Okay, long story short our party is hunting some slavers. One member of the group is captured. The rest of the party begins their attack, and will soon be reunited.
Problem: the PC who got captured is N/CN, spent most of the last session attempting to acquire some slaves herself, is only interested in personal profit, and has a brief but staggering history of making dumb/self-sabotaging choices. She got captured because:
1) She tried to con some greatful people out of their livelihoods, using charm magic as well, and unsurprisingly managed to alienate them when the magic ran out. As a result their offer of free room and board was recinded for her.
2) Rather than pay for room and board she decided to head off into town alone and attempt to bait some criminals into mugging her so she could find out their base of operations from them, clear it out, and spend the night there.
3) As an attractive lady doing everything she could to make herself a perfect victim, the slavers got her. She tries to talk her way out of it, fails, but manages to get an audience with their leader.
4) She sells the party out for her freedom, and the leader agrees to let her go if the information on our weaknesses is accurate (it is, which is a problem because a) They had no idea we were coming until she told them, b) My character is an illusionist. Having everyone expecting an illusionist seriously hinders their effectiveness because illusions are best when the enemy thinks they're real, and c) Our eldritch knight only has a limited spell selection. Telling the enemy what element he favors is not very helpful for the good guys).
5) My character, being an int 18 wizard trained in intuition and having some experience with this PC, is kinda expecting her to try and cut a deal with the slavers. As a result, when scouting reveals that a) the enemy is expecting an illusionist and eldrich knight, b) the first PC is in the dungeon unharmed, with only her weapons missing and all her other gear unlooted, with only a token guard and restraints, my wizard jumps to a conclusion and thinks that we've been sold out.
Now while we have been sold out, the PC's intent was to become a double agent inside the slavers. Unfortunately since the slavers aren't idiots and are keeping her locked up until her informantion is verified AND the information she gave was accurate to the point of being potentially crippling to the party's efforts AND the ploy was concieved on the fly and as a result the party doesn't know about it... Yeah.
My problem is that I need to come up with an in character reason not to turn on the PC in question when we get to her. There's no long history between our characters, my PC has been routinely dumbfounded by this PC's greed, idiocy, and occasional cruelty (Burying a helpless prisoner alive because he was part of a group of bandits that the rest of the party took down non-lethally to bring to justice later [we were about half a day out from Neverwinter and heading there anyway], which she only got away with because the rest of the party was out of sight at the time).
I don't want to be a party killer (or even a party "leave them chained up and just walk out-er") but I'm having a hard time thinking of any reason I'd continue associating with this person.
Even the old "I'm lawful and should bring her in for a fair trial" doesn't really work as we've been empowered by the legal authorities to wipe out the bandits and their associates.
Please help!
Unless I'm reading you wrong, it sounds like you don't really appreciate the way this person is playing their character. Betraying the party's trust and actively sabotaging them, unless your group has agreed to an atmosphere where that's okay, seem like the kind of Chaotic Stupid "I only picked this alignment to justify doing anything I want" crap that CN characters are so maligned for. Assuming this is the case, I'd talk to the player about reigning in the irritating parts of their personality and cooperating with the party better.
Once they recognize that they need to be more of a team player, they can work with you in-character: she has a change of heart and fights off her "token" guard, then assists the party, with the end-result that these slavers are dealt with. This can earn forgiveness (at least temporarily) from the party.
If you have already agreed that these kinds of actions are okay, and you don't mind how they've been playing their character, then that's the atmosphere you agreed to. Accept her back to the party, say "Oh, you!", and laugh together until fade-to-black. If backstabbing the party is going overboard for you, then talk to the player as above.
Personally, I think that telling a bunch of slavers how to find the party and exploit all their weaknesses means having a hand in all of their deaths, so the player has very little right to complain if you decide to murder that character. Again, only do this if you've agree that this kind of backstabbing is acceptable.
I'd probaby take what I call the bad dog approach to this situation. Rub her nose in it and smack her with the proverbial newspaper.
Show her the hard truth of what her betrayal has done and hit her with an important choise on bounderies that she won't be allowed to cross again. If a party member was badly wounded or worse killed in the fight show her that and talk it up. "sir so and so was run threw by the very blade of one of your "allies" who seemed to know his prefered use of fire magic and when I tryed to save him with magic, again the enemy wasn't detered." A line like this could have a powerful impact especially when followed up by playing to her self interested nature, by letteing her know that its in her best interest to not screw the party over like that again because they might not come for her next time. Finally try to sound a little sympathic as well. Point out some good that has happened because of her games "Well at least we found the villans hideout because of you so it wasn't all bad I suppose."
As a neutral/ CN character she should be motivated by self interest above all else. Playing around that can make her a surpisingly loyal and usefull ally. Just show her its in her best interest to remain friends with the group and while there will always be bumps in the road (which can be great fun and story) out and out betrayal should not be one of them. This also has the advangate of making it the other players choise rather then yours. I don 't know the complete party dynamic but its likly the others feel close to the same as you. Betrayal is a very powerful motivatior to make things change in a party dynamic.
This is keepin things as much ingame as possible.
Keaerin wrote:
No more Mr Nice Guy, you need to teach the player the error of her ways. Pretend to switch sides yourself, just as she has. Cut a deal with the slavers and buy her for yourself, for a fair price. She will think this is a just a subterfuge and you are going to set her free. She's wrong. As you leave the slaver's establishment, pulling her behind you in chains, it will suddenly dawn on her that you now own her, she is now your slave and you actually intend to keep her chained up indefinitely to make sure she never double-crosses you again. Promise her freedom if she relents and starts being good instead of evil. Beat her regularly until she does. 
That's really a conversation that the group needs to have out of game as to what are expectations of all the players and DM.
In general, I think one of the most important things that one can do at the start of a game is make sure that everyone understands why their PC might be traveling along with your PC and you have the same understanding. Such as "My LG PC and the CN PC are hunting for the CN PC's older brother's killer. That killer was some sort of mage who works for some mysterious group. The older brother went to the same magic school that you did and was a mentor to you at one point."
It might be a bit cliche, but it establishes the following things:
Why she needs you.
Why her cause means something to you.
Creates hooks in your PCs backgrounds for the DM.
Mommy_was_an_Orc wrote:
FuelDrop wrote:
Why don't you roleplay it out? Assuming you succeed, she hasn't escaped on her own and you find her locked up, see what transpires when the characters meet. Play the scene out in-character and see where it leads. Why decide out of character beforehand?
When you meet her she explains the double agent plan, (or you retcon that she explained it to you beforehand). You being a nice dude aren't mad at her for failing in her attempt to craftily get info on the slavers, even if it backfired and she gave more than she got.
It seems like your GM is much kinder than I would be. If you were at my table the PC would be stripped of all gear and left in minimal clothing and manacles. If the slavers know she can use "charm magic" she would also be gagged and blind folded.
If playing in your party I would assume that the slavers have sold her off and that the buyers may already be there or on the way. I would avoid being caught between two groups who would gang up on a mutual enemy.
Regardless the PC would be left as found until the slavers were dealt with and if taken away by buyers either left to her fate or rescued depending on who the buyers were. It would be taken as granted that any buyers would have the means to control a magic using slave.
Are there any Sunites in the party? They might give her a pass.
"Sune's dogma maintains that physical beauty or lack thereof is more than simply a function of physical factors; to the Sunite, that which is beautiful is good and ugly things are undoubtedly evil, for they believe that beauty radiates from one's inner being and reflects the core nature of an individual."
Macv12 wrote:
So what me and my girl friend were looking over what you had to say, and also some of the other posts and we have a couple of ideas for your character, but we need to know a few things? Is your character morally bound to the betrayor in any way? Has your your charactor guessed it was this person who betrayed you, or just that you got sold out in general?
Cause my girlfriend believes you could try for your PC to act out of character... for example don't use signature spells, act differently to possibley throw off oposition. Also to carry out your orders as stated.. you were told to take out a bunch of slavers so throw her lot in with them, capture them (unless specifically told to kill them) but if that is not possible... have your character force her to explain then if he doesn't believe her, dop the lawful good thing and not associate with her, then when she decides to go off on her own with no word of warning... assume that she's left for good and go on your merry way.
Zedleppin87 wrote:
My problem is that I need to come up with an in character reason not to turn on the PC in question when we get to her. There's no long history between our characters, my PC has been routinely dumbfounded by this PC's greed, idiocy, and occasional cruelty (Burying a helpless prisoner alive because he was part of a group of bandits that the rest of the party took down non-lethally to bring to justice later [we were about half a day out from Neverwinter and heading there anyway], which she only got away with because the rest of the party was out of sight at the time).I don't want to be a party killer (or even a party "leave them chained up and just walk out-er") but I'm having a hard time thinking of any reason I'd continue associating with this person.
The slavers are being entirely too nice to her. She's a high-value property that can provide continuous income. She will not be leaving under her own power.
If her ex-friends (well, her known associates) show up and it looks like they can actually rescue her, the slavers drop everything else to take her out; traitors and frauds do not survive (literally) in this business.
I think the disguise and spell-change plan is excellent; I wish I had thought of it ! My AL Monk will have to buy a Rapier now and pretend to be a Swashbuckler.
If I was you, I would leave her chained to the wall until the entire lair is cleared out, then release all the other slaves into the custody of some Authority Figure. The group can have a talk about player behavior and expectations. If the replies you get from this character's player are not satisfactory, turn the character over to the Authorities as an agent of the slavers (which she has been). This takes that character out of the campaign permanently.
P.S. I play a Paladin for an HotDQ campaign.
FuelDrop wrote: