Character Conflicts

[Greengiant]

So I was thinking of making my human wizard character be secretly neutral evil, and just covertly steal things from the rest of my group, like loot, items etc. But more recently I've read a lot on here saying how anything like that between characters is a big no no.

I was thinking of circumventing the mixed feelings from other characters and possible metagaming to prevent me stealing their things by doing these things on the side with my DM, away from the other players. I suggested to the DM that he could make it a sort of mystery to the players about their things being stolen, or whatnot.

Good idea? Bad idea? You tell me why.

[The Glyphstone]

As long as you're cool with having your character horribly murdered by his "friends" when they find out...you wouldn't be tolerated IC or OOC for very long when they do.

Basically, it's a bad idea, don't do it. Deliberately sowing inter-party problems is not good.

[RebelRogue]

I agree that it's dangerous territory! But if you want to steal from your party members, don't do petty theft! Wait for the right moment and then do one well-planned act of thievery and make sure it could look like someone else did it. In other words: save it for important stuff! I once played a rogue who stole one thing from another party member (not a particularly valuable thing, but something that was important to him: a stone that supposedly contained the soul on a dead friend. He did not trust the Death Spirit worshipping cleric holding it). To this day, I do not think the cleric's player - one of my best friends, BTW - know of this, even though both characters (and the campaign) are dead now.

[kbk]

Depends on the party and the other players. Right now I'm playing a halfling rogue in 4th edition, and I routinely steal small objects or amounts of coins from other PCs, or I fastalk the dwarf fighter out of his coin.

I don't steal anything major, and if confronted I always quickly return the goods and explain how someone dropped it or it had been misplaced. Call it Kender syndrome.

Stealing important things or substantial amounts of coin is leaning towards evil. To the rogue its a chance to test his skills, keep his party members alert, and have a little fun on the side.

Stealing Magic items and other important party resources are a no-no. I look at this as completely different than sowing actual combat or killing people in their sleep.

[Cathaidan]

I would have to say that part of it also depends on the party. I played in a game a few years ago where the party rogue routinely stole from the rest of the party, but you tended to not mind too much when he used whatever item he'd stolen on his action (say to hit the party tank with his pilfered staff of healing.) After a while the party IC and OOC just learned to accept that, while he was stealing from us, in the end it usually worked to the betterment of all of us.

*Important Note* It is never worth stealing something that you know another character needs to the point where a TPK happens if he doesn't have it. If you take the party tank's handy AC boosting ring and he dies, then now there is no party tank between you and the BBEG. Be the smart thief, not the klepto thief.

[rayne_dragon]

I would have to say that part of it also depends on the party. I played in a game a few years ago where the party rogue routinely stole from the rest of the party, but you tended to not mind too much when he used whatever item he'd stolen on his action (say to hit the party tank with his pilfered staff of healing.) After a while the party IC and OOC just learned to accept that, while he was stealing from us, in the end it usually worked to the betterment of all of us.

*Important Note* It is never worth stealing something that you know another character needs to the point where a TPK happens if he doesn't have it. If you take the party tank's handy AC boosting ring and he dies, then now there is no party tank between you and the BBEG. Be the smart thief, not the klepto thief.

I'd have to second the "It depends on the party". I like a bit of inter-party conflict OOC, although I'd expect equal acceptance of my IC responses. Besides my first D&D experiences were with a completely untrustworthy party where everyone was out to screw over each other for a few gp, although it was understood that while trickery was fine, causing harm to each other was not. I guess the most important part is to have some kind of OOC understanding with the other players & DM.

[Chineselegolas]

Make sure you don't take too much. Some people are fine with it, others aren't,

One game I played everyone in the party were morally ambiguous and whenever any one of us found treasure away from the others we all knew that some items of value weren't being returned to the party. Also whenever any of us tried to slight of hand others would notice and take it from them on down the chain...

But we all knew this and were fine with it. One of the players really had problems whenever we did 'evil' acts so don't take acceptance of one thing for acceptance of another.

Though if you have it secret with the DM it could work... Be prepared to accept the consequences.

[valadil]

That sort of conflict depends on your group. It can be great fun if everybody is in on it, but if you're the only one then everyone else will feel ripped off somehow. It's not fair for you to be stealing loot if they don't know it's that kind of game.

[Tengu_temp]

Note, before someone makes this point: being or not being okay with inter-party conflict does not mean that your group is more or less mature/and or into deeper roleplaying!

[quillbreaker]

A member of an experienced, accomplished adventuring party is a member of a force that can terrify small nations. That's rare. Generally the group of players is pretty unique in the game world, and they're on the express path to success and incredible power while most people would be overjoyed to hit commoner two.

So I never understand why any character except a very stupid one would sabotage his own party or his own relationship with it. It doesn't make any sense in character, except for a fool, and never mind what it does to the environment at the table.

You may not care what happens to your character after he gets caught and tossed out of the group. But the character has to feel like the guy who got kicked out of a band which goes multi-platinum on the charts next month. He'll be a normal guy and the rest of the party will toss the ring in Mount Doom and become heroes.

If you think it makes sense for your character to steal from the party, then you're playing a dumb character, an insane character, or you are in one of those rare pure-simulationist games where the party is nothing special. Or you are not actually playing your character - you are playing with the other characters out of character for your own yucks. They're trying to play one game and you are playing another game that involves playing with them.

So if you want to be evil, that's fine, be evil. Unless you're playing a non-heroic game, however, the party is your meal ticket, your base of operations, and you should give them as fair a shake as you can manage while focusing the beam of your evil on other targets.

So in summary, I've never seen or heard about what you are proposing work well in an actual game. Feel free to try it - you will acquire one of those character building experiences everyone goes on about.

[elliott20]

I think, like all things, it depends entirely upon the game you're playing and the group you're playing with.

To make it work though, you need to be upfront with everyone about it and see how they feel. I know a lot of guys who play D&D to just kick back and relax and chill with their friends, not deal with more drama. In those cases, trying to introduce inter-party conflict is just being ass-y.

But in addition to that, personally I don't think D&D is suitable for games that have a lot of character conflict. The D&D game is fundamentally a party-structure game, where people are not just a group of people who happen to band together. No, in the case of D&D, a lot of parties are literally brothers in arms. And that's the kind of social structure that cannot withstand a lot of subterfuge between members.

To be sure, I think it helps to clarify that there is a matter of scale here.

stealing from your teammates out of greed or simply mistreating an NPC, causing the ire of your other party members? those are minor.

but larger conflicts such as varying agendas? those are party breakers.

ironically, it's the varying agendas one where I actually find party conflict more interesting and actually worth playing. But in those cases, we're playing a completely different game and party structure pretty much goes out the window.

minor conflicts, while can exist in a party, to me is nothing more than a nuisance. Other players will either put up with it because they are amused by the antics, or they'll be just annoyed. And in those cases, it's nothing more than a distraction.

[Yahzi]

So I was thinking of making my human wizard character be secretly neutral evil, and just covertly steal things from the rest of my group, like loot, items etc.

Is it OK if they do it to you? Is it OK if they play in character and kill you for being evil?

I played in a great evil game where all the characters were evil. We perpetuated quite a few heists, but ultimately, of course, one character got the drop on everyone else, killed them all, and took all their stuff. We declared him the winner!

[Galileo]

I agree with kbk. That's actually what I do in real life. On occasion, I'll nick something from one of my friends, if they're not paying attention and I'm feeling bored, then return it quietly after a couple of minutes. Like kbk said, its a chance to test my skills, keep my party members alert, and have a little fun on the side.

(I actually do mean party members, by the way. We all play RPGs and whenever one of us wanders off to do their own thing someone shouts, "*name* has left the party!" And when they come back: "*name* has joined the party!")

[JackQ]

There is a way to do this without actually stealing. But the execution depends on how your party divides loot.

You need to ADD to the party treasure. That's right, steal by adding.
Put seemingly powerful items that are actually worthless into the party treasure list. Then when it comes time to divide your character will not to select the items in question. At a given level you may be selecting from 4-8 items. (1-2 items per character for a 4 player party) If you add a fake item into the mix your character gains effectively 1/4 an item.

Works best if your DM habitually creates custom items or if your character has access to Nystull's or other form of deception magic.

I liked this method best simply because you never actually "steal" anything. You ADD.

[elliott20]

There is a way to do this without actually stealing. But the execution depends on how your party divides loot.

You need to ADD to the party treasure. That's right, steal by adding.
Put seemingly powerful items that are actually worthless into the party treasure list. Then when it comes time to divide your character will not to select the items in question. At a given level you may be selecting from 4-8 items. (1-2 items per character for a 4 player party) If you add a fake item into the mix your character gains effectively 1/4 an item.

Works best if your DM habitually creates custom items or if your character has access to Nystull's or other form of deception magic.

I liked this method best simply because you never actually "steal" anything. You ADD.

but you're still screwing over the other party members, and that still falls under the same principle that unless you know the other players find this sort of behavior amusing, you're just being a nuisance.

[Vortling]

Is it OK if they do it to you? Is it OK if they play in character and kill you for being evil?

This is the most important question right here. If you're not cool with them doing similar or worse theft to you then don't even consider this course of action.

[mindblank19]

It's OK to have an evil character or steal items from other PCs (or both) so long as your DM's ok with it. However, the game can really be slowed down by this type of stuff, so don't overdo it!

For example, in a campaign which is now long dead one of my friends insisted on playing an openly neutral evil warlock. When we stumbled into a cave full of locatha and our fighters (basically everyone but him) were busy splattering fish guts all over the walls, he walked back to the entrance chamber to look for loot we might have missed. He didn't find any, but my lawful good monk got into a major fight with him. This got even worse when he bribed our neutral rogue to side with him and the lawful good cleric of Heironeous failed to back me up. Once the DM took sides with the thieves, things really got personal and I was almost kicked out of the campaign!

The moral here is, it's ok to cause trouble so long as everyone else is fine with it!

[Prometheus]

Agree to with the DM that your character is a sleeper NPC that will turn on the players before you rejoin the game as a new character.

[quick_comment]

Or get the GM to let you be the BBEG.

[goram.browncoat]

Ive tried it with a klepto rogue. Its not a good idea. "But your character doesnt know" just doesnt solve the fact that people are pissed at you.

I think it all boils down to dnd having to be fun. And the fun is partly in character progression. And character progression is partly loot. So essentially you end up stealing other peoples fun, and thats no good.

I'm not saying theres no possible way in which this could work out. Just that in my experience it didnt.

[elliott20]

for character to conflict to work, you pretty much have to shift the focus of the story from the big picture to the players themselves. (or if the players themselves are powerful enough, they BECOME the big picture.) all the players would pretty much have to agree to play a game where each PC has conflicting interests.
essentially, you have to allow the players to pursue their own agendas in the context of the world.

this keeps on going until pretty much the player's must drive themselves to the end of their story.

oh yeah, and the players have to try to keep everything IC to make it work. That and not take things personally.

[Greengiant]

Thanks for all the answer guys. Still learning, you see. Maybe in another campaign I will arrange to be the BBEG, if my DM is cool with it. For now though, I just wanted my character to do something interesting and special in the party, and now I see party conflicts aren't the thing, I think.

I now just plan for my character to have lots of harmless flaws, and RP it well. That'll be fun.

[kbk]

Thanks for all the answer guys. Still learning, you see. Maybe in another campaign I will arrange to be the BBEG, if my DM is cool with it. For now though, I just wanted my character to do something interesting and special in the party, and now I see party conflicts aren't the thing, I think.

I now just plan for my character to have lots of harmless flaws, and RP it well. That'll be fun.

Again, I really don't think being the BBEG is a necessity to pull this off. Seriously, if your party is too uptight to let you steal a couple hundred gold out of a 10,000 g treasure trove, you ought to get a better group of players.

Characters have every right to be pissed, but the question is will they learn to tolerate it given that they know you and are friends with you and you don't steal too much, or are they very rigid in their philosophy?

Saying that it is never a good idea, or that you should never do it is way too harsh of a line. Inter party conflicts can be fun to play through. As to the question as why someone would sabotage their place in a party, well why not? If they don't care for property rights, I can completely see them doing it.

All that said, its the sort of thing you should keep an eye on. If you're starting to ruffle some feathers IRL, then maybe the player's aren't willing to deal with it, and you should try to find a different character concept. If the players are fine working with it, then so be it.

[Yukitsu]

Note, even with a few hundred gold (Which IIRC translates to something like 6000 dollars) you'd probably get fired from the party, assuming any of them has economic sensibilities. I skimmed off the top of my party, but I made sure to also earn the party more than they would make if I didn't exist. (I had all the barter skills. I kept 50% of the money I made above the loot value, and spread the other 50% across the party.)

Even if it was just a few hundred, in other words, I'd probably demand the character leave the party peacefully, because I'd ask he be fired. Violence or OOC problems wouldn't really be a solution, but a likely IC conclusion would probably mean that your character wouldn't be allowed in the party, unless he was worth more than the other party members by enough to make him worth the money. Adventuring is a business, basically.