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Hello guys.
One of my players have given me a hard time yesterday. When party got an invitation from Ilsoari Gordentus to visit the Turandaroc Academy and help him (so he would give our wizard (the player in question) a free pass to copy a few spells from his spellbook).
The problem in question was an attic whisperer in the attic (no surprises here) of the academy. It was a child who was orphaned long ago and died recently and turned into an attic whisperer. The problem though is that this elf said, that destroying it is BAD and it is a child and in Iodarra they do it another way. They find somebody related to the child who turned into whisperer and send him into meditative state which makes whisperer mistake him for a child to play with. Then they make the soul of the child to be filled with joy from finding somebody to play with and such and destroy his body at that moment so that it has easier time going to the other side.
Now this put me into a very difficult position. The cleric of the party argued that a soul of the boy is not in control of the whisperer and only used as a catalyst and energy source and hence is tortured and should be released as soon as possible.
The problem here is i couldn't find in any book an answer to the main question - is the soul of the boy connected tothe attic whisperer, or already went to pastlife? Can it experience joy? And so on - all in all a phylosophical questions of what really happens to the soul turned undead and can it be helped with such measueres?
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They are both advocating freeing the child's spirit.
The elf's way has more style and gravitas. Does this interfere with your plot progression?
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They are both advocating freeing the child's spirit.
The elf's way has more style and gravitas. Does this interfere with your plot progression?
Ah, missed the part at the end with the Elf still destroying the body. Yeah if it fits in with the campaign and word I'd say go with it.
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It's your game. The rules are there to support the story, not the other way around. If you think the proposal sounds like the story you want to tell (and it sure sounds cool to me!) then let it work that way!
You could also/instead write up a custom occult ritual to handle this situation.
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Well it is good old Sandpoint on Golarion. The funny part is that she doesn't really know that much about world, but her ideas are very good. Last idea was in the ruined dwarven mines, where some troglodytes started puring out from cracks going down. I put a wand with a few charges of shape stone, thinking that they will just seal them and be done with it (of course killing a boss - troglodyte wizard (that was very hard task to make him believable... though very memorable event with near TPK and then finally showing that one strong wizard on the floor is never a match against 2 melee characters kicking him in the belly) and getting to the adamntine mining pick through rubble and undead dwarves). Well her first question was - "let's go down". And i was so unprepared for this....
So next session was a big success with ruined Thassilonian laboratory and first encounters with sinspawn and such.... and it also had a halfsway buried skeleton of an ancient wizard who tried to save himself by animating all the objects around him. Unfortunately table, two chairs and 5 books weren't very effective against a few tonnes of stone so he died. But animated objects remained as a funny surprise attack. Well then books started attacking them, her first phrase was "catch them - they are valuable knowledge of ancient (she is a Thassilonian historian, so it was absolutely in character). Had to read grapple rules very fast....
And now hew wizard is refusing to act against attic whisperer even though this quest is specifically tailored for her.
So i will make a new ritual for this specific situation as this is a good roleplay possibility. Thanks for idea - i forgot about them. I thought "damn i don't have any spells that match a described effect, what do i do?". Occult ritual it is then. I guess elven herbalist Hanna will somehow have an insight on the ritual details. Of Shaleelu will.
It is frustrating to play as GM to your wife:(
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I find that in general any time a player suggests a solution to a problem other than "hit it until it stops" this is an impulse that deserves to be cultivated. There are, after all, no shortage of opportunities to hit things in the game.
Players are going to always take things in directions you don't anticipate, when they elect to go in a direction that's more thoughtful and creative that's the best kind of surprise. Think of it as your PCs doing your preparation for you as the GM; they thought up what happens next so you don't need to conceive of the idea, you just need to work out the specifics.
It is frustrating to play as GM to your wife:(
Group or solo game?
If it's a group game, it doesn't really matter - I mean, yeah, you're married to the player, and you should treat her that way out of character, but you treat the PC the exact same as any other. Doing this will be better for you and for everyone else at the table!
If it's a solo game? Now that opens up some awesome possibilities!
... at least it has in our experience!
I and my wife GM various games for each other, and we've gotten a lot of solo experience over the years.
To date she's run though games as:
- a bard-turned-ancient-super hero (well, realizing later that she's the reincarnation thereof)
- - -> turns out she has to kill solo an ancient god she killed once before; this time, she hopes it's permanent
- a mythic paladin
- - - > her oath against dragons (spurred by the destruction of her home town and the death of her mother when that woman sealed her outside of time to avoid death, 300 years prior; then again when one assaulted the monastery she was being raised in) was tested very hard when she realized that not only was she descended from dragons, she was descended from alien dragons; one of her greatest old friends was a dragon; and her three-hundred-year-old-gone arranged fiance was undead and bound to the dragon that had killed everything, which was erupting again...
- a mythic redeemed succubus
- - - > her attempt at raising her (mostly) mortal adopted daughter (a looooooooooong story in itself) eventually leads her to attempt to reclaim her long-time home city from the brink of anarchy and death, and ending up becoming the queen of the city in her own right
- a sunny CG changeling and an grim LG fetchling inquisitor
- - - > the two former-students of the same professor must solve the mystery of their mutual friend's death, while reconciling their own extreme differences of opinion and mind
Pending we have (with no known timeframe for when, exactly):
- a group of four noble sisters (one of which is adopted)
- - - > they must clear their family's besmirched name, get revenge on the scum that hurt their adoptive sister (before they'd taken her in), and hold a city together from falling apart at the seems!
- a group of three sisters
- - - > with a penchant for their home's history (theme repeated! different game), they're going to hire on to the Pathfinder lodge and figure out some ancient secrets!
- a group of three ex-slaves
- - - > freed by the death of their hag mistresses, and brought together by strange events resulting in a trip across the universe!
- Ameiko
... and that's just the published stuff that comes to me off the top of my head from Paizo, and just with her as the PC.
(I'll be here all day if I mention all the other games we've played - most of which are 3.X - as solo players, nevermind the ones with me as the PC.)
The key when you have a single player is to be flexible and to have fun. Rules are more easily bent, and, even if you want to stay as strict as possible, you've got to have some oddities going on, or accept that the solo PC is going to die... a lot.
With group play, the emphasis should be on fairness and equality during the game time, and "making up" for any in-game unpleasantness with out-of-game... uh... friendliness.
>.>
Okay, I've edited that sentence a dozen different times and I can't not make it sound like innuendo, no matter what I do, so... sure, now that sentence is innuendo, I guess. Dangit, internet, I can't not see those things anymore...
EDIT: added some proper adventure names! Also, for links! I mean links! Like this one!
I find that in general any time a player suggests a solution to a problem other than "hit it until it stops" this is an impulse that deserves to be cultivated. There are, after all, no shortage of opportunities to hit things in the game.
Players are going to always take things in directions you don't anticipate, when they elect to go in a direction that's more thoughtful and creative that's the best kind of surprise. Think of it as your PCs doing your preparation for you as the GM; they thought up what happens next so you don't need to conceive of the idea, you just need to work out the specifics.
Also this! :D
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We, agrees wit da Cabbage.