Horribly dysfunctional party.


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So I have been playing roleplaying games for like 15-20 years. I have a ton of experience in all types of games, and systems. So I do not say this lightly when I say I am currently in the most dysfunctional party I have ever been in before and I am not sure what to do.

This is the first time I have ever even considered quitting a table top gaming group, and the thing is I don't really want to quit. I like all the players and most of the time I am actually enjoying the game. I am a fairly relaxed person so I don't get upset very easily and I can enjoy most situations. However occasionally there is just face palming, cringe inducing situations and is like, WTF are they thinking?

For example, we are in a dungeon and the cleric and me(a druid) run out of spells. We decide to rest, during the night we get attacked. Everyone got paralyzed by some ghoul and only me and one other player had to fight it by our self, and it was a very difficult fight. During the fight I got knocked out. We are in the middle of the rest, no one has spells, people are injured, I am knocked out cold. What do they do? Well of course they want to make sure no more monsters sneak up on the party so go exploring the dungeon around us, and walk into two more encounters. They get wiped but no worries, one player was able to make it back to camp, with a hoard of zombies following him. So my unconscious character who wasn't even involved got killed too.

Then there was the player who wanted to play an anti paladin, and joked about how he wanted to kill player characters. Do I even need to go into details? Well that problem was solved when he tried to push my cleric(who can't swim and is purely a buff type spell caster) into some water to lure monsters out of the water. Well it lured a monster out of the water but it wasn't the one he expected and when I ran away, it ate him.

So shortly after that, there was this time we came across a giant pit filled with bones. We tie up some rope and climb down. Turns out they were skeletons and one player was down at the bottom and surrounded. So the two npcs in the party climb down to help, the players just sat back and were all "Nah forget that." Luckily the player in the pit did eventually escape but both npcs died.

You know what the other players were doing while that battle in the pit was happening though? Me(still the cleric) and a druid accidentally touched this object that knocked us out and make us appear dead. One of the players decided that icly he is a very cautious person, so icly his character would as quickly as he could to desecrate and destroy our corpses so there was no chances we would come back as undead...

There was literally 50 skeletons in the pit fighting with party members(the one player and two npcs), and his top priority was he had to destroy and desecrate our bodies(ie murder us since we weren't actually dead) to prevent us from becoming undead. He wasn't a cleric, he hadn't actually seen anyone come back to life as undead. He just thought since there was undead near by we might become undead so he had to destroy our bodies as fast as possible.

And that isn't even the worse of it. So icly he thought we died, and so icly he isn't doing anything wrong. He doesn't want to metagame off the ooc information that we are probably still alive(despite that being the far better approach from a fun/story/cooperative point of view), I can kind of respect that, even though I am pretty sure he could of came up with an ic reason not to desecrate his friends bodies. However the druid's animal companion was actually defending the druids body. And he attacks the animal companion and tries to murder it so he can get to the body!

What is the logic here? He is worried the druid might raise from the dead as a skeleton and hurt someone, so provokes a fight with the big tiger who is probably more dangerous than whatever undead the druid would become? Not wanting to fight the tiger is the perfect excuse for leaving the body alone. Especially since, as I mentioned, this entire time part of the party was in a pit fighting monsters.

Then they tell me that the next game session we are getting a new player, a player who is apparently renown for their bad choices. I have never played with them before, but if my current party thinks this player is renown for horrible decision making, that frankly scares me.

The DM thinks that part of the problem is we don't really have a goal, and thinks once we have a unifying goal as a party we will all come together an work as a team! I think that is an extremely naive view.

The party did recently try to organize a bit, by picking a leader. The leader being the guy who murdered me and tried to murder the druid, because the vote happened when most of the players were dead(2 players and 1 npc alive, while 3 players and 2 npcs were dead). So only a tiny fraction of the party actually voted for the leader, and he didn't even want to be the leader. He was just like, "Who is the leader? No one, I guess I am." So you might see why I don't exactly have high confidence in this turn of events.

On an side note, you might notice all the npcs. I wondered this myself, why a party of six needs npcs back up, let alone 3 npc backups. After this last game secession though, I am thinking the npcs might be a kind of crutch. Because with that many npcs the gm can maybe try to salvage situations that go horribly wrong. Like when the player went in the pit and none of the players were able to help, he had two npcs that could jump down there to help.

That idea scares me as well. Because we switched GM's recently, and both gms were people who have played with each other in the past and they both used a bunch of npcs. When you add that with the fact that they both know this new guy who is renown for bad decisions, it makes me think that they have had many past experiences of dysfunctional parties.

I don't know what to do. Right now we are just reaching third level with most of us at second, if we include npcs then the party has had 12 death so far, that is a lot from going from level 1-3. Also, while I don't mind dying my character would have actually survived both times had the party just abandoned me in the dungeon and never came back. I am literally worse off with the party, than I am being unconscious in the middle of a dungeon all alone.

Anyway, this post is already probably too long. So lets just say, we also have a couple of brand new players who never played until we started playing a few months ago, people argue a lot in general at the table, and the DM enjoys making difficult challenges and doesn't throw any punches, so throw that all into the mix and you get the situation.

So to get to the point. Does anyone have any advise on what to do when things are just spirally out of control, players are killing each other, no one cooperates, and everything is just a chaotic mess?


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Suck it up or leave.

If you browse the Advice section a bit, you'll get the same advice, perhaps more wordily, from everyone else on every thread with the exact same problems you have.

You may like the people, but they're clearly shitty players, and you're not having fun. So you can suck it up and not have fun for...what reason? Or you can leave, and remain friends with these people but not game with them.


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Leave and never look back.


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Or talk it out - out of character - a proper sit down, grown up and honest talk away from the gaming table.

Things such as acceptability of PVP etc should always be talked out, ideally before you start, but certainly as soon as issues arise.


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Bottom line, is their crap worth playing the game for?

Doesn't matter if you can find another group to play with or not.

Fun > their crap = keep playing

Fun < their crap = quit.


Sundakan wrote:

Suck it up or leave.

If you browse the Advice section a bit, you'll get the same advice, perhaps more wordily, from everyone else on every thread with the exact same problems you have.

You may like the people, but they're clearly s@$@ty players, and you're not having fun. So you can suck it up and not have fun for...what reason? Or you can leave, and remain friends with these people but not game with them.

I kind of expecting someone would say that hehe. So it isn't a surprise though I might be kind of naive about it, since I am hoping the situation is salvageable. I do enjoy the game more often than not, but these occasional moments of insanity are a bit much.


To be fair I'd have "killed" your cleric too. He has all the evidence he needs that the dead come back in the form of a giant pit. You looked dead. He's not going to take a nap beside you.

Why the frig didn't they just pull the pc back up the rope? Whacky.


Lorila Sorita wrote:
I kind of expecting someone would say that hehe. So it isn't a surprise though I might be kind of naive about it, since I am hoping the situation is salvageable. I do enjoy the game more often than not, but these occasional moments of insanity are a bit much.

The only way I can imagine salvaging this situation is to treat the game as 'Paranoia with broadswords' (Trust the GM! The GM is Your Friend!), and just enjoy all the random incompetence and backstabbery. If that doesn't appeal to you, FLEE NOW AND NEVER LOOK BACK. These players sound like terrible jackasses, and life is too short of put up with people like that when you don't need to.


That is... pretty darned stupid. The first one I can accept; that was just terrible judgment on the part of your party, and a lack of planning for not having consumables to bring characters back to consciousness. The antipaladin really should have never been; evil NPCs require maturity (which this guy clearly lacks if he's joking about killing other party members - a big red flag on its own regardless of alignment/class) to work well, but the antipaladin really only works as a PC with a code of conduct change to allow for a "rational evil" approach rather than shoehorning you into being psychotic. I do like how the GM resolved that situation, though. I can understand not wanting to climb down into a pit (particularly if we're talking about a heavily armored character with no ranks in climb - don't want to fall prone into that mess) but having no way to support your allies from a range is just... bad preparation. It's on my checklist of things I'm looking for when go over a player's character sheet. However, the whole "fight through an allied animal companion in order to desecrate a party member's 'corpse' in the middle of an ongoing battle" just goes beyond stupid.

All things considered, though, "is this group for me?" is a very personal question. If you like the people you're playing with, your best course of action is to try talking to them and seeing if you can get resolve your concerns that way. If you aren't having fun with the group and there doesn't seem to be a resolution to that, then finding a new group may be your only recourse. Which sucks, because I totally get wanting to stick with the same people even if there are group dynamic problems.


Cavall wrote:
To be fair I'd have "killed" your cleric too. He has all the evidence he needs that the dead come back in the form of a giant pit. You looked dead. He's not going to take a nap beside you.

I could respect that, if he didn't attack the animal companion in the middle of battle. He was actually using a bow to shoot at the animal companion to try to get it away from the druid. He could have been shooting arrows into the pit at the actual skeletons who were attacking the party members at that very moment.

The skeletons already in combat with party members should be a higher priority than the peaceful, nonthreatening, clearly living animal companion.


Arbane the Terrible wrote:
The only way I can imagine salvaging this situation is to treat the game as 'Paranoia with broadswords' (Trust the GM! The GM is Your Friend!), and just enjoy all the random incompetence and backstabbery. If that doesn't appeal to you, FLEE NOW AND NEVER LOOK BACK. These players sound like terrible jackasses, and life is too short of put up with people like that when you don't need to.

I was slightly tempted to go that path and try out a wild rager barbarian to show them how poor choices can cause problems. Though as funny as it would be when my barbarian would eventually go frenzy and kill everyone in the party, I felt like that might be a little mean. I am a little too nice to do that though.


Maybe try to win? I mean this mostly as a joke, but only mostly. Try to take charge of the situations? Maybe try to take the leadership position yourself? It sounds like you may need a new character? Make something super optimized and badass, mechanically hard to kill and just own the game (I realize this isn't super easy at lv3) steer the rest towards the logical solutions and away from the insane one. I don't know you personally so none of these may suit your play style but maybe some of them could help? Either way I wish you good luck, I myself would be loath to leave a game without it being the last ditch effort.


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You need to become the GM.

That way you can still laugh at the facepalm moments while not having the frustration of having your character killed at random. You can make them better players by punishing the repeated stupid and rewarding the good play. And if they won't learn you can TPK them without guilt.


Lorila Sorita wrote:
The party did recently try to organize a bit, by picking a leader. The leader being the guy who murdered me and tried to murder the druid, because the vote happened when most of the players were dead(2 players and 1 npc alive, while 3 players and 2 npcs were dead). So only a tiny fraction of the party actually voted for the leader, and he didn't even want to be the leader. He was just like, "Who is the leader? No one, I guess I am." So you might see why I don't exactly have high confidence in this turn of events.

Wait...wait...wait... there were only three people voting, and the person himself voted against it (I assume so, since he didn't want to be leader)... doesn't that mean that only one player and the GM decide to make him the leader?

Or did you mean 2 OTHER players besides him, plus the NPC? That is...better, but still. I would not vote for 'poor priorities' guy. I can write off killing the 'dead' people, but not doing so INSTEAD of fighting the monsters, and also choosing to fight the tiger (personally, I would be trying handle animal checks to send the tiger on a suicide run against the monsters).


lemeres wrote:
Wait...wait...wait... there were only three people voting, and the person himself voted against it (I assume so, since he didn't want to be leader)... doesn't that mean that only one player and the GM decide to make him the leader?

No one actually "voted" him leader. Someone made a comment how having a leader would be good and since no one stepped forward he just figured it was his responsibility. They didn't discuss it at all. He just looked around and was like, "Is anyone the leader?" When no one replied he was like, "Okay, I guess I am." He didn't refuse leadership or anything but he didn't sound even remotely motivated.

So then the very next thing that happened was the three man party ran into me. They said he was the leader. So 3 vs 1 I had to go along with them. It would be weird as a new person alone joining a party of three to question the leader is right off the bat.

Then we ran into 2 new characters. He said he was leader so now it was 4 vs 2. If 4 people say they got a leader who is the two new people to question it?

Then right after we ran into the last 3 people who would make up the party. Now it is 6 against 3. Who are the three new people to question the six existing people?

This all happened right in a row, one after another. So now we got 9 people in the group and he is still leader but only 3(including himself) was even present when he decided to become leader.

It is kind of a funny, because it just kind of happened and no one planned it like that. But obviously that isn't a very good way to choose a leader.


Well, when Mr Leader makes his next horrible decision, and sensible remaining characters should probably depose him.

Seriously though, this sounds like a ridiculous situation/group. Hard to know where to start, but the point has been made that it is ultimately up to you whether your annoyance outweighs the fun you're having.

If it does, i suggest you bounce (respectfully, of course). If it doesn't, i would suggest you keep playing, and do your best to work with your group on improving the level of game play, both via in character actions (play a smart character who will second guess poor team decisions, for example), and out of character (just straight up tell people about your concerns in a direct, but polite and non confrontational manner).

The PC vs PC stuff is really something the group and DM should discuss together though. That's generally not kosher without some sort of DM approval, in my experience. And even the PC who had a rationale for killing the unconscious PCs should probably have been looking for in character reasons NOT to kill them, rather than finding reasons to do do (and as you've shown, he wouldn't have had to look too hard).

Does the same player frequently do aggravating things, and then hide behind the shield of "but it's what my character would do"?


It could have been a... passable method. But that assumes that people have good decision making skills. Or at least average decision making skills.


Call for a vote, the new characters now outnumber the old, the original 3 joined the rest of you as much as much as you joined them.

You are a lot more gracious than I would be to believe that the choices to off your characters weren't a situationally weak attempt to roleplay a meta decision. First death would likely have left your character with any loot she could glean off the party corpses. As a GM I would have made it difficult for you to get a lot, and at least have given you a reasonable chance of you never waking up, but the player scotched any chance of that.

I call utter BS on the second murder, and it was murder. If said character was really concerned you might join the walking dead right then, he would have pushed you over into the pit. What he wanted was your wealth. First rule of an adventuring party, from as far back as it goes, is that the most loot is always on your fellow party members.

Life is a cycle, and karma will always be around to shove a stick in your spokes, perhaps he needs to be reminded of this.


Your narrative implies more bad decisions than you pointed out.

Lorila Sorita wrote:
We decide to rest, during the night we get attacked.

How did you chose the campsite and what defenses did you set up? A bad campsite invites nighttime attacks.

Lorila Sorita wrote:
Then there was the player who wanted to play an anti paladin, ...

As Dasrak pointed out, only under very special circumstances should a GM allow an anti-paladin into a party.

Lorila Sorita wrote:
We tie up some rope and climb down. Turns out they were skeletons and one player was down at the bottom and surrounded.

Why not an immediate withdraw up the rope? If the skeletons were standing ready to attack, it would be obvious, so they must have had to rise from prone or dig out from other bones. Even if some were on their feet already, taking one or two attacks of opportunity has a lot less risk than fighting 50 skeletons.

Lorila Sorita wrote:
Me(still the cleric) and a druid accidentally touched this object that knocked us out and make us appear dead.

The first person to touch that object was caught by surprise. Why did the second person touch the object that apparently just killed with a touch?

Lorila Sorita wrote:
On an side note, you might notice all the npcs.

NPCs are not supposed to take decisions or glory away from the PCs, but a good GM ought to have a wise NPCs speak up about bad decisions. Those NPCs are characters, too, and will not quietly follow decisions that lead to their deaths.

It is not just bad decisions. Capable adventuring has a lot of tips and tricks. For example, Dasrak mentioned one: "a lack of planning for not having consumables to bring characters back to consciousness." Other maxims are never split the party, guard the wizard during combat, and revive the healer first.

Arbane the Terrible's suggestion to enjoy all the random incompetence and backstabbery is a good one. Sometimes a roleplaying game is not about playing competently; instead, it can be about goofing around.

But if you cannot stand that, another option is to create a competent subgroup inside the group. Find another player who can be trained to play well, and have your character team up with his or her character. Good teamwork will keep those two characters alive. Later, marginally observant other players will notice that your two PCs are faring better than their own oft-replaced characters and ask why. Train them, too.


The Steel Refrain wrote:
Does the same player frequently do aggravating things, and then hide behind the shield of "but it's what my character would do"?

A little though not anything at that level. To be honest, I think it is kind of the atmosphere of the game, and I think he might feel pressured to be like that. Because a few of the people seem to have the idea that you always have to 100% of the time do what the character would do otherwise it is metagaming and bad. However, no one is taking things in the proper context.

For example we had this one person at the table who was fighting a monster. IC his character was a really stupid orc. So he is fighting this monster and he stepped to the side into a better position, so our party rogue could sneak attack. No one thought his character was icly smart enough to reposition himself in the way he did and he admits that oocly he did it solely so the rouge could make a sneak attack and icly he probably wouldn't have done it. So a few people were complaining about it and saying he was metagaming and being rather rude and stuff about it.

Now the proper context is that the rogue is a band new player and this was his second session ever and he didn't know how sneak attack worked. The orc fudged how his character would act slightly to create a chance for the rogue to make a sneak attack, so he would learn how to play the character. Because doing a sneak attack in game is better than just explaining it oocly once. Everyone knew this is what he was doing.

Now he might of 'metagamed' but in context he didn't do anything wrong what so ever. It was a one time thing to help a new player understand the game and he didn't do some like crazy thing, he just maneuvered slightly. I actually feel a kind of bad for him, because he stopped showing up regularly to the games after that and may end up eventually quitting altogether.

Ironically that kind of makes it sound like people are like super strict roleplayers or something but no, nothing like that. Most people spend most of the time chatting about ooc stuff, and it is like a pain to keep people ic. So why are they busting his chops for helping a new player and doing something that might slightly seem ooc when people are like on their phones during the game? It is crazy.

That actually happened recently. We were talking about some monster we were fighting, and someone pulls out their phone and googles the monster. I had to comment on that one and was like, "You really shouldn't be looking up monsters while we are fighting them." And he is like, "Oh I was just looking for a picture."

In a way it is kind of funny. Thinking about it, I can laugh and have a good time talking about, so again, I am having fun with the game. But seriously? Are we playing a super serious game where helping the newbie is frowned upon and you have to kill your allies because you feel icly you would? Or are we playing a light hearted game where people can google monsters on their phone and chat about random ooc stuff?

I am actually fine with either type of game, but it is just like a chaotic mess. GM is no help either. He actually talked a new player who is still learning the game into playing a wild mage, and then the wild magic chart wasn't crazy enough for him so found some old chart from like ad&d with extra crazy stuff on it.

Yeah wild magic is cool and stuff but why is the new guy who doesn't know the game, playing one? And it isn't like he came up on with it on his own, he had no idea it existed. Pretty sure people are secretly hoping he blows himself up because they think it would be funny.


Mathmuse wrote:
How did you chose the campsite and what defenses did you set up? A bad campsite invites nighttime attacks.

It was inside a dungeon(bad choice) but was in a room we thought was secured. Turns out there was a hidden passage. We were a new group, all first level characters so I am slightly forgiving of this. If there wasn't a secret passage there, the room did appear secure.

Mathmuse wrote:
As Dasrak pointed out, only under very special circumstances should a GM allow an anti-paladin into a party.

It is even worse than it sounds. The GM allowed the anti paladin in, and in his character introduction we ended up having a big fight and things didn't go well. We eventually became a party after a very tense situation, which also resulted in the druid having their animal companion killed(same druid that got killed in the other story).

After this we decided to switch to a different campaign and someone else took over as GM. In this new campaign we started over but were allowed to bring in the same characters as before but just start over and said we didn't know each other yet. And the second GM let the person play the same anti paladin that had trouble fitting in with the party the first time.

So two GM's two shots to stop it, or at least say something. But nope.

Mathmuse wrote:
Why not an immediate withdraw up the rope? If the skeletons were standing ready to attack, it would be obvious, so they must have had to rise from prone or dig out from other bones. Even if some were on their feet already, taking one or two attacks of opportunity has a lot less risk than fighting 50 skeletons.

That was my suggestion but apparently the barbarian felt it was too cowardly to run. He changed his mind after he got hit a few times.

Mathmuse wrote:
The first person to touch that object was caught by surprise. Why did the second person touch the object that apparently just killed with a touch?

I touched it entirely by accident. I saw the first person touch it and I thought he was dead but I am not trained in heal so I wasn't 100% sure. So I walked over and cast stabilize on the character just in case. GM ruled that it is a reflex save to avoid accidentally touching the object, so I failed the reflex save and accidentally brushed against it.

Apparently anyone moving around near it has to roll a save or they might accidentally brush against it. Several other people had to make rolls too, because the object was right in the way of everything. Only one person actually touched it on purpose.


Daw wrote:
I call utter BS on the second murder, and it was murder. If said character was really concerned you might join the walking dead right then, he would have pushed you over into the pit. What he wanted was your wealth. First rule of an adventuring party, from as far back as it goes, is that the most loot is always on your fellow party members

It is even worse than that. After he looted me, he did decide to throw me into the pit, while the person inside was climbing up the rope and trying to escape.

So like I said before, thinking I am dead and then 'killing me' might make sense. But why was he looting me during battle, and why would he throw my body down the hole a party member is trying to escape form? The player who was trying to escape did have to make a saving throw to avoid getting knocked off the rope, which if he had failed would have resulted in his death. There was no doubt about that.

He is in that much of a rush to get rid of my body he can't wait literally one or two rounds for the person climbing the rope to get out of the pit before chunking my body down at him?


If possible, invite one or two players to a new game, if they are worth salvaging. Other than that, I would leave. I can't imagine how you have stayed through even half of what happened.


Sounds like pure comedy :D

I'd think about my ambitions in this gaming group for some time and if I'm d'accord with this chaos I'd plan out 10 characters, not get attached to them too much and enjoy the show. Maybe play some madmen who sometimes have the urge to kill someone so you can justify in character that you have to backstab that f@#$er for looting allies or being stupid ;-)


Prof. Löwenzahn wrote:

Sounds like pure comedy :D

I'd think about my ambitions in this gaming group for some time and if I'm d'accord with this chaos I'd plan out 10 characters, not get attached to them too much and enjoy the show. Maybe play some madmen who sometimes have the urge to kill someone so you can justify in character that you have to backstab that f@#$er for looting allies or being stupid ;-)

I am seriously considering a halfling anti-paladin for my next backup character. Not only does it have saves and AC at a crazy level so I have a high chance of surviving but the idea is hilarious.


Whenever I hear of (or, if you go back long enough, get stuck in) a party like this, I wonder: How would these people act in a situation of real danger, like for instance if water started rising around the place where you were playing, or a fire broke out, or a riot or even a terrorist attack occurred? Better get out of there while the getting out is good.


Yeah, this situation sounds so ridiculous, there is a part of me that doesn't want to believe it's true. But then I remind myself that not everyone enjoys the game for the same reasons I do, which is entirely fine.

Seems to me that the group dynamic has generally been not to work together all that cohesively, and to generally just take a fairly random, very self-interested approach to the game. The fact that the DM seems to be endorsing and maybe even encouraging bad decision-making (either directly or indirectly) for the sake of the LOLs leads me to believe this is vbery much unlikely to change.

In those circumstances, I think my advice changes a bit:

(1) If you want to play a game with a different, more cooperative dynamic, you likely need to quit and find another game.

(2) However, if you intend to keep playing, you're likely going to need to give up on your hope for a smart and cooperative team-based game (which will just continue to frustrate you), and just 'embrace the madness' as others have suggested. Build that halfling antipaladin, or that wild rager barbarian. Or play a cleric of one of the elder gods (say Azathoth, cuz "he's not evil") and choose the Madness domain, and run around using Visions of Madness to "buff" your allies.

I think I'd probably favour option 1 myself, as the second style of play just doesn't really work for me, but if you think you'd have fun with option 2 without impairing any OOC relationships, go ahead and dive right in :)


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OK, this is reaching back a bit far into the thread, but seriously? The group gave the Orc player grief for FLANKING. Pets can be trained to flank, regular non-companion pets. Orcs come from a military culture and can't be expected to maintain tactical balance with an animal?

I am at a loss here.

Grand Lodge

Try this: Make a character you don't care about at all, then laugh along with them as he gets constantly betrayed, back-stabbed, and left behind. Your group is full of a angst-fueled trolls who thrive on conflict and seeing people squirm over losing their beloved characters.

So play along, roll up Dumpy, the dwarf sorcerer or Squirp the gnome barbarian. Shrug off anything bad that happens to them. "Whatever, I'll just roll up another character. How about an overweight halfling wizard that constantly misplaces his spellbook?"


Daw wrote:

OK, this is reaching back a bit far into the thread, but seriously? The group gave the Orc player grief for FLANKING. Pets can be trained to flank, regular non-companion pets. Orcs come from a military culture and can't be expected to maintain tactical balance with an animal?

I am at a loss here.

I agree. Normal, untrained pack predators like wolves and lions understand the concept of flanking (watch them attack prey from various sides until they can get a vulnerable hamstring or neck). In Pathfinder, those animals have Int 2. Anything with a higher Int who has any amount of combat training at all would understand the concept that flanking an opponents puts that opponent at a disadvantage.

RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32

Some games just aren't the kind of game you want to play. So far you're still having fun, despite being murdered by the party twice and attempted-murdered by a party member once more that you mention. If the anit-paladin is the same guy who killed you in your coma, I'd say the primary problem is that guy. If not, then this group has a culture of internal antagonism you're probably not into. Since you're the newcomer who joined their group, you're probably not going to change their play style. So it seems like the first advice is probably the only practical solution.


Daw wrote:

OK, this is reaching back a bit far into the thread, but seriously? The group gave the Orc player grief for FLANKING. Pets can be trained to flank, regular non-companion pets. Orcs come from a military culture and can't be expected to maintain tactical balance with an animal?

I am at a loss here.

Daw is absolutely correct and I have the math to back it up. Suppose the orc has Int 7. Statistically, if you gather eight Pathfinder townsfolk together with Intelligence following the 3d6 distribution, then the second least intelligent of them will have Int 7. That value means a little slow mentally and bad at book learning, not as dumb as a brick. Likewise, Int 14, the opposite of Int 7, is smart and good at book learning, but is not a genius. Fortunately, few people think that Int 14 should be played as a genius.

If the GM sends an orc raiding party against your party and they flank, remind him that he thinks orcs are too dumb to flank.

Headfirst wrote:
So play along, roll up Dumpy, the dwarf sorcerer or Squirp the gnome barbarian.

I had great fun playing a gnome barbarian Muffin. She was optimized for survival with Con 18 because the Serpent's Skull adventure path started shipwrecked on a deadly island and she took survival-oriented rage powers such as Raging Climber. Such a character would work in Lorila Sorita's game.

RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32

Mathmuse wrote:
I had great fun playing a gnome barbarian Muffin

....that odd moment when you recognize a fellow poster by the character they played in your party.


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Christopher Dudley wrote:
Mathmuse wrote:
I had great fun playing a gnome barbarian Muffin
....that odd moment when you recognize a fellow poster by the character they played in your party.

Hi, Chris! Yes, I'm Erin Schram. I didn't know that you were an RPG Superstar, but my wife Amy says that she knew.

Will Sinex at The Family Game Store once searched the forums here for advice on a goblin firebomber PC. He planned on playing a one in the new campaign I planned based on the Advanced Race Guide. One post he found was Mathmuse asking for a good adventure path for a goblin firebomber. It sounded so similar that he asked me whether I was Mathmuse.

Scarab Sages

Lorila Sorita wrote:
The Steel Refrain wrote:
Does the same player frequently do aggravating things, and then hide behind the shield of "but it's what my character would do"?

A little though not anything at that level. To be honest, I think it is kind of the atmosphere of the game, and I think he might feel pressured to be like that. Because a few of the people seem to have the idea that you always have to 100% of the time do what the character would do otherwise it is metagaming and bad. However, no one is taking things in the proper context.

For example we had this one person at the table who was fighting a monster. IC his character was a really stupid orc. So he is fighting this monster and he stepped to the side into a better position, so our party rogue could sneak attack. No one thought his character was icly smart enough to reposition himself in the way he did and he admits that oocly he did it solely so the rouge could make a sneak attack and icly he probably wouldn't have done it. So a few people were complaining about it and saying he was metagaming and being rather rude and stuff about it.

Now the proper context is that the rogue is a band new player and this was his second session ever and he didn't know how sneak attack worked. The orc fudged how his character would act slightly to create a chance for the rogue to make a sneak attack, so he would learn how to play the character. Because doing a sneak attack in game is better than just explaining it oocly once. Everyone knew this is what he was doing.

Now he might of 'metagamed' but in context he didn't do anything wrong what so ever. It was a one time thing to help a new player understand the game and he didn't do some like crazy thing, he just maneuvered slightly. I actually feel a kind of bad for him, because he stopped showing up regularly to the games after that and may end up eventually quitting altogether.

Ironically that kind of makes it sound like people are like super strict roleplayers or something but no, nothing like that. Most...

A 2 int wolf knows and understands the benefits of flanking. That orc has enough intellegence to flank.


Mathmuse wrote:


Daw is absolutely correct and I have the math to back it up. Suppose the orc has Int 7. Statistically, if you gather eight Pathfinder townsfolk together with Intelligence following the 3d6 distribution, then the second least intelligent of them will have Int 7. That value means a little slow mentally and bad at book learning, not as dumb as a brick. Likewise, Int 14, the opposite of Int 7, is smart and good at book learning, but is not a genius. Fortunately, few people think that Int 14 should be played as a genius.

He actually had an intelligence of like 4 I think. We rolled stats, so I think he got a 6, then orc gives you a -2, which drops it down to 4. Though as Burko pointed out, even animals with int 2 are occasionally smart enough to flank and stuff. The entire thing was blown out of proportions.

The Steel Refrain wrote:
The fact that the DM seems to be endorsing and maybe even encouraging bad decision-making (either directly or indirectly) for the sake of the LOLs leads me to believe this is vbery much unlikely to change.

And yeah, I do recall the GM once saying he found enjoyment from watching new players stumble around the game world, learning things as they go. At the time I didn't think 'learning things as they go' implied dying is funny ways, but now that I played with him more, I think that might be the case.


Maybe play some other, simpler game with them. Like ludo. That's actually a serious proposal - this way you can spend time with them while not suffering (too much) from their... different playstyle.

If you are the only player of a given type at a table, and even the GM is different from you, it's pretty much a lost cause.

In case you ever put the GM hat onto your head, consider carefully whether to take one or two players from there. Sometimes players improve behavior when they get into a better environment - it depends on how dominant they are.


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It looks to me like you need to be sure to bring a good supply of your intoxicant of choice, partake liberally, and then you will probably enjoy the game just fine.


The thing that sticks in my mind is that you encountered 50 skeletons in a single encounter before APL 3. as a DM I've had issues with 3 of the suckers taking down a six man party of level 3s. (the party was warned. Repeatedly that they were facing a necromancer. That Skeletons are resistant to non bludgeoning damage, zombies to non slashing, etc... Party ignored and failed to do a collective ten points of damage, so admittedly it's a situational thing, but still...)

It sounds to me like your GM is running a mid level campaign with low level characters. The character who is going to prevent your return as undead mid-fight... the GM should have mentioned he would take attacks of opportunity for trying that in combat and hopefully keeping his mind on the matters at hand (not that this would prevent later corpse burning, but then it's at least a remaining party discussion).

Getting a new player to play a Wild Mage is another good example of similar problems. While it isn't impossible for a new player to play a mage type well (hell, my first character was a first ed. D&D Wizard) but in my experience I always advise people to make the character they want to make, followed by explaining Wizards aren't like in anime, and might not play the way they think (I don't try to turn them off the character, but spells and spell lists generally make a beginning player's options more complex). Now if the player insists on a certain archetype, for whatever reason, that is fine, BUT unless the campaign is of a focussed type (say an adventure path), pushing for a specific type of class/archetype/whatever results in disaster more than half the time (again, to my experience).

I'm about to wrap up one campaign and start the next. It is the first chance this group will have to make all their characters together, but I'm running a few sessions of non-play so they can make a group that starts as a group (as opposed to the random peole who meet in a nar and somehow decide to become life and death companions for fame, fortune, glory, and whatever plot hook is thrown at them next...) So, yeah, a solid, cohesive goal for the party can probably get them together. I'm going to avoid saying the PC-Murder Anitpaladin wasn't mature enough for such a character (people make bad jokes independent of overall maturity levels), although I do agree that doing so isn't a good sign. That said, as GM anyone playing an evil character has to convince me they aren't going for 80's slasher movie psycho first, with extra assurances if you're making PC kill jokes.

So, I guess what I'm asking here is: how experienced is your GM? Is there anything you can do, as a player, to help in this area? Is there another player in the group you can tie your character's background to? If you really want to stay with the group, then I am sure you can find a way to enjoy the game. If you want to leave and find a new group, you can do that too (although I recommend leaving on good terms if possible.) The short short of it is that this is a hobby, meant for having a good time (ostensibly with friends), and if you aren't having fun, then why are you there?


OP: I'm sorry, but the players in your group sound like either a bunch of idiots, or just jerks who like doing stupid things cause "lol randumb". There is no practical way to salvage the situation with the sheer level of stupidity you've pointed out in your post. Leaving sounds like the best option.

Unless you can get the group to stop playing RPGs and play competitive board games instead, where their lack of critical thinking skills won't screw you over and may in fact work in your favor.

Also, if you decide to leave, keep in touch with any of the players in that game who you actually enjoyed playing with, and see if you can pull them into a different game.


Avatar Unknown wrote:

The thing that sticks in my mind is that you encountered 50 skeletons in a single encounter before APL 3. as a DM I've had issues with 3 of the suckers taking down a six man party of level 3s. (the party was warned. Repeatedly that they were facing a necromancer. That Skeletons are resistant to non bludgeoning damage, zombies to non slashing, etc... Party ignored and failed to do a collective ten points of damage, so admittedly it's a situational thing, but still...)

It sounds to me like your GM is running a mid level campaign with low level characters. The character who is going to prevent your return as undead mid-fight... the GM should have mentioned he would take attacks of opportunity for trying that in combat and hopefully keeping his mind on the matters at hand (not that this would prevent later corpse burning, but then it's at least a remaining party discussion).

It is a mid level campaign but he assured us that he adjusted the levels of the monsters and stuff. I kind of question his judgement however, seeing as there was a spell that is basically reflex roll to save or die if you accidentally touch an object. Which even if it didn't make you appear to be dead is broken, because apparently it lasts like 30 minutes or something. Touching an object and being helpless for 30 minutes at level 2 is absurd. Then there was the 50 skeletons.

Given the right circumstances we might be able to defeat 50 skeletons, if for example we were fighting them in a door way or something. But they are down in a 60 foot pit. Meaning it is too far to jump down. If we climb down one at a time, the first person is instantly surrounded. Now if we were level 5 or something, we could shoot down a couple of fireballs, clear a good chunk then go down and the clerics could mop them up with a few channels. Not happening at 2nd or even 3rd level though.

Avatar Unknown wrote:
I'm about to wrap up one campaign and start the next. It is the first chance this group will have to make all their characters together, but I'm running a few sessions of non-play so they can make a group that starts as a group (as opposed to the random peole who meet in a nar and somehow decide to become life and death companions for fame, fortune,...

Everyone pretty much made their characters at the table. Each game session we waste a bunch of time(like an hour or two) with people just making characters(and people die fairly often and a few new people joined here and there).

So everyone knows what the party make up is, what everyone else is playing. So there was plenty of options for people to make compatible characters or have related backgrounds and stuff. They just choose not to.

And ironically when someone did try that it didn't work out. Prior to the wild mage the new player was a sorcerer and he was the brother of the anti paladin and were both dhampir. Which was another poor choice, since the only way to heal either of them was with the anti paladins lay on hands ability that does negative energy. When the anti paladin died, the other player decided to make a new character as well, since at that point he had absolutely no way to heal at all aside from sleeping and his background wasn't as cool with his ic brother dead.

I was playing the cleric too, so I warned them, a bunch of time. At the time I was the only one with healing spells, and I said multiple times that I can't help them and this would be a problem. They thought dhampir were cool though, so what are you going to do?


Daw wrote:

OK, this is reaching back a bit far into the thread, but seriously? The group gave the Orc player grief for FLANKING. Pets can be trained to flank, regular non-companion pets. Orcs come from a military culture and can't be expected to maintain tactical balance with an animal?

I am at a loss here.

You're at a loss because you're thinking about this like a reasonable, intelligent person would. The OP described a group that's basically the opposite of "reasonable" and "intelligent".


OK, I will not task the GM for the skeletons, actually an easy encounter once identified.
Why no detect undead? With them in the pit, you have perfect crowd control.
(More on this later, oh god, my inner tactician is awake and no alcohol in the house.)

I task the GM with forcing you to make a reflex check (your poorest) to avoid accidentally touching an object that you now had every reason to believe was an insta-kill. Not reasonable. Strategic analysis indicates a high probability of collusion between GM and player. What happened was what was meant to happen. Not conclusive in any way, but it would be prudent to weight your own strategies accordingly. The most damning supporting evidence is the NPC behavior. The NPCs chose to elect this character as leader, AFTER he mutilated and looted your body, +++ instead of aiding any other party member in an ongoing combat +++, then used your body to knock another party member back into the skeletons. This is what the GM wanted to happen, Kudos to the Druid player for remembering the Animal Companion and using it.

For extra credit, identify which characters were meant to get out with all the loot.

OK, the encounter, not counting the targeted trap, was trivial to a third level party with at least one climbing or dungeoneers kit. You see bones all over the pit floor, you have a cleric cast the sense undead orison. You have a rope, you should have have a grappling hook. (If not for some reason, make a noose.) Now you go skeleton fishing, pulling them up one or two at a time and kill them. Heck, you can beat them into bonedust with a 10 pole with something heavy lashed to it without the skeletons ever even getting an attack in. This would also be useful to discourage climbers if the GM was capable of that level of tactical reasoning, remember the skeletons hadn't gotten out on their own before you got there. You will probably have to go down to finish off the last ones, once "your pond has been mostly fished out."


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Wow...those guys are morons. I've played with a few humdingers before, but not an entire group of them.

I don't think I could stay in a group like that, but then again I'm fortunate enough to have more than a few options of table compositions. Also I usually GM so I get to pick who I invite. Setting that aside...

If that is your only gaming group available to play with then you have a tough call to make.

Maybe you should take a leaf out of their book and play more loosey-goosey? Laze faire? If that's the game you're in, then maybe pull a "when in Rome..." and just play like an uncaring selfish buffoon who doesn't care if his friends have to roll a new character because of your actions.

(roll up a backup character because you're going to continue to die! lol)

----

edit - I know this is outrageous, but I suddenly have an urge to play in a group like this.

RPG Superstar 2008 Top 16

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I've had some friends who were fun to be around, but made me want to throttle them when we gamed. There are several possible solutions that have worked in those situations:

1.) Board Game Night - Get these guys to play board games or other non-cooperative games instead of RPGs. Then their utter failure to work together can be channeled into healthy competition.

2.) Paranoia - The Paranoia RPG is perfect for the play style these guys seem to prefer. You can then enjoy plotting against and betraying them, as it is an expected part of the game.

3.) Split the party - Recruit a few competent players and find a way to split the group into two separate groups, each with some decent players to temper the bozos' excesses.

RPG Superstar 2008 Top 16

"Lorila Sorita wrote:

It is a mid level campaign but he assured us that he adjusted the levels of the monsters and stuff. I kind of question his judgement however, seeing as there was a spell that is basically reflex roll to save or die if you accidentally touch an object. Which even if it didn't make you appear to be dead is broken, because apparently it lasts like 30 minutes or something. Touching an object and being helpless for 30 minutes at level 2 is absurd. Then there was the 50 skeletons.

Given the right circumstances we might be able to defeat 50 skeletons, if for example we were fighting them in a door way or something. But they are down in a 60 foot pit. Meaning it is too far to jump down. If we climb down one at a time, the first person is instantly surrounded. Now if we were level 5 or something, we could shoot down a couple of fireballs, clear a good chunk then go down and the clerics could mop them up with a few channels. Not happening at 2nd or even 3rd level though.

I'm going to side with your GM on this one. "Back in the day" we had plenty of encounters that were meant to be outthought, not outfought. Survival required a certain paranoid mindset. A pit full of bones? Those skeletons came from somewhere, or signified some sort of hazard: It was time to carefully figure out their significance. The "look dead" trap item seems like a similar challenge, one a more harmonious party could have easily overcome.

Shadow Lodge

Run away, and never look back.


Sir_Wulf wrote:
The "look dead" trap item seems like a similar challenge, one a more harmonious party could have easily overcome.

I'd agree with you here, except for the part of being forced to make a save to avoid touching it even after you find out you aren't supposed to touch it.

Though the player going out of his way to justify murdering the two unconscious people afterwards certainly doesn't help.


swoosh wrote:
Sir_Wulf wrote:
The "look dead" trap item seems like a similar challenge, one a more harmonious party could have easily overcome.

I'd agree with you here, except for the part of being forced to make a save to avoid touching it even after you find out you aren't supposed to touch it.

Though the player going out of his way to justify murdering the two unconscious people afterwards certainly doesn't help.

Agreed. This was railroading simply to show teeth.


Daw wrote:
This is what the GM wanted to happen, Kudos to the Druid player for remembering the Animal Companion and using it.

It was actually the GM that had the animal companion protect the druid. Which makes me think that the GM just loves chaotic and crazy situations, rather than specifically gunning for anyone.

Daw wrote:
OK, the encounter, not counting the targeted trap, was trivial to a third level party with at least one climbing or dungeoneers kit. You see bones all over the pit floor, you have a cleric cast the sense undead orison. You have a rope, you should have have a grappling hook. (If not for some reason, make a noose.) Now you go skeleton fishing, pulling them up one or two at a time and kill them. Heck, you can beat them into bonedust with a 10 pole with something heavy lashed to it without the skeletons ever even getting an attack in. This would also be useful to discourage climbers if the GM was capable of that level of tactical reasoning, remember the skeletons hadn't gotten out on their own before you got there. You will probably have to go down to finish off the last ones, once "your pond has been mostly fished out."

I figured they could also just tie me to the rope, hang me down and I can channel undead until they all died too. Though we never got that far because of the stupid trap that knocked me and the druid out.

Sir_Wulf wrote:
I'm going to side with your GM on this one. "Back in the day" we had plenty of encounters that were meant to be outthought, not outfought. Survival required a certain paranoid mindset. A pit full of bones? Those skeletons came from somewhere, or signified some sort of hazard: It was time to carefully figure out their significance. The "look dead" trap item seems like a similar challenge, one a more harmonious party could have easily overcome.

I am all for those kind of challenges, though I have to admit I am kind of annoyed because I never had a chance to actually do anything. Reflex save, accidentally touch an item, then pass out and my party murdered me.

To be fair though, it is from a written campaign, so I will put a lot of the blame on the person who wrote the campaign who thought it was a good idea to make a trap to trick the party into thinking everyone is dead. Though I do think the GM could of given me some saves. Fail a reflex save and I touch it then I am helpless for 30 minutes until the party decides to leave me there or buries me, or kills me so I don't become a skeleton is rather extreme.

With spells like hold person, you get saves every round to come back. I would of been happy with even a single secondary save. One person nearly fell into the hole they got a reflex save to not fall then failed it and got a second save to grab onto the ledge after they did fall. And even if they fell they would still have a chance to survive. Why am I Koed from the entire encounter from one failed save?

Though I do agree that if we were functioning like a good party, it might not be bad. My first thought when the druid fell over dead, was that it was some weird magic. I didn't want to jump to conclusions. Everyone else jumped to conclusions. There was no real thinking involved.

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