Party Conundrum


Advice


So I think our party for Rise of the Runelord is near the point where some of our characters will have to die or just suddenly switch alignments out of nowhere for us to cooperate. Essentially, we have a rogue who claims to be chaotic evil who keeps most of the loot he finds secret from the party and he's been doing a pretty good job of it in-game, an undead lord cleric of Urgothoa who joined our party late and ended up with a large sum of money due to getting the amount of money he should have as a level 6 character while the rest of the party has been way behind the character wealth limit. Then we have our ninja catfolk who is on the line between chaotic evil who seems to be in cahoots with the necromancer and finally me as LN magus/monk who worships Asmodeus and a CG Sylph sorcerer.

So this is the whole situation that played out last night.

Rise of the Runelord:
So we had just fought out way through the Graul residence and our rogue like always managed to get most of the loot. It's been somewhat annoying at the table so far, but character-wise I have given him warning that swift justice will be dealt out if my super lawful magus ever finds out. We ended up saving the Black Arrow rangers in the barn who after hearing that we had just cleared out the house inquired about their gear. Apparently, most of their gear wasn't worth much so our rogue returned most of it except a bow, which apparently was worth some gold. They inquired after the bow, and he said that he didn't have it. I rolled Sense Motive as it seemed suspicious and ended up getting a 31 total. For the first time this whole campaign, I beat his Bluff check. My character was somewhat exasperated with the rogue and decided to get the bow back for the rangers, in quickly doing so, he discovered that this rogue had a whole lot more than the bow and had been keeping a lot of wealth for himself. After being discovered, the rogue threw down the bow and used a vanishing trick (which he got as a rogue talent) and ran away. I quickly cast glitterdust and hit and then the necromancer cast dispel magic and got rid of the glitterdust. There is now this really uncomfortable tension in our party. We then went back to Turtle Ferry (or what was left of it after our necromancer decided to play show and tell at the local schoolhouse with a few burning skeletons) and we are currently planning on how to take the Fort back. Our necromancer tried to send out a message to our rogue using some magical spell to meet us there at the Fort, but he has been captured by ogre's and is being held at the Fort right now.

Essentially, we are at the point where my super lawful character is going to feel obligated to kill this guy off and it may come to a part split as both the ninja and the necromancer are wanted men in Magnimar for killing a few town guards. I'm most confident that I would lose if things came down to an all out fight, and frankly that wouldn't be the worst situation as I could just roll up a character with the right alignment for this party. What I'm afraid of is killing one of these player characters and then having them just creating another bad character to come back into the game and kill me for some BS reason and for this to become a personal thing. I should also note that I am kind of the outsider in this group as I was originally brought in by the DM who is a good friend of mine, but the other three evil members in the party are all high school buddies of his. Now I've become pretty good friends with these guys, but I have a feeling that things will get messy if I kill off a character of theirs.

So what should I do? I know I'm going to get a lot of people wanting me to talk to the DM about this, but I'm pretty sure he knows what is going on and is just leaving it to the players to figure out. I talked to some players letting them know that my character would feel a moral obligation to kill them and they seemed to take this somewhat personally with retorts like "You seriously think you can win against all of us?" I know people are also going to suggest that I find another group, but aside from these few things, I've really enjoyed this group for the most part and the number of readily available friends I have who play Pathfinder regularly are non-existent aside from these guys. Any other advice?


i would simply talk to the DM, tell him your character is leaving the party, as he couldn't stay with evil people like the rest of the party. Maybe even tell him to feel free to NPC your character to gather a party and hunt down these evil doers. And then make a character that fits in with the party.As long as your having fun there is no reason to find another group.


This would probably be really ideal and if I can convince him to do this, that would be wonderful. If I can't pull this off, any other suggestions?

Grand Lodge

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It sounds like your fun game has turned not-so-fun, and I'm not sure there's a path to remedy that. I hate playing with evil PCs. All too often, it's just an excuse for all kinds of in-game douchery, which is what you're being subjected to now. It's not going to change and will likely to worsen the more you try to confront it (cuz hey, I'm just playing my character, man).

Also, there's definitely collusion on the part of the high school buddies, but probably also the GM. They all seem A-OK with this behaviour - this is your problem. Your monk/magus isn't Lawful Stupid, so he should probably also be able to recognize when he is hopelessly outgunned.

If the GM is a friend, I'd talk to him about it. If that doesn't work, your options are to either suck it up or seek out another cabal. It's not what you wanted to hear, I know. It sucks. I recently had to walk away from a group I loved, because one player (the GM's son, aka "special snowflake syndrome") was making the game unfun for everyone. I've since found another group that I like, who are quite happy to have me. :)


You may be having fun now, but the seeds are there for the fun to go sour very quickly. A new character is going to be your only option going forward to continue having fun. If the DM doesn't allow a simple character swap, your options are limited. You might try to arrange with the other players and/or the DM to setup the scene where your character goes off on the rest of the party, making it less likely to create a personal feud while still giving you an opening to bring in a new character. If that doesn't work, leaving the group and finding someone else to play with is, unfortunately, your only real option that doesn't just create more problems down the road. The other players obviously don't care about how well your character does or does not fit into the party, and if the DM doesn't allow a character swap or go along with a story driven, player supported PVP battle, he clearly doesn't either, which will make it harder to find concensus on anything else going forward.


Back when I started playing AD&D, it was in a high school group that started with 22 people in a single group. Very quickly it fell down to closer to a steady 8, a large group but manageable. We had every alignment in that party, and much the same situation with the party split down alignment lines. I was playing a generally good character, and I tended to play things that wanted unity in the party. Needless to say, the chaotic evil cleric who required other party members to pay him for healing, the monk who the cleric had allied with, the hyper chaotic half-orc, the whole party was just a mess. At first, it really bothered me, but once I sort of let my hackles down, it became a lot more fun.

What I would do is sit down, talk with your GM, say "Hey, my character is really chafing in this group, I don't want to start murdering people in their sleep, so I'm just going to have my character step out, would that be all right?" If he says no, then pull the other players aside and explain your situation.

"My character is a pretty orderly good guy, your characters are all evil bastards. It's only a matter of time until it comes to blows. I'm outnumbered, I'll probably lose, but I just want you guys to know, it's all in character. No hostility out of character, no matter who dies or what happens, don't bring in a character who happens to be racist against the race of the person who killed you, or just happens to be of the opposing god, or is the son of the previous character seeking vengeance. That applies to me just as much. Just want to make sure in character fighting won't turn into an out of character thing you know?"

I've played in a group where the in character combat didn't turn into an out of character problem, with near complete strangers, and they are still some of my most memorable gaming moments, but it's easier to do once people know you better and are more likely to trust that you aren't just rocking the boat to be an ass.


Ask them why none of the other party members were pissed that the rogue was stealing from the entire party. And remind them that the Ferry's mayor was willing to cast spells for free before the skeleton nonsense.

Also, if the DM is still trying to run the adventure after a PC necromancer sends burning skeletons into a village schoolhouse, he isn't taking the game very seriously. If anyone is left alive, a posse from the nearest big city is already on its way. If not, the DM is treating the adventure like a video game and not a real world.

Spoiler:
If none of these solutions work, secretly confide in Jakardros, pastor/mayor Maelin Shreed in Turtleback Ferry (if he's still alive; for Christ's sake, he was willing to cast cleric spells for free before the skeleton incident), or the elf (and don't tell the other players, only the DM) and have a runner sent to Bayle Argentine in Magnimar. Arrange for an ambush by lawmen when you've retaken the fort and everyone is low on resources. Surrender immediately, and watch the other player characters get rounded up. If they win anyway and ask why you didn't fight, remind them that it was killing guardsmen that caused this in the first place, and the next posse will be even bigger.
Make sure only one character (the elf, the mayor, or a Black Arrow whose alignment registers as Good) knows about it; that way, fewer Bluff checks need to be made.
Just a heads up: if the DM sends Kaven Windstrike as the runner, he doesn't plan to spring the ambush.

Evil parties, and rogues who steal from party members, are kryptonite for the game.

If they're not willing to play along, point them towards Munchkins, by Steve Jackson games: a parody of D&D where killing the other party members for loot is normal.


Our DM never really expanded upon Turtleback Ferry. It almost sounded like it was a town that shouldn't be there. The DM doesn't really seem to be taking it seriously as the necromancer (aside from burning down a school and killing a few children in the process), also tried to kidnap the teacher there. The only things that the citizens do is give us bad looks every now and then. It really feels like no one in town really cares.


In that case, I highly, highly recommend Munchkins, from Steve Jackson games.


Even if you make a new, evil character wouldn't that just delay the pvp fight. I'm pretty sute that evil people don't take kindly to people stealing from them.


Malusiocus wrote:
Our DM never really expanded upon Turtleback Ferry. It almost sounded like it was a town that shouldn't be there. The DM doesn't really seem to be taking it seriously as the necromancer (aside from burning down a school and killing a few children in the process), also tried to kidnap the teacher there. The only things that the citizens do is give us bad looks every now and then. It really feels like no one in town really cares.

That's a completely different story. In this case, it sounds your GM is taking a sort of GTA approach to running the game in which the game world really doesn't matter. For this group, I would say you are in the wrong in some ways. Not saying you are doing anything wrong, but you are taking your character seriously, roleplaying him based on what he would do. That doesn't sound like what this group does. They make zany characters and screw around in game, get some xp and some loot, burn down a schoolhouse, no real consequences to their character. I'm not saying it's the wrong way to play by any means, every player has their own preference and each group does their own thing, but it does sound like you are getting too in character for that group and could end up butting heads.


ok this sounds worse then I thought. Evil characters that are just getting away with whatever they want sounds like a lack of a good roleplaying world

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