Actions and consequences - debate over how much is too much

Hi there everyone,

So to elaborate on the topic title. Actions and consequences, specifically player actions and consequences upon the world around them, what’s appropriate and differing opinions on the matter, I wanted to canvass yourselves and pose to you a situation that in my opinion as a DM, merited a severe and near instantaneous response from a powerful entity.

So here is the “situation” that arose, my response to it and I’m curious what people would have done in similar circumstances - my player believes I am being “heavy handed” and that they would be vindicated by replies found on here, though I would hope to find that others in fact agree with me.

So the player in question, the same CE Teifling Bard/Cleric mentioned in another topic (Catch Free Efreeti Wishes?) had in this situation decided to wander into a major temple to Orcus (his diety) and decides to then and there, desecrate it by beheading the statue. Literally in front of his congregation and priests gathered there. He had an adamantine longsword to do the job and had the statues head off in a few rounds. He was chased by a bloodthirsty mob of followers and priests but had an escape plan to avoid that.

When I explained the sheer gravity of his choice to him, he felt Orcus should not be able to send anything more than “some low level plebs” at him, touting that since we were in the middle of an adventure for Lv 12 characters that Orcus be restricted in what CR of threats he could send against him.

I explained that this isn’t for instance, some local lord whose best champion and instrument of revenge is his CR 14 fighter or something to that effect. Orcus has a near limitless arsenal of undead and demons both, and he being a demon would not tolerate a sleight of this magnitude. I explained a Marilith or some other demon death squad should should up and murder him cold and dead and have his body strung up for all to see as a warning to others.

Compounding this was the other players who all heard about what his character had done (he boasted about it), they decided should a death squad show up they would literally have the character handed over OR they would stand aside and let the demons have him. They didn’t want to be added to Orcus’ hitlist.

He continued to protest that the best he should be dealing with is a steady influx of Dretches, Babau’s and other low CR demons or some undead, that it is my job as a “good DM” to ensure he doesn’t just get slaughtered.

I said again, this isn’t like annoying or attacking some local goblin tribe or some evil wizard of a certain level, both of which have limited tools and resources to “retaliate” with. Orcus is almost a diety in his own right, I even argued that I should have literally struck him down with divine wrath in Orcus’ temple then and there but I decided to make a better example out of him in game that would essentially became another warning of how one does not attack or insult their god in their own temples.

So to put this to bed, and end the continuing argument (my players agree with me on what they think Orcus would do) between players, I want to know what you think.

Actions have consequences. He's started a fight with something way above his level, and that's what he should get.

Wow your player is a tool. Nope if you go to your Deities temple and desecrate it you lose your powers that deity grants you for starters. Now picking an evil deity means your are more likely to end up in their Domain when you die and that death is likely to happen at the hands of that Deity or their chosen.

Personally I would send the herald of Orcus after him. Though I know nothing of that particular Deity. Granted he never would have made it out of the temple if I were running that game. With only bard stuff he is a little weaker as he loses come of his combat ability. Not cause bards suck but because losing levels sucks. The congregation would kill him. If he some how got away their would be a small army of evil waiting for it. He can boast from the grave.

But I would have a long talk with your players. If you have one player who is causing a lot of problems and bothering your other player and yourself a talk is needed. Table top games are a co-operative game and everyone needs to be on the same fun page.

Sounds to me like your friendly CE Bard/Cleric needs a little spanking.

Hmmm. Seems like a disagreement on expectations. As gm you really can't be wrong here. Consequences are a part of the world you make and how harsh they are is ultimately up to you. In this case it seems there was a player/dm discrepancy in expectations so I would recommend a bit of mercy but not so much so that he doesn't get the point. I would give him a really really tough time of it but not an auto kill. Probably around 30% chance of living should do so CR15/16 if its solo probably with a few lesser encounters to weaken him first. I like the idea of a herald but there was one particular thing from 3.5 that might do better. Basically it was a clone of the player that pissed off a deity sent to kill that person. It had some nice buffs on top of the copy pasted stats notably that it couldn't be harmed or hindered by any but whoever it was sent for. The goal is to put him into a situation serious enough that he learns not to F*** with OP world individuals while still giving a fair chance of survival

1) Take away all his cleric powers
2) Send a major hit squad after him
3) Kill him a lot
4) Tell player he is no longer welcome to play chaotic or evil characters at your table because he abuses them. Otherwise he'll just make another d&$!~!% and pull the same kind of thing again. And again.

This sounds like an issue with a disruptive player. If it were me, I would have warned him, "if you go ahead with this, you will need to roll up a new character." If he persisted, I'd tell him his character is now an NPC, and then describe the consequences later. You shouldn't allow disruptive play to hijack your campaign. Repeat offences should result in the player being asked to leave the game.

And... why did he think it was a good idea to chop of the head of his god's statue?

Also, why weren't his cleric powers immediately revoked? Desecrating your own deity's shrines sounds like major grounds for revoking powers!

Orcus is associated with the sin of wrath, and is the god of necromancy. So things should happen in this order:

1) He loses his cleric powers
2) He is eviscerated by powerful demons sent by Orcus
3) Orcus turns him into an undead minion
4) He becomes a new recurring villain

To answer some of the questions posed in the responses.

- His powers were instantly revoked, he had designs to go to one of Orcus’ rivals and pledge themselves to them and get his Cleric powers reinstated since Orcus inevitably would have many enemies.
- He desecrated the statue because in the latest adventure the group went up against a Beblith that bore a mark of Orcus. The Bard/Cleric, along with the party actively fought against forces that Orcus allied with and had sent this guardian to protect. The party attacked the Beblith and won, the Cleric/Bard felt slighted that his God would “oppose” him with a demon that when the fighting began actively tried to kill him.
- He wasn’t stripped of his powers, as demons fighting their own kind or even his own followers isn’t outside the realm of reason for a demon like Orcus. But he was so bothered by the incident he actively started plotting to desecrate the statue.
- I forewarned him about the results of his planned actions before he carried it out, but he went ahead with it anyway. “It’s what a chaotic evil character would do” he argued, while I explained its suicidal he went ahead with it anyway.

"Chaotic/evil" does not mean incapable of rational thought or coherent characterization.

Sounds like a problem with the player.

'It's what a chaotic evil character would do' is just ridiculous and frankly somewhat immature.

If there isn't a very good reason to keep him around just inform him that his 'game style' doesn't fit and boot him.

For every tool player I'm sure there are a dozen decent ones. Don't waste your time on him.

Playing out consequences with this type of player won't end well, nip it in the bud now and just say he isn't welcome to the table.

Sounds like the player has a problem with the dm or the game.

I don't think your player is going to find many sympathetic opinions here.

Yes, in the general course of a campaign, the GM should make an effort for combats to be within reason for the party's capabilities. However, that doesn't mean a party of first level characters can walk into the royal palace in Absalom and only face CR 2 or 3 encounters on their way to wiping out the palace guard, killing the king, and seizing power.

The response to the character's actions should be appropriate to the world around the character.

If this is a "debate over how much is too much" I would say booting the player is too much! Unless he has done other things beyond what's been mentioned, he really has only screwed over his own character. Booting a player should be reserved for when they are making choices that affect other people's characters, or just generally making the game unfun. Possibly the case here, but we just don't know that part of it.

I wouldn't spend valuable gaming-table time on the consequences; I'd just send everyone an e-mail description ahead of time, detailing what happened.

What Would Orcus Do?

Nothing Good, that's what Orcus would do!

Yup, totally justified in what you did, if a little on the mild side. Personally, at level 12, he's a big enough adventurer that a deity would take notice of that vs. say if he was level 1-5. I'd have even gone so far as to say the deity sent his champion after, who would then probably not kill the PC, but capture him to send him for a long while of torture before the deity disposed of his soul.

I thought you said in the other thread the player was quitting?

A "level x adventure" only guarantees level-appropriate opponents if the players stay reasonably within the bounds of the adventure.

Like if there's a mention of a dragon in a low level part of an adventure path, because that dragon is going to show up later when the PCs are high enough level to fight it, and the party decides at level 3 that they're going to go fight the dragon... they should get eaten. If level 8 pcs who are pirates in the shackles say "let's go assassinate Thrune and establish a Chellish democracy" that's almost certainly not going to go well for them.

If you meet the king, a goddess, or someone who wields a lot more power than you do, in a scene where you're getting a briefing or are being rewarded for your heroic deeds, an impromptu improvised regicide or "let's mouth off to a literal divine being" isn't going to go well for you.

Part of making the game world feel real, I believe, is ensuring that there are both people more and less important/powerful than the PCs and the former group only gets really small at very high levels and is never empty. One thing I detest in a cooperative tabletop game is the "no consequences mayhem" kind of gameplay you get in some video games. That sort of thing has no place at my table. If you do something to make someone mad, they will be mad, and if they're more powerful than you- that's a problem for you. If they're less powerful than you, they might not do anything but they may well hold a grudge and if you run into them in 4 levels, they might be in a position to make your life more difficult.

But for future reference it's best to just not allow CE characters (or players for that matter.)

I thought you said in the other thread the player was quitting?

He did, he quits often however and attempts to return at a later date. He likes to argue about such things as these for days.

Valandil Ancalime wrote:

I thought you said in the other thread the player was quitting?

He did, he quits often however and attempts to return at a later date. He likes to argue about such things as these for days.

Ok, now I'm on board, boot him out.

he quits often however and attempts to return at a later date. He likes to argue about such things as these for days.

How does either of these behaviors make game night more fun for you or for the other players?

I'd say he's quit once too often and not let him back for several years. He gets another audition once he's spent a few years growing up

A "level x adventure" only guarantees level-appropriate opponents if the players stay reasonably within the bounds of the adventure.

Like if there's a mention of a dragon in a low level part of an adventure path, because that dragon is going to show up later when the PCs are high enough level to fight it, and the party decides at level 3 that they're going to go fight the dragon... they should get eaten. If level 8 pcs who are pirates in the shackles say "let's go assassinate Thrune and establish a Chellish democracy" that's almost certainly not going to go well for them.

If you meet the king, a goddess, or someone who wields a lot more power than you do, in a scene where you're getting a briefing or are being rewarded for your heroic deeds, an impromptu improvised regicide or "let's mouth off to a literal divine being" isn't going to go well for you.

Part of making the game world feel real, I believe, is ensuring that there are both people more and less important/powerful than the PCs and the former group only gets really small at very high levels and is never empty. One thing I detest in a cooperative tabletop game is the "no consequences mayhem" kind of gameplay you get in some video games. That sort of thing has no place at my table. If you do something to make someone mad, they will be mad, and if they're more powerful than you- that's a problem for you. If they're less powerful than you, they might not do anything but they may well hold a grudge and if you run into them in 4 levels, they might be in a position to make your life more difficult.

But for future reference it's best to just not allow CE characters (or players for that matter.)

Oh I wholly agree.

Same player before this incident got himself in hot water once already earlier in the campaign. He has a really really negative opinion about Bards, thinks they are a joke class, “they’re the fifth party member in a party of four” which to him means they are like a spare wheel.

So he happened to run into a particularly high level Bard who was also a prominent figure in this town in the game, who absolutely annhiliated his reputation in town and made him the laughing stock, even vendors and merchants didn’t want to do business with them. He couldn’t figure out why he was a social pariah for a long time.

He also had a horrible tendency to misuse the Diplomacy skill. He would want to roll Diplomacy off the bat meeting NPCs and then would insult or anger the NPC’s and think he can just roll it again to bump it back up. I explained that’s now how it works, it’s for initial meetings to set attitudes and then for requesting help or aid, you don’t get to readjust the attitude for several hours (or more depending on the situation as the skill explains).

ID-TheDemonOfElru wrote:

he quits often however and attempts to return at a later date. He likes to argue about such things as these for days.

How does either of these behaviors make game night more fun for you or for the other players?

I'd say he's quit once too often and not let him back for several years. He gets another audition once he's spent a few years growing up

Oh it’s the final time don’t worry. The consensus is we don’t want that negativity in the game anymore. The game is for fun but for him it’s all personal.

Yeah, Chaotic Evil characters are fine.

Chaotic Stupid characters aren't.

CrystalSeas wrote:

ID-TheDemonOfElru wrote:

he quits often however and attempts to return at a later date. He likes to argue about such things as these for days.

How does either of these behaviors make game night more fun for you or for the other players?

I'd say he's quit once too often and not let him back for several years. He gets another audition once he's spent a few years growing up

Oh it’s the final time don’t worry. The consensus is we don’t want that negativity in the game anymore. The game is for fun but for him it’s all personal.

What put the final nail in the coffin was two things he said and did at this time.

1) he was so obsessed with his character he literally got a tattoo of her, not a little one either. He liked to boast about it.
2) he wanted to commission someone to draw his character but decided he can’t, when asked why he said he was “worried they would fall in love with his character” and he would end up violently assaulting them or worse. No rational thinking was able to get through to him when we tried to explain how ridiculous this was. But he was serious. Deadly serious.

So yeah, we had enough of it for the final time and this just put the nails in the coffin.

That is well beyond normal behavior, even for a gamer.

This is really more about the player than the character.

To answer the original question, I would probably have Orcus give the high priest/priestess of the temple get a certain amount of time to clean up the mess. Orcus would want the offender killed and turned into an unintelligent undead, then the soul tortured. Given that the group wasn't supporting his action, I would have probably just had the character die off screen.

To answer the situation, based on what you've said booting the player seems the correct solution. I would still have the character killed by the forces of Orcus.

Holy Bagoly, that is some worrying behavior. Like legitimately worrying.

My way of looking at it, Orcus would be fine with his servants opposing one another. Keeps 'em strong. Don't see why you're so upset about my demon fighting you. Oh, now you're directly opposing me and insulting me? It's on, punk.

In short, actions have consequences. As soon as he made the first attack on the statue. I would have taken the cleric powers. It's, as they said in Slayers, like asking the demon "hey you, help me attack you".

And as for the tattoo, he didn't come to rpgs by way of Jack Chick, did he?

what ever you do just don't punish the rest of the table

Hi there everyone,

So to elaborate on the topic title. Actions and consequences, specifically player actions and consequences upon the world around them, what’s appropriate and differing opinions on the matter, I wanted to canvass yourselves and pose to you a situation that in my opinion as a DM, merited a severe and near instantaneous response from a powerful entity.

So here is the “situation” that arose, my response to it and I’m curious what people would have done in similar circumstances - my player believes I am being “heavy handed” and that they would be vindicated by replies found on here, though I would hope to find that others in fact agree with me.

The good news is that regardless of what actually happened some people will support you and others will not.

Couch things in the right way and there's people here who'd come out in favor of the GM's prerogative to tie up players and force them to listen to bad erotic fan fiction as punishment for... well, anything really.

So the player in question, the same CE Teifling Bard/Cleric mentioned in another topic (Catch Free Efreeti Wishes?) had in this situation decided to wander into a major temple to Orcus (his diety) and decides to then and there, desecrate it by beheading the statue. Literally in front of his congregation and priests gathered there. He had an adamantine longsword to do the job and had the statues head off in a few rounds. He was chased by a bloodthirsty mob of followers and priests but had an escape plan to avoid that.

When I explained the sheer gravity of his choice to him, he felt Orcus should not be able to send anything more than “some low level plebs” at him, touting that since we were in the middle of an adventure for Lv 12 characters that Orcus be restricted in what CR of threats he could send against him.

Once you got to that point you'd already missed the point entirely by engaging with it and with him.

Generally speaking though, he was right about using proxies at least. It would pretty much break verisimiltude to have his lute turn into a frothy mug of Orcus or for reality to rend asunder and a huge gate to the Abyss just suddenly appear from which demons, undead, and undead demons pour forth.

I explained that this isn’t for instance, some local lord whose best champion and instrument of revenge is his CR 14 fighter or something to that effect. Orcus has a near limitless arsenal of undead and demons both, and he being a demon would not tolerate a sleight of this magnitude. I explained a Marilith or some other demon death squad should should up and murder him cold and dead and have his body strung up for all to see as a warning to others.

Escalating the situation was not the wisest of decisions.

Introducing casual demonic hordes is generally something that is detrimental to the game as a whole once the crisis has passed. A bad precedent, if you will.

You have an interpersonal issue with this player, and your priority should be on figuring out what motivated this outburst and whether the underlying cause can be resolved or if your play group needs to be downsized because you're fundamentally incompatible as player and GM. Continuing this charade in-game is just deflecting from this and wasting everyone's time.

ID-TheDemonOfElru wrote:

Hi there everyone,

So to elaborate on the topic title. Actions and consequences, specifically player actions and consequences upon the world around them, what’s appropriate and differing opinions on the matter, I wanted to canvass yourselves and pose to you a situation that in my opinion as a DM, merited a severe and near instantaneous response from a powerful entity.

So here is the “situation” that arose, my response to it and I’m curious what people would have done in similar circumstances - my player believes I am being “heavy handed” and that they would be vindicated by replies found on here, though I would hope to find that others in fact agree with me.

The good news is that regardless of what actually happened some people will support you and others will not.

Couch things in the right way and there's people here who'd come out in favor of the GM's prerogative to tie up players and force them to listen to bad erotic fan fiction as punishment for... well, anything really.

ID-TheDemonOfElru wrote:

So the player in question, the same CE Teifling Bard/Cleric mentioned in another topic (Catch Free Efreeti Wishes?) had in this situation decided to wander into a major temple to Orcus (his diety) and decides to then and there, desecrate it by beheading the statue. Literally in front of his congregation and priests gathered there. He had an adamantine longsword to do the job and had the statues head off in a few rounds. He was chased by a bloodthirsty mob of followers and priests but had an escape plan to avoid that.

When I explained the sheer gravity of his choice to him, he felt Orcus should not be able to send anything more than “some low level plebs” at him, touting that since we were in the middle of an adventure for Lv 12 characters that Orcus be restricted in what CR of threats he could send against him.

Once you got to that point you'd already missed the point entirely by engaging with it and with him.

Generally speaking though, he was...

Hi,

I am one of four players of the group in question.

We all support the decision not to welcome this particular player back into the fold. The only thing that saved his butt for so long was that he was a long time friend.

He was insulting to two, players because they create characters for pleasure vs. power gaming.

One player had major health issues for the better part of a year and he accused the ill player of not taking the game seriously because he would sometime not show up.

A lot of context is missing - Part of which is when ID told the player that Orcus could basically send anything he wished he was addressing the players Megalomania because and I quote "I can beat Orcus no problem!" And yes he is FULLY serious when he said that. So ID was explaining the gravity of the situation. Eg. Sending Demon Armies.

To which myself and the other two players responded "Well if you truly believe that, when he sends the big bad after you we will sit out because we have no interest in incurring the wrath of a god."

This caused the player to lose his ever loving mind because we wouldn't help him. When we said "Oh but we thought you could handle Orcus himself. So why would you need our help anyways?"

To which his response was "Its the principle of the matter. If one of you found yourself in a similar situation I would help and for the sake of party cohesion we should." Then he started quoting Jason and the Argonauts saying the demi-gods in Greek mythology rose up against the gods and won (Said player was no where close to a demi-god)

Then we brought how said player saw no problem previously running away and hiding while the party almost died fighting the Beblith that was sent for him - he ran because he didn't want to get his armour ruined.

He was unapologetic and scoffed at the group telling them out of character he could have taken the Beblith we didn't have to get involved he could have done it on his own.

Full of vitriol and contradiction

All everyone did was accommodate and integrate.

And I don't know about you but when a player says that he would physically harm someone over his character (Views the character as himself and at the same time a separate living breathing person ) that's beyond just being incompatible.

Doom would remove this person from ones presence. post-haste.

And to add to what my player has said he’s been kicked out of several gaming groups before for this same sort of behaviour I might add.

We tried to accommodate him every which way..

Here are some quotes and demands he's made to show the issues.

"If I can't play CE I ain't playing!"
(Someone tells her not to do something and does it anyway) "Its what a CE person would do!"
"She's MY character and nobody is allowed to touch her"
"I want to be a Demon Lord of the Abyss, I'm gonna usurp Orcus and take his throne"
"Bards are joke characters, they are the spare wheel in any party, their abilities are a joke"
"Druids are filthy mud covered leaf wearing recluses who don't bathe"
"Orcus is only armed with a +6 Mace, nothing else. I can take him when I'm high enough level, I've got it all planned out"
"I didnt need help with the Beblith; I never asked you to get indolved. I would have just kept my distance and sniped it constantly while summon monsters kept it busy"
(Frees NPC quest givers mother from undead state/curse, offers to immediately make them undead again because they're gonna die of old age he reckons) "I'll make her undead, she can live forever that way. She's going to hell anyway I just want her soul, let's make a deal!" (Wonders why quest giver is mad at this suggestion, doesn't see the irony of what they just did and what she's now offering to do)
"SHE'S MINE" (in relation to having a NPC cohort Vampire make a thrall Nymph they couldn't make because Dark Elves can't turn Nymphs into Vampires, as Create Spawn specifically states they have to be the same "type" to be turned. Gets mad and decides to quit because he can't have it, throws epic tantrum)

And much much more.

The toxicity made for hard games, people didn't enjoy themselves because of his playstyle.

ID, check your PMs

Compounding this was the other players who all heard about what his character had done (he boasted about it), they decided should a death squad show up they would literally have the character handed over OR they would stand aside and let the demons have him. They didn’t want to be added to Orcus’ hitlist.

This is the most telling part of your story. This tells me that it doesn't matter whether your punishment is too severe. His own party has turned on him over this. That means he sucks. Or maybe he doesn't suck, but everyone else does. Same difference, though.

CE Teifling Bard/Cleric

Maybe they all suck. Are all the PCs like this? Is this just an evil campaign where everyone is turning on each other?

wander into a major temple to Orcus

Who would build a temple to Orcus? Whether people are good or evil, everyone pretends to be good. Orcus worship is the kind of thing a wealthy businessman does in secret. In a special compartment in his desk, he has a spent Monkeypaw that he prays to every night for more wishes, making human sacrifices in the hopes of re-animating it. He claims to the accountant that he has contracted out the office nighttime custodial services, but his nighttime custodial staff are all zombies he animated himself, and he's been pocketing the money.

A Temple of Orcus would something the Romans would accuse the Carthegineans of running, or maybe the Hebrews would accuse the Canaanites of running, or the Czars would accuse the Jews of running, stuff that is almost never true (AFAIK, that really was true about what the Spanish said about the Aztecs.). They just say that kind of stuff about whomever they want you to go to war with. "They drink blood and sacrifice babies to Baal or Moloch, or whomever." That's what they all say.

A real temple of an evil god would be a place that pretends to be the temple of a good god that attracts worshipers in order seduce good people into committing evil acts like burning witches, going on crusades, stifling education, and denying effective medical treatment to most of the people, while the priests abuse certain select worshipers in private.

I’m curious what people would have done in similar circumstances

It would depend upon the context. Your PC is actually a Cleric who defiled a temple that was dedicated to his own deity? That's odd. Why did he do that? Why is there a Temple to Orcus in the first place? Why do people go there to worship? What does this temple look like?

In my campaign, people would think they were Baldur, Osirus, Athena, or somebody nice, but really their temple and priests were secretly worshiping Orcus. If the PC, burst onto the altar and decapitated the statue in his own temple, escaping through the town's elven quarter, I would have the worshipers riled up into a froth-mouthed frenzy and launch a race-riot against the elves in the name of their god, and Orcus would be pleased with his Cleric/Bard, if he cared at all.

Maybe the PC is an apostate to the Orcus Faith, and he is exposing the evil of his own church. That's a good story, and potentially the basis for your whole campaign: the dynamics of an IT'S-COMPLICATED relationship between a Tiefling and his god.

I feel like a good rule to live by when you're taking on a player who has been *kicked out* of *multiple* other gaming groups that you should give that player a relatively short leash, in hopes that you can maybe get them to pick up some good habits that will serve them in the future.

So like when they say "I'm not playing if I can't play CE" I would probably say "That's fine, I can just adjust things for one fewer player."

Toss this player out on his ear, after giving him an earful first.

More generally, there is definitely a danger in going too far with consequences. I'm reminded of the old Baldur's Gate game and how if you picked opened a chest in someone's house a hit squad of city guards would teleport to your location and kill you. That's going too far with consequence.

To play the stupid whiny entitled brat's devil's advocate, the brat has a partial point - as a DM it is your job to throw challenges at PCs that they have a chance of overcoming or at least avoiding. It's the easiest thing in the world for a DM to kill PCs. Conversely, it's not your job to ensure they can never fail or die - I'm a big believer in the idea that success is only meaningful if you can fail (though not every situation the PCs encounter need to be skin-of-your-teeth difficulty - some can be cakewalks). If PCs make really stupid decisions, they may find they have bitten off more than they can chew.

In the case of defiling the temple of his god, is this blasphemy really so vile that Orcus will take a personal interest and send ridiculously high-powered killers after him? The brat immediately losing his clerical powers is a given, but I'm not sure I'd rule that a minor piece of blasphemy would result in a marilith popping up. Orcus has more important things to worry about than a little twerp like Brat. Let other Orcus worshippers know he's an apostate and bringing him to justice is desirable, and that should make things interesting. Orcus is also a demon lord of the undead, so fiends might not be the go to servants. There should be plenty of undead that might want to target him first, or go out of their way to kill him.
Orcus is not an idiot, however, and won't send things that he knows have no chance of killing Brat. And if Brat really wants CR appropriate challenges, oblige him with the ones that are badly under CR'd. Like the druj
If he wants to try to twist the rules in his favor, show him that you shouldn't get in a pissing match with the DM.

That's assuming you haven't done the sensible thing and simply kicked him out. It can be difficult to do, because you don't want to feel like a jerk, but it's like a broken bone or nose - he's making things unfun, will probably not get better over time and the little extra discomfort of excising him right now is better than letting the game permanently grow crooked and warped because of him.

ID-TheDemonOfElru wrote:

Compounding this was the other players who all heard about what his character had done (he boasted about it), they decided should a death squad show up they would literally have the character handed over OR they would stand aside and let the demons have him. They didn’t want to be added to Orcus’ hitlist.

This is the most telling part of your story. This tells me that it doesn't matter whether your punishment is too severe. His own party has turned on him over this. That means he sucks. Or maybe he doesn't suck, but everyone else does. Same difference, though.

ID-TheDemonOfElru wrote:

CE Teifling Bard/Cleric

Maybe they all suck. Are all the PCs like this? Is this just an evil campaign where everyone is turning on each other?

ID-TheDemonOfElru wrote:

wander into a major temple to Orcus

Who would build a temple to Orcus? Whether people are good or evil, everyone pretends to be good. Orcus worship is the kind of thing a wealthy businessman does in secret. In a special compartment in his desk, he has a spent Monkeypaw that he prays to every night for more wishes, making human sacrifices in the hopes of re-animating it. He claims to the accountant that he has contracted out the office nighttime custodial services, but his nighttime custodial staff are all zombies he animated himself, and he's been pocketing the money.

A Temple of Orcus would something the Romans would accuse the Carthegineans of running, or maybe the Hebrews would accuse the Canaanites of running, or the Czars would accuse the Jews of running, stuff that is almost never true (AFAIK, that really was true about what the Spanish said about the Aztecs.). They just say that kind of stuff about whomever they want you to go to war with. "They drink blood and sacrifice babies to Baal or Moloch, or whomever." That's what they all say.

A real temple of an evil god would be a place that pretends to be the temple of a good god that attracts worshipers in order seduce...

I explained it all above Scott, the party were all Good aligned characters but he insisted on being CE alignment. They worked well together, he worked well on his own, pretended to be cohesive but was anything but. Every opportunity to cause a fight in the party and he took it - and everything directed at his character became personal for him in real life.

He planned on betraying his God over a fight with a Beblith sent by his God against the party and him both in a particular adventure. He didn't like that one bit. To him.Lrcus "got personal" So he made plans to defect to another Demon Diety to get his spells and was choosing between various enemies of Orcus in that regard.

We built the Planescapes D&D campaign into our game and he went to Sigil the City Of Doors (an official place and location in many older settings that's popular with my players since 2nd Edition) and there went to the major temple dedicated to a plethora of evil dieties of all alignments (located right across the street from a similar temple dedicated to Good dieties but both are kept in check by the Diety like Lady Of Pain who runs Sigil). He wanted to make a statement about how much he hated Orcus from that point on and planned out an elaborate escape after defiling his statue.

He had a massive complex, felt invulnerable, didn't like consequences or critiques of his actions or choice of words in our out of character.

So it's all him Scott, if you read the whole thread you would see that.

Toss this player out on his ear, after giving him an earful first.

More generally, there is definitely a danger in going too far with consequences. I'm reminded of the old Baldur's Gate game and how if you picked opened a chest in someone's house a hit squad of city guards would teleport to your location and kill you. That's going too far with consequence.

To play the stupid whiny entitled brat's devil's advocate, the brat has a partial point - as a DM it is your job to throw challenges at PCs that they have a chance of overcoming or at least avoiding. It's the easiest thing in the world for a DM to kill PCs. Conversely, it's not your job to ensure they can never fail or die - I'm a big believer in the idea that success is only meaningful if you can fail (though not every situation the PCs encounter need to be skin-of-your-teeth difficulty - some can be cakewalks). If PCs make really stupid decisions, they may find they have bitten off more than they can chew.

In the case of defiling the temple of his god, is this blasphemy really so vile that Orcus will take a personal interest and send ridiculously high-powered killers after him? The brat immediately losing his clerical powers is a given, but I'm not sure I'd rule that a minor piece of blasphemy would result in a marilith popping up. Orcus has more important things to worry about than a little twerp like Brat. Let other Orcus worshippers know he's an apostate and bringing him to justice is desirable, and that should make things interesting. Orcus is also a demon lord of the undead, so fiends might not be the go to servants. There should be plenty of undead that might want to target him first, or go out of their way to kill him.
Orcus is not an idiot, however, and won't send things that he knows have no chance of killing Brat. And if Brat really wants CR appropriate challenges, oblige him with the ones that are badly under CR'd. Like the...

We responded to this in the thread above, look at Princess of Canadas response above in this thread she is a player in my group who can vouch for all of this. Plus there's much more context to everything above.

He literally believed he could take Orcus in a bunch more levels since he was "armed only with a +6 Mace", and that he was a "stupid, clumsy demon"

If I didn't just boot him, I would try to understand why he even wants to play. If his thrill is just causing trouble, boot. If he has other things he wants, it could be rewwarding to try. That character, though? Orcus shuts the door, and gives him a few dretches to fight. Then when those die, a vrock or two. Then more and more and more, until he goes down. But they don't kill him. They string him up before saying "say hello to Orcus" and tearing out his heart.

That's just me, of course.

If I didn't just boot him, I would try to understand why he even wants to play. If his thrill is just causing trouble, boot. If he has other things he wants, it could be rewwarding to try. That character, though? Orcus shuts the door, and gives him a few dretches to fight. Then when those die, a vrock or two. Then more and more and more, until he goes down. But they don't kill him. They string him up before saying "say hello to Orcus" and tearing out his heart.

That's just me, of course.

Lol ♡

You see one facet of why Orcus would deal with someone who openly and brazenly desecrated one of his temples like this, is that as a demon Orcus would not let some pleb publicly sleight him infront of rivals and enemy dieties, especially where he did it.

That's also why he did it, because he wanted his "potential patrons" to witness his deed and offer him some kind of protection from Orcus

I was never going to send anything insane after him, but it would start reasonable and increase exponentially until he was captured and taken to Orcus to be made an example of personally. Eventually. Key to all of it. He might find a way to fix things down the road with Orcus or escape his fate in other ways but he felt he should only ever, period be facing things based on the adventure level//CR at hand as the maximum possible threat.

My counter was that Orcus could send almost anything he wanted, he isn't bound by some.adventure CR limit.

It's like a 1st level character trying to Regicide some Ruler and expect only CR 1-3 opponents face them, that absolutely nothing stronger could be there. That's his point. That somehow those restrictions of the adventure apply to whatever retaliation could occur.

It's like a 1st level character trying to Regicide some Ruler and expect only CR 1-3 opponents face them, that absolutely nothing stronger could be there. That's his point. That somehow those restrictions of the adventure apply to whatever retaliation could occur.

I mean, that's just wrong, but you can still resolve the 1st level opportunistic assassin having to fight CR1-3 opponents, there are just thousands of them. Sure, maybe they can line up and fight the PC one-by-one, but how long can the malefactor keep up the Bruce Lee act?

So even if the person was correct, they sure didn't think this one through. It's not like the abyss is going to run out of demons...

You see one facet of why Orcus would deal with someone who openly and brazenly desecrated one of his temples like this, is that as a demon Orcus would not let some pleb publicly sleight him infront of rivals and enemy dieties, especially where he did it.

That's also why he did it, because he wanted his "potential patrons" to witness his deed and offer him some kind of protection from Orcus

I was never going to send anything insane after him, but it would start reasonable and increase exponentially until he was captured and taken to Orcus to be made an example of personally. Eventually. Key to all of it. He might find a way to fix things down the road with Orcus or escape his fate in other ways but he felt he should only ever, period be facing things based on the adventure level//CR at hand as the maximum possible threat.

My counter was that Orcus could send almost anything he wanted, he isn't bound by some.adventure CR limit.

It's like a 1st level character trying to Regicide some Ruler and expect only CR 1-3 opponents face them, that absolutely nothing stronger could be there. That's his point. That somehow those restrictions of the adventure apply to whatever retaliation could occur.

ya you are under no obligation to limit everything in the world to only be cr+1-cr+3 encounters to the party i for one drill it into players head that there are things in the world that can and will kill you and you can do pretty much nothing to them, that's drilled in by the end of level 3 and if you piss off a god there are many things they can send after you weather that be a cr3 encounter or a cr 70 encounter you will never know until it happens

He had a massive complex, felt invulnerable, didn't like consequences or critiques of his actions or choice of words in our out of character.

So it's all him Scott, if you read the whole thread you would see that.

I was just reading your responses on this thread. If he can't share his character with you, he shouldn't be playing. If he can't abide by your rulings, he shouldn't be playing. If the party doesn't like him, he shouldn't be playing.

So he happened to run into a particularly high level Bard who was also a prominent figure in this town in the game, who absolutely annhiliated his reputation in town and made him the laughing stock, even vendors and merchants didn’t want to do business with them. He couldn’t figure out why he was a social pariah for a long time.

He also had a horrible tendency to misuse the Diplomacy skill. He would want to roll Diplomacy off the bat meeting NPCs and then would insult or anger the NPC’s and think he can just roll it again to bump it back up. I explained that’s now how it works, it’s for initial meetings to set attitudes and then for requesting help or aid, you don’t get to readjust the attitude for several hours (or more depending on the situation as the skill explains).

But your group should examine itself: it sounds like your group has heaped some abuse on him. Was it really all him?