Post/Author/DateTime	Post
JonCoven 04-22-07, 01:26 PM	Hey all, I have a problem with my normal group of players that is really beginning to irritate me. Essentially they play their characters in the most pointlessly suicidal way possible, then justify their irrational behavior on the basis that it's what their character class dictates. Some examples: --A tidal wave of lesser demons is sieging a small village. The first phase of the battle is obviously lost; their best hope is to fall back to a more defensible position, the remains of a nearby fort. One player refuses on the basis that his character's a paladin. He gets himself killed fighting a hopeless battle in the first 10 minutes of the game. --In a different campaign, a druid character attacked and nearly killed a fighter because the fighter would not allow him to heal a pack of winter wolves that had just attacked them. The druid's defense was that druids are hippies and care about animal life. (I was actually a PC at the time, separated from them in-game and therefore unable to intervene, but I tried explaining out-of-character that druids are not, in fact, hippies and have no problem killing animals when necessary. That's why they wear hide armor and such.) Needlessly to say the fighter refused to adventure with him any further and the druid wound up getting killed shortly thereafter, ironically unable to survive in the arctic wilderness. There have been one or two other instances of this but they presently escape my memory. Now my philosophy, both as player and as DM, is that character class, alignment, and all those other things, are roleplaying tools, not straightjackets. Paladins may believe in the preservation of life, but not suicidally so -- they cannot protect life if they, themselves, are dead. Druids may be in tune with nature but that doesn't mean they are beatniks that can't bring themselves to kill even hostile creatures that attack them (if anything, their adherence to the laws of nature should dictate that they do what is necessary for their own survival). In real life I am a systems engineer. My job is to manage the computer systems in my office. But if the office is on fire, I'm getting the hell out. I'm not going to risk my life just because "it's my job." What are my options here? I have told them not to do stuff like this repeatedly; it's not only senseless in the context of the game, it's simply destructive to the enjoyability of the game, period. I am seriously considering nerfing their characters for every instance of douchebaggery.
Fuzzypaws 04-22-07, 01:39 PM	If they start doing something monumentally stupid, warn them. Either directly, or with the infamous "Are you sure you want to do that?" If they don't take the hint, let them suffer the consequences of their actions. Don't spitefully autokill them, just continue to play out the consequences until they either pull their head out of their ass or until they die. Then when they die, they make a new character - one level below the old one.
Someone 04-22-07, 01:57 PM	Just to be sure, the two examples were involving the same player, correct? If this guy keeps having to spend sessions rolling up a character rather than playing, its somewhat self-correcting. While he is off to the side making the new character, he isn't (or at least shouldn't be) interfering with the other PCs, and after the zillionth time, I would think he's wouldn't want to have to roll up yet another character.
Pandaemoni 04-22-07, 02:45 PM	It's certainly appropriate for the DM to point out that characters don't have to behave in the way that these did (in case the player thinks he's "stuck" behaving a certain way), but it also goes a little far to declare the player a "douchebag" (or, at least, that he engages in acts of "douchebaggery") because he plays his characters differently from the way you would. Sure, druids don't have to be beatniks, but that doesn't mean they can never be, or that a player is somehow "wrong" to play his druid that way. Paladins may be wise to retreat to a more defensible position, leaving innocents to die in the short run so that more can be saved in the long run, but not every paladin needs to be played that way. Some people charge into the burning building to evacuate those inside, despite the danger, some retreat and call the fire department. It takes all kinds.
Count_Chumleigh 04-22-07, 03:35 PM	I really don't like it when players justify their characters' actions with "I'm ! It's what all [insert class] do!" In Third Edition, base classes are supposed to be broad enough to cover so many archetypes as to make that kind of argument meaningless. That is also what I don't like about certain other base classes that have appeared in the supplements, such as the Swashbuckler or Warmage--those archetypes are too specific to justify an entire [I]base class, but that's getting off-topic. Cheers, --Count Chumleigh
Kursk 04-22-07, 04:14 PM	Hey all, I have a problem with my normal group of players that is really beginning to irritate me. Essentially they play their characters in the most pointlessly suicidal way possible, then justify their irrational behavior on the basis that it's what their character class dictates. Some examples: --A tidal wave of lesser demons is sieging a small village. The first phase of the battle is obviously lost; their best hope is to fall back to a more defensible position, the remains of a nearby fort. One player refuses on the basis that his character's a paladin. He gets himself killed fighting a hopeless battle in the first 10 minutes of the game. --In a different campaign, a druid character attacked and nearly killed a fighter because the fighter would not allow him to heal a pack of winter wolves that had just attacked them. The druid's defense was that druids are hippies and care about animal life. (I was actually a PC at the time, separated from them in-game and therefore unable to intervene, but I tried explaining out-of-character that druids are not, in fact, hippies and have no problem killing animals when necessary. That's why they wear hide armor and such.) Needlessly to say the fighter refused to adventure with him any further and the druid wound up getting killed shortly thereafter, ironically unable to survive in the arctic wilderness. There have been one or two other instances of this but they presently escape my memory. Now my philosophy, both as player and as DM, is that character class, alignment, and all those other things, are roleplaying tools, not straightjackets. Paladins may believe in the preservation of life, but not suicidally so -- they cannot protect life if they, themselves, are dead. Druids may be in tune with nature but that doesn't mean they are beatniks that can't bring themselves to kill even hostile creatures that attack them (if anything, their adherence to the laws of nature should dictate that they do what is necessary for their own survival). In real life I am a systems engineer. My job is to manage the computer systems in my office. But if the office is on fire, I'm getting the hell out. I'm not going to risk my life just because "it's my job." What are my options here? I have told them not to do stuff like this repeatedly; it's not only senseless in the context of the game, it's simply destructive to the enjoyability of the game, period. I am seriously considering nerfing their characters for every instance of douchebaggery. You have enough to do running the game. You don't control the PCs. If they want to kill themselves that's their problem. They will eventually get tired of rolling up new characters.
Kouk 04-22-07, 04:48 PM	Maybe that is their way of roleplaying their characters. Some druids are psychotic animal lovers, and kill anyone that would harm a creature. That's how you have villain NPC druids.
bobothechimp 04-22-07, 04:52 PM	If it was just because of their class, that's stupid. If it was because of their character, then it's not.