical bias or discrimination or whatever in the real world that should not exist at all in the game, player B also needs to realize that character A would also not know of that history, nor would character B. Character B would not be offended by it in the same way player B might. They might think that's "odd behavior" and wonder "why would anyone do or say that", but would not have the historical reasons to be "offended" by it.

A good rule of thumb (if we're speaking of "ideal roleplaying here) is that characters should react to the actions and statements of other characters purely based on the characters own experiences and history and *not* that of the player. And yeah. This can be really hard to do (and was what I was referring too earlier). If player B assumes that player A had their character do something due to player A's own personal biases/whatever from the "real world", player B *also* needs to be aware that they are similarly projecting their own biases/whatever into the game by having their character react negatively to this (again assuming that the historical biases and issues don't actually exist in the game setting). They need to restrict their response to the other character to reactions by their own character, based on that characters own history, and not that of the their own history.

So I'm somewhat cautioning against reacting so strongly to things like this, when it's quite possible that no actual offense was meant. We can question whether player A really holds those biases and is projecting them onto the character, or is merely exploring (roleplaying even) a character "different than me". On the flip side though, if player B is ofended by something character A did in a scenario where said history doesn't exist (in the game), then player B is absolutely "guilty" of projecting their own personality and whatnot into the game world and onto the characters, and interpreting their actions not based on the conditions inside that game world, but conditions inside their own "real world".

So yeah, ideally, players should only interact with other players actions/words to *them* (the other players at the table) using "real world" historical judgements, and not those made by characters purely within the game. Again though, that's sometimes really hard. We've all seen the case where some players just feel like roleplaying is an excuse to engage in a host of socially unacceptable and offensive behaviors as some kind of outlet or something (or even specifically to "get a rise" out of another player), and this can be really disgusting/upsetting to other players. So yeah, I don't blame folks at all for reacting negatively to this. On the flip side, however (just to play devil's advocate here for a moment), we've also seen cases where some players are absurdly oversensitive to various "real world issues" and project them onto their characters in ways that can be equally "unfun" for other players as well (and completely unrealistic for the characters and setting).

Which leads us back to "know your table". Get a feel for how players react to different social settings and interactions and aim them in ways that they will all (hopefully) enjoy. And sometimes, this does mean that the GM needs to step in and take some action. I wasn't at the table when the OP situation occurred, so I can't actually judge how things went down. But it does sound like a fairly minor issue and/or misunderstanding. And the good news is that IME most players who are actually projecting their own biases into their characters tend to not restrict themselves to such "bad behavior" only when playing character to character, but will also engage in such things player to player (ok, maybe that's not stricly "good news" really but bear with me), which means it's often pretty easy to call them out on this when it happens and correct said behavior (or just boot them if it's too extreme).

So I guess the upshot here is that if these sorts of things stay restricted to character to character stuff, but never player to player, it's probably not something to worry about. Again though, tailoring the game to match what the players want is always a good idea, so if the players don't actually want to play "pirates who plunder and kill innocent people" because they personally don't like that sort of thing (or are triggered by pirates or whatever), maybe steer the game away from that and discourage that sort of behavior by characters in the game.

[Pex]

For the scenario in question you were wrong not to attack. You didn't have to kill. You should have participated. You are a party. You work together. Just say to the DM you're attacking to subdue not injure. No game mechanics change. It just means when she drops it's not lethal.

For the campaign in general there will be problems because you want to play Mr. Nice Guy and everyone else wants to play Murder Hobo. As you are the odd man out if you still want to play make a new character and be comfortable as a Murder Hobo. Otherwise, and I sympathize, if you are stickler for wanting to play Hero Who Saves The Day and not Kill Creatures And Take Their Stuff as the other players want, then this game is not for you.

[Dr.Samurai]

1. I'm being intentionally vague here to avoid starting a whole debate. Regardless of the degree to which you agree with this statement, I consider the baseline statement pretty irrefutable. Women experience a different social world than men do, and many women consider that difference negative in many situations. Including "treating a capable fighter with kid gloves just because she's female and old - in a world where those factors are explicitly irrelevant to fighting ability."

Men also experience a different social world than women do. This is also irrefutable. And no, it's not just all peaches and cream.

It is not an exaggeration at all when I say that I do not know a single woman that is a colleague, friend, or loved one, that is as strong or stronger than me. And I'm not a weightlifter or martial artist. This is just reality. And this is the case for most men and women. And that comes with social expectations and experiences. And rightfully so.

If I'm walking down the street in our increasingly dangerous neighborhood, and my girlfriend and I get attacked, if I leave her to fight off our attackers while I run to get help, not only will she question everything about our relationship, all of our friends and family will as well. And they should. Because I'm twice her size and much more able to fend off other men than she is. It would be utterly ridiculous and counter to her safety and my own to leave her to fight off other men while I run away. And this goes with carrying the groceries up our six story walk-up, or carrying down our luggage when we go away on vacation. Why would I leave her to do something that she will struggle with, that I can do with less effort?

And this goes for my grandparents, and my nephews, and anyone else that is obviously not as strong as I am. Elderly people sometimes lack so much physicality that we send children to help them with their lawn, crossing the street, getting their groceries, etc.

And this difference in physicality translates into work as well. I've torn one shoulder and my bicep tendons in both arms (not all the way through thankfully) at work. And workplace injuries are much more common for men in part because a lot of the work they do is physical.

And none of this is to refute anything that women experience, only to highlight that issues or problems are not exclusive to anyone and we shouldn't be so sensitive about any of this as much as we are.

And this scenario in the OP also carries over into the real world. Trained male fighters will be reluctant to fight trained women fighters, despite their training and competence, because there is still a clear advantage over them. There are advantages between men as well. That's what weight classes are. But if a male fighter goes around beating women fighters in competition, no one is going to congratulate him on these victories, because it will be seen as unfair, even if no one wants to speak it aloud.

It's fine to say to Trask that "hey man, in D&D these differences don't exist, so while chivalry is a common medieval fantasy trope, this aspect of it might be a little misplaced in D&D". But to take it any further than that is unreasonable to me.

[gbaji]

Men also experience a different social world than women do. This is also irrefutable. And no, it's not just all peaches and cream.

...

It's fine to say to Trask that "hey man, in D&D these differences don't exist, so while chivalry is a common medieval fantasy trope, this aspect of it might be a little misplaced in D&D". But to take it any further than that is unreasonable to me.

Yeah. It's sometimes a bit of an odd disconnect. On the one hand, if we were really speaking of a "real world tourney", we do actually separate men and women in virtually every sports competition, and for very real reasons. There should be no reason to be offended by this. On the other hand, in said fantasy world, there is no statistical physical difference between male and female competitors, so the idea of separating them or treating them differently would be utterly alien.

Which should leave us with (at worse) a reaction of confusion as to why anyone in this fantasy world would actually act like that, but not actual offense (by the characters anyway). I can see a player being offended, but not because it's saying anything about their own "real world" selves, but that someone is making assumptions (potentially about their characters) based on a criteria that isn't valid in said fantasy world.

But yeah. My response to this is to have my female character just beat the stuffing out of any male character who foolishly thinks this sort of thing to show them just how wrong they are. Deal with it in game IMO. As it happens, in the game I play regularly, my three most powerful regularly played characters all happen to be female. Not sure how that happened, just worked out that way. And pretty much all three would very much have no issues teaching a silly male just how wrong he may be if he thought that meant they were weak or something.

In the grand scheme of "annoying behavior I've seen at gaming tables" this ranks really really low. As long as this is purely manifested in character behavior in game, I'd recommend only using character reactions in game to deal with it.

[gloryblaze]

Yeah. I think even 1e had some subdual damage rules as well. But it was with similar minuses and not often used IIRC. Wasn't aware of the 4e/5e "killing blow" thing (never played 4e, and only played a couple one day dungeon delve 5e games). Though I have to question how, if that rule exists and is universal, there could ever be a disqualification as presented in the OP? If you can just retroactively respond to "opponent killed" with "Ok. That was a non-lethal killing blow instead", then that should never come up.

So yeah. Still a bit confused as to the "rules" the GM actually used for this. Or maybe just Trask was at the time? Dunno.

I think this is just an edition/context misunderstanding. Based on OP mentioning a "rune knight fighter, an oath of glory paladin, an abjuration wizard, and a pact of the genie warlock," I would wager with near absolute certainty that we're discussing 5e here, since Rune Knight, Oath of Glory, School of Abjuration, and Genie Patron are all official 5e subclasses for the mentioned classes.

In 5e, you can only declare a nonlethal blow with a melee attack. So you can nonlethally hit someone with a greataxe or an inflict wounds spell, but not a longbow or a guiding bolt spell. If damage is dealt by something other than an attack, such as a fireball spell, magic missile spell, or the breath weapon of a dragonborn (saving throw, automatic damage, saving throw, respectively), that damage is lethal unless the feature specifies otherwise.

As a 5e player, the concept of a tournament fight with a DQ condition for killing the opponent would be perfectly reasonable and understandable. The win condition is reducing all opponents to 0 HP with melee attacks. The lose conditions are either a) being reduced to 0 HP or b) reducing an opponent to 0 HP with a ranged attack or non-attack source of damage. So to be utterly safe you might choose to make only melee attacks, but if you were optimized for ranged combat or non-attack damage, you might engage in that combat for a while before switching to melee if you were confident that your opponent was healthy enough to not go down.

[gbaji]

I think this is just an edition/context misunderstanding. Based on OP mentioning a "rune knight fighter, an oath of glory paladin, an abjuration wizard, and a pact of the genie warlock," I would wager with near absolute certainty that we're discussing 5e here, since Rune Knight, Oath of Glory, School of Abjuration, and Genie Patron are all official 5e subclasses for the mentioned classes.

In 5e, you can only declare a nonlethal blow with a melee attack. So you can nonlethally hit someone with a greataxe or an inflict wounds spell, but not a longbow or a guiding bolt spell. If damage is dealt by something other than an attack, such as a fireball spell, magic missile spell, or the breath weapon of a dragonborn (saving throw, automatic damage, saving throw, respectively), that damage is lethal unless the feature specifies otherwise.

As a 5e player, the concept of a tournament fight with a DQ condition for killing the opponent would be perfectly reasonable and understandable. The win condition is reducing all opponents to 0 HP with melee attacks. The lose conditions are either a) being reduced to 0 HP or b) reducing an opponent to 0 HP with a ranged attack or non-attack source of damage. So to be utterly safe you might choose to make only melee attacks, but if you were optimized for ranged combat or non-attack damage, you might engage in that combat for a while before switching to melee if you were confident that your opponent was healthy enough to not go down.

Ah. Ok. That makes 100% sense then. And does actually kinda funnel the competitors into more melee on melee combat so as to avoid the DQ. I understand the others players annoyance/frustration a bit better under those circumstances. I'd still play off whatever odd foible was driving this character to do that "in game" though.

[gatorized]

My fellow players got very annoyed at me during this whole fight which surprised me a lot, because I was having a good time roleplaying what I perceived as a pretty classic kind of character trait. The female paladin player got especially upset at me, even saying that my character was acting sexist for not respecting this old lady as a warrior. Although she was kind of right, I didn't really see it that way.
Thoughts and opinions?

I don't really get this. She got angry at you, in real life, because your character had a flaw? Should fictional characters not have flaws?

I'd also like to point out that the expectations of the scenario were clearly that it was supposed to be a colosseum battle, and that the PC really just refused to engage with that.

The kind of meta assumption is that you go along with whatever the basic expectations of the game are. And, whenever possible, you find a way to do so.

If there's only one way to engage with a scenario, then it's a ****ty scenario and you should do something else.

[truemane]

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