Human Paladin (LG)
Tiefling Fighter (NG)
Bugbear Rogue (CE)
Elven Ranger (NG)
Human Cleric (CE)
Dwarven Fighter (NE)
I've played with this group for a while, and I know that the paladin is a detect evil, stab happy kind of guy. I'm playing the tiefling, and i'm going to avoid party conflict best I can. The guy playing the rogue will not hesitated to kill party members, because the DM allowed any alignment. The Ranger is a newbie and probably won't get that involved with PvP. The cleric's player made it to spite the paladin (because of RP potential, but it's still a problem). And the dwarf is going to club anybody about the head who doesn't give him his way. So as you can see, Upon the party meeting there may just be afew casualties. Any ideas I can use to stop this?
Don't play. Find a better group of players.
I've gamed with these guys for at least 5 years, they're some of my best friends, I'm not leaving the game, just to make it clear. It's more of a
"how can I stop everyone from killing each other IC"
As for avoiding it, your best bet is to honestly voice your fears right off the bat before starting the game.. "Hey guys, how about we have a campaign where we actually work together? Going at each others' throats at every turn isn't really fun to me".
If that doesn't work, I doubt anything will.
Just give them a reason to work together, and assuming they're not playing stupid good or stupid evil, it shouldn't be a problem. Hell, if they've been working together for any extended period of time before the start of the campaign (back story wise) it shouldn't be a problem because they would've worked things out when they first grouped up and would have no problem with each other by now.
Evil characters (even CE) can have friends, and if nothing else, selfishness lends itself to alliances for mutual benefit. Any character should realize that going into a dungeon by himself isn't the best idea. And maybe the paladin has some reason not to kill them, although he should still stop them from performing evil acts. In fact, he might be trying to convert them. Also, he shouldn't be trying to kill them unless he knows they are performing evil acts. Killing someone (like the cleric) just for worshiping the wrong god would be religious persecution.
As long as the players don't all act like a bunch of ass-hats, this could become a really interesting campaign full of RP opportunities.
EDIT: And just so everyone's on the same page, you should probably bring these types of points up before the game begins. If all they want to do is have a giant PvP match, then roll up some characters and go at it, theres no reason to disrupt a campaign for it.
at least, that's what I'd do. war makes strange bedfellows (is that how the saying goes?)
Human Paladin
Tiefling Fighter
Bugbear Rogue
Elven Ranger
Human Cleric
Dwarven Fighter
Tiefling, bugbear, dwarf, elf, and two humans? Ouch.
war makes strange bedfellows (is that how the saying goes?)
It's usually "politics" and not "war," but I think I've heard it with "war" before.
On the surface, a party in major conflict who are forced to work together sounds like a promising role play opportunity. But over the long haul of a campaign, it can really get out of hand without careful consideration from all involved. This is particularly true if someone is already threatening to kill other players during character creation. In my experience, a party this divided is more suited to a short story arc than a campaign. In the short term, the tension can stay interesting, and the logical consequences of having such divergent characters together can be played out naturally over the course of the adventures instead of having people working together for months or years of a campaign when they would likely part ways after a week.
Not sure if everyone made their characters directly after the TPK, but it really sounds like the group should sit down and make very sure this is the kind of game they'd like to play. From your description, the characters seem atypical of the group's usual play style. If they're your friends, you can be comfortable being honest about the lack of enjoyment this type of game can provide. Hopefully, some sort of compromise can be reached. If not, and if you're dedicated to the game, well....you have my condolences.
Making Tough Decisions (Giant in the Playground Games)
Executive summary: Bad roleplayers ask, "Will my character get along with the party?" Good roleplayers ask, "Why will my character get along with the party?"
Human Paladin (LG)
Tiefling Fighter (NG)
Bugbear Rogue (CE)
Elven Ranger (NG)
Human Cleric (CE)
Dwarven Fighter (NE)
The best way to keep your party together is to create a backround the envolves the players being friends beforhand.
Maybe the paladin and cleric are brothers who chose differant gods to worship, but still respect each other. Maybe the Tiefling and Bugbear escaped from a racist cult and now rely on each other. The Dwarf and Elf have stuck an unlikely friendship when they were both anbushed by orcs and had to help each other to defet them.
How does that sound?
Directly realted to the contents of that post is a tip for the OP, regarding evil characters. I've watched and learned, and ran an evil 3.5 game myself. These are the things that can lead you to successfully having an evil party that does not decend into PVP.
Evil characters are inherently selfish and/or destructive. Take, for example, the 2 kinds of Neutral Evil presented in the PHB.
Type1: Selfish. This character thinks only for himself, but is neither as disciplined or methodical as LE, nor as randomly chaotic as CE, namely because the latter can easily attract attention. He uses others for his own gain, and seeks only advancement of himself and his own goals. These ideals are best idealized in the deity Vecna.
Type2: Evil for the Sake of Evil. To this character, evil is in and of itself a goal, not just a method. Whether it's the collapse of an empire just to see it fall, or the slaughter of thousands just to eradicate life, this character is simly and irredeemably a villain. He may have structured plans like a LE character, but he will abondon them if he must. He may leve chaos in his wake, but he is, himself, not necessarily tempermental and random. These ideals are best idealized in the deity Nerull.
But as has been pointed out, although evil is not monolithic, neither is it incapable of cooperation.
What is going to keep evil characters in the same DnD party from killing each other? Aren't most all evil chracters only going to serve their own goals?
These two questions create the answer you need. Evil characters with the same goals will work together.
When I was requested by my players to run an evil game, I agreed on ONE stipulation. That character creation by all players involved had to be done together, in a seminar environment, with classes and character concepts drawn out before any character sheets were made.
They not only came up with characters, but a PLAN. A scheme that their evil characters would be trying to engage in. Because, let's face it, heroes are reactionary, the REACT to what villains DO. So when PCs wanna be villains, it's up to THEM to figure out some of the story.
Because of what my players discussed as their characters and what kind of plan they would concoct, based on that I assigned what level to make their characters. Since the scale of what they were trying to do (assault a major trade port, destroy a paladin motherhouse within, and violate it's altar by turning the necromancer into a lich on it), was of a much higher-level, I assigned them 18th level. I allowed them to be races with level adjustments, but informed them that they would be enforced, and that meant ECL 18.
We ended up with:
- NE Human cleric of the god of murder and undeath, Thanatos (in my homebrew world, Nerull would be a good analogy).
- LE Human Necromancer, with the goal of becoming a lich.
- NE Half-Fiend (human) Rogue/Assassin, a divine servant of Thanatos.
- CE Half-Dragon (Ogre) Fighter.
- NE Human Sorceress, devout worshipper of Thanatos.
- LE Elf Fighter/Ranger, cold-blooded killer.
The half-dragon had a great story that essentially made him muscle bound to the service of the Cult of Thanatos, which suited him, because he was an engine of death.
But they did it, they tracked down and massacred an older Brass Dragon for his hoard, and used the funds to recruit orc and giant mercenaries to lay siege to the city on their command. They quickly infiltrated and eliminated the keepers of the cemetary, and used it as a source of bodies to raise an army of undead over the course of several days, while the assassin snuck into town to negotiate the payoff of the Thieve's Guild to help sneak "a few travellers" into the city while it was under siege.
They besieged the city over the course of days, eventually snuck in, and wiped out the paladin motherhouse. The necromancer (who had spent a good chucnk of his level 18 starting gold on having his phylactery pre-made) became a lich, and they began to consolidate their hold over the city while necrotizing as many of the fallen as they could.
Now, in the end, an equally high level party of heroic NPCs came in and devastated the evil party. The lich was popped in one shot by a Cleric with the Sun domain and the Radiant Servant PrC. The Cleric's blackguard cohort was unhorsed and stomped by a paladin/cavalier. The Half-Dragon didn't stand long against a Barbarian/Frenzied Berserker, and after a few rounds of going spell-to spell with the heroic sorc, the remaining characters fled for their lives.
Why would I do this? Because the Evil Campaign is a fun one-shot thing. They had fun, accomplished their mission. But DnD is about heroic stories, and good guys win in the end.
The final message: Evil PCs can work, but only if the players are willing to make it work. Mixing evil and good is USUALLY a big no-no. But a single evil character in a party of good characters can make for some great roleplaying and great storytelling, just look at Order of the Stick. But only if the evil character isn't trying to kill his party members.
Your group seems doomed to fail, and it will, believe me, unless the DM asserts some order. Let everyone know that while any alignment may be allowed, they should work with each other so as not to make intentionally disruptive characters. It's still a game, people are supposed to have FUN.
Specifically "Hey, this is going to devolve into PVP and end by the end of the first session, can we get a flimsy plot pretext that tells us we are forced to work together whether we like it or not, we better not kill one another they need us all back alive or something like that?"
Still plenty of room for antagonizing one another, and even setting one another up for humilation or near deaths. "I didn't kill him,those people who think he stole their children did, oh, I found their children by the way"
Playing any character in a campaign you know is full of evil PC's isn't so hot, either.
It probably would be best if the DM told everyone to start over from scratch, surgically remove their heads from their butts, and create a non-evil party of characters who can actually function together without slaughtering each other. But if you go ahead with the PC's as they are, I'll put 10 gold on the bugbear.
Really, I'm good for it.
Roll2Dis
The whole scenario sounds to me as if it were deliberately designed to encourage PvP, and it seems that most of the players enjoy that style of game (the OP being the exception, of course). If the OP doesn't want to leave the group, they might as well learn to love the senseless and petty cycles of violence.
He's on to something here, though I would recommend at least speaking to the group about your concerns as opposed to us forumites. Since leaving the game has been ruled out as an option, you now have one of two possible outcomes: the group changes their ways, or you change yours.
Type1: Selfish. This character thinks only for himself, but is neither as disciplined or methodical as LE, nor as randomly chaotic as CE, namely because the latter can easily attract attention. He uses others for his own gain, and seeks only advancement of himself and his own goals. These ideals are best idealized in the deity Vecna.
To add to this: evil characters are not inherently incapable of friendship and love. In fact, one might consider those two things to be entirely selfish (consider that grief is typically not an altruistic feeling but a selfish one) and perfectly befitting any character, evil or otherwise.
There's no reason they can't simply be friends.
Right, so upon a TPK in my last campaign due to crap rolls on our part, We'll be starting a brand new one... But there is a problem, The group is horrifically mismatched, in the worst ways. I've talked to the players about maybe changing their characters so it works out and avoids PvP, but it ain't happening. Here's what I'm working with.
Human Paladin (LG)
Tiefling Fighter (NG)
Bugbear Rogue (CE)
Elven Ranger (NG)
Human Cleric (CE)
Dwarven Fighter (NE)
I've played with this group for a while, and I know that the paladin is a detect evil, stab happy kind of guy. I'm playing the tiefling, and i'm going to avoid party conflict best I can. The guy playing the rogue will not hesitated to kill party members, because the DM allowed any alignment. The Ranger is a newbie and probably won't get that involved with PvP. The cleric's player made it to spite the paladin (because of RP potential, but it's still a problem). And the dwarf is going to club anybody about the head who doesn't give him his way. So as you can see, Upon the party meeting there may just be afew casualties. Any ideas I can use to stop this?
Quit your whining and play? Just a thought.
I know that's really vile of me to put that way, but I don't beat around the bush.
How a game ends has only slightly to do with how a game starts. You're complaining about party composition before the game even starts, so you have no idea how it will go!
This is actually why I forbid my players from sharing the following information OOC:
1. Alignment
2. Class
3. Background
4. Personal Goals
My characters encounter one another as when meeting a person. They have no idea what the other person has. Once, I had a gnomish sorceress and another player (who had no idea the first player was going to be a gnome) made a character who had a racist hatred of gnomes. The RP was FANTASTIC. The party made quite a lot of headway and only one character was killed outright over a course of many many sessions.
This prevents "OMG YOU ARE EVIL THIS PARTY WILL SUCK" behavior, because 99% of the time, alignments have very little to do with party success.
As far as the classes themselves, I still go with the rule that a Paladin will not adventure with an evil character under no circumstances, granted if the Paladin did not know the other was evil that is one thing.
I would suggest maybe asking the others at the next game why they made the choices they did, without trying to convince them to change things. They might decide on their own to tweak things or they may not.
As far as your own character, I would suggest something with either superb evasive abilities or an absurd level of first-strike power
It should therefore be FIXED by the DM by at the very least having him announce to the entire group that he will NOT tolerate players being unrestricted jerks and insisting RIGHT NOW that players explain how their characters are going to get along with all the other characters in the party, both as a matter of course and when their ideologies bring them into direct conflict. The DM should NOT tolerate the complete meltdown of the party due to a needless roleplaying conflict that HE HIMSELF put into place and allowed to remain in place when directly clashing alignments were chosen. It is NOT the fault of the players for choosing clashing alignments when given the permission to do so - it is the fault of the DM for allowing it to continue. It will remain the fault of the DM for allowing the choice to become a problem throughout the remainder of the campaign.
You need to talk to the DM and get him(her?) to take the responsibility for the potential disaster here. The best thing that could be done, however, is to stop this catastrophe before it actually comes to fruition down the road by insisting that players re-do their character creation to form a party less likely to want to kill each other. The least he can do is to elicit a commitment from all the players that they will not allow their inherent alignment conflicts to destroy the fun of the game and then to set some ground rules for inter-PC conflict if it DOES rear its ugly head.
I've played in games with a fair amount of inter-PC conflict. It was a lot of fun, but there were still some times when players got a bit more upset than they should have because someone else was allowed to go a little further than they should have. Ground rules and a commitment from players regarding allowing EVERYONE to enjoy the game - to not kill the fun for other players by using the excuse that you have PERMISSION to be antagonistic to other players - would have helped avoid some bad feelings and arguments. We had the excuse that we didn't really know any better because it was a long time ago. These days that just doesn't hold water. Just look at the parade of responses that are saying this is a bad idea.
If the DM won't get that commitment from players then do the DM's job for him and get other players to sign on to a non-aggression/preserve-the-fun-for-all pact. Maybe even LITERALLY sign a statement.
Quit your whining and play? Just a thought.
I know that's really vile of me to put that way, but I don't beat around the bush.
How a game ends has only slightly to do with how a game starts. You're complaining about party composition before the game even starts, so you have no idea how it will go!
This is actually why I forbid my players from sharing the following information OOC:
1. Alignment
2. Class
3. Background
4. Personal Goals
My characters encounter one another as when meeting a person. They have no idea what the other person has. Once, I had a gnomish sorceress and another player (who had no idea the first player was going to be a gnome) made a character who had a racist hatred of gnomes. The RP was FANTASTIC. The party made quite a lot of headway and only one character was killed outright over a course of many many sessions.
This prevents "OMG YOU ARE EVIL THIS PARTY WILL SUCK" behavior, because 99% of the time, alignments have very little to do with party success.
after i read that, i couldn't help a flash of my imagination brining me in the middle of the office space movie between michael bolton, samir and peter, with mike turning to corvus and saying,
"that is the worst advice ive ever heard on these forums"
with samir chiming in with
"horrible, this advicement"
while "stop whining and play" counts as advice, i dont think it helps the OP in any significant way. he already mentioned he knows his party well after five years, and this campiagn will de-evolve. i think you may have taken his post as "anti evil" games. i don't think thats exactly what hes talking about. i think hes referring to evil chracters mixed with good is a recipie for disaster for this particular group of players.
i think what your referring to is that a group of mature players can take that complexity of mixed alignments or evil and come away with a very satisfying game with enriching rp. and i agree.
it is the dms fault, and there has to be open communication. OP you need to speak to your dm. if thats the way he wants to play his game then sit this one out. nothing gets a dms attentnion more then unwillling players.