Post/Author/DateTime	Post
mangoman72 01-27-07, 04:39 PM	Here's the situation, comments or opinions, or maybe even agreements (although they're significantly more boring) would be nice. :) The party was going through a forest, searching for a ranger. He shows up, says some gruff words, and then attacks them. He was hostile, you see. It seems obvious, but keep it in mind. Anyway, the party beats him and his dog too. Afterwards, each member gets a telepathic communication that warns them of death, and then they won't leave the forest alive etc. etc. Wolves jump out, and the party beats them too. Now, Shane (a player) has a rogue. The rogue says that he'll get out a potion to heal the wolves. At first, the party warrior warns him of how idiotic that'd be, given that the wolves were obviously hostile to attack them. "I don't care", he says, "I'm going to heal them." The party surrounds him, (two flanking) and the cleric says "Sorry, moron, but if you endanger us by bringing that wolf back from consciousness, we WILL do what's in our power to stop it." "Fine" the rogue says "See if I ever heal you guys again." So, afterward the party searches the ranger for anything clue-like. Then, the rogue gets yet another brilliant idea and says "Hey, let's drag him back to town. We can question him." Naturally, by the warning received to the rest of the party, the forest creature ambushes didn't seem like they were stopping anytime soon. However, 8 miles away from the civilization the rogue was willing to drag the ranger to, he still volunteered. "Look", the cleric stated, "I'm not saying we kill him, but we have to save ourselves if we're gonna get out of here. Let's leave him." "No, I want to take him back." Already fed up with his idiocy, the party's like "Whatever. We'll meet you back in town if you manage to come out still alive." So, the rogue goes back, dragging the ranger with him all the way, and gets ambushed by five wolves. They kill him. I felt kind of bad about a PC death so early on in the game, but still. It was just so ridiculously stupid, you know? Now, Shane isn't that stupid, as much as I'd like to believe he is. But I have a feeling he was doing that because "it's what his character would do." I'm not saying RP'ing is stupid and nonsensical, but you gotta put a limit on it. I can't kick him out either, then we'd have just one guy. I'm of the opinion that the kind of player that stupidly does "what his character does" deserves to die, or at least be punished. Ugh... I really don't wanna pull punches for stuff like that, but still, I don't know how I could have handled that better.
Cuaglar 01-27-07, 04:47 PM	Well, from my point of view, you could have let him drag the man all the way to town, only for him to wake up and verbally abuse the rogue and everyone around him, thus showing your problem player that he did, in fact, make a mistake. I did this once. We were saving some children from a tiefling witch, when we captured one of the tiefling guards. My sister wanted to keep him as a prisoner,so we put him in the cell where they had been keeping the kids, and then sent for a paladin friend of hours to put a Mark of Justice on him. All the time, and after the Mark was put on him, he abused and insulted us, but we kept him along anyway, my sister hoping that he would reform eventually to goodness.
mangoman72 01-27-07, 05:00 PM	Eh, if it doesn't have some kind of mechanical, damage-dealing effect, I don't think the socially invincible rogue would have cared.
Novabomb 01-27-07, 05:12 PM	Your wrong. There does not have to be a limit to what your character would do (exception: screwing the entire party purposely). There just have to be consequnces for the characters actions. You should not feel bad. The player had the character do what he thought he would do, and that is fine. The character dying as a result is also fine.
mangoman72 01-27-07, 05:19 PM	I'm not so sure about the limit part of your argument. I agree that I shouldn't explicitly ban what a character can and cannot do, but...well, I read once about another rogue who was a timid kind of person. During a fight, she cowered in a corner for fear of the monster they were fighting. In-character? yes. Stupid? Heck yes!
Comus 01-27-07, 05:28 PM	Well, if nothing else, the character wasn't willing to work with the rest of the party. Probably easier for him to roll up someone who will actually be part of a team.
Orchomenos 01-27-07, 05:33 PM	Eh, if it doesn't have some kind of mechanical, damage-dealing effect, I don't think the socially invincible rogue would have cared. The rogue wanted to heal the wolf, but the rest of the party fiercely objected, explaining it was really dangerous. From what you say, it seems the rogue gave up on this point. Then the rogue wants to bring back the ranger to civilisation to safely interrogate him. Far less dangerous, if the ranger decide to attack, they will likely be 25 against one. Why is it that silly? And what kind of mechanical, damage-dealing effect would Shane benefit from all this? To me, it seems to be cleaver role-playing. You can ban him if you want, it'll allow him to find a group where the DM won't screw the players for roleplaying.
Arrowhen 01-27-07, 06:22 PM	I'm not sure that the rogue's actions were all that "ridiculously stupid". The party was going through a forest, searching for a ranger. You don't say why the party was searching for the ranger in the first place. It could be relevant to the rogue's actions. He shows up, says some gruff words, and then attacks them. He was hostile, you see. It seems obvious, but keep it in mind. Anyway, the party beats him and his dog too. Afterwards, each member gets a telepathic communication that warns them of death, and then they won't leave the forest alive etc. etc. Wolves jump out, and the party beats them too. Ok, three events happen in short succession: the ranger attacks them, they receive telepathic threats, and they're attacked by wolves. I think most players would naturally assume that the three events are linked somehow--most likely, that the person or entity who was communicating telepathically had directed the ranger and the wolves to attack. Now, Shane (a player) has a rogue. The rogue says that he'll get out a potion to heal the wolves. At first, the party warrior warns him of how idiotic that'd be, given that the wolves were obviously hostile to attack them. Healing the wolves makes perfect sense to me. It's an attempt to say to the telepathic entity "Look, we don't know why you're attacking us, and we're going to fight to defend ourselves, but we're willing to show mercy. Why don't you stop fighting us and tell us what the hell is going on?" "I don't care", he says, "I'm going to heal them." The party surrounds him, (two flanking) and the cleric says "Sorry, moron, but if you endanger us by bringing that wolf back from consciousness, we WILL do what's in our power to stop it." How much healing the wolf would "endanger" the party depends a lot on the circumstances and the way you handle hit points in your game. Was the wolf dying or stabilized? Do you allow PCs to know whether a creature is dying or stabilized? If they can tell that the creature is dying, do you allow them to know just how many points it is in the negative? Different groups handle things differently. If the rogue player knew "Ok, he's at -9, so there's no way this cure light potion can possibly do anything more than stabilize him", then there's no danger at all. Even if there's a chance the wolf might regain consciousness, it's still going to wake up with just a couple of hit points, prone, with a party of armed adventurers standing over it ready to pound it back into unconsciousness with non-lethat AoOs the minute it tries to get up and attack. So, afterward the party searches the ranger for anything clue-like. Then, the rogue gets yet another brilliant idea and says "Hey, let's drag him back to town. We can question him." Again, what's wrong with this? If they're searching the ranger looking for clues, wouldn't another potential source of clues be asking the ranger? What does seem strange is that he wanted to drag the ranger back to town to question him. Why couldn't they just tie him up, heal him back to consciousness, and question him right there? Naturally, by the warning received to the rest of the party, the forest creature ambushes didn't seem like they were stopping anytime soon. However, 8 miles away from the civilization the rogue was willing to drag the ranger to, he still volunteered. "Look", the cleric stated, "I'm not saying we kill him, but we have to save ourselves if we're gonna get out of here. Let's leave him." "No, I want to take him back." Already fed up with his idiocy, the party's like "Whatever. We'll meet you back in town if you manage to come out still alive." So, the rogue goes back, dragging the ranger with him all the way, and gets ambushed by five wolves. They kill him. Going back on his own to get the ranger is really the only decision he made that I'd categorize as anywhere near "stupid". But it sound to me like the real stupidity lies with the rest of the party's decision to leave behind a potential source of information/hostage. I felt kind of bad about a PC death so early on in the game, but still. It was just so ridiculously stupid, you know? Now, Shane isn't that stupid, as much as I'd like to believe he is. But I have a feeling he was doing that because "it's what his character would do." I'm not saying RP'ing is stupid and nonsensical, but you gotta put a limit on it. I can't kick him out either, then we'd have just one guy. I'm of the opinion that the kind of player that stupidly does "what his character does" deserves to die, or at least be punished. Ugh... Punished? PUNISHED? Where the hell do so many DMs get the idea that they have any business "punishing" their players for anything? You're friends, playing a game for fun. How on earth should punishment be a part of that? Now, every character's actions should have appropriate consequences, up to and including death. But even when a character gets himself killed, it isn't the DM handing down punishment, it's just cause and effect. I hate to make assumptions about you or your game, but based on what you've told us it seems like all the rogue player did "wrong" was to react to your adventure in a manner you hadn't planned on.
mangoman72 01-28-07, 02:25 PM	You make some goods points, arrow. Let me see if I can fill in the blanks I left behind. (I left them out because people might pick holes in my newbish storyline, which isn't what I was aiming for) Lesse, they were searching for the ranger, because the nearby town was hoping to establish a treaty of some kind with a near-by forest so they town could use the lumber. (the ranger being the forest's leader of sorts). He was the guy the party was supposed to look for. The party was assigned, because if something hostile should occur (which it did), the king would know that he sent an able group of adventurers to deal with it. I was upset with the rogue not for "endangering the party" (stupid wording on my part), but more to just avoid the seemingly needless use of a potion. (It was a pretty decent one, too. Could have healed any one of our members to full) I'm not saying they couldn't have killed the wolf upon revival, but that in healing the wolf, killing it would have been a certainty. But anyway, Shane's rogue offered to drag him back, and he asked how many miles he was into the forest. (I rolled a d10). It came out an 8, and he still wanted to. So, I made it out that every half mile he'd be ambushed. I think a good reason as to why they couldn't have interrogated him on the spot was because almost instantly after the defeat of the ranger, a group of wolves came out. I thought that'd make it apparent that there would be some nasty beasties in farily large and frequent groups. But, knowing that there was 8 miles to endure of said ambushes, the rogue was still willing to tough it out for someone that tried to kill him, as opposed to sticking with the group to keep them from being killed. So yeah, I admit that I didn't exactly plan for the rogue to strike off on his own, and that the "punishing" comment was a bit much. But still, I don't know how to deal with characters that frequently insist on doing things themselves and doing things that hurt the party. An example: in town, the rogue was just sitting around in the church of Olidomarra (I think that's how it's spelled...), when a righteous zealot of pelor started telling him how wrong his religion was. The rogue then said he would fight him. I frequently answered that he would almost definitely be arrested, with more severe punishments in store that would sever his partying with the other three members for doing so. "Well, can I be an outlaw and live outside of town the rest of my life?" The groups adventures almost depended entirely on hire from the king, so...angry.
PhoenixtheDM 01-28-07, 03:04 PM	I'm of the opinion that the kind of player that stupidly does "what his character does" deserves to die, or at least be punished. I wouldn't have KILLED him. I encourage my players to stupidly do things that the character would do. Heck, in one game I was playing in, I managed to unleash a super water elemental of doom on my teammates (and in the process lose all my spells for the day. Ooops. Healing went bye bye.) killing one and almost killing everyone else 'cause I opened a box that SPECIFICALLY said not to open it. Actually what it said was that a great evil lies within. Well, a lawful good cleric with levels of church inquisitor is not going to let the box sit there. Oh no, of course I HAD to open the stupid box. As a player, I knew it was a horrible idea to open the box. But I had to do it, because doing what my character would do, stupid or not, is roleplaying, and DnD is a roleplaying game. Maybe have him come to regret said stupid action, sure. But having him killed and eaten by wolves? I think that was a LITTLE harsh. I mean, ambushing him every half mile is going to kill him. Especially since he's a low level rogue out on his own.