Post/Author/DateTime	Post
ayyiniwindryder 02-11-05, 12:20 AM	ok, well i just had an interesting end-of-campaign session and would like to get everyone's take on it. first, the background. party - lvl 15 astral deva (me) - sent to investige some strange events giant melee guy - sworn to rid the world of evil and all pistol-weilding ranger - giant's sidekick sneaky halfling - loots everything, only cares about personal gain summoning caster - just kinda got caught up in the whole mess melee vampire of doom - not really sure why he's there actually situation - fighting the BBEG (dragon) ok, so after stat-draining himself (and throwing it into str via psychofeedback) and allowing his evil intelligent weapon to take control, the vamp pretty much takes out the dragon. the giant sees the vampire for what he is (has been hiding it), and attacks. the ranger attacks the vampire as well. the vampire, being controlled by his weapon (unkown to us), retaliates and kills both of them within 2 rounds. ...at this point, everyone is roleplaying the character they have created to a T...but then i, the angel, do nothing to help or stop either side. this made the group have a large arguement about what i was "supposed" to do. their points - i must kill all evil at the moment i see it i must save everyone that i can generally very stereotypical LG type stuff, with a lot of judeo-christian angel things being added in as well. ... "you're an angel" ... my points - i serve the greater good (saving the world and all) i will allow the vampire to live because he has been assisting the greater good (defeating the BBEG and saving the world and all). not only this time, but always. from where i stood...the vampire killed the dragon and the other people attacked him (ie, they were the ones being evil) i wouldve attacked the giant and ranger if anyone (if we go by what is evil or not) he has done nothing to really deserve me attacking him it isnt my fight the dm (...the only one that matters) - he had a demon that eats angelic souls pop in and take me because i did not fight the evil now, at this point i didnt really care because the campaign was effectively over anyway. i still feel a bit cheated though. the dm was being lenient with the fight (the dragon could've easilly killed us in a few quick rounds if played to full ability), then just completely screws me over for acting in-character because he believed thats not how the character shouldve acted. only one other player really agreed with me (the one playing the vampire actually), and one really ended up getting ****** too. like i said, it doesnt even really matter anymore though. we are starting new campaigns (this one was over anyway), and my new dm is gonna be the guy who was playing the vampire. i would just like to know if you guys think i role-played the situation correctly or not? im always trying to get better at roleplaying my characters, but it seems every time i try, everyone tells me im doing it wrong.
Salla 02-11-05, 12:42 AM	First and foremost, it's your character. You're the only one who can truly get inside your character's head and know how she/he operates and thinks. People who say 'you're playing your character wrong' generally deserve a swift tell-off. From the looks of things, the situation was phenomenally CONFUSING. Your party is made of some seriously nonstandard characters, which ALWAYS throws off party dynamics. Anyway ... I'm going to assume that the vampire made no blatant indications of being a vampire (he may not even have been evil, it's hard telling ... if he was fighting an evil sword, he may not have been ... even 'always' alignments have their exceptions). It does bear noting that you have Detect Evil at will, so either the Vampire wasn't evil, or he was masking himself or ... well, you just chose not to, which makes sense if he was behaving himself. That said, I think you did fine. The Giant and Ranger were engaging in an evil act, specifically murder (they were attempting to kill the vampire without provocation). Had it occured to them that, in your travels together, if he'd decided to have a Supersized meal with a side of ranger, he could have done it at any time, which indicates that he wasn't inclined to do so? Besides, the whole angelic thing is to defeat evil, which does not inherently mean destroying it. Redeeming evil is even more productive than destroying it, because then you have an active force of good AND have done away with an active force of evil.
psionichamster 02-11-05, 12:48 AM	well, if the vampire was not effectively evil... ie, your angel senses aren't tingling ALL THE FREAKING TIME, then yes, you played "correctly" angel=servant of the greater good, was sent to investigate disturbances, and presumably to correct them. i am assuming you were not instructed in what happened after all that, were you? it may be that you were "fated" to be taken to the abyss... in any manner, i would not stress about the ending of a game as such...i have had parties end up in TPK (among themselves) with dozens of dinosaurs and fire elementals, where the only survivor was the Loa-ridden voodoo monk/thug, who drove away on his custom voodoo chopper. in fact, it's been a tradition whenever someone is leaving to have the strangest, most outlandish ending to their campaign possible. things like genesis'd demiplanes of the abyss in Prime Material land or the end of the world at the hands of Kali....before we killed her. if the vamp was evil, though, i have to ask, why were you, as an angelic creature, hanging out around him? is it only paladins who don't associate with evil things, or is it all celestial creatures, too? enough rambling... namaste, the hamster
SD 02-11-05, 12:48 AM	"i must kill all evil at the moment i see it" No, that point is a crock. What it means is that if you see a child take a loaf of bread, you are morally obligated to say the child. Sorry for them, but "killing all evil immediately upon witnessing it" is not in your job description. "i must save everyone that i can" Because your intervention would have helped in this situation? No, you are only obligated to the limits of your ability. If there is no way for you to help, there is no point in potentially harming yourself over it. So their side boils down to "You didn't act like we thought you should act because we've decided what angels do". No case. I'm for you.
Eldermount 02-11-05, 02:06 AM	Considering that they were all your companions who have all been fighting evil, I think the thing you should have done was get between them and try to keep them from trying to kill each other. And then try to sort out the actual facts of why the vampire was travelling with you. Of course, you could claim that the situation so shocked you that you weren't sure what to do. Because I probably would have been confused if I were in that situation. ;)
CJ1720 02-11-05, 03:26 AM	So the vampire was traveling with your group in cognito and doing good. You had not reason to do a dectect evil during the entire campaign, obviously or else your DM would've told you that the vampire showed up evil... unless he was hiding his alignment somehow... Anywho, your astral deval and everyone else in the group never suspected that this vampire was evil. My point is is that you as the player don't know the alignments of the other player's characters and your characters don't know each other's alinments either. How would you have known? The only way you could've known is if the DM told you somehow. So, the vampire begins to reveal his true nature during the last fight and the giant and ranger snap to and say this guy is a vampire that makes him evil therefore we're going to kill him -- immediately, in spite of the fact that he just saved their collective arses single-handedly from a dragon. Is that anyway to retain your good alignment? Turning on your comrades who have helped you throughout the campaign? Doesn't make sense to me. Did you do a detect evil when the fight started? Did your astral deva believe he was a vampire or was the deva still thinking, "Could it possibly be true? And does it matter?" The giant and ranger were offed in two rounds -- that's not a lot of time for processing. It sounds like you got screwed by the assumptions of the others including the DM to me. Like you said, it doesn't matter. But these alignment questions keep coming up on the boards and this type of question is likely to surface again in your group, so maybe you should hash it out so that you all come to some kind of consensus -- independent of specific incidents and characters -- about how a character must act to keep its alignment or to change alignments.
Joe Khol 02-11-05, 07:45 AM	I agree with the point that you can choose to play your character anyway you want. Only the DM is in a position to challenge that and then only in-game. I'm not sure what you mean by the party 'seeing the vampire for what he was'. I fail to see what sequence of actions (evil detection, vampires specific actions or word) moved them from fighting alongside him to attacking him without a second word, especially since you still didn't appear to know (despite having at will detect evil yourself). I would have thought your character would have a duty to try to prevent them fighting and anyone killing anyone (though is resurrection spells are easily available, this is less of an issue). You would need to find out exactly what was going on before acting against anyone. Again though, it's your character so beyond your Deva going on a mass killing spree for a laugh, you can't do anything 'wrong' from a role-playing point of view. I do think the DM was a bit harsh on you, especially if this was your only 'fall from grace'. Maybe he was just going for a tidy closure to the campaign and if it had been in the middle, he wouldn't have been so heavy handed. You had an interesting but complicated party and it was a confusing situation so even if you didn't do what would have been expected by for the character, I don't think you should have been punished for it to that extent but remember it would have been just as difficult a call for the DM as it was for you.
was_fired 02-11-05, 07:52 AM	This is why playing creatures which (depending on the DMs view of them) lack free will is a bad thing. If your DM views angels as the embodiment of good such that they are formed from good and have no choice but to always pursue to good then you were rightly destroyed. Consider: 1. Either the vampire or the giant acted in an evil manner. 2. You did not prevent either. 3. Therefor you did not prevent evil. 4. Since preventing evil is good you did not pursue the good which is why you exisit. 5. In that moment you had no purpose. 6. Since in that moment you had no purpose you ceased to exisit as an aligned outsider. Now I admit few if any DMs will enforce a moral code for outsiders like that, but it is a viable one provided the DM can hold himself to it. Either action would have allowed you to continue exisiting, but since you performed no action you were destroyed.