+Nathan Riggins (Nate the Nerdarch) Having rewatched the video....I noticed that you guys actually said that. lol. Well, I thought I was almost original.
Alignment issue summarized: Players too often tend to view alignment as a PREscriptive quality of their character, as opposed to a DEscriptive one. One is "Lawful Good" BECAUSE of their actions. They do not perform actions BECAUSE they are "Lawful Good".
A Lawful Evil character doesn't tend to think of themselves as evil, nor do they behave in such a way as to "live up to" some kind of standard of orderly maliciousness. They either do what they do because they _want_ to, or because they believe they _have_ to. If they up and decided they wanted or needed to perform good or chaotic actions (or both), their base alignment doesn't proscribe doing so. If they do those actions enough that it becomes a pattern of behavior for them, they may just shift alignment to reflect their new "normal".
Hah, yeah, Angry's got some gems, but I've also never been one for the "playing RPGs like Grand Theft Auto" mentality. Sure, to some degree, we all veer towards the style of play that's most fun, but I don't think that HAS to be at the expense of the rationale or internal logic of the game world. -Nerdarchist Ryan
i've had a moment in a campaign where 'my character wouldnt do that'. it was where the dm literally hijacked my character and made him do things i KNOW he would not do... by design. times like these are when it's the dm's fault... and no the dm is not always right... there are exceptions to every rule.
In RL people get in situations they don't want to be in, yet grind on. For example, at work, I'm like the LG Paladin but my entire staff are rogues, NE barbarians, and a CN bard.
I have one time in my years of gaming where i had a character in a situation setup by the DM that he wouldn't willingly finish the task at hand. now some background on the story and situation. We were very sandbox style of play at this time. we had been playing for over a decade as a core group. I wanted to play a Illumian race from the Races of Destiny, the DM asked me not to as we didn't have the book yet and were going off a web article. so i switched the same concept over to a human. the character concept was i was trying control magic at its purest form and drawing my power from that form. I was a sorcerer that had a few Prestige classes and we ended with 3 characters that greatly relied on magic to do anything. so the DM put us in a spot towards the end of the campaign were we had to destroy the source of all magic in the world. the day we found out that was going to happen before the session started he asked me to make sure my character would be the one to do it at the end of the day, it really wasn't something my character would want to do. but he did set it up as the only way we could save the world. So without knowing of any reward when the time came i was the one to destroy the artifact that made magic possible. and i had to stay behind the party to let escape what we figured would be an explosion that devastated the whole region we were in if not the world. a homebrew god saved the rest of the party. and my character woke up as the first illumian and now the living artifact of magic. i think if i wasnt asked out of game to just go along with the story my character would have rightly refused and done everything he could of to spot the very cool end of the story that DM had brought about,
Ronald Gregory II Good job going along with the story. It sounds like the end turned out better for it rather than falling flat at the end because of you saying, "No way am I doing that"
I've had those moments, but it's usually been because of railroading or the willingness of the rest of the party to run in to situations that are incredibly dangerous. The character wasn't a coward but he wasn't about to run in to an unwinnable battle, he wants to live and travel emphasis on "live".
I would like to build on the part where you were talking about central goals; I had a rogue who, like your character, was avenging his family. Well, the DM decided to bring that character's story to its climatic final battle. When I won he asked one question: "What's he gonna do now?" and it made me think. Now that he's gotten this ultimately hollow victory, how does he go about his life. He eventually realized that his journey getting there, and all of the dungeon delving involved in it, was the best he's felt since starting the quest for revenge. So he became a treasure hunter and eventually used the riches he got to rebuild his family name.
I had this happen a few months ago, where I joined a group to play 3.5 D&D and there literally was only 2 characters playing and the GM allowed me to play a Dread Necromancer who was NOT evil. The guy playing the cleric was sitting right there, and during the game (sense he knew clerics were OP in 3.5) he cock blocked every move I made. I confronted him and his answer was "My character wouldn't do that" I told him "You control the character, not the character controls you!" . That was pretty much a down hill battle, so I ultimately stopped playing with them. Great topic to address guys, something I feel everyone should see.
Art Wood almost had a necro cock block happen in a game I was playing in recently too. Luckily he had a rp wingman who cock blocked the cock block in character. =P
As a DM, you always have the option to say "okay, your character stays behind in the library doing research while these other guys go off on their adventure." - it probably shouldn't be your first option, but it is a valid one - and there are ways it can turn out awesome, as well as ways it can turn out terribly. Sometimes you have someone who isn't that interested in playing the game, who just wants to hang out and is happy spectating - other times, they get bored with watching and try to find a way to rejoin the action - which can turn into a cool moment when the missing party member shows up to turn the tide, or can just be a "hey, guys, I finished my filing, so I thought I'd see what you were up to" (glossing over the two week trek across the dunes of insanity). Or you can get the players to tell the stay-at-home character about the adventures he missed - letting the players feel more awesome for having done all this cool stuff. Or, of course, it can lead to that player throwing a tantrum as they get left out of everything. Letting the obstructionist player sit something out is a fairly major play by the DM, and it's better to meet the player halfway if possible (and encourage them to help you find that middle-ground where they keep their characterisation, but also participate in the story) - the Hobbit would be a very different book if Bilbo didn't get carried away by the Dwarves' talk of adventure, but it would also be very different if he had leapt at the first hint of adventure offered by Gandalf.
In one game we had a player who was very good at battle tactics and the group followed his battle plans until one of his plans would have resulted in massive colatural damage and I said my character wouldn't do that. After I said that it lead to a discussion where most of the group agreed but hadn't wanted to go against the grain. Granted most of the time "My character wouldn't do that." is terrible but it has it's valid moments. As always great video.
my character wouldn't do that? que the gods . . . LAWFUL GOOD DEITY: you are lawful good, but I decree you will aid these evil characters because their goal coincides with mine. try to nudge them towards good. once the goal is accomplished, if they have not repented their evil ways, bring them to justice. EVIL DEITY/DEITIES: you are evil, but you will work with this good character because his goal coincides with mine. try to nudge him into being more evil. awaken his inner tyrant. once the goal is accomplished, if he has not turned, obliterate him.
Kind of difficult to justify atheism in a setting where various gods are active forces in the world, who regularly empower followers and send their planar representatives in to sort messes. Sure, one could argue that all "divine" powers are just Wizardry that people think comes from beings outside the world...but, again, planar travel is a verifiable fact in D&D. Even if you doubt whether an angel really serves a god, they obviously take orders from _something_ of immense power. And any sufficiently powerful being is indistinguishable from a god.
I think atheism could work as a character concept. The character would a knowledge the existence of the "gods" but deny their divinity. I.E. I know they exist, but they're just super powerful entities, not gods. I refuse to worship them. In such a case, that character would not blindly obey, they would need to be bribed or coerced or threatened into it. Of course, the character could also be an amoralist. I believe myself to be good ergo anything i do must be good because i am incapable of an evil act. It does throw an interesting twist into alignment, though. As to the original thread of "My Character Wouldn't Do That", on further reflection, there are some things certain characters simply would not do. A paladin would not torture a prisoner, but might get roughwith interrogations. A rogue/thief might refuse to steal from certain people. In real life, there are things i know i would never do, so it makes sense that there are some things certain characters normally wouldn't do. Provide a big enough bribe or threat and they may just abandon their morality long enough to get the job done. There's always deception, mind controll, charms and curses to throw in the mix as well.
Once player choice is taken away the game becomes a story rather than an rpg. However, players should try to be reasonable. I would refuse to do certain things that my character is highly opposed to but the GM should have enough information on the characters that this can usually be avoided. Create a suitable character for the campaign, let the DM know all about your character, especially in terms of ethics, ideals, enemies, friends, etc. Ideally the players do what the DM wants the majority of the time but some of the best adventures are the ones that the DM didn't plan and those can't happen on a railroad. If the DM has it in his skillset he can improvise. That adventure that he spent 6 hours creating can simply be put somewhere else in the campaign and wear a different set of clothes :)
Sure we get all that, but when there is one character of 5-6 that won't leave town, go into town, or whatever it's not my job as the DM to figure out why they should go on the adventure. They have all choice in the world, but I'm not going to let one person high jack the game from the rest of the party. If there is 60 minutes of game play and 6 players than the one player ended up getting 10 minutes while the others get 50 minutes because they are sharing the time and playing together. - Nerdarchist Dave
Nerdarchy I think this is more of a case of having bad players at the table. Someone who won't partake in the game might as well not be there to begin with. I am moreso talking about having the right to decline things from time to time that my character might be morally opposed to doing. for example, slaugtering a coven of vampires even though my character has vampires in his lineage. These types of things can easily be avoided with proper preparation.
Nathan Riggins I think improvising can be a lot of fun too. It does give the players more control over the story. If the DM plans for the group to kill the Duke at his estate but one player convinces them to help him against the guy that was trying to hire the group initially, that can turn into an interesting time. But yeah, someone who is adding NOTHING to the game and refuses to do fun stuff, especially regularly probably doesn't quite understand how the game works. The tricky thing about role playing games is there are a lot of us who have been around for decades and the new to semi-new players are way behind in terms of experience, improv skills, DMing, etc and watching them make the same mistakes we made when we were getting started can be a bit brutal but it's all part of getting the group up to par :) I once planned for my group to enter a giant bee hive they discovered in the wild and I thought they would all be excited to explore it. One player didn't like the idea of invading their home without good reason and decided not to go. I was a lot less experienced at DMing at the time and I was very thrown off. A major part of my story was inside the hive. I had to scramble but I got through it and everyone had a good time. The player who opted not to enter the hive thanked me for letting him have the freedom to do what he wanted and that gained me a lot of respect from him. It's how I learned to improvise and also how I learned about the tremendous value of having extra stuff ready to go in case of emergency :)
I usually tell my players that I love character arcs and that means I find chacaters who change more interesting than character who are static, that is often enough to convince players to play differently. Since lets be honest, one of the main reasons that players don't want to change their characters is because they think that their character is already perfect, when in reality the character is just boring. Also, I think there are a few players who try to play the reluctant hero, which one on can see in many beginnings of various hero's journeys, a session zero should thusly contain what would make a good call to adventure for the character. Also, talk the players that proactively blocking everything is boring, let them react to the things they don't like, like the anecdote in the video of the libririan mage in the video, not preventing that he gets drawn into the adventure but playing out how he complains on the way, that makes the character mory dynamic and in that way more interesting.
To that whole idea of character trying something new and trying to change who they are, I can relate to that in my current game. I play a warrior/warlock multiclass tiefling with a "bit" of a brutal side (he brutalizes the corpses of anyone the group kills). So he turns to the monk in the group and goes, "Yeah... Help me fix this please. I'm willing to work with you, but I wanna get rid of this bloodlust of mine. I tried on my own, didn't work, need help." And now that's gonna be pretty fun to play through.
In a kinda-sorta-related manner, one way I've often had a certain character do things he wouldn't normally (was my character, by the way, just to clarify) is that....well, he was kind of a typical big dumb half-orc barbarian, so if there was something that he might be against, or superstitiously 'afraid of', like stuff involving magic, the other party members would antagonize or peer pressure him into it. Even managed to convince him to put his hand into a spatial void, which completely erased it off of his body >.< That's kind of a specific example, but yeah, my point is, it was a great way to bring in a bit of RPing that lead to plenty of comic value while still keeping the game running just fine, and staying within the character's personality.
I find it funny my party is a bunch of mercenarys and thieves I as a lawful neutral Paladin with an intelegence score of 8 tend to question my party but I generally don't get told the entire truth.
How about judmental, lawfull-good paladin, who puts all their points into insight, in a chaotic-evil campain?! >:) ... The insight is to sence-motive on the other p.c.s, when they try to git-rid of you, so you can't see what they're doing.
Great thoughts and discussion. I'd seen DFC's response video first and followed his link back. But your video was certainly more discussiony, which is the greatest strength of Nerdarchy. I love session 0, and one thing that worked super-well for my most recent campaign (Changeling: The Lost - dark fairies in modern day Vancouver), Session 0 started with me describing the hook as an introductory scene, and then roleplaying with the group for 2 hours resolving that initial scene. The players had already had some ideas of the types of characters that they might want to create, so the initial pre-character sheet roleplay wasn't entirely uninformed. After that, I handed them character sheets and we made characters. When they actually made characters, they then knew something about their characters and their companions. This informed their choices in placing skill points and attributes, etc., and made characters that would be able to work with the others.
It's a great idea to incorporate some rp into session 0. I was going to do that with most recent one I ran, but it came up against GOTs season finally. So I cut the RP for time with the misses. - Nerdarchist Dave
With regards to Session Zero, I love it but not everyone I play with wants to (so as a group it doesn't happen). My approach is for me to get together with one or more of the other players, so we make characters which work really well together (crunch and/or fluff). When we play, we can showcase how much better things can be with that little bit of prep work with character and team design. It can be as simple as emailing an early draft of your character's background, so other players can "graft" into it (with your OK generally). e.g. "Hey, what if you used to be engaged to my sister?" or "How about we both served on the same ship?"I'm in a game where, starting with two characters, we told the story of their trek from Thay to the Sword Coast (Forgotten Realms) and met the other character's along the way. Each character's background told their story, and their reasons to be in the party.As a side note, the story about the Librarian character reminds me of The Hobbit. I think it also points out the important difference between a character's desires and the player's desires. A good player can play a character who's....painful...and still add a lot to the story; but when the PLAYER is trying to be painful (or meta or whatever) then it needs to be pointed out. My opinion is, that everyone (players and GMs) should be in the position to do that (everyone I play with are adults). The GM isn't the player's parent or boss. Within the scope of the social engagement, they could even be a guest in one of the player's home. ANYONE should ask for a time out and ask the how the character/behaviour is going to work long term?
Then there are DMs who allow (or even force) their players to create their characters in a vacuum. It gets to the point where I'm just like "You know what? You don't want me to make a character that fits your storyline? Fuck it. I'm going balls deep in this. One joke character coming up!" Seriously though, when you take that approach of "no I want it to be a surprise for my players", you create ridiculous amounts of group tension. Everybody pulls the story in a different direction, and the party could well disintegrate every single session.
I'm currently playing a LG Paladin with similar backstory as Teds character with the difference that his whole hometown was burned to the ground while he was in another town, and now he's all set for revenge. Not that it would be necessary but just to make sure that this character would work I added to his personality that whenever he sees someone making trouble for a village or town he's getting triggered. He doesn't only want revenge for his town but he also don't want to see or hear about anything like that ever again.
Nathan Riggins It's over 30 years ago now when I first watched that sketch and I've seen it about once a year since. Because of your reference I searched it on this site and had myself a rewatch. And it's still funny as hell. So thanks for the laugh.
What do people think about alignments changing over the course of a campaign? I had one guy who made a chaotic good barbarian however over the course of our adventure did things like murder and rip apart the corpse of a party member (he had permission to mercy kill the character because he had gone mad), attempting to murder another player when she destroyed an addictive artifact that promised him power as long as he murdered one nonevil person a day (DM strictly mentioned that he was no longer influenced when he decided to try to kill her), torturing people, and various things like that. Most of our party agreed that at the very least he had become neutral and that these acts may cause him to be viewed with mistrust. He got incredibly annoyed because he claimed his character was good alignment and so people should treat him like that (while also assaulting my rouge randomly when he got annoyed).
Like has been said by other players, the only time "my character wouldn't do that" would be to prevent player knowledge from becoming character knowledge. Otherwise, all other issues surrounding such a statement (my character...) should be resolved with a Session Zero. If you didn't show up to contribute in a constructive way...then what the hell are you there for? I've seen this sort of thing so many times before, and most of the time the offending player thinks they're being clever. Whereas they are entertaining themselves, it always ends in hard feelings by the rest attending the table. They fail to recognize that RPGs are a collaborative gaming experience, and look at it in a competitive sense of them vs. everyone else. If you want to compete, go play checkers. If you want to be part of something larger, grab some dice and have a seat. I also find this happens more often when a newer player joins an established group. And established group might have a particular vibe or approach to the tabletop experience that a newer player might not either pick up on or agree with. For experiences like this that may not have a session zero, I suggest sitting in and watching the group play a few sessions. Sit down with the entire group and have them regail you with tales of their exploits. Get a feeling of not just who the characters are but who the players are, and how they tend to communicate. THEN if you think you want to be a part of that experience, sit down with the GM and roll something up. The GM/DM should tell you if a concept will work with the group, and should indicate if this new character will have issues. Dialogue is key.
Mike Gould "Dialogue is key" excellent statement. That and involving the GM/DM in the character making process is always a benefit to all parties involved. -Nerdarchist Dave
+Mike Gould With players joining an existing game, session notes are great. Not that the new character knows everything that's happened, but that they fit within the shared history of the party.Players and GMs also have to remember to be flexible. In RL, people aren't always consistent and sometime give circumstances a chance to challenge or reaffirm their world view. Sometimes the way a character needs to behave to assist in telling the shared story isn't consistent with their normal world view or previous decisions...but that's OK.When I'm GMing though. I like to be sure there's some consistent thread which gives the PCs reason to be together. I definitely don't like "you find yourself in an Inn with strangers and someone asks for your help." I like there to be bonds between enough of the characters that the team already has some substance to it. "My character trusts the Warlock because..." or "My paladin knows the Warlock is endangering his soul, but we grew up together and I know they are a good person and I want to protect them from their patron." type stuff. For example, I'm currently playing a CE Fighter/Rogue who has a shared background with the team (also Evil) leader that we were both slaves together. My character looks out for herself in almost all things and figures 99% of the world is out to get her (so she should get them first), but would kill (or be heroic) if her friend needed her to.
I was sent here from DawnForged just as I was wondering about the pros and cons of making characters in a vacuum. This is great insight that I will definitely use in the future.
This is a great conversation regarding the metaphysical psychology of the player character, and their interactions with the game. The way you have approached this from multiple angles, dancing around the original quandary, was enlightening. One particular note that struck me was the idea that a player could essentially act 'outside' of their alignment under certain circumstances (I believe the word 'traumatized' was used). This is very much as we are as people; We are complex individuals with multiple facets. To say that we are lawful good from a general moral standpoint doesn't really involve the complexities of living and the ethics involved. As an example, I would never steal (lawful good), yet my family is starving and on the brink of death. Would I break into the shop to take a loaf of bread to save their lives (Les Miserables)? Working this into the group scenario: Am I willing to go with the group's decisions and plans, even if it contradicts my moral code, as long as the long-term solutions align with them (the ends justify the means)? This leads to very immersive character roleplaying, if they are thinking along these lines.
I had a couple DMs that would keep painting you into a corner, trying to force you to do things that you wouldn't normally do then punish you for doing them. I had one keep pushing my cleric to use a dagger because to not use it was to die, then was like, Oh look you are no longer a cleric. I had another relentlessly forcing my paladin to into situations where he had to do things then oh look you lost your abilities and must atone for the thing I forced you to do. There's also bad DMs that will just try to tarnish your character and ruin your fun experience. Literally, he was acting as if it were a challenge to corrupt my paladin. It felt a bit like being singled out for constant harassment.
I played an evil Rouge who was a loner type,so we used an assassins guild and his political alignments to get him to go on missions.We also played a group of three brothers as the primary group which also helped. It went very well. It is mostly about finding a way to motivate your character.
So... I'm playing a paladin in a current game of mine. And my GM and I have a great time with him putting challenges for my LG character and I enjoy finding ways around it. Whether it's solved RP or otherwise.
I had this problem with a player. Sometimes it's fair that the whole point of a character is that he/ she doesn't want the interaction and adventure. But in a way this makes it a whole lot more interesting for the DM to find a way to motivate the character in game. So many times in books the main character doesn't want to actually enter the adventure, but they are kinda forced into it by circumstances, friends, and their own set of values. For example a way could be to first make an NPC have things in common with them and give an example (provide guidance) of how that character was motivated into adventuring (usually better for an high ideal.). Or even traumatize the character, by making him friendly to an innocent NPC and then kill that NPC off. The character will not back off and will be motivated to find who did it and make him pay. There are ways to motivate unwilling characters. So many times in real life we do things not so much cuz we want to, but becuz we are forced into it by circumstances.. Hope that's a good example. feel free to let me know what you think! :)
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Great discussion on the topic and very good proposals for the problem. For me it's basically only a problem with a stubborn player "my character wouldn't do that" or with a stubborn game master "that's just how things are and what the NPCs would do", especially the often unspoken issue "and nothing is going to change that". I see good reasons in roleplaying, acting the character according to what she experienced so far, her beliefs etc., and players as well as game masters might convince me that they have good reasons, or just bring their viewpoint on. As long as there's a "BUT here are proposals how she would do it" (or wouldn't do something destroying group cohesion, the plots, adventures, or in general the other gamers fun), or just an open, flexible attitude towards possible solutions, I am very fine with it.
My group has always looked at alignments as a base guideline. As an example. Lawful evil don't have to be a vile person. He could be the guy that fallows the law to manipulate it in his favor. He could be true to his word you just need to pay attention to his words.
I have only had one moment where I had to put my foot down and say "my character wouldn;t do that" (although tbh it was more of a "my character would do that even if you dont want him to") and that was because I was told the setting and decided that the government in this empire was evil, and was told we had to be good characters, so I made a chaotic good characvter who was a literal rebel. And then I find out that one of the adventures called for us working for the people I was a rebel against for an extended period of time, and I tried as hard as I could but the situation as explained to me, I could not make those actions fit with how I had made the character.... So instead I stole a bunch of shit from the governments mages guild and ran off basically. Incuding the Book of Vile Darknes.. I couldnt use it but my character would not allow it to be in the hands of those he considered evil. We managed to talk things out and my character rejoined the party, and now instead of working for the government, we are building a true resistance.
Had an LG paladin pull this recently, they had to keep a secret about another character being possessed by a CE Forrest spirit. But upon learning the secret they just rocked up to the rest of the group shouted it out and shit hit the fan.
Nerdarchy I had a paladin character that had the background occupation of serial killer once :D During the backstory they met a psionic that helped repair some brain damage, her empathy section of the brain did not work. Since then she has become very remorseful of what she had done and decided to become a paladin. Hardy blows to the head however still have the potential to fling her into a homicidal rage for a short period of time though.
i always say, make your character's personality first, and see what kind of alignment fits with that. i'll allow shifting alignments during play. and have had paladins repent for their sins.
Here is a question for you all. If the DM creates an adventure and it is both clear to the players that he invested time making it and it is reasonable for the characters to do, how obligated do you think the players should be to do the adventure? For example, the fairly standard party is wandering through the forest when they encounter a large cave with Human bones near the entrance and signs of monster activity. Do you think the players should be cooperative and go into the cave? Or do you think the players should have the absolute freedom to skip on the cave? My feeling is that the DM only has so much time available to invest in his sessions and it would likely make for the best game if the players cooperate in reasonable situations. I should note that I love sandbox games and I think player freedom is very important in the bulk of situations, but recently I have decided that I think players should be obligated to do the adventures the DM has planned.
p0ck3tp3ar A little from column A and a little from column B. It would be reasonable for the DM to have put all the combat and loot in said cave. So while players may skip the cave they get the loot or XP. Perhaps it'll be RP encounters for the rest of the evening. Or perhaps they'll encounter a farmer who's son never returned from the forest. The other end of this the players need to give the GM by in to make the game work. I personally avoid generic hooks to not have to deal with my players ignoring the hooks. -Nerdarchist Dave
Nerdarchy Interesting. I have asked a few different people and everyone has their spin on how this should play out. That's one of the cool things about the hobby. You have a good system. I think is the GM handles it correctly the players will almost definitely take the bait.
I had one of these moments. I invited my friend in a Roll20 game that my dad just created. We were split up by a fear spell, with two others of our group with my friend (playing the cleric). An ogre ambushed them, and knocked out my friend's character. Then the two guys abandoned her while she was unconscious and made the excuse of "that's what my character would do."
The first thing one should have in mind when playing a RPG is that it's a *group-based* game genre. In my modestly-not-so-humble opinion: a) _"I really don't wanna do that. But my buddies are counting on me"_ should be enough motivation for a "good or neutral" character. b) _"I really don't wanna do that. But I need my minions around"_ should be enough motivation for a "evil or neutral" character. c) _"I really don't wanna do that. But these people want to play a game tonight"_ should be enough motivation for a reluctant player. d) _"You don't wanna do that. But we're gonna play tonight. And you may choose how that's gonna happen: _*_with_*_ or _*_without_*_ you"_ should be enough motivation for a DM/GM who had enough of it already.
If the player isn't a complete jerk, this sentence boils down to a failed communication. While I control my character, they influence still is limited by the fact that my character has a personality and an own set of values. Mind you, this has nothing to do with alignment since the system I play the most doesn't even have alignment. Still, some characters would not take a course of action - and if this course of action is necessary for the plot, there isn't much I can do. My approach is to have a variety of characters available and ask the GM and the group which of those characters would be okay with them. If this character gets into a situation where they wouldn't tolerate the course of the group, that character would try to convince the group and leave the group if they can't be convinced. While that situation sucks, I still am prepared to play another character.
Jerel Fontenot That is a good point. That competitive nature could lead them to a "who knows more about swords" conversation if they are not careful. And those can end in a sword fight. Hopefully with all of the Nerdarchists' help we can raise it to the higher level.
My wizard character had no principles other than if it wasn't his idea it was bound to fail. He'd whine, complain and moan about how his plan was so much better (it typically wasn't) but he'd always defer to the party. It's important to get your moments but not at the cost of everyone else's.
I've been reading the comments here, and I'm wondering, who are all these DMs that take over PCs? Like why would you ever do that? The only time I have played a PCs character is either when they are possessed or similar (in which case I still make them roll to hit their allies, because it's more satisfying lol) or if they are missing a session, in which case the character would be established and I would just keep roleplay to a minimum. But seriously, why would a DM think it was ok just to take a PC and make them do a thing without any justification?
That's exactly what I was thinking. Aside from when characters are charmed or mind controlled or something, the DM shouldn't hijack player characters. Sure the DM can describe the results of the players' rolls or actions, but they shouldn't make the initial choices for them. It sounds really strange for that to happen.
Here's what my Lawful Good Dwarf life cleric does before, during, and after an adventure wherein he participates in killing live creatures (which isn't against his alignment), he offers prayers and does atonement by shaking his alms box and collecting money for various charities that promote life. He lights candles for the orcs that were killed; that their spirits may know that he doesn't hate them. Ya its just color. I like it.
The closest I came to saying this line, Was in a buddy's campaign where I played a female rogue Halfling. She was tasked with assassinating a dock barracks. She had a high CHA stat, and was based on being an escort/information broker type. In the end I Had her seduce the barrack get as much info (and coin purses) as she could from drunkenly satisfied guards and return to the party with a much bigger hit then the DM had originally planned.
I try as a DM to allow my games to be as open ended as possible. Years of Improve club makes it pretty easy to think on the fly and react to those situation while also allowing for characters to shine in any situation. But I think I am lucky that I have a group, that despite some kinks in the system, works well together. They do their best to support each other...if they are going to kill they are going to support it. If one is going to try and kill they will do their best to restrain him(my personal favorite was the army of mage hands and chill touches restrain this barbarian).
Something I find useful to avoid that is character transformation. When you make your character or if you find your character going against his morals over and over in the campaign. That could have been solved when creating your character. When you make it, give him two sides. Let's say you play a bad ass fighter who's really hard and tough but secretly he mourns his bad deeds and it keeps him awake at night. That is something that can change a man. Perhaps you thought it'd be an evil aligned campaign and it turned out to be quite the opposite, well there you have a character development.
when "my character wouldnt do that" its usually a meta thing that he wouldnt know about, such as monster abilities that he hasnt seen yet and the things he wouldnt do are usually things that would benefit him. Such as grouping up with allies while fighting something with an aoe, rather than being smart and spreading out... he will learn that as he goes, but his first experience with something new typically doesnt go well in my characters favor... i tend to play them really stupid in those regards
Nathan Riggins i worded that oddly... i meant to imply i error on the side of stupid, and he wouldnt do the smart thing. I might not know hydras can take multiple attacks of opportunity, so the first time i face one, that character isnt going to take any specific action to deal with that. he might not know that not all dragon breaths are in a line, and thus group up too closely and gets poison cone breathed by the green dragon. shit like that. i never use "my character wouldnt..." for role playing purposes or alignment... unless its a pretty obvious no no. the half orc wants to torture for info and the cleric decides he isnt down with torture... thats fairly obvious in my mind, and doesnt need to be said, it will be role played out as it happens. Oddly enough, I was playing an assassin in a good aligned party which includes both good cleric and good paladin (lawful good at that) My assassin ended up being the party's moral compass. One time, we needed to power a gate for a teleport spell to persue the BBEG and had a few options to do so, one being sacrifice sentient creatures, like 5. The other options required some side quests for mcguffins, or to provide items from our own inventory... magic items. yeah, thats totally not happening... The kids in the party (good guys) decide its cheaper and easier to just grab a few prisoners and sac em right quick... lol the assassin is like, wtf kind of cleric and paladins are you? we cant go around sacrificing people word of that shit gets out... wtf? lol and through out the campaign the hitman is the one pulling the good guys back from going too far as almost a running gag... it really was quite fun and funny at times.
I always abbreviated this to two different role playing issues; Paladin role playing and Druid role playing, named after the two classes that traditionally cause them most often. A Paladin role player wants to bully the party into behaving in ways they don't want to; kill the goblin scout? No! You can't do that, because I will lose all my abilities breaking my code of honor! My character wouldn't be associated with heathens like you who would kill someone you have a clear advantage over! Druid role players are the inverse, they just want to split away from the party and don't have any interest in the other players (not characters) motivations. Everyone is going into the city to talk to the grand wizard to get vital clues about the mysterious magical artifact, and the Druid wants to stand on the outskirts of town, because he is born of nature and can't sully himself with city environments!
"My character would not do that," sounds like an issue of player agency, vrs. D.M. Juristiction. Somtimes "My character wouldn't do that," is code for "I, as a player, don't want to do that."
I'd never say anything like "My character wouldn't do that" for any reason. I won't allow paladins & evil characters in the same group unless the evil character is sufficiently justified or illusioned/glamered.
+Jane Huskmann Not even when the dungeon master makes your character do a thing he would not do, like a paladin killing an innocent person, because the dungeon master wants an atonement story?
Schwarzer Ritter Now that's just cruel. If my paladins do wrong, it's their fault, not my manipulation. I won't manipulate a paladin to do wrong. However, when it comes to atonement, I _could_ give a nasty Geas/Quest, like slay the mighty Tarrasque _by thyself._
In what other situation would a player reply "my character would not do that" but railroading by the dungeon master? Well, maybe when it comes to will saving throws. A character gets a bonus to a will saving throw if it would force him to do something he would not normally do against something he would do, right?
I do think that it's acceptable in some cases. If you have a character who generally wants to stay out of trouble, like most people would, and a party member randomly picks a fight with some random npc in a tavern. In that case it's perfectly acceptable to stay out of a fight and say 'my character wouldn't do that'.
I always made a character who found opportunity in travel. either that or has a mission or is forced into travel. To me, it isn't that hard to find a reason for adventuring with my characters.
If the DM has to "force" a player to be "heroic vs non-heroic, good vs evil, etc...", then you are missing the greater part of the DM ability to take their player actions and spin then with a twist to get them to see an advantage vs disadvantage to the campaign. If you have to micro action play your campaign or micromanage "the party", then you aren't letting the players mature and let them play. You aren't the storyteller and interacting with them, you are basically doing those old adventure books that made you roll and you only got the random dice roll to define your adventure. If DM's let players show them "how they define their personae", then you don't have players doing that...since you have actual actions backing up the DM stating an action esp if it goes against previous actions/alignment/etc...
I ran into a frustrating situation where I ended up as the guy with the character who didn't mesh with the group. It was frustrating because I was the only one who made a character to fit the story concept we were given, everyone else decided to do their own thing and I ended up as the token evil teammate. I ended up having to change how my character would normally act in order to not conflict with the party. Normally I wouldn't care as much, except everyone else treated it like I was the person who didn't make a character to fit just to be that guy. I ended up changing my character entirely, before dropping out of that game a few sessions in. For those curious, it was supposed to be a pirate game, as in actual pirates not One Piece or Pirates of the Caribbean. So I made a pirate, the others brought in a paladin, a neutral good fighter soldier type, and a lawful neutral monk. So, two lawful characters, with two good characters. So any pirate like actions I would take caused conflict with at least one of those characters always. The campaign went from you're pirates fighting against the governments and trying to survive, to you're heroes on a ship fighting against a great evil. I ended up not having much fun with my second character, and after talking for a bit I decided to step out of the game to not mess with their fun.
I ran a game once (my first mistake) where someone played a chaotic evil tiefling. As soon as the game started, the first thing he did was shoot another player in the chest with a crossbow. The game could not be salvaged. Next time I DM I'm just gonna run a module because when I get behind the screen, my brain disappears.
Ah, improvisational collaborative storytelling (aka DMing), is like any other skill- you get better with practice. I'd also be careful with who you game with- people that want to play through a murder hobo, power fantasy or are wrench throwers, are difficult for experienced DMs to handle, let alone someone that's new to DMing. If you find people that want to play the game you want to run or you want to run the game they want to play in, you'll be set! -Nerdarchist Ryan
Sure players should roll with it, but what happens when your DM is the issue. I had one DM once who for instance would have our characters slap the face of the person we were trying to Persuade or we would just stand gawmless and drooling when we rolled low on Perception.
I don't remember the actual wording in the 5E PHB, but as I recall it they got it wrong, at least from my point of view. In my opinion your alignment doesn't represent the color of the power that fuels your cognition. It is not the cause of your actions. It's merely a category into which you fall, because of your actions. I believe this is the superior take on alignment, since it makes alignment transitions easier, which is important for themes like redemption. In addition to that I believe to be closer to reality and therefore more credible. I think "being inherently evil" is an inherent contradiction. Deeds can be "inherently" evil, people can't be. Evil as a moral category requires intent, without deliberation it lakes ethical connotation. As primates we are the products of a long evolution, that route from where we came defined our instinctive drives that have emerged to serve certain purposes. Our most basic motive is survival, it leads us to want to eat and drink, to sleep and to have sex. There is no ethical quality to these needs. Our intents on the other hand are conscious decisions on how we achieve survival. Intent can be criminal, instinctive motives can't be. Hence the behaviouristic approach to alignment makes much more sense than the Eugenic one.
Well to be fair a strictly principled character is no bad thing and neither is a player who says "well there's no way my character would agree to do such a thing, I literally can't even contrive a reason." But that's just it, as the player you need to contrive a reason. Why would my good character agree to do some shady wetwork? Make him ask questions like 'How bad is the guy? What are your reasons for wanting me to kill him?' If you're an evil person ask 'am I getting paid for this? Does this help me get more powerful? Might I find what I'm looking for where we're going? Will I meet powerful and influential people?'
So, I'm playing a Chaotic Neutral Tiefling who due to being a slave the entirety of her life up to the point she is freed a few months before meeting the group has an extreme difficulty of truly trusting others. The way I went around this is through her Virtue name "Promise". So now if she makes a promise Good or Bad she will keep it until death. This is my first D&D character and I think all things considering I think that was a good way to compromise. Now if someone makes a promise to her and they break it, there will death.
hey i was in a group with friends but they kicked me out for someone else and i can only play online any tips for where i could find a group to play with?
How do you feel about "my character wouldn't do that" based on in game experiences with a character? For example phobias after a death (then resurrection)
The biggest thing is "Does what I'm doing cause a road block to the fun at the table ? If it does then how can you stay true to your character while using the experience at the table to enrich rp and the game. Perhaps the character faces their phobia or a solution is found. Just saying I wouldn't do that is kind of boring and lazy most of the time. - Nerdarchist Dave
I just had an example about this on my last home session. I recently joined the party with a holy knight whose brother was abducted by dark secret society to blackmail his father. So my character gave his life to save his brother from an evil ritual just to find out it was all planned by the society, they wanted his body, his pure soul for their corrupting ritual. But my character's god (Tyr) saved his body from being part of the ritual by making it burst in flames. Years later he woke up as a warforged and became a paladin sworn to avenge his death and the wrong done to his family by this evil society. That was my intro. Now the party is fighting against this evil society as they found better ways to make their ritual work, it magically enhances and corrupts the victim and leaves a mark on the its skin. They killed some of this enhanced creatures and there's a PC that's been skinning them to collect the marks as a trophy. This caracter declared he wanted to make a cape from the marked skin of the next corrupted creature we were going to fight. On the fly my character thought it would look as a tribute to this society he sworn vengeance to so he said "I won't travel with you if you're wearing a cape with that mark". Now I thought it would at least bring a discussion about it but instead another characted right away said "Then you can leave" So I realized that, even though being a paladin of vengeance, imposing wasn't the way to go. I had to take the time and find reasons to tolerate that he may be wearing a cape with that corrupted symbol. Which was a lot easier than it would've been starting a fight over the matter. Sorry for writing too much.
Andrés Ruiz Don't worry about writing too much- you had me hooked by the time you got to the god "saving your body by burning it" part. That is a really great background. From your character's perspective it would look like he is hanging out with a person who approves of this group, so it made sense to confront him. I would probably never give that character the benefit of the doubt again. I would end up questioning everything he does because my knight would see that cloak wearer as a person who makes bad decisions
Gabriel Henriquez la verdad es que contaba así la historia todo los que lo conocemos pensaríamos lo mismo, pero no. Creo que es la primera vez que fru está jugando un personaje bueno... XD
Nathan Riggins Thank you for your words, I'm glad you like my backstory. It also translates as smoke and ashes being the leit motiv for his spells imagery. Now about the character, the truth is my paladin is focused on vengeance, follower of Tyr he's savior and Hoar who gave him a new path. He's some sort of Equalizer, if you watched that movie. And he learned to value the bravery of this other half-orc character, and the fact that even when they barely knew each other the half-orc trusted him enough to follow his steps in the front line of combat against this very dangerous enemy. Among other things they share, it's becoming a great companionship. But of course things would be very different if I played an absolute LG paladin with the oath of devotion...
I had a Lawful good monk, He would always tell the truth. he ended up getting the N/E Rouge in a whole lot of trouble when the guards ended up investigating our party lmao.
Sometimes my players make characters that don't fit at all in the setting because they're trying to recreate something they heard about. i.e. they heard a funny story about "Giles the Librarian" on the internet, and they think that if they create a character that doesn't want to leave the library, and *stick to it hard enough,* that they'll have the same experience -- Not realizing that the librarian character worked because of the specific player playing him, and the rest of the PCs and the GM all together. It's tough to get through to these players, because if they see it not working, they think it's because they're not roleplaying hardcore enough, and if you try to tell them it's not going to work, they'll tell you, "don't worry, it totally will, it worked for these other guys." I guess my advice is: Do something that works for *you*, and *your group*, instead of trying to replicate something you heard about.
I recently had to ban a problem player who in the last two campaigns screwed over other players because "its what his character would do", even though the party needed to stop a BBEG from literally destroying everything in existence. We had a session zero yesterday where I told my players that the new campaign was only to use the core rulebook (pathfinder) to provide a welcome change, among other reasons. Everyone else agreed, but this guy made a human fighter that literally said "generic statement" in character, even though we all agreed on a serious, dark campaign. Turns out, it was built in protest because he didn't like ANY of the 66 race class combinations provided. I tried to compromise by saying if he played seriously for three sessions, he could choose another book to bring in, but only that books classes. He said Advanced Player Guide, which I said was alright but summoners would not be allowed, and they never have been in my games. Even without summoners, that brought his options up to 96 possible combinations. Well, he quit. Turns out, the whole time, he had been set on playing a summoner and wasted everyone's time instead of just pulling me aside and asking nicely. Well, he quit immediately without considering any of the 96 available options, and then proceeded to invite us all to his "more fun, summoner-allowing campaign". I know this isn't on topic but can someone help me out here? How can I deal with things like this in the future, and help future players understand that when I ban a race/class/rule, its for a reason other than "I as an almighty GM refuse to let you have fun". Yes, I explained to him why summoners were banned in the past, and yes, I did hear him out on multiple occasions. Sorry, had to rage somewhere. Seriously though, any advice please?
While this is all and good for characters created for specific games, what if this is a long running campaign? I run my games based around the actions of the players, if they are leaning toward doing nasty stuff, Ill start giving them nasty stuff to do. What if, in the middle of a massive expansive campaign, one of the players decides this has gone to far and then at that point its beyond the point of solving it through IC RP?
So what would you call it when every one in the party is good and you make a neutral good warlock with a Good Patron and the DM decides to have the patron try to force you to be evil (And I do mean blatantly evil)?
ran a game recently... it turned into a game of RP farmville. wouldn't have been so bad except the players started to complain about not getting enough xp... game ended abruptly.
In my groups first campaign i missed the first session. From what i gathered though, everyone just dicked around and killed everyone. I built my charecter mostly around manipulation and rp'ing. Every time we faced a threat our resident spellcaster just firebaleld it. I ended up trying to talk my way past a guard, while my ally just killed everyone. I didnt even join in the combat till everyone but the guy i was talking to and 2 other people were alive XD. We decided to abandom that cmapaign, and now the fireball person is our gm. im scared
My worst experience with D&D or any roleplaying at all for that matter was an online 'open world' campaign group. A drunk woman had her character take off all her clothes in a winter pathfinder scenario. NEVER AGAIN.
Then you'd be a tiefling warlock traveling with a paladin. The tiefling doesn't even need to advertise he's a warlock . If the paladin is bigoted against tieflings than they wouldn't make very good traveling companions. - Nerdarchist Dave
Rather than do a single session 0 of a campaign, when I'm running a game, I instruct the PCs to give me a history and they have to know at least 1 other character. Then once I have all that together in the week before session 1, I try to have mini adventures with each PC 1 or 2 at a time that leads them to the start of Session 1 and get them all gathered
it's a great idea, but a bit demanding on the GM. I've got a wife, 2 kids, a demanding job, and run Nerdarchy so I'd find doing that a bit tough now a days. At the end of the day each gaming group needs to find what works for their table. - Nerdarchist Dave
IMO it should start with the GM. He should detail what kind of game he is going to run. Heroic, roguish, downright evil. He should set up parameters and stick to them. I like for my players to talk about characters in general before the game. However, I do not like to have them make up characters together. Prefer to let character's backstory come out in game. I really dislike it when players call each other by class. First session and the characters are saying: "Hey, thief. Pick this lock." How does that character know the other character can pick a lock? Just because the player knows that character is a rogue. Annoying.
Play whatever you want, as the story teller find a way to incorporate their characters. Half the fun is forming a strange or unlikely fellowship, not just a bunch of 'yes men', in my opinion. Think about vegeta in DBZ, total ass, stubborn, but necessity, fate, family and friends slowly turned him into a reasonable good guy.
I'd say there's at least two times "my character wouldn't do that" is legit. One is when the DM is putting you on plot rails, which is bad DMing. The second is the players pressuring a player into something completely OOC, not if rpg but players demanding the LG paladin, that fits the game generally, just go along with torture.
Here's my take: D&D is a Co-op game, the point of which is to have fun. If you aren't cooperating, then some of the people at the table won't have fun. If you aren't willing to make sure EVERYONE has fun, then you have no reason to be there.
I agree with the concept you are saying, but the way you word it. The way I am getting it, playing a Paladin in an Assassin campaign is what you are talking about. While this might be my own personal opinion I get more the lazy way out of trying to justify why Assassin PC B refuses to take the contract on the head of Political Asshole #372,519 "He wouldn't do that BECAUSE".
My character is currently planning to murder one of the other characters in the party. My GM just said 'get a backup character ready in case you need it' and it means I can RP without compromising what I think my character would genuinely do in response to the situation. I get how in some cases people will make characters that just wouldn't go along with the party, but if that character chooses to leave that's fine! I think characters should either want to be together, or have a reason to be forced to be together - but if neither of those conditions are satisfied then the party should split and just make a new character.
Nerdarchy Fair. In my case I'm expecting for my guy to lose (the other dude is waaaay stronger, and the party would probably side with him) but I can see how if I snipered another player's character they might find it a bit annoying. Plus it wouldn't be that fun without the final confrontation to roleplay.
What if the DM says your character murdered a noble woman. When your character is a cleric of an extremely anti violent god. Then can I say my character wouldn't do that
How about when someone says "my character wouldn't let your character do that"? For exemple... a paladin in a party with evil people that the players want to do mean things for once... I know session 0 would fix it, but just thing if the DM didn't had the session 0 and come to this...
Chronus D. Greed Talk the players, that if everybody would block everybody else's acton, the game would not move forward, so tell the paladin or whoever not to block the action but to react to it after the fact, that way you keep a flow in the game and still can have the conflict of interests part of the game.
In our current game we have a player who just makes everything difficult for the rest of the party all the time... example: he stopped mid battle and started offering heals to the enemies... he said it's what his character would do because he is a "Oath of the Ancients" Paladin that tries to preserve life... WTF?! What about trying to preserve my character's life (and other's in and out of the group) instead of offering aid to the enemy who works for a evil ass dragon and his minions who have slaughtered 100s to 1000s of innocents that could kill me too?!
+San Shinobi Yeh, that's great when you are in a solo campaign or if you discuss with a gaming group before hand and get the OK and create characters that would be OK with this or at the very minimum still get along with each other when something like that happens. Outside of those options (which is not the case) all it does is derail game.
I disagree with a lot here, while agreeing on the premise of working together and not breaking the game. 1. The player should NEVER ask why he is at the table. The player created his reason for being, not the DM. 2. Stay in character. If you wouldn't do that... do not do that. BUT it then becomes YOUR responsibility to find an alternative solution. Know that your decision carries consequence. You, other players, or npcs could die due to your decision. If you, take it like a legit player. You died for your conviction, good on you. If me, your decision had better be worth it. I will gladly recollection after an epic scene, I will not play with you if you wasted my time on stupidity. 3. Some of the best RP is due to Team Comp Conflict, to include alignment 4. It is the DM job to present the world and the problems. It is the Player job to find solutions. If all do the job no game will be ruined. If I say my character will not do that, they will not. But you still gave me a problem, I solve it or die trying.
In short, don't play paladin (or paladin like cleric). Because if you go with the DM... DM"We are gonna fight goblins" Players and paladin "Okay" One figt later DM "They were good goblins. You are fallen paladin now!" Paladin player "..."
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To sum it up: "Whenever you think 'My character wouldn't do that', instead think 'How would my character do that.'"
Perfect.
- Nerdarchist Dave
SangoProductions21 Concise phraseology! {flips table / rage} How dare ye, sir, how dare ye! (jk)
+Nathan Riggins (Nate the Nerdarch) Having rewatched the video....I noticed that you guys actually said that. lol. Well, I thought I was almost original.
Alignment issue summarized:
Players too often tend to view alignment as a PREscriptive quality of their character, as opposed to a DEscriptive one.
One is "Lawful Good" BECAUSE of their actions. They do not perform actions BECAUSE they are "Lawful Good".
A Lawful Evil character doesn't tend to think of themselves as evil, nor do they behave in such a way as to "live up to" some kind of standard of orderly maliciousness. They either do what they do because they _want_ to, or because they believe they _have_ to. If they up and decided they wanted or needed to perform good or chaotic actions (or both), their base alignment doesn't proscribe doing so. If they do those actions enough that it becomes a pattern of behavior for them, they may just shift alignment to reflect their new "normal".
"Players do what they want and drag their characters along for the ride through the power of rationalization." -TheAngryGM
Hah, yeah, Angry's got some gems, but I've also never been one for the "playing RPGs like Grand Theft Auto" mentality. Sure, to some degree, we all veer towards the style of play that's most fun, but I don't think that HAS to be at the expense of the rationale or internal logic of the game world. -Nerdarchist Ryan
i've had a moment in a campaign where 'my character wouldnt do that'. it was where the dm literally hijacked my character and made him do things i KNOW he would not do... by design. times like these are when it's the dm's fault... and no the dm is not always right... there are exceptions to every rule.
Was there a charm or something involved? Otherwise maybe find a new DM lol
In RL people get in situations they don't want to be in, yet grind on. For example, at work, I'm like the LG Paladin but my entire staff are rogues, NE barbarians, and a CN bard.
I have one time in my years of gaming where i had a character in a situation setup by the DM that he wouldn't willingly finish the task at hand. now some background on the story and situation. We were very sandbox style of play at this time. we had been playing for over a decade as a core group. I wanted to play a Illumian race from the Races of Destiny, the DM asked me not to as we didn't have the book yet and were going off a web article. so i switched the same concept over to a human. the character concept was i was trying control magic at its purest form and drawing my power from that form. I was a sorcerer that had a few Prestige classes and we ended with 3 characters that greatly relied on magic to do anything. so the DM put us in a spot towards the end of the campaign were we had to destroy the source of all magic in the world. the day we found out that was going to happen before the session started he asked me to make sure my character would be the one to do it at the end of the day, it really wasn't something my character would want to do. but he did set it up as the only way we could save the world. So without knowing of any reward when the time came i was the one to destroy the artifact that made magic possible. and i had to stay behind the party to let escape what we figured would be an explosion that devastated the whole region we were in if not the world. a homebrew god saved the rest of the party. and my character woke up as the first illumian and now the living artifact of magic. i think if i wasnt asked out of game to just go along with the story my character would have rightly refused and done everything he could of to spot the very cool end of the story that DM had brought about,
Ronald Gregory II Good job going along with the story. It sounds like the end turned out better for it rather than falling flat at the end because of you saying, "No way am I doing that"
Sounds awesome. Hopefuly one day i can be a great dm like this
I've had those moments, but it's usually been because of railroading or the willingness of the rest of the party to run in to situations that are incredibly dangerous.
The character wasn't a coward but he wasn't about to run in to an unwinnable battle, he wants to live and travel emphasis on "live".
I would like to build on the part where you were talking about central goals; I had a rogue who, like your character, was avenging his family. Well, the DM decided to bring that character's story to its climatic final battle. When I won he asked one question: "What's he gonna do now?" and it made me think. Now that he's gotten this ultimately hollow victory, how does he go about his life. He eventually realized that his journey getting there, and all of the dungeon delving involved in it, was the best he's felt since starting the quest for revenge. So he became a treasure hunter and eventually used the riches he got to rebuild his family name.
TheGentlemanDuelist That is a great use of a turning point in a character's life to delve back into the game with them rather than retire the rogue
I had this happen a few months ago, where I joined a group to play 3.5 D&D and there literally was only 2 characters playing and the GM allowed me to play a Dread Necromancer who was NOT evil. The guy playing the cleric was sitting right there, and during the game (sense he knew clerics were OP in 3.5) he cock blocked every move I made. I confronted him and his answer was "My character wouldn't do that" I told him "You control the character, not the character controls you!" . That was pretty much a down hill battle, so I ultimately stopped playing with them. Great topic to address guys, something I feel everyone should see.
Art Wood almost had a necro cock block happen in a game I was playing in recently too. Luckily he had a rp wingman who cock blocked the cock block in character. =P
Hamenopi there is a whole lot of necro-cock blocking going on up in here.
- Nerdarchist Dave
As a DM, you always have the option to say "okay, your character stays behind in the library doing research while these other guys go off on their adventure." - it probably shouldn't be your first option, but it is a valid one - and there are ways it can turn out awesome, as well as ways it can turn out terribly. Sometimes you have someone who isn't that interested in playing the game, who just wants to hang out and is happy spectating - other times, they get bored with watching and try to find a way to rejoin the action - which can turn into a cool moment when the missing party member shows up to turn the tide, or can just be a "hey, guys, I finished my filing, so I thought I'd see what you were up to" (glossing over the two week trek across the dunes of insanity). Or you can get the players to tell the stay-at-home character about the adventures he missed - letting the players feel more awesome for having done all this cool stuff.
Or, of course, it can lead to that player throwing a tantrum as they get left out of everything. Letting the obstructionist player sit something out is a fairly major play by the DM, and it's better to meet the player halfway if possible (and encourage them to help you find that middle-ground where they keep their characterisation, but also participate in the story) - the Hobbit would be a very different book if Bilbo didn't get carried away by the Dwarves' talk of adventure, but it would also be very different if he had leapt at the first hint of adventure offered by Gandalf.
In one game we had a player who was very good at battle tactics and the group followed his battle plans until one of his plans would have resulted in massive colatural damage and I said my character wouldn't do that. After I said that it lead to a discussion where most of the group agreed but hadn't wanted to go against the grain. Granted most of the time "My character wouldn't do that." is terrible but it has it's valid moments. As always great video.
my character wouldn't do that? que the gods . . .
LAWFUL GOOD DEITY: you are lawful good, but I decree you will aid these evil characters because their goal coincides with mine. try to nudge them towards good. once the goal is accomplished, if they have not repented their evil ways, bring them to justice.
EVIL DEITY/DEITIES: you are evil, but you will work with this good character because his goal coincides with mine. try to nudge him into being more evil. awaken his inner tyrant. once the goal is accomplished, if he has not turned, obliterate him.
The problem with that arises when the character's reply is: "I'm an atheist. Fuck off."
*Lightning strikes*
No, fuck you!
Kind of difficult to justify atheism in a setting where various gods are active forces in the world, who regularly empower followers and send their planar representatives in to sort messes. Sure, one could argue that all "divine" powers are just Wizardry that people think comes from beings outside the world...but, again, planar travel is a verifiable fact in D&D. Even if you doubt whether an angel really serves a god, they obviously take orders from _something_ of immense power. And any sufficiently powerful being is indistinguishable from a god.
I think atheism could work as a character concept. The character would a knowledge the existence of the "gods" but deny their divinity. I.E. I know they exist, but they're just super powerful entities, not gods. I refuse to worship them.
In such a case, that character would not blindly obey, they would need to be bribed or coerced or threatened into it. Of course, the character could also be an amoralist. I believe myself to be good ergo anything i do must be good because i am incapable of an evil act. It does throw an interesting twist into alignment, though.
As to the original thread of "My Character Wouldn't Do That", on further reflection, there are some things certain characters simply would not do. A paladin would not torture a prisoner, but might get roughwith interrogations. A rogue/thief might refuse to steal from certain people. In real life, there are things i know i would never do, so it makes sense that there are some things certain characters normally wouldn't do. Provide a big enough bribe or threat and they may just abandon their morality long enough to get the job done. There's always deception, mind controll, charms and curses to throw in the mix as well.
Once player choice is taken away the game becomes a story rather than an rpg. However, players should try to be reasonable. I would refuse to do certain things that my character is highly opposed to but the GM should have enough information on the characters that this can usually be avoided.
Create a suitable character for the campaign, let the DM know all about your character, especially in terms of ethics, ideals, enemies, friends, etc. Ideally the players do what the DM wants the majority of the time but some of the best adventures are the ones that the DM didn't plan and those can't happen on a railroad.
If the DM has it in his skillset he can improvise. That adventure that he spent 6 hours creating can simply be put somewhere else in the campaign and wear a different set of clothes :)
Sure we get all that, but when there is one character of 5-6 that won't leave town, go into town, or whatever it's not my job as the DM to figure out why they should go on the adventure. They have all choice in the world, but I'm not going to let one person high jack the game from the rest of the party. If there is 60 minutes of game play and 6 players than the one player ended up getting 10 minutes while the others get 50 minutes because they are sharing the time and playing together.
- Nerdarchist Dave
Nerdarchy I think this is more of a case of having bad players at the table. Someone who won't partake in the game might as well not be there to begin with.
I am moreso talking about having the right to decline things from time to time that my character might be morally opposed to doing. for example, slaugtering a coven of vampires even though my character has vampires in his lineage. These types of things can easily be avoided with proper preparation.
p0ck3tp3ar True sometimes it falls on the DM to fix the problem, even if he didn't foresee it.
Nathan Riggins I think improvising can be a lot of fun too. It does give the players more control over the story. If the DM plans for the group to kill the Duke at his estate but one player convinces them to help him against the guy that was trying to hire the group initially, that can turn into an interesting time.
But yeah, someone who is adding NOTHING to the game and refuses to do fun stuff, especially regularly probably doesn't quite understand how the game works.
The tricky thing about role playing games is there are a lot of us who have been around for decades and the new to semi-new players are way behind in terms of experience, improv skills, DMing, etc and watching them make the same mistakes we made when we were getting started can be a bit brutal but it's all part of getting the group up to par :)
I once planned for my group to enter a giant bee hive they discovered in the wild and I thought they would all be excited to explore it. One player didn't like the idea of invading their home without good reason and decided not to go. I was a lot less experienced at DMing at the time and I was very thrown off. A major part of my story was inside the hive.
I had to scramble but I got through it and everyone had a good time. The player who opted not to enter the hive thanked me for letting him have the freedom to do what he wanted and that gained me a lot of respect from him. It's how I learned to improvise and also how I learned about the tremendous value of having extra stuff ready to go in case of emergency :)
I usually tell my players that I love character arcs and that means I find chacaters who change more interesting than character who are static, that is often enough to convince players to play differently. Since lets be honest, one of the main reasons that players don't want to change their characters is because they think that their character is already perfect, when in reality the character is just boring. Also, I think there are a few players who try to play the reluctant hero, which one on can see in many beginnings of various hero's journeys, a session zero should thusly contain what would make a good call to adventure for the character. Also, talk the players that proactively blocking everything is boring, let them react to the things they don't like, like the anecdote in the video of the libririan mage in the video, not preventing that he gets drawn into the adventure but playing out how he complains on the way, that makes the character mory dynamic and in that way more interesting.
Communication and session zero are cure all for this most of time. So I your assessment spot on.
- Nerdarchist Dave
To that whole idea of character trying something new and trying to change who they are, I can relate to that in my current game. I play a warrior/warlock multiclass tiefling with a "bit" of a brutal side (he brutalizes the corpses of anyone the group kills). So he turns to the monk in the group and goes, "Yeah... Help me fix this please. I'm willing to work with you, but I wanna get rid of this bloodlust of mine. I tried on my own, didn't work, need help." And now that's gonna be pretty fun to play through.
In a kinda-sorta-related manner, one way I've often had a certain character do things he wouldn't normally (was my character, by the way, just to clarify) is that....well, he was kind of a typical big dumb half-orc barbarian, so if there was something that he might be against, or superstitiously 'afraid of', like stuff involving magic, the other party members would antagonize or peer pressure him into it. Even managed to convince him to put his hand into a spatial void, which completely erased it off of his body >.<
That's kind of a specific example, but yeah, my point is, it was a great way to bring in a bit of RPing that lead to plenty of comic value while still keeping the game running just fine, and staying within the character's personality.
ramiel555 Character flaws turning into comedy relief is great
I find it funny my party is a bunch of mercenarys and thieves I as a lawful neutral Paladin with an intelegence score of 8 tend to question my party but I generally don't get told the entire truth.
How about judmental, lawfull-good paladin, who puts all their points into insight, in a chaotic-evil campain?! >:)
...
The insight is to sence-motive on the other p.c.s, when they try to git-rid of you, so you can't see what they're doing.
I hate it when my DM forces my character to do thing to further their weak storyline. its really infuriating.
Great thoughts and discussion. I'd seen DFC's response video first and followed his link back. But your video was certainly more discussiony, which is the greatest strength of Nerdarchy.
I love session 0, and one thing that worked super-well for my most recent campaign (Changeling: The Lost - dark fairies in modern day Vancouver), Session 0 started with me describing the hook as an introductory scene, and then roleplaying with the group for 2 hours resolving that initial scene. The players had already had some ideas of the types of characters that they might want to create, so the initial pre-character sheet roleplay wasn't entirely uninformed.
After that, I handed them character sheets and we made characters. When they actually made characters, they then knew something about their characters and their companions. This informed their choices in placing skill points and attributes, etc., and made characters that would be able to work with the others.
It's a great idea to incorporate some rp into session 0. I was going to do that with most recent one I ran, but it came up against GOTs season finally. So I cut the RP for time with the misses.
- Nerdarchist Dave
With regards to Session Zero, I love it but not everyone I play with wants to (so as a group it doesn't happen). My approach is for me to get together with one or more of the other players, so we make characters which work really well together (crunch and/or fluff). When we play, we can showcase how much better things can be with that little bit of prep work with character and team design. It can be as simple as emailing an early draft of your character's background, so other players can "graft" into it (with your OK generally). e.g. "Hey, what if you used to be engaged to my sister?" or "How about we both served on the same ship?"I'm in a game where, starting with two characters, we told the story of their trek from Thay to the Sword Coast (Forgotten Realms) and met the other character's along the way. Each character's background told their story, and their reasons to be in the party.As a side note, the story about the Librarian character reminds me of The Hobbit. I think it also points out the important difference between a character's desires and the player's desires. A good player can play a character who's....painful...and still add a lot to the story; but when the PLAYER is trying to be painful (or meta or whatever) then it needs to be pointed out. My opinion is, that everyone (players and GMs) should be in the position to do that (everyone I play with are adults). The GM isn't the player's parent or boss. Within the scope of the social engagement, they could even be a guest in one of the player's home. ANYONE should ask for a time out and ask the how the character/behaviour is going to work long term?
Then there are DMs who allow (or even force) their players to create their characters in a vacuum. It gets to the point where I'm just like "You know what? You don't want me to make a character that fits your storyline? Fuck it. I'm going balls deep in this. One joke character coming up!"
Seriously though, when you take that approach of "no I want it to be a surprise for my players", you create ridiculous amounts of group tension. Everybody pulls the story in a different direction, and the party could well disintegrate every single session.
I'm currently playing a LG Paladin with similar backstory as Teds character with the difference that his whole hometown was burned to the ground while he was in another town, and now he's all set for revenge. Not that it would be necessary but just to make sure that this character would work I added to his personality that whenever he sees someone making trouble for a village or town he's getting triggered. He doesn't only want revenge for his town but he also don't want to see or hear about anything like that ever again.
Henrik Nygren Which is a good starting basis for a character and gives them plenty of room to grow.
-Nerdarchist Dave
17:02 A Bishop of Leicester reference! Yay!
I had to check, but I was pretty sure it would of been Nate.
- Nerdarchist Dave
EpifanesEuergetes just multiply the thumbs up by 100. That is the number of them that I wanted to give your comment!
Nathan Riggins It's over 30 years ago now when I first watched that sketch and I've seen it about once a year since. Because of your reference I searched it on this site and had myself a rewatch. And it's still funny as hell. So thanks for the laugh.
I too will give it a watch later tonight
What do people think about alignments changing over the course of a campaign? I had one guy who made a chaotic good barbarian however over the course of our adventure did things like murder and rip apart the corpse of a party member (he had permission to mercy kill the character because he had gone mad), attempting to murder another player when she destroyed an addictive artifact that promised him power as long as he murdered one nonevil person a day (DM strictly mentioned that he was no longer influenced when he decided to try to kill her), torturing people, and various things like that. Most of our party agreed that at the very least he had become neutral and that these acts may cause him to be viewed with mistrust. He got incredibly annoyed because he claimed his character was good alignment and so people should treat him like that (while also assaulting my rouge randomly when he got annoyed).
Like has been said by other players, the only time "my character wouldn't do that" would be to prevent player knowledge from becoming character knowledge. Otherwise, all other issues surrounding such a statement (my character...) should be resolved with a Session Zero. If you didn't show up to contribute in a constructive way...then what the hell are you there for?
I've seen this sort of thing so many times before, and most of the time the offending player thinks they're being clever. Whereas they are entertaining themselves, it always ends in hard feelings by the rest attending the table. They fail to recognize that RPGs are a collaborative gaming experience, and look at it in a competitive sense of them vs. everyone else.
If you want to compete, go play checkers. If you want to be part of something larger, grab some dice and have a seat.
I also find this happens more often when a newer player joins an established group. And established group might have a particular vibe or approach to the tabletop experience that a newer player might not either pick up on or agree with. For experiences like this that may not have a session zero, I suggest sitting in and watching the group play a few sessions. Sit down with the entire group and have them regail you with tales of their exploits. Get a feeling of not just who the characters are but who the players are, and how they tend to communicate. THEN if you think you want to be a part of that experience, sit down with the GM and roll something up. The GM/DM should tell you if a concept will work with the group, and should indicate if this new character will have issues. Dialogue is key.
Mike Gould "Dialogue is key" excellent statement. That and involving the GM/DM in the character making process is always a benefit to all parties involved.
-Nerdarchist Dave
+Mike Gould With players joining an existing game, session notes are great. Not that the new character knows everything that's happened, but that they fit within the shared history of the party.Players and GMs also have to remember to be flexible. In RL, people aren't always consistent and sometime give circumstances a chance to challenge or reaffirm their world view. Sometimes the way a character needs to behave to assist in telling the shared story isn't consistent with their normal world view or previous decisions...but that's OK.When I'm GMing though. I like to be sure there's some consistent thread which gives the PCs reason to be together. I definitely don't like "you find yourself in an Inn with strangers and someone asks for your help." I like there to be bonds between enough of the characters that the team already has some substance to it. "My character trusts the Warlock because..." or "My paladin knows the Warlock is endangering his soul, but we grew up together and I know they are a good person and I want to protect them from their patron." type stuff. For example, I'm currently playing a CE Fighter/Rogue who has a shared background with the team (also Evil) leader that we were both slaves together. My character looks out for herself in almost all things and figures 99% of the world is out to get her (so she should get them first), but would kill (or be heroic) if her friend needed her to.
Them: "My character wouldn't do that."
Me: "It's a roleplaying game. Try roleplaying that they would."
Lol classic.
- Nerdarchist Dave
Hamenopi Then tell them to apply ointment to the burn
I was sent here from DawnForged just as I was wondering about the pros and cons of making characters in a vacuum. This is great insight that I will definitely use in the future.
This is a great conversation regarding the metaphysical psychology of the player character, and their interactions with the game. The way you have approached this from multiple angles, dancing around the original quandary, was enlightening. One particular note that struck me was the idea that a player could essentially act 'outside' of their alignment under certain circumstances (I believe the word 'traumatized' was used). This is very much as we are as people; We are complex individuals with multiple facets.
To say that we are lawful good from a general moral standpoint doesn't really involve the complexities of living and the ethics involved. As an example, I would never steal (lawful good), yet my family is starving and on the brink of death. Would I break into the shop to take a loaf of bread to save their lives (Les Miserables)? Working this into the group scenario: Am I willing to go with the group's decisions and plans, even if it contradicts my moral code, as long as the long-term solutions align with them (the ends justify the means)? This leads to very immersive character roleplaying, if they are thinking along these lines.
I had a couple DMs that would keep painting you into a corner, trying to force you to do things that you wouldn't normally do then punish you for doing them. I had one keep pushing my cleric to use a dagger because to not use it was to die, then was like, Oh look you are no longer a cleric. I had another relentlessly forcing my paladin to into situations where he had to do things then oh look you lost your abilities and must atone for the thing I forced you to do. There's also bad DMs that will just try to tarnish your character and ruin your fun experience. Literally, he was acting as if it were a challenge to corrupt my paladin. It felt a bit like being singled out for constant harassment.
I played an evil Rouge who was a loner type,so we used an assassins guild and his political alignments to get him to go on missions.We also played a group of three brothers as the primary group which also helped. It went very well. It is mostly about finding a way to motivate your character.
So... I'm playing a paladin in a current game of mine. And my GM and I have a great time with him putting challenges for my LG character and I enjoy finding ways around it. Whether it's solved RP or otherwise.
I had this problem with a player. Sometimes it's fair that the whole point of a character is that he/ she doesn't want the interaction and adventure. But in a way this makes it a whole lot more interesting for the DM to find a way to motivate the character in game. So many times in books the main character doesn't want to actually enter the adventure, but they are kinda forced into it by circumstances, friends, and their own set of values. For example a way could be to first make an NPC have things in common with them and give an example (provide guidance) of how that character was motivated into adventuring (usually better for an high ideal.). Or even traumatize the character, by making him friendly to an innocent NPC and then kill that NPC off. The character will not back off and will be motivated to find who did it and make him pay. There are ways to motivate unwilling characters. So many times in real life we do things not so much cuz we want to, but becuz we are forced into it by circumstances.. Hope that's a good example. feel free to let me know what you think! :)
Great discussion on the topic and very good proposals for the problem.
For me it's basically only a problem with a stubborn player "my character wouldn't do that" or with a stubborn game master "that's just how things are and what the NPCs would do", especially the often unspoken issue "and nothing is going to change that". I see good reasons in roleplaying, acting the character according to what she experienced so far, her beliefs etc., and players as well as game masters might convince me that they have good reasons, or just bring their viewpoint on. As long as there's a "BUT here are proposals how she would do it" (or wouldn't do something destroying group cohesion, the plots, adventures, or in general the other gamers fun), or just an open, flexible attitude towards possible solutions, I am very fine with it.
It's a cooperative game there has always got to be a give and take between the players and the DM. So I agree with you fully.
- Nerdarchist Dave
My group has always looked at alignments as a base guideline. As an example. Lawful evil don't have to be a vile person. He could be the guy that fallows the law to manipulate it in his favor. He could be true to his word you just need to pay attention to his words.
I have only had one moment where I had to put my foot down and say "my character wouldn;t do that" (although tbh it was more of a "my character would do that even if you dont want him to") and that was because I was told the setting and decided that the government in this empire was evil, and was told we had to be good characters, so I made a chaotic good characvter who was a literal rebel. And then I find out that one of the adventures called for us working for the people I was a rebel against for an extended period of time, and I tried as hard as I could but the situation as explained to me, I could not make those actions fit with how I had made the character.... So instead I stole a bunch of shit from the governments mages guild and ran off basically. Incuding the Book of Vile Darknes.. I couldnt use it but my character would not allow it to be in the hands of those he considered evil. We managed to talk things out and my character rejoined the party, and now instead of working for the government, we are building a true resistance.
Had an LG paladin pull this recently, they had to keep a secret about another character being possessed by a CE Forrest spirit. But upon learning the secret they just rocked up to the rest of the group shouted it out and shit hit the fan.
Some paladins just wanna see the world burn.
- Nerdarchist Dave
Nerdarchy I had a paladin character that had the background occupation of serial killer once :D During the backstory they met a psionic that helped repair some brain damage, her empathy section of the brain did not work. Since then she has become very remorseful of what she had done and decided to become a paladin. Hardy blows to the head however still have the potential to fling her into a homicidal rage for a short period of time though.
Nerdarchy so true but sometimes that unbending idealism is a pain in the ass.
***** I love that it's such a cool idea
i always say, make your character's personality first, and see what kind of alignment fits with that. i'll allow shifting alignments during play. and have had paladins repent for their sins.
Here is a question for you all. If the DM creates an adventure and it is both clear to the players that he invested time making it and it is reasonable for the characters to do, how obligated do you think the players should be to do the adventure?
For example, the fairly standard party is wandering through the forest when they encounter a large cave with Human bones near the entrance and signs of monster activity. Do you think the players should be cooperative and go into the cave? Or do you think the players should have the absolute freedom to skip on the cave?
My feeling is that the DM only has so much time available to invest in his sessions and it would likely make for the best game if the players cooperate in reasonable situations. I should note that I love sandbox games and I think player freedom is very important in the bulk of situations, but recently I have decided that I think players should be obligated to do the adventures the DM has planned.
p0ck3tp3ar A little from column A and a little from column B. It would be reasonable for the DM to have put all the combat and loot in said cave. So while players may skip the cave they get the loot or XP. Perhaps it'll be RP encounters for the rest of the evening. Or perhaps they'll encounter a farmer who's son never returned from the forest.
The other end of this the players need to give the GM by in to make the game work. I personally avoid generic hooks to not have to deal with my players ignoring the hooks.
-Nerdarchist Dave
Nerdarchy Interesting. I have asked a few different people and everyone has their spin on how this should play out. That's one of the cool things about the hobby.
You have a good system. I think is the GM handles it correctly the players will almost definitely take the bait.
I had one of these moments.
I invited my friend in a Roll20 game that my dad just created. We were split up by a fear spell, with two others of our group with my friend (playing the cleric). An ogre ambushed them, and knocked out my friend's character. Then the two guys abandoned her while she was unconscious and made the excuse of "that's what my character would do."
The first thing one should have in mind when playing a RPG is that it's a *group-based* game genre. In my modestly-not-so-humble opinion:
a) _"I really don't wanna do that. But my buddies are counting on me"_ should be enough motivation for a "good or neutral" character.
b) _"I really don't wanna do that. But I need my minions around"_ should be enough motivation for a "evil or neutral" character.
c) _"I really don't wanna do that. But these people want to play a game tonight"_ should be enough motivation for a reluctant player.
d) _"You don't wanna do that. But we're gonna play tonight. And you may choose how that's gonna happen: _*_with_*_ or _*_without_*_ you"_ should be enough motivation for a DM/GM who had enough of it already.
If the player isn't a complete jerk, this sentence boils down to a failed communication.
While I control my character, they influence still is limited by the fact that my character has a personality and an own set of values. Mind you, this has nothing to do with alignment since the system I play the most doesn't even have alignment. Still, some characters would not take a course of action - and if this course of action is necessary for the plot, there isn't much I can do.
My approach is to have a variety of characters available and ask the GM and the group which of those characters would be okay with them. If this character gets into a situation where they wouldn't tolerate the course of the group, that character would try to convince the group and leave the group if they can't be convinced. While that situation sucks, I still am prepared to play another character.
I've always wondered if the inner competitive nature of nerds leads to things like this. Thanks for the video. You will yet make D&D into high art.
Jerel Fontenot That is a good point. That competitive nature could lead them to a "who knows more about swords" conversation if they are not careful. And those can end in a sword fight.
Hopefully with all of the Nerdarchists' help we can raise it to the higher level.
My wizard character had no principles other than if it wasn't his idea it was bound to fail. He'd whine, complain and moan about how his plan was so much better (it typically wasn't) but he'd always defer to the party. It's important to get your moments but not at the cost of everyone else's.
I've been reading the comments here, and I'm wondering, who are all these DMs that take over PCs? Like why would you ever do that? The only time I have played a PCs character is either when they are possessed or similar (in which case I still make them roll to hit their allies, because it's more satisfying lol) or if they are missing a session, in which case the character would be established and I would just keep roleplay to a minimum. But seriously, why would a DM think it was ok just to take a PC and make them do a thing without any justification?
That's exactly what I was thinking. Aside from when characters are charmed or mind controlled or something, the DM shouldn't hijack player characters. Sure the DM can describe the results of the players' rolls or actions, but they shouldn't make the initial choices for them. It sounds really strange for that to happen.
I tend to avoid these vids, but this one was actually nice.
Great video guys gave a lot of insight that i can implement into my DnD game. thanks for the video.
Here's what my Lawful Good Dwarf life cleric does before, during, and after an adventure wherein he participates in killing live creatures (which isn't against his alignment), he offers prayers and does atonement by shaking his alms box and collecting money for various charities that promote life. He lights candles for the orcs that were killed; that their spirits may know that he doesn't hate them. Ya its just color. I like it.
The closest I came to saying this line, Was in a buddy's campaign where I played a female rogue Halfling. She was tasked with assassinating a dock barracks. She had a high CHA stat, and was based on being an escort/information broker type.
In the end I Had her seduce the barrack get as much info (and coin purses) as she could from drunkenly satisfied guards and return to the party with a much bigger hit then the DM had originally planned.
I try as a DM to allow my games to be as open ended as possible. Years of Improve club makes it pretty easy to think on the fly and react to those situation while also allowing for characters to shine in any situation. But I think I am lucky that I have a group, that despite some kinks in the system, works well together. They do their best to support each other...if they are going to kill they are going to support it. If one is going to try and kill they will do their best to restrain him(my personal favorite was the army of mage hands and chill touches restrain this barbarian).
Something I find useful to avoid that is character transformation. When you make your character or if you find your character going against his morals over and over in the campaign.
That could have been solved when creating your character. When you make it, give him two sides.
Let's say you play a bad ass fighter who's really hard and tough but secretly he mourns his bad deeds and it keeps him awake at night. That is something that can change a man.
Perhaps you thought it'd be an evil aligned campaign and it turned out to be quite the opposite, well there you have a character development.
when "my character wouldnt do that" its usually a meta thing that he wouldnt know about, such as monster abilities that he hasnt seen yet and the things he wouldnt do are usually things that would benefit him. Such as grouping up with allies while fighting something with an aoe, rather than being smart and spreading out... he will learn that as he goes, but his first experience with something new typically doesnt go well in my characters favor... i tend to play them really stupid in those regards
Mr420NinjAFTW Well if they are not playing an analytical tactics kind of character then it is good to not play them like the resurrected sun tzu
Nathan Riggins i worded that oddly... i meant to imply i error on the side of stupid, and he wouldnt do the smart thing. I might not know hydras can take multiple attacks of opportunity, so the first time i face one, that character isnt going to take any specific action to deal with that. he might not know that not all dragon breaths are in a line, and thus group up too closely and gets poison cone breathed by the green dragon. shit like that.
i never use "my character wouldnt..." for role playing purposes or alignment... unless its a pretty obvious no no. the half orc wants to torture for info and the cleric decides he isnt down with torture... thats fairly obvious in my mind, and doesnt need to be said, it will be role played out as it happens.
Oddly enough, I was playing an assassin in a good aligned party which includes both good cleric and good paladin (lawful good at that) My assassin ended up being the party's moral compass. One time, we needed to power a gate for a teleport spell to persue the BBEG and had a few options to do so, one being sacrifice sentient creatures, like 5. The other options required some side quests for mcguffins, or to provide items from our own inventory... magic items. yeah, thats totally not happening... The kids in the party (good guys) decide its cheaper and easier to just grab a few prisoners and sac em right quick... lol the assassin is like, wtf kind of cleric and paladins are you? we cant go around sacrificing people word of that shit gets out... wtf? lol and through out the campaign the hitman is the one pulling the good guys back from going too far as almost a running gag... it really was quite fun and funny at times.
I always abbreviated this to two different role playing issues; Paladin role playing and Druid role playing, named after the two classes that traditionally cause them most often.
A Paladin role player wants to bully the party into behaving in ways they don't want to; kill the goblin scout? No! You can't do that, because I will lose all my abilities breaking my code of honor! My character wouldn't be associated with heathens like you who would kill someone you have a clear advantage over!
Druid role players are the inverse, they just want to split away from the party and don't have any interest in the other players (not characters) motivations. Everyone is going into the city to talk to the grand wizard to get vital clues about the mysterious magical artifact, and the Druid wants to stand on the outskirts of town, because he is born of nature and can't sully himself with city environments!
When a GM takes control of characters and screws them over, and does stuff with him that he would not do.
"My character would not do that," sounds like an issue of player agency, vrs. D.M. Juristiction.
Somtimes "My character wouldn't do that," is code for "I, as a player, don't want to do that."
I'd never say anything like "My character wouldn't do that" for any reason.
I won't allow paladins & evil characters in the same group unless the evil character is sufficiently justified or illusioned/glamered.
+Jane Huskmann
Not even when the dungeon master makes your character do a thing he would not do, like a paladin killing an innocent person, because the dungeon master wants an atonement story?
Schwarzer Ritter
Now that's just cruel. If my paladins do wrong, it's their fault, not my manipulation. I won't manipulate a paladin to do wrong. However, when it comes to atonement, I _could_ give a nasty Geas/Quest, like slay the mighty Tarrasque _by thyself._
In what other situation would a player reply "my character would not do that" but railroading by the dungeon master?
Well, maybe when it comes to will saving throws. A character gets a bonus to a will saving throw if it would force him to do something he would not normally do against something he would do, right?
Saving throw for mind-affecting spells. Anyways, I would not coerce or "encourage" my paladins to do anything against their conduct.
I do think that it's acceptable in some cases. If you have a character who generally wants to stay out of trouble, like most people would, and a party member randomly picks a fight with some random npc in a tavern. In that case it's perfectly acceptable to stay out of a fight and say 'my character wouldn't do that'.
I always made a character who found opportunity in travel. either that or has a mission or is forced into travel. To me, it isn't that hard to find a reason for adventuring with my characters.
If the DM has to "force" a player to be "heroic vs non-heroic, good vs evil, etc...", then you are missing the greater part of the DM ability to take their player actions and spin then with a twist to get them to see an advantage vs disadvantage to the campaign. If you have to micro action play your campaign or micromanage "the party", then you aren't letting the players mature and let them play. You aren't the storyteller and interacting with them, you are basically doing those old adventure books that made you roll and you only got the random dice roll to define your adventure. If DM's let players show them "how they define their personae", then you don't have players doing that...since you have actual actions backing up the DM stating an action esp if it goes against previous actions/alignment/etc...
I ran into a frustrating situation where I ended up as the guy with the character who didn't mesh with the group. It was frustrating because I was the only one who made a character to fit the story concept we were given, everyone else decided to do their own thing and I ended up as the token evil teammate. I ended up having to change how my character would normally act in order to not conflict with the party. Normally I wouldn't care as much, except everyone else treated it like I was the person who didn't make a character to fit just to be that guy. I ended up changing my character entirely, before dropping out of that game a few sessions in.
For those curious, it was supposed to be a pirate game, as in actual pirates not One Piece or Pirates of the Caribbean. So I made a pirate, the others brought in a paladin, a neutral good fighter soldier type, and a lawful neutral monk. So, two lawful characters, with two good characters. So any pirate like actions I would take caused conflict with at least one of those characters always. The campaign went from you're pirates fighting against the governments and trying to survive, to you're heroes on a ship fighting against a great evil. I ended up not having much fun with my second character, and after talking for a bit I decided to step out of the game to not mess with their fun.
I ran a game once (my first mistake) where someone played a chaotic evil tiefling. As soon as the game started, the first thing he did was shoot another player in the chest with a crossbow. The game could not be salvaged. Next time I DM I'm just gonna run a module because when I get behind the screen, my brain disappears.
Ah, improvisational collaborative storytelling (aka DMing), is like any other skill- you get better with practice. I'd also be careful with who you game with- people that want to play through a murder hobo, power fantasy or are wrench throwers, are difficult for experienced DMs to handle, let alone someone that's new to DMing. If you find people that want to play the game you want to run or you want to run the game they want to play in, you'll be set! -Nerdarchist Ryan
Sure players should roll with it, but what happens when your DM is the issue. I had one DM once who for instance would have our characters slap the face of the person we were trying to Persuade or we would just stand gawmless and drooling when we rolled low on Perception.
I don't remember the actual wording in the 5E PHB, but as I recall it they got it wrong, at least from my point of view. In my opinion your alignment doesn't represent the color of the power that fuels your cognition. It is not the cause of your actions. It's merely a category into which you fall, because of your actions. I believe this is the superior take on alignment, since it makes alignment transitions easier, which is important for themes like redemption. In addition to that I believe to be closer to reality and therefore more credible. I think "being inherently evil" is an inherent contradiction. Deeds can be "inherently" evil, people can't be. Evil as a moral category requires intent, without deliberation it lakes ethical connotation. As primates we are the products of a long evolution, that route from where we came defined our instinctive drives that have emerged to serve certain purposes. Our most basic motive is survival, it leads us to want to eat and drink, to sleep and to have sex. There is no ethical quality to these needs. Our intents on the other hand are conscious decisions on how we achieve survival. Intent can be criminal, instinctive motives can't be. Hence the behaviouristic approach to alignment makes much more sense than the Eugenic one.
Well to be fair a strictly principled character is no bad thing and neither is a player who says "well there's no way my character would agree to do such a thing, I literally can't even contrive a reason."
But that's just it, as the player you need to contrive a reason. Why would my good character agree to do some shady wetwork? Make him ask questions like 'How bad is the guy? What are your reasons for wanting me to kill him?'
If you're an evil person ask 'am I getting paid for this? Does this help me get more powerful? Might I find what I'm looking for where we're going? Will I meet powerful and influential people?'
i have bin in a game wear we had a Cleric who did not heal anyone and the only PC how had access to it
So, I'm playing a Chaotic Neutral Tiefling who due to being a slave the entirety of her life up to the point she is freed a few months before meeting the group has an extreme difficulty of truly trusting others. The way I went around this is through her Virtue name "Promise". So now if she makes a promise Good or Bad she will keep it until death. This is my first D&D character and I think all things considering I think that was a good way to compromise. Now if someone makes a promise to her and they break it, there will death.
hey i was in a group with friends but they kicked me out for someone else and i can only play online any tips for where i could find a group to play with?
We did a video on it I'm sure. One shot group on Facebook and rpg 3ws group on Facebook.
- Nerdarchist Dave
How do you feel about "my character wouldn't do that" based on in game experiences with a character? For example phobias after a death (then resurrection)
The biggest thing is "Does what I'm doing cause a road block to the fun at the table ? If it does then how can you stay true to your character while using the experience at the table to enrich rp and the game. Perhaps the character faces their phobia or a solution is found. Just saying I wouldn't do that is kind of boring and lazy most of the time.
- Nerdarchist Dave
I just had an example about this on my last home session. I recently joined the party with a holy knight whose brother was abducted by dark secret society to blackmail his father. So my character gave his life to save his brother from an evil ritual just to find out it was all planned by the society, they wanted his body, his pure soul for their corrupting ritual. But my character's god (Tyr) saved his body from being part of the ritual by making it burst in flames. Years later he woke up as a warforged and became a paladin sworn to avenge his death and the wrong done to his family by this evil society. That was my intro.
Now the party is fighting against this evil society as they found better ways to make their ritual work, it magically enhances and corrupts the victim and leaves a mark on the its skin. They killed some of this enhanced creatures and there's a PC that's been skinning them to collect the marks as a trophy. This caracter declared he wanted to make a cape from the marked skin of the next corrupted creature we were going to fight. On the fly my character thought it would look as a tribute to this society he sworn vengeance to so he said "I won't travel with you if you're wearing a cape with that mark". Now I thought it would at least bring a discussion about it but instead another characted right away said "Then you can leave" So I realized that, even though being a paladin of vengeance, imposing wasn't the way to go. I had to take the time and find reasons to tolerate that he may be wearing a cape with that corrupted symbol. Which was a lot easier than it would've been starting a fight over the matter.
Sorry for writing too much.
A que era Fru el que quiere andar con la capa esa jajajaja
Andrés Ruiz Don't worry about writing too much- you had me hooked by the time you got to the god "saving your body by burning it" part. That is a really great background.
From your character's perspective it would look like he is hanging out with a person who approves of this group, so it made sense to confront him.
I would probably never give that character the benefit of the doubt again. I would end up questioning everything he does because my knight would see that cloak wearer as a person who makes bad decisions
Gabriel Henriquez la verdad es que contaba así la historia todo los que lo conocemos pensaríamos lo mismo, pero no. Creo que es la primera vez que fru está jugando un personaje bueno... XD
Nathan Riggins Thank you for your words, I'm glad you like my backstory. It also translates as smoke and ashes being the leit motiv for his spells imagery.
Now about the character, the truth is my paladin is focused on vengeance, follower of Tyr he's savior and Hoar who gave him a new path. He's some sort of Equalizer, if you watched that movie. And he learned to value the bravery of this other half-orc character, and the fact that even when they barely knew each other the half-orc trusted him enough to follow his steps in the front line of combat against this very dangerous enemy. Among other things they share, it's becoming a great companionship.
But of course things would be very different if I played an absolute LG paladin with the oath of devotion...
I had a Lawful good monk, He would always tell the truth. he ended up getting the N/E Rouge in a whole lot of trouble when the guards ended up investigating our party lmao.
Sometimes my players make characters that don't fit at all in the setting because they're trying to recreate something they heard about. i.e. they heard a funny story about "Giles the Librarian" on the internet, and they think that if they create a character that doesn't want to leave the library, and *stick to it hard enough,* that they'll have the same experience -- Not realizing that the librarian character worked because of the specific player playing him, and the rest of the PCs and the GM all together.
It's tough to get through to these players, because if they see it not working, they think it's because they're not roleplaying hardcore enough, and if you try to tell them it's not going to work, they'll tell you, "don't worry, it totally will, it worked for these other guys." I guess my advice is: Do something that works for *you*, and *your group*, instead of trying to replicate something you heard about.
I recently had to ban a problem player who in the last two campaigns screwed over other players because "its what his character would do", even though the party needed to stop a BBEG from literally destroying everything in existence. We had a session zero yesterday where I told my players that the new campaign was only to use the core rulebook (pathfinder) to provide a welcome change, among other reasons. Everyone else agreed, but this guy made a human fighter that literally said "generic statement" in character, even though we all agreed on a serious, dark campaign. Turns out, it was built in protest because he didn't like ANY of the 66 race class combinations provided. I tried to compromise by saying if he played seriously for three sessions, he could choose another book to bring in, but only that books classes. He said Advanced Player Guide, which I said was alright but summoners would not be allowed, and they never have been in my games. Even without summoners, that brought his options up to 96 possible combinations. Well, he quit. Turns out, the whole time, he had been set on playing a summoner and wasted everyone's time instead of just pulling me aside and asking nicely. Well, he quit immediately without considering any of the 96 available options, and then proceeded to invite us all to his "more fun, summoner-allowing campaign". I know this isn't on topic but can someone help me out here? How can I deal with things like this in the future, and help future players understand that when I ban a race/class/rule, its for a reason other than "I as an almighty GM refuse to let you have fun". Yes, I explained to him why summoners were banned in the past, and yes, I did hear him out on multiple occasions. Sorry, had to rage somewhere. Seriously though, any advice please?
Has anyone had any luck finding groups to play with via apps like Meetup?
"I don't want people mercilessly slaughtering my town."
Me: *looks at burning town* Oops.
While this is all and good for characters created for specific games, what if this is a long running campaign? I run my games based around the actions of the players, if they are leaning toward doing nasty stuff, Ill start giving them nasty stuff to do. What if, in the middle of a massive expansive campaign, one of the players decides this has gone to far and then at that point its beyond the point of solving it through IC RP?
+Smeagol the Vile It depends on the game you are playing, d&d has a wish spell, as one example though.
So what would you call it when every one in the party is good and you make a neutral good warlock with a Good Patron and the DM decides to have the patron try to force you to be evil (And I do mean blatantly evil)?
bad DMing
Shouldnt you be stealing kills with your ult instead of watching videos XD
kill secured
ran a game recently... it turned into a game of RP farmville. wouldn't have been so bad except the players started to complain about not getting enough xp...
game ended abruptly.
In my groups first campaign i missed the first session. From what i gathered though, everyone just dicked around and killed everyone. I built my charecter mostly around manipulation and rp'ing. Every time we faced a threat our resident spellcaster just firebaleld it. I ended up trying to talk my way past a guard, while my ally just killed everyone. I didnt even join in the combat till everyone but the guy i was talking to and 2 other people were alive XD. We decided to abandom that cmapaign, and now the fireball person is our gm. im scared
My worst experience with D&D or any roleplaying at all for that matter was an online 'open world' campaign group. A drunk woman had her character take off all her clothes in a winter pathfinder scenario. NEVER AGAIN.
what if you are a tiefling warlock and are traveling with a paladin?
Then you'd be a tiefling warlock traveling with a paladin. The tiefling doesn't even need to advertise he's a warlock . If the paladin is bigoted against tieflings than they wouldn't make very good traveling companions.
- Nerdarchist Dave
Rather than do a single session 0 of a campaign, when I'm running a game, I instruct the PCs to give me a history and they have to know at least 1 other character. Then once I have all that together in the week before session 1, I try to have mini adventures with each PC 1 or 2 at a time that leads them to the start of Session 1 and get them all gathered
it's a great idea, but a bit demanding on the GM. I've got a wife, 2 kids, a demanding job, and run Nerdarchy so I'd find doing that a bit tough now a days. At the end of the day each gaming group needs to find what works for their table.
- Nerdarchist Dave
IMO it should start with the GM. He should detail what kind of game he is going to run. Heroic, roguish, downright evil. He should set up parameters and stick to them.
I like for my players to talk about characters in general before the game. However, I do not like to have them make up characters together. Prefer to let character's backstory come out in game. I really dislike it when players call each other by class. First session and the characters are saying: "Hey, thief. Pick this lock." How does that character know the other character can pick a lock? Just because the player knows that character is a rogue. Annoying.
Out of game vs in game knowledge can be troublesome for sure.
- Nerdarchist Dave
''But i don't care about your princess i just want to be a farmer''
Rest of the party frees the princess. She later annexes the farm problem solved.
- Nerdarchist Dave
Jonathan Dufour But did you know her father owns all of the land. He may cut off a nice slice of it for the hero who saves her
Play whatever you want, as the story teller find a way to incorporate their characters. Half the fun is forming a strange or unlikely fellowship, not just a bunch of 'yes men', in my opinion. Think about vegeta in DBZ, total ass, stubborn, but necessity, fate, family and friends slowly turned him into a reasonable good guy.
I'd say there's at least two times "my character wouldn't do that" is legit. One is when the DM is putting you on plot rails, which is bad DMing. The second is the players pressuring a player into something completely OOC, not if rpg but players demanding the LG paladin, that fits the game generally, just go along with torture.
Here's my take: D&D is a Co-op game, the point of which is to have fun. If you aren't cooperating, then some of the people at the table won't have fun.
If you aren't willing to make sure EVERYONE has fun, then you have no reason to be there.
Snakes, did you say snakes? LOL
I agree with the concept you are saying, but the way you word it.
The way I am getting it, playing a Paladin in an Assassin campaign is what you are talking about. While this might be my own personal opinion I get more the lazy way out of trying to justify why Assassin PC B refuses to take the contract on the head of Political Asshole #372,519 "He wouldn't do that BECAUSE".
My character is currently planning to murder one of the other characters in the party. My GM just said 'get a backup character ready in case you need it' and it means I can RP without compromising what I think my character would genuinely do in response to the situation.
I get how in some cases people will make characters that just wouldn't go along with the party, but if that character chooses to leave that's fine! I think characters should either want to be together, or have a reason to be forced to be together - but if neither of those conditions are satisfied then the party should split and just make a new character.
PVP never goes well and almost always leads to hurt feelings. Many times it bleeds over from character to character.
- Nerdarchist Dave
Nerdarchy Fair. In my case I'm expecting for my guy to lose (the other dude is waaaay stronger, and the party would probably side with him) but I can see how if I snipered another player's character they might find it a bit annoying. Plus it wouldn't be that fun without the final confrontation to roleplay.
My wizard is proficient in many non-magical weapons so should I not even touch my weapons or use them half the time.
What if the DM says your character murdered a noble woman. When your character is a cleric of an extremely anti violent god. Then can I say my character wouldn't do that
Be a part of my cooperative indeever, guiz.
How about when someone says "my character wouldn't let your character do that"? For exemple... a paladin in a party with evil people that the players want to do mean things for once... I know session 0 would fix it, but just thing if the DM didn't had the session 0 and come to this...
Someone like perhaps the dm should of given you the heads up.
- Nerdarchist Dave
Chronus D. Greed Talk the players, that if everybody would block everybody else's acton, the game would not move forward, so tell the paladin or whoever not to block the action but to react to it after the fact, that way you keep a flow in the game and still can have the conflict of interests part of the game.
In our current game we have a player who just makes everything difficult for the rest of the party all the time... example: he stopped mid battle and started offering heals to the enemies... he said it's what his character would do because he is a "Oath of the Ancients" Paladin that tries to preserve life... WTF?! What about trying to preserve my character's life (and other's in and out of the group) instead of offering aid to the enemy who works for a evil ass dragon and his minions who have slaughtered 100s to 1000s of innocents that could kill me too?!
+San Shinobi Yeh, that's great when you are in a solo campaign or if you discuss with a gaming group before hand and get the OK and create characters that would be OK with this or at the very minimum still get along with each other when something like that happens. Outside of those options (which is not the case) all it does is derail game.
The player plays the character, the character doesn't play the player.
Mark Daniel Amen. ***Warning Quoting us may cause your alignment to shift loyal Nerdarchist***
-Nerdarchist Dave
Nerdarchy Already becoming a loyal Nerdarchist. Love your stuff, my type of D&D'ers, and gotta support local content providers (I'm in Trenton, NJ)
Mark Daniel I work out of Yardville. We plan on doing stuff live with our local loyal Nerdarchist.
- Nerdarchist Dave
Nerdarchy That would be sweet, would love to be involved.
Mark Daniel cool we'll post info in our weekly video, on Facebook, and in the new letter once I get off my ass and launch it.
- Nerdarchist Dave
in never run a campaign without a session zero to get everyone on the same page.
It helps for sure.
- Nerdarchist Dave
GOD didn't damn it the beavers did.
You know? I don't know.
That's why I'm here.
I disagree with a lot here, while agreeing on the premise of working together and not breaking the game. 1. The player should NEVER ask why he is at the table. The player created his reason for being, not the DM. 2. Stay in character. If you wouldn't do that... do not do that. BUT it then becomes YOUR responsibility to find an alternative solution. Know that your decision carries consequence. You, other players, or npcs could die due to your decision. If you, take it like a legit player. You died for your conviction, good on you. If me, your decision had better be worth it. I will gladly recollection after an epic scene, I will not play with you if you wasted my time on stupidity. 3. Some of the best RP is due to Team Comp Conflict, to include alignment 4. It is the DM job to present the world and the problems. It is the Player job to find solutions. If all do the job no game will be ruined. If I say my character will not do that, they will not. But you still gave me a problem, I solve it or die trying.
In short, don't play paladin (or paladin like cleric).
Because if you go with the DM...
DM"We are gonna fight goblins"
Players and paladin "Okay"
One figt later
DM "They were good goblins. You are fallen paladin now!"
Paladin player "..."
So many of these topics are easily solved by the same solution "Stop making asshole characters".