I understand that Speak with Beasts is up to interpretation, and I intend to argue to him that the pixies of English fairy tales were able to fully communicate with beasts and that if a druid can asks questions with to a plant, my character should be able to understand the wolf. But more importantly - what the other player did was incredibly rude, and when I tried to talk with him later, he told me that he had been "role-playing his barbarian" and that he didn't think that the role-play was going to work.
I'm going to talk with the DM about this, and if he continues to let players intrude on the role-play of other players, I'm going to leave the group. What I want to ask is what you would reccomend, and how best to convince players to cooperate and help each other out, rather that having a few players simply try to fast-forward to the next battle.
If that's not possible, perhaps a house rule: "You [Power-Gamer] need to ask before you charge into combat, but you [You] need to ask before you go into long and extensive RP."
In other situations, we have talked to an enemy for 5-15 minutes, trying a avoid battle, when someone at the table gets bored and suddenly fires off an attack to begin the fight.
You will never find a shortage of these types of players. Maybe talking to the DM will help. I suggest that you start a conversation at the table when everyone is there to find out what kind of a game each person wants. If you make your desire clear (sometimes we kill, sometimes we talk), then even a halfway adult person should be able to respect that. Maybe you'll all find out something about the people at the table.
What you should do is have a word with your DM out of session to clarify what a fairy means to both of you so that if such a situation crops up again, it's clear what can and can't be expected. Since you both have different opinons of what fairys are, it's best resolved to make sure the confusion and offending doesn't happen again.
I understand that Speak with Beasts is up to interpretation, and I intend to argue to him that the pixies of English fairy tales were able to fully communicate with beasts and that if a druid can asks questions with to a plant, my character should be able to understand the wolf.
This depends on how you were approaching the wolf. Divination spells (and that's basically what these kinds of spells/abilities are) are notoriously difficult to balance. One of the ways that the "speak with..." types have been dealt with is to constrain the subjects of inquiry to subjects that would be interesting to the creature in question. So, if you were talking with a plant, the plant may have a lot to say about the high winds, or how great the rain was, or how it doesn't like the things that keep hitting it with metal objects. The wolf also isn't going to know a whole lot beyond hunting and taking orders, and if you are trying to reason with the beast as if it is a person, it's likely going to think you are weak and take the opportunity to vie for alpha status.
Now, a nature check should give you the chance to figure this stuff out (as the breadth of knowledge is being wholely determined by the DM, and you are not a mindreader). But, lots of times, these tricks just don't seem to work. But when they do, ho boy, you might have just broken the campaign.
But more importantly - what the other player did was incredibly rude, and when I tried to talk with him later, he told me that he had been "role-playing his barbarian" and that he didn't think that the role-play was going to work.
Absolutely. The "I'm just role-playing my barbarian (which I think is a synonym for psychopath)" is complete bovine excrement, and needs to be called out. The player has complete control over what his character thinks, believes, and how he acts. He has specifically chosen to play a character that tramples over the efforts of other players. That has to stop.
Besides, now your pixie is apparently adventuring with a person who is prone to killing creatures he is having a dialog with for no apparent reason. If you (and the fighter) were to be true to your characters, does the barbarian player think his character would still be welcome in the party?
And no reason for everyone at the table to sit around waiting for you for 5 minutes. It's not like he could be part of the conversation.
I cut him loose and he didn't do anything, he was calm when I fed him, and that's when the Barbarian said (and I quote) "Actually, I'm going to jump in and kill it." So there was no reason to assume role-play wasn't working.
@Crowscape - Well, in terms of dealing with the wolf, a) I had already beaten it and knocked it out, so I had already achieved alpha status. I even said "if you're not interested, you can walk away", as a very deliberate nod to the DM to say "if you don't want the fighter to have a mount, the wolf can leave."
And yes, I've seen people leave groups (and I'm considering it myself) because other players are allowed to intrude on other players role-play. So I completely agree.
@mellored - Yes, the wolf didn't have to let anyone ride it - but again, I gave it the option to walk away.
And the barbarian is trained in nature. I mentioned "hey, if anybody has nature you can make a check to help tame it." So yes, he could've been part of the conversation, but chose to interrupt instead.
@Wystenv - I was making progress with the DM, but the problem was that he wasn't translating it to me, the player, in English. I would ask "How were you treated by the Orcs riding you? Were you beaten?", he'd say that the wolf seemed angry and afraid, then I'd say "If you come with us, you'll be treated as an equal, fed, etc.", to which he'd say "He no longer seems afraid but still somewhat angry." As I interpret Speak with Beasts, I should be able to at least get simple answers back such as "we weren't fed, we were whipped", etc.
I cut him loose and he didn't do anything, he was calm when I fed him, and that's when the Barbarian said (and I quote) "Actually, I'm going to jump in and kill it." So there was no reason to assume role-play wasn't working.
@Crowscape - Well, in terms of dealing with the wolf, a) I had already beaten it and knocked it out, so I had already achieved alpha status. I even said "if you're not interested, you can walk away", as a very deliberate nod to the DM to say "if you don't want the fighter to have a mount, the wolf can leave."
And yes, I've seen people leave groups (and I'm considering it myself) because other players are allowed to intrude on other players role-play. So I completely agree.
@mellored - Yes, the wolf didn't have to let anyone ride it - but again, I gave it the option to walk away.
And the barbarian is trained in nature. I mentioned "hey, if anybody has nature you can make a check to help tame it." So yes, he could've been part of the conversation, but chose to interrupt instead.
Ahhhh, alright, that clarification is extremely helpful. Changes a lot of things.
Depends really, a incharacter problem deserves a incharacter responce. If he's going to act like a buffon in character, then he is one. Afterall, what is a man if he can't control his axe? A beast one says? Sounds like you need to "Jump in and kill it" sometime. Or at least get a frosty reception in future. I remembered a simlar situation with the frenzied bezerker, that my character treated him almost as a mere animal. If he hadn't of died or of been of scentific importence to him, I likely would have disposed of him much sooner considering his high mortalty rate.
I do believe you might want a word with your DM to remind the players that how they act will ultimately influence ones opinon on them. 5 minutes isn't long considering the progress made, and definately not justifcation for going "hulk smash" without side effect.
That said, it still might not be the group for you. Only advice i can give is to talk about it before you make a decision.
I don't play with, or DM for, player s that go out of their way to mess with other players.
Roleplay is never a shield for asshattery! Never.
For example, a thief pc steals gold from a shopkeeper...and the pc Paladin sees it! oh no! What will happen?
Example of player being an ass-hat and pretending it is roleplay: "My Paladin cuts off the thieves hands! he broke the Law!"
Example of player adjusting to the realities of a social game called dnd: "My Paladin verbally reprimands the thief", and pays the shopkeeper the gold that was stolen, using the paladins own personal gold. He then tries to be a good example to the thief, and may not bail him out if his thievery is targetted at the innocent.
In my games I try to address likely character conflicts early, by asking the players to be cool with each others roleplay, and not be ass-hats.
Usually works.
Jumping in an killing it may very well be the barbarians way of RPing. I know i have a character like that. Other's have to convince him not to kill things fairly regularly. Sometimes he does anyway (espcially if he was already fighting it). It's part of the RP, not interupting it.
That said, it still might not be the group for you. Only advice i can give is to talk about it before you make a decision.
There is a fairly large difference between killing something (e.g. Swinging the axe down into it after it's been knocked out, just to make sure it's dead.) and doing it at a inapproiate time (letting two party members talk to it for a bit, then killing it when it's obivously isn't a threat. ). The former indicates instinct, that it's natural to not leave creatures alive and premeditatively killing it after an amount of time, which amounts to a considerable period of time mulling over whether it should be killed or not.
In this case, I would say the latter. It wasn't done spontaniously from a character perspective. If it had been killed that way, it would have been fine since on the same token taming something that has a rider trying to rip ones headoff is weird from a encounter perspective.
It's a shame because I love my character, but I can't stand it when lousy DMing degenerates the game into mindless power gaming.
I can see problems with this situation from both points of view. On the one hand, it's pretty inconsiderate to haul out an axe and start chopping up someone when your own partner was in the middle of a conversation with it. On the other, it's inconsiderate to expect everyone else in the group to stand around for five minutes while you try to recruit the enemy to your cause via pantomime. The DM shouldn't have let it drag on that long, you shouldn't have kept at it that long, and the player who put a stop to it shouldn't have done so by attacking. It's not fair to single out any of you as the culprit.
It might be more productive when stuff like that comes up to put it aside, get back to the action and talk to the DM about your character's abilities after the session. Wolves do have a language that can handle much more complicated interactions than "how's life with your pack? Wanna join ours? We'll treat you better!" Plain old humans are able to learn how they communicate, and even converse with them on some level, so a pixie who has some sort of mechanically expressed ability to communicate with animals should definitely be able to have that chat. Success shouldn't be guaranteed, but it ought to be a lot less awkward than it sounds like it was.
. . . but that's not a conversation to have with the guy while the rest of the group waits around for you two to settle the matter. Bottom line: the DM makes the call, you abide by the ruling, and take it up with him afterward.
Jumping in an killing it may very well be the barbarians way of RPing. I know i have a character like that. Other's have to convince him not to kill things fairly regularly. Sometimes he does anyway (espcially if he was already fighting it). It's part of the RP, not interupting it.
I agree it's part of the RP. But, I will say, it's bad wrong RP, as it is designed to trump other characters.
My character has a hatred of all magic: he is distrustful of the party's wizard and does not accept offers of magical healing. Good RP.
My character has a hatred of all magic: At night, he rounds up the party's magical gear and destroys it. Bad wrong RP.
The barbarian is clearly in the later camp.
He was a mage and I was a cleric.
He continually would do actions like the one you described OP.
I eventually felt that if he was going to "RP" his character in that fashion, then I would do the same.
So anytime I felt wronged by his actions I challenged him to a duel.
I mean if I was working with someone, and a teammate came up and killed him mid sentence, my Cleric would be outraged.
And it showed in his reaction to the event.
Eventually it came to the point where other players would intervene and prevent him, or myself from getting to the point of those fights.
And the entire group started working better as a whole, and not as a bunch of a**holes.
It might not of been the best resolution to the problem.
But it also tempered the mage's kill fest. Because he realised that I was there to stand up for myself, and sometimes he would decide it wasn't worth the effort.
Don't let others bully you around, just like you wouldn't let them do so in real life.
I agree it's part of the RP. But, I will say, it's bad wrong RP, as it is designed to trump other characters.
BINGO. Somebody tell me how it'd be any less of a douche move for the pixie character to shrink the barbarian's primary weapon or armor to a useless size, and when its player protests to tell him, "I'm just playing in character! Pixies are prankish." Roleplaying someone the rest of the party wouldn't suffer as a travelling companion means everyone else has to stop roleplaying for the character to remain in the party. It reduces the party's reasons for being together to the metagame reason, that they're player characters in a roleplaying game.
make the group agree to this:
The "rule of the party"
If any PLAYER disagrees with a course of action to the extent that they will not be able to continue playing their character in the group (like they can't possibly rationalize why their character would continue to associate with the party after what they do), then the action doesn't happen. The players talk in character, or failing that, out of character until a course of action can be decided upon that all the PLAYERS agree to.
keep in mind, its important to not that if the majority of the party wants to do something, and your CHARACTER doesn't, but you as a PLAYER can come up with why your character would go along with it, or a sensible, in-character response to doing that something that won't fracture the party, then you really ought to go along with it. This kind of thing is mostly to head off the "i'm a cleric of mercy interrogating a captured thief or tending to the sick and wounded" being screwed over because the "i'm a big barbarian and that thief is evil *SMASH* or those sick and wounded are a waste of our time *CRUSH*".
In your situation in the original post, i can see that as a player, (1)you should have simply accepted the ruling on "can't 'tame' the wolf with this spell" at the time and discussed it with the DM after the session. The DM needs to be the on-the-fly rules arbiter for a group. It keeps things going and prevents them breaking down into 15-minute+ discussions on exactly how a grapple works underwater while making basketweaving checks. (2)MAYBE the DM should have been more clear on what he was trying to say. I couldn't tell right off from your story, but i see the possibility of the DM beating around the bush. He realy should have said "this ability will not enable you to do what you want it to do, as you remain unable to communicate your exact desires to the wolf " and that should have been the end, nice and quick. (3) The person who killed the wolf stepped out of line, but only so far as violating a good-will common sense rule that hasn't yet been brought up for discussion. The DM also went along with it unfortunately, so it IS a discussion you will need to have, but try to make sure you have some ideas for compromise. It may have been possible to say "no don't kill him, just let him go!" and have the fighter scare off the wolf instead (or you scare him off to save him from the fighter or something - either way, it should be an agreed-on course of action).
This is going to be the inevitible conclusion to your roleplaying experience with this group OP.
If others have already abandoned the group, then that is a clear indicator of what kind of DM and player circle you are dealing with.
You might as well end it now.
If somebody decides to just outright murder a non hostile creature because they are bored that's the kind of thing that teeters on the edge of an alignment shift (well, from good, not evil.). Sometimes players get the message when you start telling them about a shift in their alignment because of their actions.
During one session I had a good fighter subdue and torture a sentient fey creature (a sand bride) because he felt that he was betrayed when they lured him into a trap. I had to explain to him how "torture" is not a good act, even if somebody tricked you into a trap. And told him that the action resulted in an alignment shift for him. (It was quite a shocking event that happened since out of nowhere he decided to subdue, torture, and describe the act.) The party explained the difference between tying up a bad guy and slapping him a couple of times to get answers versus his malicious, "I smash her hands with a hammer, she still won't give me a straight answer, well I cut one of her ears off" action.
Anyways, explaining what can be considered "evil" and how giving in to it results in an alignment shift has given him pause to rethink his actions knowing that he wants to actually be a "good" character.
Also, saying you can communicate with beasts or should be able to because a druid can is asking for a loose interpretation and application of the rules. The reason druids can communicate with beasts is because of their class training. Just because you're a creature of the fey doesn't automatically grant you an ability to commune with nature.
Now about the barbarian "role-playing". Well, if he's role playing a vicious animal murdering barbarian, then maybe your party should roleplay a group of people that don't want a psychotic ticking time bomb in your party when you leave him at the bottom of a tiger pit.
I'm also with a few people here that mentioned that if your conversation was taking up 5 minutes, that's a lot of table time to something that didn't seem to involve anybody else. And you say "well I asked if they were trained in nature they could join in" but maybe nobody else felt it was worth their time trying to get a pet dog for the group.
I'd be curious what other players at the table felt about how the situation resolved. I'd guess a fifty fifty split probably.
This is something to talk about with the table though. Be mature and hopefully the other parties will be too when you discuss your feelings on this. Groups can often gel a bit better when people talk about the game they are each trying to play. A good DM will be open to this and give each player a chance to shine. RP elements for players like you, OP, who want to dialogue things out, and aggressive "No room for negotiating without my axe in your face" situations for the "power gaming" barbarian. You can please some of the people some of the time, etcetera etcetera etcetera...
Also...
You might as well end it now.
Nothing against you personally, but I really hate this as an answer to a problem and it comes up a lot in these forums. Some people, myself included, can not easily find a dungeons and dragons group, let alone one that can fit into my personal schedule. And when we do find one it's akin to striking gold, finally being able to play a session on a regular basis. I would much rather do everything I could to make a group work and enjoy it before I just ran out on it because of a few personality conflicts. Or maybe stick with it long enough to poach the players I like away and form our own group. I think it's important to have faith that a DM wants to be a good one, not just a straight up ****, and that players want to be part of a group, also, not straight up dicks. And, well, assuming everyone has some level of maturity, could actually work some problems out.
I mean, there's plenty of guys I know, that at first I really didn't get along with, a few I came to blows with, but after we air some of our grievances, punctuated with fists sometimes, we actually have become pretty good friends.
Eventually I (Druid, Dire Polar Bear companion) and the party face (Swashbuckler) got together and decided we weren't going to do anything but sit on the porch of our Inn and smoke our pipes. And we roleplayed those days. We described what we ate for breakfast. We had idle conversations. Another player took his priest about town offering free healing in the name of Pelor. The ninja occasionally joined us, or slept all day and snuck out at night. We, as a party, made him sit still as a punishment for being insufferable.
OP I think you really need to just find a new group. It sounds like the dm nor the other player are willing to be adults about this and you should not play something that you don't enjoy.
The best way to counter this is with more RP, in my opinion. We once had a fighter who was optimized for combat and had no real personality because the player was awful at RP. So he was always pushing for more combat, on to the next battle, complaining about being stuck in a city, etc.
Eventually I (Druid, Dire Polar Bear companion) and the party face (Swashbuckler) got together and decided we weren't going to do anything but sit on the porch of our Inn and smoke our pipes. And we roleplayed those days. We described what we ate for breakfast. We had idle conversations. Another player took his priest about town offering free healing in the name of Pelor. The ninja occasionally joined us, or slept all day and snuck out at night. We, as a party, made him sit still as a punishment for being insufferable.
So rather than talking to the player like an adult, you 'punished' him by wasting the time of at least 2 people at the table? Since one of those people was the DM, what was he doing with the fighter in the meantime, since all of that passive/aggressive "roleplay" didn't take up any of his time?