Illydth's page

First and foremost I have to ask as a worried DM:

Is your enjoyment coming from the story or from watching your players trigger traps and take damage?

Be very careful with DMing...it's a mistake I made for YEARS. Just because you're playing the monsters and the dungeons doesn't mean you "win" by killing or injuring characters and "lose" when your players complete your campaign. D&D Isn't about winning and losing, it's about experiencing an interactive story.

Your job as the DM is to tell this story...to make it entertaining for the players...not to simply kill characters and injure party members. Death and injury are tools in a campaign to make it more interesting, after all a campaign without risk becomes little more than a power grab and gets boring quickly.

That advice aside, I can second a couple of the things above. Power gamers or as they're sometimes referred to "Munchkins" are actually not difficult to deal with. If they're perpetually casting "detect magic" to get around the challenges of the story, then put non-magical challenges in.

At the end of the day, I find a group of players who are rules lawyering you to death aren't invested in the story, they're invested in what the next cool toy is. In many cases, trust is the key to a great D&D tabletop experience. If your players are death adverse, take it off the table short of exceptionally stupid situations. There's at least one campaign group I used to DM for that quit trying to rules lawyer me to death after I promised that I wouldn't kill characters out of hand.

I had one game group who were really only interested in leveling and acquiring equipment...so I created a short but rather fun campaign where the party were captured and put into an arena. I simply picked monsters out of the various monster books and set them against the party in single room combat scenarios...the players got exactly what they wanted and we all had fun playing out battle after battle.

At the end of the day, though, it gets pretty boring to endlessly combat with no story and no goal other than personal gain...and eventually my players wanted a real campaign. The benefit to this was every time they started rules lawyering or power gaming me, I was always able to simply suggest that we put the campaign on hold and go back to the arena for a while...and most of the time they all agreed that wasn't what they wanted...and went back to playing.

One of the things many players don't get till they've done this for a while is that a great campaign and a great story is EVERYONE'S job to tell. Players have to be just as invested in the plot as they are in acquiring the next item.

Good Luck with your players. If it were me in your shoes? I'd sit them down at the beginning of the next section, explain to them that you're not having much fun with the way things are going, and ask what's causing them to want to break your game. Solve, as a group, the concerns that cause them to power game, and then go back to having fun together.

One more piece of advice: If you haven't already, go lookup up a short movie called "The Gamers: Dorkness Rising". I'm going to get laughed at for suggesting this, but outside of the fun the movie pokes at D&D, there's actually some AWESOME advice for DM's on dealing with trouble players. The story opens with a DM and his group of powergamers, and as the story evolves you get some interesting insights on handling the powergamer problem.

All:

It is with a heavy heart that I must call a close to this campaign.

My work life has gotten such at this point that I simply am not able to put any time or resource into an online campaign...or much of anything else either.

I thought and hoped I could keep up a stream of posts (albeit at a MUCH slower pace than needed) but it's simply not been possible. From having a bit of time each day to being able to eek out a short amount of time each week, to the present state where I walk in to work, get immediately hit with issues to solve and spend all day doing nothing but work, my ability to dedicate time to this campaign has just evaporated.

To all of you, I have had an immensely good time with this campaign over the last 4 years.

To Dirk, Selena and Lash who have been with me from the first day, you guys have been the backbone of this campaign from the very beginning and we would be no where without the three of you. Thanks for your YEARS of dedication, posts and putting up with my absences and quirks.

To Thantos and Mird, who came in and filled shoes in this campaign, you guys have been AWESOME. This campaign would have died much earlier had you guys not come in and done the masterful jobs you did at picking up the characters and playing them. I'm sorry about bringing you in and then having to drop like this.

Every one of you have been great players and I would love to have any and all of you back in any campaigns I might run in the future...distant though that would have to be.

While I've said it already, I'll say it again: I am VERY sorry about having to end this campaign like this. Please believe me when I say if I had another option I'd take it.

I have no objection if you want to find another DM to run the campaign, I can provide notes to continue. Otherwise, I'd also be happy to try to get a Campaign Synopses posted through to the end of the campaign so you're not all wondering what the hell is up. Up to you guys. (No promises on how long it will take me to get the synopses up however).

Thanks, all of you, for a great several years and I hope your future campaigns and characters the best of luck.

Till I see you all across the virtual table again...

Illydth
--Doug Wagner

That does wrap up the round, no one is chasing the monster so that's it.

ADMINSTRATIVE
-----------------------------
I wanted to write and apologize to everyone for the lengths of time it's taking me to post back to these posts. I was hoping this was just a phase and that I was going to be getting back into a more normal posting rhythm. Unfortunately, at this point, this seems to be the new normal around here.

Maybe in the future I'll get back to a more normal posting schedule, but for now, this is as good as it gets.

To the two newer players I brought into the campaign a few months ago, you have my sincere apologies, I had no idea I was going to get this bogged down with life.

To my three older players who've been with me for the last couple years in the campaign, I feel like I do very little but apologize to you guys for time off.

I've said for the last couple years that so long as my players continue to wish to play, I will continue to run the campaign...I maintain that opinion, however I can't imagine the frustration level you all must be experiencing waiting for days/weeks for me to return posts.

If any of you want out, I don't blame you nor will I hold it against you, you've all been great players, and I appreciate your time and your patience with me.

If you'd like to stay in, I will stop apologizing for the late replies and simply reply as best I can.

Again, thanks everyone for the time and effort you've put in, I will do my best to continue.

--Illydth

Thantos: Knowledge: Planes will give you more information. I'll get that out shortly.

To you all: All of you have my personal apologies at the length of time it's taken me to get a post out on this...by what it looks like we're coming up to the 3 week / almost a month mark.

I mentioned before my work life at this point was nuts. I actually managed to time it yesterday, it took exactly 5 minutes, 4 seconds from the point I walked into the office till I was engaged in a problem I was required to manage. From there till 6:15 last night when I left there was some kind of "Crisis" I was required to manage.

Work has ALWAYS been my downtime where I could do some posts and get some things done, in the last 3 months that time has completely disappeared...bad enough that I was talking with my management last night about what the hell had changed.

I sincerely appreciate all of you continuing with me and your patience with me through this exceptionally slow posting period. I have to assume, at some point, that my time will increase and this will get better. Till that point, please bear with me as I dedicate what time I can to this campaign.

Work stress continues. Will post tomorrow morning come hell or high water, sorry about the lag, hopefully this gets over with soon.

Sorry for the confusion, I moved you into 5.2 which I thought is where you requested to move. March 21: Dirk moved us into the hallway by opening the door. March 25th: Mird listens at the left door. March 27th: Thantos says "lets enter"...so I assumed we were in 5.2.

My apologies for the real lack of posts recently and the lack of exciting content you've hit since the battle with the monster on the second floor. I know most of the tower has been "Enter room, get description, enter next room, etc." There IS more to this coming up.

Holding for 24 hours while everyone settles into room 5.2 and asks any questions. I do not have a plan for where you're hitting next, but I assume it's going to be continuing counter clockwise down the hall...unless you want to go clockwise. Up to you guys.

(I'll be quicker with this one, I promise)

How to get the party together:

I've ALWAYS found that having the party come together naturally is a much better way to begin a game than a forced merging of souls so to speak. The "you all know each other" line only goes so far when the players are writing their own backgrounds.

My preferred method of handling character party grouping is to create an event at the beginning of the campaign that gives all of the party members the same goal. Whether they know each other or not will be immaterial at the end of the hook. The suggestion of the goblins invading the bar is a fine way to do it, though why would every one of the PC's be in the bar all at the same time? This might work for a party of 3, but by 7 it's getting a bit unbelievable.

However, if you start by creating a reason for the members of the party all being in the same town (say the high priest is visiting the town and people from all over are storming the town for his mass blessing, which is said to bring good luck for a week), and then a reason for them all to be in the same bar at the same time (as a precursor to the High Priest's mass tomorrow morning, Felix the bard, the most renowned bard in all the surrounding lands, is giving a special performance in the Drunken Dwarf, the largest tavern and inn in town...and you've all gotten lucky enough to have gotten tickets), NOW you have a believable reason, when the goblins attack and everyone else flees the scene but the 6 of you, why you should all join up...especially if after mopping the floor with the goblins someone realizes that the attack may have been a diversion and the real target may be the High Priest himself....(the adventure hook has been dropped...now the players rescue the high priest who then provides them the real details on how the campaign officially starts.)

The other way I do this is once I have a "campaign area" (world) setup, I will tend to play the "descendants" card or the "call to action" card and have all the players start from the same location...(The local town magistrate has put out a call to all able bodied men and women of age 15 to 35 to assist the militia in turning back the ongoing orc incursion into the northern reaches of the province. All men and women of eligible age must report to the town hall by sun up on the 15th day of the month of mede or they will be arrested and thrown in jail.)

(NOTE: Whether all of the PC's meet in Jail or at the Town Hall in this scenario can actually bring a pretty creative twist to the start of the adventure, depending upon what the campaign is about...it may just be that the town hall gets overrun and they end up as the only able bodied men and women left...)

Come up with something creative, work harder than the standard "So you all meet in a bar...", unless that's really what your players want.

As others have said, congratulations on your journey into DMing.

A couple points of advice I like to give first time DMs. Please keep these in mind, I spent years having to learn them the hard way.

(1)
It's very easy to get into the mindset that the DM at the table is the "Bad Guy" and the Players are the "Good Guys" and that to make a proper role play session it must be the DM vs. the Players. It is easy as a DM to get too invested in your Uber Bad Guy and / or your encounter that you saw being much tougher / easier than it was supposed to be.

You are NOT the PC's adversary, the PC's are not your enemy. You are the narrator, the story teller, the outside observer of the story. NEVER let your enjoyment get in the way of the PC's enjoyment. If something NEEDS to happen a certain way in the campaign, make it happen that way but make sure the party/PC's understand that this is a pre-conceived event before they put time and effort into doing things their own way...and try to limit these kinds of things in your campaign. Remember, if your big bad guy ends up dead at the PC's feet 20 minutes into the campaign...no one ever works alone. :)

(2)
Things will happen, PC's will get brilliant ideas you never thought of, they will roll natural 20's or natural 1's when you don't want that to happen. Roll with the punches. Sometimes a story goes an entirely different direction from where you want it to go or even think it will go. If you are flexible and experienced enough to roll with it, roll with it, see where it leads. If you start venturing into uncharted territory or start getting out of your comfort level to being able to provide an enjoyable play session for your PC's, stop the game and discuss with them why the action they're requesting to do breaks the campaign. Apologize and then deny the action on the basis that it breaks the fun for everyone.

But try to roll with it, you never know where a campaign can turn out with a few throws of the die. :)

(3)
Lastly, keep in mind why you are all sitting down at the table (or the virtual table) together. Fun. Make sure you are all having fun, that means the DM as well. If something in the campaign makes you or another player uncomfortable, that isn't fun...fix it...but ALWAYS work with your players to do so. Even the most blood thirsty, PKilling party doesn't want to see one of their guys sitting at the table with nothing to do looking pissed and sulky and saying "I really hate this game, lets stop playing."

Now, from more specific examples of things you might want to discuss / cover with the party (depending on what applies of course).

1) Player Death. It's been stated over and over in the thread so I won't repeat the great advice that's been given.

2) Campaign Source Materials: Looks like you're relying upon the PFSRD for the majority of your source material. No problem with this, but keep in mind that the PFSRD has A LOT of rules and alternate rules and materials for Pathfinder. As a newer DM you might consider cutting out some of the rules sets. Familiarize yourself with what books are out there and up front discuss limitations with your players on what books are and aren't legal in the campaign. I find it easier, especially with Newer DMs, to stay as close to the core rules as possible without impacting the enjoyment of the game. You might consider requiring characters to start with core races and classes and allow branching into additional books at higher levels through multi-classing options. Can they buy an item with their starting gold from the advanced equipment books? It's a good thing to discuss.

3) The Exotic vs. The Mundane. Another good topic for quick discussion (this one won't take long) is whether your campaign supports the more exotic of weaponry. When one of your PC's opts to specialize in a great two handed elven war blade, does your campaign have the capability of keeping that blade on track or do you KNOW he's going to be down to wielding a bastard sword at some point but without all his proficiencies and specializations? Players never have to worry about short swords, daggers and long-swords, any pre-written module has magical specimens of those in bulk. But when the player starts specializing in the man-catcher, the halberd, the two handed elven blade or the katana, are those weapons really going to be available in your campaign in enough frequency to make those choices be good choices?

4) Rolls - Again, covered. Open or Closed. I like Open PC rolls and closed DM rolls, but never hesitate when you get on a "bad streak" against the PC's to make sure to show a few rolls just so they know you're not out to get them.

5) Magic Item "Management" - I find this is more and more important every game I run. Players now seem to think that they can stop at a local "magi-mart" and buy up what they want with their gobs of gold. And in your campaign, maybe they can! Or maybe not. Either way, cover what your expectations of magic item purchase and creation will be. Blindsiding players who are secretly saving up for a Vorpal Long Sword and saying "oh you can't buy that" when they have gathered their 15M Gold Coins is not going to make anyone happy.

On another note: Encourage your players to keep you up to date on what they want from an equipment and magic item perspective. Keeping a copy of each player's character sheet so you can, at a glance, see what weapons, armor and items they're carrying allows you to "fill in the gaps" secretly in a "not so random" treasure distribution. See that the PC's are getting low on healing potions and they have no clerics or druids among them? Sounds like a great time for the next encounter to be with some kind of group that has an ad-hoc alchemist or shaymin with the with a small stash of healing potions on hand.

6) Treasure Distribution Arguments - Here's one I ALWAYS find it better to discuss up front...what do the PC's want to do about a treasure distribution policy? I find in all of my groups there's usually one who's quicker than most to step forward and say "That fits my character, I'll take it"...it's not bad play nor greed on the player's part, it's just a natural tendency to step up and say "I like that". You'll get loot distribution arguments at your table, it will happen eventually. Having some kind of early discussion you can fall back on is always a benefit.

7) Finally if you have inexcusable things you do not want to see at your table (pkilling, evil acts, torture, sexual encounters, whatever) make sure those are brought up early and are well understood. There are many topics that might make your group somewhat uncomfortable (sex in a campaign is always good for an awkward evening), and there are more reasons for some of this to come up "out of the blue" than you might think...imagine your party being captured by rogue bandits with a pretty little 18 charisma young female sorceress in the party...or the party gets captured by the BBEG and locked in a cell...why WOULDN'T they be tortured for information or just the hell of it? If things like this make people nervous or uncomfortable, you need to know that up front. Perhaps all the bandits in your world are honerable...or maybe they're all just led by female bandits who won't put up with crap like that!

DM Note: On the topic of sex for a second, take a piece of advice if you will and leave it out of your campaign...or at least plan to gloss over it. Here's the thing, unless you're a professional pornography / romance novelist, you likely can't do ANY justice to a good sex scene. It really is a lot more difficult than it looks or sounds to describe a good roll in the sack without it just becoming droll and idiotic. If you are? Go for it. I'm sure your players will...um...enjoy the descriptions. Otherwise, it just makes for a REALLY awkward part of the campaign. Not to say sexual relations can't be a part of the campaign or even a method for discovering information (it's amazing what "ladies of the night" know), but if you're planning on RPing a sexual event, drop the idea, gloss over it and move on. Everyone (including you) will thank you.

Now for some quick house rules:

* I'm a huge fan of the "nothing below 8" statistic. I've had several players in my time that wanted to play a complete idiot and they do nothing but ruin the campaign with "clown tactics". Remember, it really is about enjoyment, and a character that can barely remember to BREATHE really can't take part in figuring out the mysteries of the campaign with the other players. If this interferes with a character concept based upon your point buy system, talk with the player and see if there's a way to make the concept work...or perhaps you want to give a stat boost to everyone beyond the point buy.

* Starting Hitpoints are ALWAYS MAXED. Level 1 characters have a hard enough time with life. I also like to use the "reroll 1's" rule for at least the first 5 levels...generally I tend to use this method for all levels, but at least the first 5. A warrior with 15 - 20 hit points at level 5 is a waste of space to a party.

* The "What makes sense" rule. Many DMs might argue with me on this one, but I have a rule I call the "what makes sense" rule. There are situations that will come up where the books just don't cover the details or where the situation simply doesn't make sense for answer the book is giving you. In these cases I will call on the "What makes sense" rule. Where I as a DM can't stomach the logic behind something happening due to the complication of various rules together (or the lack of them), I will simply throw out the rulebook and implement what I believe makes the most realism sense.

The PFRPG rules are typically robust enough that most situations can be run within the rules and all is just fine, but there are times where a player wants to do something that just isn't properly covered. In these cases the players and I will discuss the situation and come up with a conclusion on what we believe would actually happen in a situation such as this. That is the rule we will continue to follow should the need arise in the future.

I know this is long, and I apologize for it, but mostly the main rules for being a DM are:

Communicate with your Players.
Have fun.
Make sure your players are having fun.

The rest comes naturally.

Destroyed. *nod* Sure thing.

Have fun arguing about telescopes. I'm sure yours is the best. If, at some point, you'd like to bring this thread back around to get real discussion on your original post about Dungeons and Dragons / Pathfinder and whether Magic Shops should or should not be included in a campaign, I'm sure you'll get more people interested in the thread...it was actually a rather intelligent and interesting discussion point.

Personally, though, your telescope bores me and for as wonderful as you seem to think it is, even you've managed to lose the forest for the trees...you used your telescope as an example...you now seem to believe, by your response to my post and other posts in the thread, that your main point has to do something with your special telescope...or perhaps your fly rod.

I'm not exactly sure which.

As a reminder, this was supposed to be a discussion about magical item shops and their viability within a campaign.

But feel free to continue discussing your telescope, I'm sure someone here cares.

--Illydth

To respond to your edit: I did not ask you a specific question. I used your example of a telescope and gave you a HYPOTHETICAL Situation to express my belief that it is not the physical object of the telescope that gives value but the experiences that that telescope provides you that allows you to stay attached and attracted to it.

It was actually a rather minor point in my response to your position that, instead, you decided to take literally and then respond to directly instead of looking at the broader topic of how your telescope and my theoretical situation applied to your original question of whether magical shops are or are not a good idea within a campaign.

And thus the example became the argument, and why I am now exiting this off topic and entirely useless thread.

Restart it at some point with your original question Dragon, it was a good one...just leave your telescope and fly rod out of it next time....you're a bit too attached to them.

How does it feel all up there in my brain cells foraging around Illydth? Make yourself comfortable. I guess you know me better than I do....

An EXCELLENT Method for completely an totally avoiding any relevant points being made. Well done!

Absolutely, lets don't focus on the intent of the words in the post because that would be too troublesome for the argument, lets focus on ONLY the absolute interpretation so that I can continue to be right.

Seriously? I wasn't aware your OP was about telescopes...my apologies for not being an expert in telescopes, obviously nothing I have to say about D&D or why the game is played could be conceivably workable because, after all, your telescope can't be reproduced. DOH argument lost obviously.

I made the point I intended to make and expressed the view point I intended to express. To boil it down, experiences are what players play the game for. Items, all imaginary items that cannot be physically held and cared for, lose their value in a very short time. It's the story behind the item that will last for a long time. As someone's sig in the thread now identifies: "$28.99 at Sears" just isn't a very good story.

I'm happy to clarify if there's something you missed. If you believe I was arguing with you about how wonderful your telescope of fly rod were, you might consider going back and re-reading if you care to...you missed the entirety of my point...intentionally I imagine.

If you weren't looking for argument and/or discussion on your original point, why then were you posting here to request feedback on it? Or did you just want us all to agree with you?

Ok. Sure, Dragon, you have my permission to run a Magic Shop in your game world! I think it's a GREAT IDEA! There you go, permission granted...go forth and have fun!

--Illydth

will, everything you say is within the purview of the GM simply by creating custom magic items that do things you can't find in a catalog. I do that all the time.

And here you need to be careful. Creating significant numbers of custom magic items can throw off game balance more than just about anything else you could ever do (other than perhaps creating custom spells). Not a shot at your statement just a word of caution.

I 100% disagree with you on your point #1. I am lucky to be in possession of a particularly sought after telescope. It is just as special and wonderful to me today as it was when I bought it 12 years ago. The images through the thing are simply magical. I am sure I will treasure that scope until I die. I own other things that are equally special and I appreciate them just as much today as when I purchased them. My fly rod. My hunting knife. My fly tying vise. Lots of things.

No you don't. You do not treasure these items (Telescope, Fly Rod, Hunting Knife, etc.), you treasure the memories these items bring to you and the images, stories and experiences the items allow you to have.

Let me ask you a question, if I took your treasured telescope and dropped it from a 30 story building onto concrete to smash into literally a thousand different pieces, and then pulled out a BETTER telescope (one better in ALL respects) and gave it to you, would you really miss your old telescope other than, perhaps, nostalga? (given to you by a beloved family member or friend, first telescope you ever owned, paid for, got laid with, whatever?).

I postulate no. They are devices, objects, possessions. We covet possessions only because of what we believe those possessions will do for us, NOT for the possession itself.

And this is why there are those of us who cringe at your position that every campaign needs a magical emporium where every PC can walk in and spend their 20 gagillion gold on the latest and greatest magic item. (I realize that's overstating your position, it's hyperbole not intended to belittle your point or make my point better, simply hyperbole for it's own sake).

We see each of these items your PCs WANT and are willing to research and walk into a store and BUY as stories to be told, magical EXPERIENCES that you as the GM can augment your campaign with.

When was the last time you handed out a thousand gold to your PC party and got wide eyes and pounding hearts and that look we DMs have seen hundreds of times that says "No s%+%? REALLY? WE just FOUND THAT? OMG I want it!"

Well, that applies to your "rare and wondrous" magic items just as much. After a time your players will grow used to them and they will no longer be special no matter how they obtained them.

And you're ABSOLUTELY Right and this RIGHT HERE is where I feel you go off track. You're not going far enough with your thought process. If NO object, no matter how special and wonderful and rare, stays special and wonderful because they're already in possession, then what is it about those items that DOES stay special?

It's the OBTAINMENT of that item that the players will be telling stories about for years to come. You're right, eventually the Staff of the Magi is going to become old hat...but how do your PLAYERS, 5 years later, describe how they got it?

* Yea, so I got to level 15 and had something like 20M gold coins sitting around and said...what can I do with that...so I decided to spend something like 3 games weeks doing research in a library and finally managed to create the staff of the magi which I then used. It was really cool.

* Yea, so we came into UberCity01 in MassiveProvence03 around noon one game day and there in front of us was Dan's Dastardly Magical Monstrosity...the most well known magical emporium in this game world. So I walked in and there, sitting on a shelf in a glass case behind the counter, was a staff of the magi. I was like, no way? I asked how much, the owner said "oh, 30M Gold pieces" and I said "Really? That's it?" So I reached into my 15 bags of holding and simply dumped all the contents into a pit behind his counter to hold gold and walked out with my staff of the magi. It was great.

* So after 5 days of being chased by this pack of worg wolves being lead by some freak werewolf calling himself the king of wolves, we stumbled across what we felt was the entrance to the crypt of Gaia Nostroma, the last known holder of the Staff of the Magi. According to our research all sightings of the staff were lost when Gaia was defeated by the Lich Zerostomas. With the worgs close on our heals we were forced into the tomb, regardless of the dangers we knew were coming. And that's when we ran across the first trap...

Really, which story do you think is going to hold up to the test of time? Which experience are your players going to remember for years and decades and maybe even their lifetimes to come?

All your comments you're making in this thread sound very "ho hummish" about the game. You've been there, you've done that, you've saved the world a million times, you've killed just about every known baddy from liches to dragons to the great and powerful terrasque itself...that +3 sword just doesn't do it for you!

My friend, open your eyes and re-look at what Dungeons and Dragons and all of it's numerous predecessors is. In the age of MMO do it again's to continue grinding equipment mentalities, we've all forgotten that D&&D Isn't about the levels, it's not about the equipment, it's not about the stats.

It's about the stories, it's about the adventure, it's about doing greater things than you're able to accomplish in this life in a greater than the gods themselves character that you guide.

If it does nothing for your party to make them work for that +3 sword, then by all means send them to Dan's, I hear he's got some great +3 swords...or maybe it's just easier to have one fall from the sky and land point down at your PC's feet (Make a Raw Dex Roll for me please!).

But the game is about story, and before you start handing out weapons and armor and equipment that isn't as common as dirt, you might consider this:

If your party really wants that item, isn't this a great opportunity as a DM to create a compelling story around the obtainment of that item? By all means ensure that at the end of the night or the week of game nights, or whatever, your party comes out with what they want...but SURELY as a DM you can create a better method of obtaining it than "You walk up to the sales clerk and ask "Do you happen to have a..."

Every gaming group is different, but most of my players seem to enjoy the act of shopping for magic items and digging through the books than hoping they find what they're looking for as a random drop. Maybe it's because when it comes to magic item shopping, I roleplay the sequence, so you're negotiating with the vendors, haggling over price, trying to get them to fess up to their "special inventory". And, the players have the control (or at least, the illusion of it). I've never met a situation that wasn't improved by letting the players feel like they're in control.

Random loot is not in their control. Shopping for items looks like it is in their control, and usually is at least partially there. This makes my players happy.

Why? Why is it always one or the other in these discussions? Why is it always either "Give players access to whatever they want or leave it up to the control of "random loot".

I don't think any loot in any campaign I've run in the last 10 years has been "random". I HATE random loot...rolling off on loot tables after a surprisingly difficult encounter due to the dice rolls and finding that the mobs dropped 5 silver and a potion of healing pisses me off just as much as it does my players.

You go up against that big baddy only to have him randomly drop the party's first ever +5 weapon!! A BATTLEAXE! Which no one has the proficiency to use. But that's ok, because he also dropped plate mail +3...sized for a halfling.

WOOT! MOAR PLZ!

Is it so hard for an INVOLVED GM to understand what would be upgrades for the party and to make sure that "random" loot drops aren't exactly as random as they should be? Oh sure, the handfull of potions and that ring or two (so long as my mages aren't hurting for armor class *cough rings of protection cough*) may very well be random...but...hey look, my main fighter is specialized in elven war blades...and wouldn't you just know it? Even though their isn't an elf in the campaign so far, this ogre's horde just happened to turn up a magical elven war blade...instead of a long sword...which no one uses....

--Illydth

Oh My Lord! So when I said I was coming down with something on Turesday when I last posted, I had NO IDEA what I was really in for. Monday night both my wife and I were coughing quite a bit, but not much more than that, my daughter, however, was not feeling well. By just after I wrote the post on Tuesday I knew I was getting sick.

By 6:00 tuesday evening, My Wife, My Son, My Daughter and I all had the flu. My daughter's was stomach, the rest of us were upper resperatory. She recovered first and, god bless her 9 year old heart, played errand girl around the house all wednesday for everyone else as the rest of us were pretty much on death's door. Both my son and daughter relapsed on Thursday getting quite a bit sicker while I was getting slightly better and my wife decided that 4 people with the flu wasn't exotic enough, she had to try out Strep Throat along WITH the flu. (I can't make this kind of crap up folks).

Day 5 of our shared family experience. Please take your GM's advice this year when I say "The flu is not a recommended experience." I will NOT be clicking the "Like" button on this one.

I'm still another day or so away from being recovered to any real extent. I apologize for the campaign hold here, but I can't forsee any additional post till Monday. I will try to make sure, however, that we restart and continue then.

Still waiting for some kind of direction to take you guys in for the new floor.

Anyone?

Note: the note about fatigue was not a hint to rest and/or an indication of limitations to your abilities, it's more "flavor text" at this point, you're well within your ability to keep going. That said, it's totally up to you all if/when you want to rest and where. Just want to make sure I was clear that wasn't a "DM hint".

Ok, hold up. No your shoulder hasn't suddenly been injured. The injury you suffered from prior in the adventure...

I realize it's been a while, but you took damage earlier in the tower...

Check page 54 of the thread and move on from there.

Sorry folks, Christmas Season and all that. Will get a post out today moving us on and continue from there.

I'd like to make a quick suggestion for THIS PART OF THE MODULE ONLY!

Without objections, I'd like to "expedite" the search of the tower a bit. If you will give me a rough room search plan (eg. 3.1, 3.2, 3.4, 3.5, 3.3, 3.6...) I'll do the following:

1) Provide you the room description.
2) Assume you are doing a standard room Search and provide you room contents. If additional rolls are required (Pick locks, strength check, perception, whatever) I will call for them.
3) Assume you are breaking any shard of mirror you find in the room.
4) Pause for "other actions" you'd like to perform. If any, you can go ahead and post them, and I'll get you the information.

Assuming no one posts within the 24 hour period an "other action" I can go right ahead and move you to the next room. With this method, we'll be able to cover one of the rooms in the tower (assuming no additional actions, combats, etc.) each 24 hour posting period to move us along quicker.

If there's a common thing you'd like to do for each room (detect magic, search for hidden objects/secret doors, etc.) I can perform those actions for you as well if you let me know what they are.

Normally I wouldn't suggest this kind of expediting of the scenario but I suspect I'm starting to bore some of you with the same "enter room, get description, loot room, move on" that's taking us several days to get through instead of a quick march through to the more exciting bits. This is little more than what would happen at the tabletop naturally, so I don't see a huge problem with it. However, I don't want to ruin any fun for anyone either so I'm open to a "please don't" here too.

Without objections, I'll start with this process as soon as someone posts a floor search pattern they'd like to accomplish. When things start picking up, we'll, obviously, go back to a more traditional style of play.

REALLY sorry folks, I'm in a crunch time at work. Will try to continue this tonight.

I take a different view of stats, mostly EXACTLY because of what Quixote said.

It's obvious that you CANNOT base intelligence off of the INT score alone. What happens when someone has an 18 int and a 5 wis? You can argue that knowledge should be penalized because the guy isn't with it enough to be able to focus on what he's thinking about.

Strength/Con? As the example above...doesn't make sense to have a strapping ox that is frail.

Stats work together to form traits in my PC's. The build mentioned here means the person is an absolute genius socially, but absurdly incompetent at thinking things through. Put the person in the middle of a ball and they'll shine as the brightest star in the room...put them in a room with a Sage discussing the finer points of magic and their eyes will go glassy.

Just because you have an intelligence of 5 doesn't mean you are too stupid to lead. I've WORKED under managers before who are some of the best people leaders in the world but who have NO idea what a technical aspect of a problem would be if their lives depended upon it.

The interesting thing is that Pathfinder (and D&D itself) has much of this dichotomy already taken care of within how the DM applies the various skills. Your character will NEVER pass a knowledge check...and will likely bomb most perception and sense checks as well...you just aren't that observant and you don't know a whole lot.

But when it comes to people, that's where you shine. Take your clues for how to role play your character by combining all the various skills that might apply.

For instance, you have captured a prisoner and now need to interrogate him for information on the BBEG. What skills are needed? Certainly Bluff and persuade skills, some knowledge skills, perhaps some perception and sense skills would help as well. Once you have these down you can determine how your character would work and RP it. In this situation you can leach the information out of the prisoner with no problem, but you won't be able to tell if he or she is lying at all to you and you probably won't even be able to come up with a set of relevant questions to ask...but if you can play the good cop in the good cop/bad cop interrogation tactic, you can easily help your party get information...and once you figure out that your role is "good cop", you can pretty easily RP it.

In high school my wife was sitting in English class and they were reading Julius Caesar. When the teacher read the part relating to the "ides" of march, one of the girls in her class raised her hand and said "Like, isn't that like a misprint? Shouldn't it like be the 'ideas' of March?"

Think Valley Girl, think puppy dog, think vacuous and beautiful...not sure how you CAN'T figure out how to RP this character...there's so MANY good examples of it.

--Illydth

*whistles* actually most of the maps I post up will be Dirk's maps. I've recruited him this Act to help me out getting maps handled so I don't have to spend all of my time on the campaign. :)

You can thank Dirk for the expanded Floor 2 map. :)

--Illydth

Thantos: If you want to keep the greese in, you can and we'll use that for your second round actions. I'm ignoring the "extra" message on the first round, we'll call it even for the confusion I caused with the break in battle action. :)

We're all starting round 2 fresh no actions in...if you want to change the Greese call, go for it, otherwise I'll let it stand and we'll carry that into the next round.

For anyone who'd like to see the current battle layout for the start of Round 2: Second Floor Battle Map R2

FYI I'll have a post up today at some point. Work is bogging me down right now or it'd already be done. That said, keep checking, I'll have it up late this afternoon/evening sometime.

It's not about whether or not you want to kill this NPC, it's about the foreseen disagreement between you and the rest of the players of this game.

As identified by several people in this thread, you are stepping on toes IRL. If you're the only person in the party who believes as you do, that either means you have better information than anyone else, or have jumped to difference conclusions than anyone else.

There's something to be said for being more tactically and mysteriously minded than the rest of your gaming group. There's something to be said for "I believe I'm one step ahead of everyone else in the group based upon how I've put the information I have together." Unlike many here, I fully believe you when you say you feel you're doing the right thing within the confines of the information you have.

There's a wider perspective you're being cautioned in this thread to take and it harkens back to a concept of life: Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

You have my 100% support that you should be allowed to kill this NPC if you so choose to do so. Your DM has absolutely 0 support from me if he decides to metagame anything you've told him as the DM to do anything to hinder your character from performing the action you've talked about here.

The caution you're being given I will echo: An action of this calibre has the distinct possibility of royally pissing off your gaming group. While plot twists may be something you like and are very cool with, your gaming group may not be so approving...especially not with plot twists enacted by a CHARACTER and not by the DM. A character being removed from a story by a DM is part of the plot, a character being removed from a story by another player is not part of the plot, it's the caprecious whim of the other player...and that doesn't always sit well with the rest of those who join you week to week.

Has this kind of character against character thing happened within your group before? How did it go over then?

I'm pretty sure every shred of advice you could be looking for has already been provided in this thread by many of the excellent posts. Other than further ideas of "Cast this spell or perform this action", all of which would be metagaming by your standards if you used them in game, I'm not sure what further the community here could give you.

Can you perform the action you suggested? Probably, it's a matter of rolling the dice and finding out.

Should you be allowed to perform the action you suggested? Absolutely.

SHOULD you perform the action you suggested? There's some pretty strong cautions against it coming from this thread...instead of discussing the GM's role in this scenario, perhaps you'd be better off turning the conversation to how the GM feels about what the fallout of this action will be, not within the campaign, but with the group in general.

At this point, both of these threads have gotten VERY VERY convoluted.

First off to the DM OP in this thread: You have my sincere admiration. This campaign, from the small level of detail I've read here, seems to be as convoluted in thought, planning and execution, as any $20 hardcover I've ever read from a major publishing house. Regardless of how these threads pan out, you should feel proud of yourself for a campaign well written and well done. Anyone who's called you an idiot in this thread obviously hasn't read any of your very well written posts.

There's two topics I want to comment on here, and I'm stepping back from any detail because at this point I'm CERTAIN I do not have enough history or knowledge either of the details of THIS campaign or any past history of previous campaigns to give you any useful SPECIFIC advice. I'm going to try to take EVERYTHING you posted here at face value.

First, this campaign is COMPLEX. At least from what I've read here, it seems to be VERY VERY complex. This is awesome. However, complexity in a campaign creates branches in a story line path that can be very unforeseen. It looks to me like you've reached one of these branches. Best laid plans of mice and men, you've encountered a situation where (right or wrong) your PC has jumped to a conclusion you didn't intend for him to come to.

It's my opinion, just from what I've read, that you made this bed for yourself. Even now you've refused in this thread to identify the NPC as safe (and I get why, please don't) so I have to concur with your Rogue player that his interpretation of the events are AN interpretation that could be read. The person talking about Jade Regent and disallowing the PC to kill the main NPC in Act 1 is quite off from where we're at here. In this situation, you (the DM) have spent an inordinate amount of time convoluting the story and throwing curve balls at your players (a good tactic by any good DM).

The problem is when you have players who have only half the information, they are going to come to conclusions on half the information. Sometimes those conclusions draw actions that the DM can obviously say are wrong, but that the players may not be able to. In your post above about the way the party vs. rogue see things I say that both sides have valid opinions...She could be above reproach and she could be the BBEG himself (herself?). There's just not enough information in the campaign to know. This makes BOTH party opinions correct and thus makes the rogue's "Kill her now" action JUST as valid story wise as the rest of the parties.

I also appreciate your opinion that a decision/event as large as this should be handled by the PARTY of players and not a single player. Unfortunately that's not how this has panned out. That's not the reality of your story right now. The reality is that you have a single character looking to go Cowboy on information he's got only half right...

Maybe? I keep coming back to this point because it IS convoluted. The only way I can see agreeing with a heavy handed approach here is if your NPC was ABOVE REPROACH. And she's not...not according to the information posted here and in the other thread anyway. She has the possibility of being linked to the BBEG or even of BEING the BBEG. The rogue may be jumping to the wrong conclusion, but he's not doing so based upon the information he has.

Actions have Consequences is probably the best advice anyone on this thread can give you right now. You have two options as I see it at this point:

1) DE-complicate the story right now. Release some of your plot details, lay out some of your plot hooks, and show a bit more of your hand to your rogue player. Your player has to make a better choice than the one he's discussed with you...he's made his choice based upon the information you've provided him, so now, if this is really that important, you need to provide more info to allow him to make a better choice.

2) Follow "Actions have Consequences" and allow the action to happen. No one here can say definitively, based off of the actions we have, that the Rogue ISN'T doing better for the campaign (I'm not talking for the players of the campaign, I'm talking about for the imaginary story they're living out) by soul locking your NPC and tossing it in a dark hole somewhere. YOU may know that's not the case, your other players may BELIEVE that's not the case, but one player believes that IS the case, and he's got every right to act on it.

Any other option is contrived by you, the DM, to counter an action by your player. The original question in this thread is: How can I save my NPC? The answer is: You can't.

Not without accepting that you have crossed the line from story teller to omniscient player character. All of the ideas on this thread pre-suppose one very important fact: That someone already has knowledge of this Rogue's attempt to remove this NPC from the campaign. The fact you are asking for ideas means that you are about to actively attempt to counter the idea of a PC with knowledge that PC has given you out of character.

This ENTIRE thread means one thing: You, the DM are guilty of metagaming. This is a bad spot because the story cannot continue without the DM knowing all the details, but the players can no longer give you all the details for fear of you using those details against them.

Be cautious, you're quickly stepping into "Me vs. Them" territory. Your reasons may be the best in the world (and it sounds like they are, trying to prevent RL Heartache from the outcome of a game is always a noble cause), but your credibility as a DM to your players (not us "anonymous faces on the internet") is quickly going to come into question. It may be this one campaign for this one player, but what happens next time when another of your players finds himself in a similar situation? They look back at this campaign and see how you handled this event and realize that they can't trust you.

You save the NPC in this case by providing better motivation and better information to your player at an appropriate time (like when he's about to commit the act) that convinces him not to follow through on the act...if you can't do that, as a DM, you must sit back and let the actions have the intended consequences.

The second point I wanted to touch on was the motivation of the rogue player. It sounds like part of his interest is to surprise the rest of the party at the end with his wondrously devious actions for some big reaction at the end.

I cautioned him in the other thread about his motivations...making sure that what he's looking to do is better for the story and not for his personal ego. If this is an ego issue, where he wants this big ending so that he looks cool, or some such, then I'll present you a third option for how to save your NPC.

Just say no.

Don't metagame the information, don't RP the solution, don't try to rules lawyer or spell combine or otherwise give in to finding an IN CHARACTER reason to stop his actions. If you truly believe that this action is harmful, not just to your storyline but to your players and their enjoyment of the game, then you as the DM have not only the right, but the responsibility to tell the player that you will not condone such an action.

If he wants to argue with you tell him there's an over arcing rule that he may or may not find in the various handbooks but which has existed in D&D Since it's original printing back in the 1970's.

Have fun.

If his action is sure to cause conflict and pain and suffering to the other players, if it's going to cause drama and hard feelings among your gaming group, simply tell him no. Quit looking for IC solutions to OOC problems...deal with Out of Character issues out of character, deal with IC problems with IC solutions.

From everything I've read, IC the character is within his full rights to do exactly what he's trying to do. The IC solution is to let it happen or provide him better information to help him make a different choice.

OOC the character may be harming the group as a whole...that's a decision you have to make as the DM. If that is how you feel, stop the action. Period. You don't have to justify your actions as the DM to stop an OOC issue from occuring...here's where "It's my campaign, and I don't feel that action will have good consequences on this gaming group" is appropriate.

--Illydth

Stupid post monster; let's try this again:

I have been thinking about this and about your comment on what the DM is there for.

Here's my take:
One: the DM is there to tell a story. He/she has gone to a great deal of effort to work out this story. He/she is willing to let the PCs help tell the story, realizing (hopefully) thatthe PCs amy very well alter his story based on theirs.

Two: And that's the rub. In any game, the PCs each have an individual story they want to tell/play out. The DM needs to be able to work those stories into his/her story. Conversely, the PCs need to be able to work their stories into the DM's plot. If I decide to run Carrion Crown and the PCs all make up stories for Skull & Shackles, it isn't going to work. If all but one of the players make up stories for Carrion Crown knowing what I'm doing and that last one makes up a story for Jade Regent, that PC is the odd one out.

Three: In addition, the players also have to make sure their stories blend to a degree. Example: Jade Regent; PC 1 wants to set NPC on the throne because it's the right thing to do, PC 2 wants to set NPC on the throne and marry them, taking over the country by proxie, PC 3 believes they are the true heir and wants to destroy NPC, PC 4 is working for the bad guy and PC 5 is playing to Carrion Crown...this game isn't going to go well.

What story are the other PCs trying to tell? There was a comment made that the DM riffed off of coments like 'what if she is the bbg?'. What sort of stories were being proposed with those comments? Whose story are you trampling on to make your story the most important one? This is why 'It's what my character would do' has destroyed so many games and gaming groups.

I'm sure your DM can work around your plan to continue to tell his part of the story. That gives you your tale and fulfills your enjoyment of the game. But at the cost of the other player's stories.

I repeat; what do the other PCs/players want? Work with them. Because otherwise, your 'big reveal' is...

And, I guess, I have to respectfully disagree with your position on this.

First, if the DM is there to TELL the story not to FACILITATE the story then the party actions are pre-ordained...you can't kill the characters because they have to be at the end of the story to see it through...unless you determined that the characters WILL die in which case you have the reverse.

A DM Simply cannot write a story past a certain point. In my current Campaign I have a DMPC and that DMPC IS the central character in the story. That said, I'm not nieve enough to have that DMPC be immortal to the story line. He CAN and MAY die through events or faults not his own...the story goes on. Does my ending work if he's not there? YES, YES it does! Because I don't have the final battle scene all constructed blow by blow in my mind...it's a fleshed out concept that flows regardless of who happens to be there. The "final reveal" plot point works regardless of who happens to be in the room at the time.

Again, all DM's have to be VERY careful about writing a book for a story. Look through any pre-printed module from TSR, WotC, Pathfinder, etc...you can't find an "ending" in any of them. You get a general concept about what happens, you may even have a "what happens if it goes wrong" section in the module, but you'll never read "At this point the players should be able to corner the BBEG and..."

It's NOT the DM's story. It's their concept, it's their world, it's their characters, but it's not entirely their story.

I'm all for a DM that has a campaign planned out, and I’ve got to admit I'm REALLY curious about this particular campaign: 5 minutes of reading and I'm hooked on how this thing turns out. I appreciate a good COHESIVE story start to finish, which requires a DM to have a plan all the way through the game. It becomes a HUGE problem, however, when that plan becomes less a plan and more a set of "on the rails" events that players simply have to live through. I've made that mistake, my players have corrected me SEVERAL TIMES on it.

Regarding "Two" above, again, I disagree. You seem to be under the impression that the Rogue in this scenario had decided that his story should converge from the DM's story. This is entirely not the case. The Rogue is reacting TO the DM's story, in what I personally consider to be an ENTIRELY LOGICAL way to the limited information that I have. While there MAY BE other ways of handling it (and there are many good ways pointed out on this thread) there is a difference between suggesting ALTERNATE actions and saying that the OP's posted action is INVALID.

That's something we have to be careful with here, the OP has a perfectly valid action based upon the information he's posted here. There may be other ways to handle it, but it doesn't make the action he's doing wrong.

As to "evil" the action he's talking about performing is NOT evil. An action designed to save a larger portion of the populace at the cost of a smaller group is NOT evil, it's actually more Good/Neutral. There've been a multitude of stories and movies dealing with exactly this situation: what IS the morality of sacrificing a small group for a larger cause?

All this said I am starting to get disturbed by the attitude of the OP.

While I don't object to the action, the motivation is starting to bother me. When I originally read this, I was looking at it as a PC choice to uphold what he felt was the best for the party...protecting the party against it's own inability to see reality for reality.

The further I read the OP's posts about "the big reveal" the more selfish this action seems to become. While I still believe the action to be justified based upon how the DM has setup the NPC to the party, I can't help but start feeling a bit uneasy at the OP's focus on this glorious "surprise" moment at the end of the campaign where a single player gets to identify himself as a mastermind at the cost of everyone else.

That motivation does, indeed, bother me...it's quite anti-social in nature. While I have a problem with the DM who puts his campaign on rails and pushes the PC's only through the events as the DM wants them, I also have a problem with a PC who decides he's the hero and everyone else should revel in his own fortunes.

OP: If your motivation behind this action is that you feel the party has grown too attached to what you are VASTLY considering to be a liability to the party, I'm all for your actions. The one visionary sacrificing his honor for the group of sheep being led to the slaughter is a heroic act. PKing or NPKing for the sake of "Look at me, I'm awesome! Bow before me party members I played you all for FOOLS!" is group destroying...I certainly wouldn't be interested in playing with that person again.

D&D (and it's variants) is a cooperative game, not a competitive game. The stories flow best when players work together and with the DM to create a challenging campaign that everyone enjoys. There are times where players HAVE to go against other players for the story to be successful, and this is one case where the DM seems to have inadvertently created this situation. So long as the *player's* motivation is larger than his own glory, I'm all for the action and I'm against a DM who arbitrarily denies those actions because it doesn't fit some pre-built scenario for his or her campaign.

This one, however, is starting to stink a bit more than it did when I first read it. There's just a bit too much "player ego" creeping into the motivation for this action.

OP Here's a point to consider: What you're talking about is YOUR "big reveal" not the STORY'S "big reveal"...that's where the problem comes in. Look at the ending of the campaign and ask yourself:

* Is this action facilitating the end of the story so that the campaign comes to a close on a high note?

* Or is this action facilitating the end of the story so that YOUR CHARACTER comes to a close on a high note?

If this "big reveal" overshadows the real end of the story I caution you against it.

These are the options I've come up with so far and I'm not entirely happy with any of them.
-Tell the player not to despite he's convinced "it's what my character would do"
-Let him proceed with the...

Yuck to all those...where's the "Let the Rogue do what he wants, let the dice roll determine the outcome, and let the campaign continue on with the results of the action being taken into consideration" option?

I've got 2 comments and I want you to know that as a DM of 20+ years you're not alone in this...I'm as guilty as you are, even to this day of the following as well.

You are not reading a book to your players, you are writing a story that is based around THEIR actions. Your mistake here was making the story pivot around this NPC. D&D Campaigns pivot around the PLAYERS not the NPCs. They are an ongoing story with an open ending that isn't written till the ending happens. As I told your player in his own thread, this is a combined story with your players having some say in it...your pre-conceived ending, while I'm sure it's spectacular and would take the breath away from your players if only you'd be allowed to tell it (I know mine would...every time)...is IRRELEVANT.

You have 2 options right now, and I council you (thorough experience) to be careful which one you select.

* As all of your answers above indicate and lead toward, you can Deus Ex Machina a solution to the problem forcing the players to live through your pre-written story (whether they want to or not).

* Or you an let your ending go, understand your roll as FACILITATOR of the story and not as story TELLER, and get joy out of "I wonder where this is going to lead?"

I know that was very leading, but you have the option of doing either of these. Just understand when you make your choice what you're doing.

One question for you to consider: Are you certain that your pushback here isn't because your "Loose Cannon" has just found the Achilles Heel of your plot? The destruction of this NPC surely doesn't bring crashing down all of the plots and plans of their foes does it?

Your second mistake here was setting the pivotal NPC up in an anti-party light. That may have been unintentional, but the fact is, someone in your party has been given the impression that this NPC is about to get him killed...you cannot expect the PC to walk merrily into the light (the oncoming train) with a smile on his face...particularly not when he has the capability of stopping it. Again, this isn't a book, it's an ongoing story.

This sounds like an EXCELLENT time to me for an NPC "pouring her heart out" by having your NPC make a perception check just before the attack happens to realize it's coming and, though she's helpless to stop it, beg to explain herself to the Rogue before he s***cans her from your story. Her response (JUST to the Rogue) should be to pour her heart out to him about her experiences, what's happened to her and why she's not expendable. She should come to realize her life is null and void and go so far as to explain everything she could possibly know to save her life. If she's that linchpin to the story of 6 players, then you may even have to go so far as to explain the ENTIRE plot and spoil the ending to this Rogue simply to allow him to see what you see through your NPC's eyes to save her. Once the explanation is done it should STILL be left up to the rogue whether to follow through or not.

If you've painted her as a spy without her having ANY knowledge of ANYTHING happening to her, you've made your own bed.

I don't blame your rogue at all. His life is threatened, you've backed him into a corner and given him information that this NPC is the cause of at least some of his woes without giving him enough information to understand why her benefit to him is MORE than her determent.

Another question for you to consider: *IS* her benefit more than her determent to him? To the party? Or is your rogue player right in that killing her would CERTAINLY make his life a hell of a lot easier? Is there an explanation you can give him? Facts from the Campaign, Secrets yet to be revealed that you could provide that would change his mind about this NPC that will keep him from his course?

Or would your PC's be better off if he just stuck a knife in her gut now?

Just to add, I have a huge amount of respect for my DM and I do not believe he is playing favourites. I don't believe it is particularly relevant that the NPC is romantically linked to his wife's PC, if it were linked to another PC I believe the situation would be the same. I don't believe he would have an issue killing his wife's pc any more than killing any other PC.

I don't believe the NPC is immortal, I believe the DM has her death scene in mind and has had for a long time. I just don't want to play the scenes which lead up to that death scene. I would rather act now and save her life (in the long run). "In order to save the village it became necessary to destroy it"

I do believe the DM is attached to the NPC. In a campaign where most of the villains are personality less bugs, he loves his recurring villains and NPCs.

Here, Again, I have a problem with this. (My current players who may read this will be rolling their eyes when they see this because it's a complaint I've had with my own active campaign, giving you advice and actually following it are two different things, and the first is MUCH easier than the second).

It sounds like your DM has pre-written the ending. It would save you BOTH a lot of trouble if he'd simply have everyone put down the dice and read you his pre-written ending.

He has the death scene of an NPC already in mind? Then the events leading up to that death scene must already be there also. How much of this campaign is little more than "Ok, you're now going to do this...please roll for it?"

That's the difference between the DM being a story FACILITATOR and the DM being a story TELLER. He (and I, many times) needs to be reminded that he's not reading a book to you, he's creating a story with you, and in that his ending, while quaint, is IRRELEVANT. That might be what he works toward in the story, but he cannot and SHOULD NOT *STOP* you from enacting an alternate ending he hasn't come up with.

I think that's the crux of the issue you two are discussing...you're going off the beaten path with a story he has pre-conceived. At this point, I agree with the others on the thread, it's time to get your DM's permission to go read his thread and get your viewpoints straightened out.

I'm confused about your DM, not you. I haven't read the other thread, so I apologize for jumping in without a clue of your DM's perspective.

First things first, a DM's job is as a story teller and Facilitator. I see WAY TO MANY DMs who feel their job in the game is to be the anti-hero to the campaign. To any DMs reading this, YOU CANNOT "WIN" DnD, you are not a player and thus have no stake in "winning". Any scenario you setup where you care more about "your" NPCs than you do about the players is a scenario you are actively courting pissing off your players.

Don't get me wrong, I've made the mistake. Even at 37 after 20 years of DMing campaigns I STILL have to check myself almost EVERY TIME I run a campaign not to get TOO involved in the life bar of my anti-hero.

Back to your scenario: The DM has created an NPC, linked that NPC to your ultimate enemy, given you the task of beating this ultimate enemy, fed you enough information to make you believe this NPC is working against you (intentionally or unintentionally) and he expects this NPC NOT to meet it's death at the party's hands?

Here, again, he is a story facilitator. If this NPC is truly a linchpin and he's painted himself into a corner with the NPC he can't get out of, and he truly doesn't want you to kill this NPC then I suggest following the DM's advice. Sounds like an excellent time for the NPC to reveal all of her secrets (or most of them) in an EXCELLENT dialog about her experiences when she was kidnapped with hard evidence why she's either not expendable or not working for the enemy.

If she can't do that, if this just doesn't work, any good DM worth his salt has to be willing to follow the story. I was playing in a Cthulhu campaign once that pretty much reproduced the "alien" story...at least to some effects. At the end of the campaign someone was going to die by letting hundreds of thousands of volts of electricity pass through them. My character had the technical skills the DM was counting on to save the REST of the party while the classic hero character was supposed to be the sacrificial lamb. Unfortunately earlier in the campaign my character had decided through events that happened to her that she was tired of being the "last survivor" (think Ripley from Alien) of these alien massacres so she sacrificed herself to save the rest...thereby damning all of them to death (no one saw the DM's plan till later).

Thing is, the DM let this happen. He didn't try to step in and change things, he didn't try to talk me out of frying myself, he didn't reveal part of his plan and say "now let's reconsider". He facilitated the story and allowed what he knew to be the worst possible ending to happen...because that's what you DO as a DM.

While I appreciate everyone saying "If the DM is trying to keep this NPC Alive there must be a reason." If he's not revealing the reason and simply pleading with the party to not kill the NPC there's something broken with the story.

And if the DM can't handle the fact that it's his wife's love interest in the campaign that's about to get whacked, and his wife can't handle her love interest getting whacked by the DM / Another player, you ALREADY have several strikes against your campaign.

* You have an NPC that is immortal. No matter what ever happens in the campaign you all KNOW the NPC will never die. It doesn't take long for the party to come to grips with this fact and abuse it to the death of the campaign.

* You have "protected players", if sending the NPC in as fauder doesn't work, send HIS WIFE IN as fauder...have her stand in front and tank the Terrasque. If he's not willing to kill his wife's lover NPC he's CERTAINLY not willing to kill his wife's character.

Explain to your DM that his story is going off the rails at this point. The only thing you can do as a DM to protect something like this from happening in your campaign is Deus Ex Machina...and doing so is ALWAYS the first step to an unbelievable, and thus very distracting, campaign.

The fact that he DM has already given you all the tools and THOUGHT THROUGH these things (lead protects from divination...who the hell has THAT house rule who hasn't already pre-supposed this kind of thing happening, etc.) leads me to believe he's simply playing favourites.

Explain to your DM he either needs to come up with a good, in game, reason or you're shivving mommy's little lover spy at the first available opportunity :)

Heh, no issues Lash, you're all good.

We're going again, check the campaign thread and post in please. :)

Quick request for Round 2 actions for Selena, Dirk and Thantos before I continue this afternoon/evening. And Lash, post in if you happen to be around. :)

Going through Character sheets and updating what I have.

Mird: You can use Mird's 45 HP he already has if you'd like to (instead of the 33 you sent me). Mird's original HP by level were: 10+1, 4+1, 8+1, 10+1, 3+1, with the +1 HP Favored Bonus selected at each level = 45 HP.

The rest of your character sheet checks out. I didn't do the calculation of your coin, but given the gear value, I'm wiping it out, assuming it's been spent on your equipment. If you have a better value for me please let me know.

Thantos: Check your e-mail, there's a couple spell and feat issues I'd like to get cleared up.

Was a great time. Wished everyone had done better, but no one was overly disappointed.

Last year, one of our guys went 3rd in the world and my boy went 19th. This year, we didn't do so well, coming in 44th, 52nd and 59th in Juniors, 39th in Seniors, and 47th in Masters. The official record for all my guys is 4-3, no one broke the 5-2 barrier.

However, after realizing that no one was going to make Top Cut, my Juniors (including my son) looked at his two best friends with him and realized that just meant they had an entire day in Hawaii with each other before they all took off for home. Between the Sleep Over Saturday night and the swimming literally all day on Sunday, I think everyone enjoyed themselves immensely.

All in all, it was a good time.

Hey guys, sorry, I'm back from Hawaii and ready to go. Post will be up by this evening moving forward on this. :) Hopefully that should be the end of the post lagging for a while.

Looks like our new players have most of their character stuff handled at this point.

We'll look to start getting back into posting around Monday.

Again, I remind everyone that from the 8th (Wednesday) through the 13th (Monday) I MAY be out of pocket (and thus slow or even no posting) as I've got more travel ahead of me (LAST FOR THIS YEAR!).

To the OP since we seem to have gotten a bit off topic.

Again, not trying to judge you or your players, but you seem to be forcing an issue here.

The way I'm reading things, your players seem to be a bit more ROLL play oriented and a bit less ROLE play oriented. You seem to be interested in introducing sex into the campaign for yet another way to provide your players a numerical buff for their characters and/or a way to give one of your players crap.

Honestly, there's about a million and 1 ways to add buffs to characters other than through the act of sex, and if you really need more excuses to give a guy crap, explore better scenarios if you can't find a good way to put a player in an awkward position that his buddies are going to laugh at him about. Just remember, a 1 rolled on a D20 is all the DM needs to scar his players for life (note I didn't say "characters"). :)

If you feel your players are receptive to someone catching an STD and spending a gaming night trying to fix it, then by all means play out the scenario...I can't imagine it'd be hard for a gaming group interested in this kind of story to find one of them to be the unwilling victim...there's very little need to look up or research rules on bonuses and penalties for STD's if this is the basis for your night's adventures. Stand them in a whore house, flaunt the most naughty and hot things of interest in front of them: one of the PC's will take the bait, and your adventure begins. No need for tables of rolls and the draw of battle buffs.

If, however, it IS a sideline thing which, in your campaign and group, breaks down to nothing more than a benefit/determent system (this is what it sounds like reading your posts), I'm questioning the real need to bring this into the game.

Let me put it this way? Why Sex and STDs? Why not a buff from eating good food at a tavern or a determent for food poisoning? Why not a buff for visiting the town priest and praying to their gods, or a determent for being tricked into praying to the wrong gods? What is it about "Sex" and "STDs" is drawing you to that plot mechanism for your bonuses and penalties?

If the answer, as it sounds like in your posts, is you want one of your players characters to catch an STD so the party will give him real life crap about it, I'll give you the advice to get a bit more creative.

A Pissed Magician + Charm Person + Women's Lengere/Clothing + A VERY public place will get you the same thing without introducing an entirely new rule set to your campaign.

Recap: Act 2, Chapter 1, Into the Tower
----------------------------------------
Having been run out of Kiren's Keep as fugitives on the run from the law for murdering the Keep's Commanders (Even though one of those commanders is a current companion, and the other was a brotherhood traitor to the lands), you've undertaken a trek of 300+ miles north from Kiren's Keep to the capitol of the Duchy of Kerimekios, in an attempt to obtain an audience with Duke Stephan himself in order to clear your names...and to do so without getting captured in the process.

Your ill luck has held, however. On the 3rd day out from the keep, after stopping off in a small town for supplies (including some small end magical items), you were attacked out of nowhere by yet another assassin group, this one so secretive none of you (other than Armand) had heard of it. Now on the run from two (assumeably but maybe not) different groups of trained killers and the legal law enforcement of the Duchy you are trying to make your way another 150+ miles past the Duchy's patrols.

If all of this weren't bad enough a late spring blizzard has cropped up, which, in one case, had allowed you to remain free of capture, but on the other case had practically frozen you solid! Looking for shelter to ride out the remainder of the storm, a small side road has taken you to what appeared to be an abandoned tower that, as you've recently found, is not so much as "abandoned" as "ransacked" by someone...or, again as you've recently found, something.

Character histories and current character sheets/Spellbooks have been sent through e-mail to each of you.

Again, feel free to use those as a baseline or feel free to redo them. If you like the HP already on the character, use it, otherwise feel free to use what you have rolled.

If you have history related questions, please put them in spoiler text here or contact me through e-mail (not everything about every character's history is well known to everyone at this point).

Any more generic questions, feel free to post at large and either I or another player can help you with them.

---------------
Homework
---------------
Before we start back up play I'd like you both to read the following:

* Recap of Act 1, Introduction to Act 2 (Second Post on this Page) - No real need to read from here on (unless you want to) as I'll recap the events.

* Your Individual Character Histories (Sent through E-mail)

* Starting on Page 53 (Second Post) and as many as you can get through from there will catch you up to where you currently stand and the issues the party's faced since they've entered their current location.

* Recap of events up to the Tower (Next Post).

* (OPTIONAL) Any documents you want to look at (background information), posted at [url=http://www.wowraidmanager.net/ROAR/[/url]

We can start back up when you two are at least mostly happy with your characters and have most of the above completed. Let me know.

I will definitely keep you on the reserve list Fnord72, thanks for the response!

HP Progression was Maxed out for level 1, roll the other 4 levels. If you end up with too many 1s and 2's let me know. :)

We use the board rolling system for pretty much everything.

(Thanks, Selena, for pointing that out...*wink* :) )

Running short of time, E-mails will be sent tomorrow instead of today, sorry about that, prior commitments and too much work. Check your e-mails tomorrow sometime around or after noon (whenever you get a chance, there's no major rush here) CST for character information.

I'll try to make myself available checking here for questions tomorrow afternoon.

Ah, should have mentioned. I've got modules for each of the major pathfinder guides (Advanced Players Guide, Ultimate Combat, Ultimate Magic, All 3 Bestiary Guides, and Adventurers Armory), feel free to use what's out of there.

I DO NOT use any of the campaign settings guides since we are outside the pathfinder world.

Advancement Speed for the Campaign is Medium, 25 Point buy (I believe) was the creation mechanism.

I'm not sure what PCGEN is.

Wealth on character is already tracked, I'll send you the current character sheet and let you work from there. We've had one opportunity for a magical shopping trip so I'll allow anything up to a +1 for purchase if it's not on your character already and any general / common potions and such. Anything more special, please ask, I'll be happy to talk with you about it...I'm no Monty Hall DM but I don't mind a little magic in the party either.

Current Character will be in e-mail hopefully before the end of today.

Pendin, there's actually some work regardless on the character to do as I don't think all of his skills were fully chosen...the previous player didn't have a lot of time to dedicate, so there are some things you might want to look at.

BTW I use HeroLab to keep track of the characters. You can use whatever tools you wish to (I think there's a spreadsheet out there you can use or just the standard character sheet/pen/paper method...). Any which way, however, changes need to come to me so I can keep track of the final status of the characters...however works best for you.

E-mail should reach you by the end of today.

(And yes, it's friendly. The player history will fill you in on it, but basically you're all "outcasts" from the same kingdom, though at very different times. Take a look at the links I posted in the prior post and specifically the last link (Start of Chapter II) which will give you a (hopefully) reasonable catch up to where you were at starting this chapter...I'll catch you the rest of the way up in a recap here later.

Two interested parties have responded with acceptance in the Recruitment thread, Psychicmachinery and Pendin Fust.

I'll be working with them over the next few days to get Thantos and Mird up to speed. In the mean time say hi to your new party member players. :)

Instead of sending the 'state of the party' to the new two players, I'll post it here since it's been a week or so since we've gotten into the trenches with the party.

I expect we'll be back on track with the campaign AT THE LATEST by the 14th. I am out for Pokemon Worlds from the 8th through the 13th, but may be able to post something...no promises.

If anyone has questions or comments, please feel free to post them and I'll get them covered.

I'll go ahead and link the campaign thread here however there's 2500 posts in it at this point so you're unlikely to get through them all...:)

Also, background information and maps are being posted here. The current map is Players Map of the Tower.

Finally, the start of Chapter 2 can be found at the URL below, start at the top of the page. The second post is a good recap for what happened in Chapter 1 and how the party has gotten into Chapter 2. If there are questions, please ask...I'll give you the info the party has.

Start of Chapter II, Chapter 1 Recap.

Psychic and Pendin, go ahead and head on over to the Rise of a Regent Discussion Forum and post your hellos.

The party is made up of 3 other players and one DMPC. You can get acquainted with the other players there while I get your character histories dug up and sent through e-mail. We'll get started on working through your characters.

If you'd like to, you may go ahead and draft up your respective Ranger or Wizard characters, as I said, I'm happy to either send you what's already out there or I'm happy to have you rebuild them skills/points wise from the ground up...I think I started with a 25 point buy system.

I'll get an e-mail out to the two of you soon.

--Doug

Just so you can keep track of it, I've got a post up in the Campaign Recruitment thread linked at the top. I've already got 1 hit from someone wanting to play the wizard. We'll keep out there for another Day or so and see if we can get a hit on the Ranger and we'll move forward.

--Doug

Give me a day or two to get you an E-Mail Psychic. I'd like to get another response or two back here before I start sending out information.

--Doug

TBH I'm not sure it's time to check into a clinic. I'll buy the different strokes for different folks comments.

I should remind everyone, however, that sex in D&D has been there since the Succubus was introduced in AD&D First Edition. The whole INTENT of that demon type is allure, ensnarement, and some of the most horrific kinds of BDSM you could ever imagine.

If you are running a Demonic / Horror based campaign, between evil rituals, twisted cults and their beliefs / ideals, and certain elements of some NPC Monsters themselves, it can be VERY difficult NOT to bring sex into a campaign.

Even without this kind of content, there are times where you almost have to throw suspension of disbelief into a campaign NOT to introduce some kind of sexuality. PC's being captured by ruffians with female characters in the mix (particularly those with exceptionally high charisma scores) really brings almost a "Wait, why wouldn't they..." question to the minds of players when your characters are stripped of their weapons, armor and practically clothing and then...left alone?

Even without all of this, I've found it almost impossible for even adult players (let alone hormone driven teens) of an RPG to be in a co-ed party and NOT have some kind of sexual tension between characters. Even if it's not acted on, the opportunity is always there.

D&D/Pathfinder is a rough world for your player characters. No matter how "lawful" the adventure, bad things happen, and sometimes, those bad things almost have to include some of the oldest forms of human mistreatment...why? Because it's how humans act...and, as a DM telling a story intended to be believable, to deviate from what is normal for people (even if we don't want to face it) can cause huge suspension of disbelief issues for your players.

Asking for some guidelines on how to handle these kinds of topics doesn't make the DM intending to use them a horrible DM.

The first suggestion I would make is to understand your players. If you know situations can arise where horrific topics like torture or rape might occur (even if they're not guaranteed) make sure to ask your players if they mind a little adult content in their game. If your players are uncomfortable with it, suspension of disbelief be damned, don't include it. Perhaps that smelly bandit who's been out in the woods for the last 5 years avoiding the law has a headache that afternoon when your female party bard with an 18 charisma, wearing the skirt slit up to her hips, gets captured.

Secondly, use some tact and taste when presenting such topics to your players. Graphic descriptions of torture, rape or even simple sex should be kept out of a campaign unless that's what your players...ALL of your players...have asked for. Even then, keep in mind there is quite an art to writing a GOOD porn story...if you don't have what it takes, don't do it...you'll only end up coming across as crass or over the top.

Lastly, don't abuse it. If every other chapter of your adventure includes the party's only female being stripped and ravished over and over again, that's not good story, it's abusive to your players.