Post/Author/DateTime	Post
kissofthescorpion 02-05-07, 05:24 PM	Hi all, As a dm with a lot of experience i thought i would post this out as i am having trouble with a long time player. Long time player has 21st leve;l cleric Lawful neutral 12th level paladin Lawful good New players joins goup with little magic and kit, I feel the pcs could help out, Scan with detect evil, know, alignment Newbie is neutral good ranger. Player refuses to give even the smallest items to help out newbie, I thinks its stingy, not helpful to new guy so i give characters message from the gods that they are greedy I make 21st level cleric player give up 3 potions Paladin says has no items spare not even a few non magical things from backpack but does nothing to help Player goes ballistic but now i feel his characters are not playing alignment by not helping ranger to aid them in their quest. Players feel he is justified I feel hoarding and unhelpfulness is not lawful good or lawful neutral Opinions?
ZombieDragon 02-05-07, 05:37 PM	It's the Dms job to make sure the newbie can sink or swim, if the players help him out it is their decision. YOU made a decision for them, that's railroading. Now seeing as you say "As a dm with a lot of experience" and "Scan with detect evil, know, alignment Newbie is neutral good ranger." Your join date is 02-05-07 with Total Posts: 1. I call shenanigans
Bruunwald 02-05-07, 05:38 PM	You seem to be of a mind that the newbs should appear as helpless and in distress to the paladin and cleric, simply because they don't have big powerful things in their backpacks. This thinking is wrong on two fronts. Firstly, none of us can be expected to look upon Joe Average with his cell phone, credit cards, nice watch and fresh haircut and think, "Geez, I bet that guy has no money in the bank. I think I'll give him some of mine!!!" It's not selfish to assume that people generally have what they need. It is not in anyone's best interest, paladin or not, to simply start handing stuff over to someone the minute they meet them. Secondly, this presumes knowledge in the players' minds, of what items each of them will need in the upcoming struggles. Only you have this knowledge. If it is such a big deal to you that the newbs be so equipped, you have every opportunity to provide shops, half-looted tombs, easy-to-dispatch bandits, and plain-old discarded loot. Forcing one player to give things up to another is beyond your acceptable boundaries as DM, and punishing a character for the personal stinginess of a player is metagaming.
Mock26 02-05-07, 05:49 PM	I would caution about trying to force the players to give up some of their treasure to a new player. The players should be free to do with their character's possessions as they see fit. You should have given the new character enough magic to start with so he would be somewhat comparable to the group he is joining. The Player of the Paladin has every right to be upset with you for trying to force his character to do something against his will. You should apologize to the players and give the new character some magic items and forget this ugly little incident. And, ZombieDragon, there are a lot of long time players and DM's out there who have never visited these boards. Not everyone who plays the game comes to these boards. It is just possible that he has been playing for a long time and this is his first post here. I've got a friend who has been playing as long as I have, since 1984, and he fully switched to 3.0 and then 3.5 when they came out, and he has never been to these forums or ever www.wizards.com. So, I say we give him the benefit of doubt.