Break the Haughty: Not a "Problem Player" Thread

[Kobold Catgirl]

Hey, all! I'm playing in a 5E game right now, and one of my partymembers is an extremely arrogant wizard noble. She comes from a family that's basically run like Ron Swanson: They kick their kids out with no money and make them make their own fortunes. We'll call this character Milady.

The player wants Milady to eventually be humbled and become a bit less obnoxious. She's asked the GM to help her achieve this growth, and he in turn asked me if I have any ideas, since I'm the GM of the other game we play.

And I in turn am asking you. My current idea is for the GM to confront her with an even more arrogant, even more obnoxious noble, to really give her the chance to look in a mirror and see how she appears to others.

Any other ideas?

[Weables]

have her arrogance lead to great personal loss in an obvious connection. Nothing programs people to change like pain.

[Create Mr. Pitt]

Nothing breaks human arrogance quite like spending time in the Elven community. Unless she is, herself, an elf.

Otherwise, give her the experience of serving and feeling as if no one cares about her opinion or rights. Realizing how insignificant one person can be in the grand scheme is a humbling experience.

Gods and their heralds can humble as well.

[Kobold Catgirl]

...she's an elf. A high elf. G@%#!*it.

:P

[Create Mr. Pitt]

Kobold Cleaver wrote:

...she's an elf. A high elf. G+$~@*it.

:P

That's perfect. Create problems in human slums. Force her to serve the riff-raff of humans. Have them treat her like she's alien. Have them correct her manners. There's all sorts of fun you have tweaking the high elf-type. It's a good way to humble her, and fun roleplay that probably works into any number of games and scenarios.

[Gulthor]

Hellknights. I'm not entirely sure how I'd go about it (not knowing more of the character/setting specifics), but I'd do it with Hellknights.

[Captain collateral damage]

Have some sort of magic type thing that's She'd want to do but is way out of her league. Failure can humble, and also strengthen resolve afterwards.

[Scott Wilhelm]

Weables wrote:

have her arrogance lead to great personal loss in an obvious connection. Nothing programs people to change like pain.

Give her something to protect, or give her soldiers to command, and put her in a situation where she can't protect them or has to order them to their deaths.

[zainale]

polymoph spell turn her human, halfling (are halflings looked down upon/servant in D&D 5e?)or a servant/slave like race and dump her into a slum alone at night lacking equipment that a high elf might have. have her interact with humans or half orcs that look down upon her. and with her high elf attitude she will get them riled up maybe a short fight where she is then beaten for acting above her station. then the thugs decide it would be fun to hunt this obnoxious little servant race person through the streets. the chase begins, they harass (hurting but not trying to kill her yet) her while she tries to find a way out or a place to hide. you can do the hide and seek thing but they always find her until she has low health is tired and desperate that's when she is grabbed from behind and dragged into a dingy dirty hole of a home and told "be quiet, they will hear you." (have it speak in broken the slave/servant's race language if she knows it or common) if she can break free she will find herself saved by a dirty low born person (maybe of a race she looks down on goblin/kobold are very low but that might not be allowed to be of a good alignment in your setting) maybe he or she has their family there or maybe they don't. when there is pounding on the door. this person can shove her into a hidey hole and quickly covers the opening with a basket or something but she can see whats going on outside the room as the thugs break the door down spot the blood on the persons shirt and demands that she be given to them for their amusement. as her vision starts to fade to black she sees the person getting a beating of his or her life. she can wake up the next day being tended to this person who's just as hurt or still in the closet/hidey hole and have to force her way out to find the person beaten to death on the floor. a haughty high elf being saved by someone not worthy of her attention might change her attitude and cause her to fear offending lower class people.

yes i know it's very dark and scary. but adventure is going into a situation not knowing if you will survive. if you don't kill the person who saves her it gives her someone to be grateful to and an npc to befriend or mentor or grow attached to(aka love interest). but this person would only know her as a lowly servant race. you would have to all figure out how to reveal that she is an elf to this person or have her break the "curse" (by realizing that she should not be such a haughty bit@h aka she learned a life lesson) while the person is nursing her back to health.

this person (the rescuer) could be a scribe or low level bard that has fallen on hard times to account for their knowing languages.

[Tyinyk]

That seems a bit railroad-y and forced to be fun, at least from where I'm sitting.

I'd simply have NPCs not give her any kind of special treatment, and if she tries taking that 'High Elven tone' with them, actively disrespect her. She'll learn that to get respect, you have to earn it. And if she doesn't one of the above suggestions can be thrown in.

[zainale]

yes that's very railroad-y. but its something and she can go anywhere on the map the thugs are chasing her. if she knows the city. she could get to safety on her own. but then what would she learn. this way she learns that her attitude can cause bad things, but she also learns that not everyone of lower class are scum. and she can gain a friend she can admire (for saving her) or fall in love with (that whole hero worship thing) or not, depends on her. OP did ask for suggestions.

[zainale]

doesn't palymoph spells have a time limit anyways?

[Daw]

Have her haughtiness cause innocents to suffer.

[zainale]

isn't she already causing innocents to suffer?

[Kobold Catgirl]

My character's not that innocent. ;)

[The Raven Black]

Being powerless to change things might work

Having really lesser beings help her or even save her can help too

Maybe a young filthy human orphan admiring her and serving her as best as he can and in the end sacrificing himself by taking the hit meant for her because "I am no one special and nobody will miss me while you are a great lady"

[Boomerang Nebula]

Tyinyk wrote:

That seems a bit railroad-y and forced to be fun, at least from where I'm sitting.

I'd simply have NPCs not give her any kind of special treatment, and if she tries taking that 'High Elven tone' with them, actively disrespect her. She'll learn that to get respect, you have to earn it. And if she doesn't one of the above suggestions can be thrown in.

This is good advice. Simple and effective.

[JulianW]

What about an extended apprenticeship to an obnoxious mentor?

The mentor will teach spells / offer leads on interesting magical stuff / controls access to a library and / or laboratory she'd really like to have regular access to - but... sends her ('his apprentice'/'assistant') off on all sorts of unpleasant or demeaning errands as the price

[zainale]

why should she learn the errors of her way if you give her to a mentor who is just as arrogant and annoying and haughty as she is? it just reinforces the idea that she is right those above your station are better then you are and people below yours are sh!t that you can't step in. you learn more when your in danger. she wants her high elf to learn that not everyone of lower status are worthless or lesser.

[zainale]

the thugs should be feared and respected only because they might torment you to death if you wont. the helpful peasant should be respected if only for the fact shat he or she was willing to risk their life for a complete stranger.

[zainale]

Tyinyk wrote:

That seems a bit railroad-y and forced to be fun, at least from where I'm sitting.

I'd simply have NPCs not give her any kind of special treatment, and if she tries taking that 'High Elven tone' with them, actively disrespect her. She'll learn that to get respect, you have to earn it. And if she doesn't one of the above suggestions can be thrown in.

yes it is railroady, but so is forcing a disrespectful rude npc on her for the rest of the game. mine lasts two three sessions and she learns a lesson.

if i was a high elf and a lowly human peasant was not giving me the respect that was due to me. i would have that peasant ruined and unable to get work or just kill him to get him out of my hair.

[Ectar]

I like the idea of putting the entire party in a relative wasteland with little food or supplies. When everything she excels at amounts to nothing, and the lowly rifraf races with survival skills and hunting knowledge are the ONLY reason she is surviving, maybe she'll realize the other people do have value, after all.

[Garbage-Tier Waifu]

I talk with KC and know what his campaign is. I'm playing in it myself and know most of the content well enough. So I have insider knowledge!

So spoilers under here for the Horde of the Dragon Queen adventure:

Spoiler:

Now I am not sure if this was something my DM invented or not for this part of the adventure, but in book 2, there is a meeting with the metallic dragons in order to get them on the PC's side. I am playing an elven wizard myself, though someone from a far off part of the world and a total foreigner to Faerun when they were introduced to replace my old PC, who was retired for plot reasons.

They are not so much as arrogant as they are chillingly self-assured at all times from being a diviner and kinda being a part of a cross-dimensional cloud of self, which gives them their powers...they came in at 10th, of course they are weird.

Anyway, being from somewhere else, they didn't know very much about Faerun and it's elves. So when the party came to this meeting they were really taken aback by the rudeness of the gold dragon representative. They confronted the dragon and as it turned out, their hesitation to help at all was due to the elves having enslaved dragons of all kinds with a special kind of metal that, when in contact with a dragon, causes them to revert to animalistic intelligence and violence. Basically, the elves lobotomised and enslaved the dragons.

I was stunned. And suddenly I realised why the good dragons hadn't been involved this whole time because of this (and also some stufd the dwarves did. They used to inaugurate dwarven lords by slaughtering dragons, one of whom was the mother of the silver dragon representative. And the dragons need to do everything themselves to save the shortlived from suffering.) and the high elven king had not even bothered to mention it or why they were against the idea of teaming up with the dragons when it was brought up at the council.

Get them with something like that. Put little hints here and there from not only NPC's but also mentions from evil dragons. Make them seem more motivated by not only their loyalty to Tiamat (which is one of the adventures weaknesses, I will be honest) but personal sleights. Have them tell the high elf that part of all this was their peoples fault. It honestly hit home pretty hard, even when it wasn't necessarily even my character's people that did it. The elves are so long-lived they would have known about this.

But this confrontation came VERY LATE in the adventure and isn't a good example. If you wanted to incorporate this kind of thing, you could do it, but it definitely hit home on my character when they want to help people proactively and not fall into the common trap their fellow elves often did. That was take things slow, ans outlive problems. They kinda thought themselves different, but then that doesn't even close to absolving the personal grievances between the elves and dragons where their lifespans are near identical.

Other than that, the adventure has a fairly linear nature to it. Another point that is far sooner thay works is

Spoiler:

The caravan to Waterdeep. That adventure is long and has a lot of NPC's and things to work with. Or, my DM sure did work with them. Put in moments that the NPC's interact with the wizard and really sell the idea that most of these people have long, quite sad histories but they still seem like good people. Then put those people in positions of danger that the wizard might have to take great risks to rescue. Don't make it impossible. Hell, don't make it really deadly. But make it so that whatever they do, it has consequences. If they act in a good way, make the NPC's more friendly towards them, make them kinda the hero. Stroke their ego in a good way but if they start to get in over their heads have it utterly backfire. It might be that they expect more from people or lord their rescue over the others.

If they act poorly, have an NPC die. Have them brought up a lot. Have people really grieve. Make them feel guilty.

Basically it takes quite a bit on your part and you could include a lot of the things mentioned in this thread into this section of the adventure. It is the most NPC heavy and RP heavy.

The way our DM humbled my character before the wizard in this adventure was to have all his friends die because of his mistakes time and time again until he turned into a villain. But that's probably not the best strategy. :U

[VRMH]

Having to take care of a child for a prolonged period can be a humbling experience too, but may interfere too much with the whole "adventuring" thing.

[The Raven Black]

Any tactic that could end up humbling the PC may just as well backfire and make her even more arrogant and vengeful to boot

In any case it will speak volumes about the PC's real personality (and maybe alignment too)

Elf to Drow might even come into play if pushed far enough

I foresee great times for all :-)

[Dave Justus]

Watch Game of Thrones, I think you will find plenty of ideas.

[Kobold Catgirl]

zainale wrote:

Tyinyk wrote:

That seems a bit railroad-y and forced to be fun, at least from where I'm sitting.

I'd simply have NPCs not give her any kind of special treatment, and if she tries taking that 'High Elven tone' with them, actively disrespect her. She'll learn that to get respect, you have to earn it. And if she doesn't one of the above suggestions can be thrown in.

yes it is railroady, but so is forcing a disrespectful rude npc on her for the rest of the game. mine lasts two three sessions and she learns a lesson.

if i was a high elf and a lowly human peasant was not giving me the respect that was due to me. i would have that peasant ruined and unable to get work or just kill him to get him out of my hair.

1. If you did that, you would be evil as f+~+, and probably beyond reasonable hope of redemption, let alone humbling.

2. Your idea is really, really railroady. It's basically a set story. What happens if she dispels the polymorph on herself? What happens if she teleports to her partymembers and hangs out with them? What happens if she kills the thugs chasing her, or knocks them out and delivers them to the sheriff? You clearly have a way you'd want that story to play it, which is a virtual assurance that it wouldn't go as you expect.

3. Putting an NPC in the game is not railroading. That's the GM's one job.

[zainale]

no i would be a haughty noble dispensing punishment to a lowly disrespectful servant. why should such a disrespectful servant prosper in my domain. and why should i let this servant serve some other noble if he is disrespectful. as in don't hire jimmy he can't follow simple orders. and pretty soon the servant will leave or be arrested for vagrancy or not paying his taxes or be hunted down for banditry or possible treason.

sure it is rail roady but so are dungeons (abit). you are put in a situation that you have to solve. there is only one way to get to the end of that dungeon. there is obstacles placed in your way and there is a goal. sure you can just leave the dungeon. "sure i am fine with X happening" or "i don't need all that money" and sure she could kill all those thugs that are chasing her. problem solved. but now she has to deal with the law. or someone witnessed a servant murdering a bunch or men. now a lynch mob or the thugs boss is after her head. or she can just teleport to her party but a random person say a goblin has just popped in on the party a goblin appears wearing your missing friends cloths covered in blood. also does she have those spells prepared does she have those spells? she can't stop for a short rest, she is being hunted. and like i said she can make it out of the slums on her own and get protection from the mob of thugs.she could also ask the thugs politely where the exit is, but she is a haughty elf.

you did ask for suggestions. its not perfect. you could work it out till it was if you wanted.

putting npc into the game is part of the game. but attaching an annoying npc to a pc just to harass the pc and the pc can not get rid of is a hassle. is the npc a hired npc? did she hire the npc? if so the npc should be expected to follow her orders that's what the npc is being paid for. is the npc a follower? or is the npc someone the local lord has attached to the party? she should not be making demands of the supervisor npc, and the follower npc would probably leave if it is feeling disrespected. it is railroad-ish if you have a situation happening to the pc that the pc can't solve. sure she can make friends with the help but why should she she is better then the help and the help is there for her needs. attaching a npc bodyguard to her to "help" that dies saving her life is sad but it is as it should be because i am a haughty elf and there for better that that bodyguard who died doing his job.

[Elder Basilisk]

Arrogant character being humbled is a fairly common story arc.

Here are a few possibilities:

A. Taming of the Shrew. Other character (preferably in a position of authority) is an even bigger and more ostentatious arrogant ass at times that are inconvenient for the character.

B. Son of the Black Sword.

Spoiler:

Character observes an "inferior" who displays superior virtue to the supposedly superior people. Character later learns that he is actually one of those "inferiors" by birth. Either one could be adopted to this situation.

In the first scenario, it is generally stronger if there is NPC contrast both ways: both the "inferior" displaying unexpected virtue as well as the "superior" displaying vice or failing to display the expected virtue

In the second scenario, the character could discover that her parents are not really nobles--for example that she is adopted (perhaps the daughter of a servant who was adopted when the servant sacrificed himself/herself for her adopted parents) or that her mother fooled around. It's probably best to avoid "really a half-elf, tiefling, or changeling" since doing that would mess with the mechanics of the character

C. Empire Strikes Back. Humbled by failure--Luke learns that he is not ready when he goes to Bespin to rescue his friends only to fail, lose Han to carbonite, and discover that he is the reason they were in danger in the first place.

The only requirement is that the character either herself or someone she respects and admires takes on a task that they should expect to succeed at and fails dramatically--possibly due to underestimating the opposition or overestimating her own ability. However in the case you are looking at, underestimating the opposition is the most likely scenario. "Orcish rabble. We have nothing to fear from such."

[Chromantic Durgon <3]

Put her in a position where she is protecting the poor or the weak, especially poor cute children, with that kind of sad cough that people do in movies ;-;.

Also have NPCs ignore her rank and title if it makes sense for the NPC.

[Tyinyk]

zainale wrote:

Tyinyk wrote:

That seems a bit railroad-y and forced to be fun, at least from where I'm sitting.

I'd simply have NPCs not give her any kind of special treatment, and if she tries taking that 'High Elven tone' with them, actively disrespect her. She'll learn that to get respect, you have to earn it. And if she doesn't one of the above suggestions can be thrown in.

yes it is railroady, but so is forcing a disrespectful rude npc on her for the rest of the game. mine lasts two three sessions and she learns a lesson.

if i was a high elf and a lowly human peasant was not giving me the respect that was due to me. i would have that peasant ruined and unable to get work or just kill him to get him out of my hair.

I think you forgot that this elf character doesn't actually have any authority. She was kicked out of her household to find her fortune, so she's at the same station as every other adventurer, she just acts like she's higher.

Also, I wasn't saying to add an NPC for the sole purpose of disrespecting her. I'm suggesting have the NPCs already around not give her special treatment, then if she acts like a haughty b~!!~, then they be just as disrespectful to her as she is to them. You gotta give respect to get respect.

[Gulthor]

I'm reminded of the scene where Mad-Eye Moody puts Draco Malfoy square in his place.

Like, "Oh, you want to be a spoiled kid? You can sit in a corner for a minute while the grown-ups talk."

Someone like Mad-Eye has the extra benefit of looking like an unwashed, unkempt hot mess while he's at it.