Asuna the Shadow's page

Yes you pretty much understand the situation and sounds like you have the grasp of the characters/players. It’s always so hard for me to summarize well something that took place over hours.
I like the ideas you have here, I hope I can share with the GM to implement something similar!
Human pride (especially between two certain types of personalities) is so complex. I honestly think that’s the biggest issue here.
Thanks for taking the time to read and share your thoughts! Very helpful

Got a little confused along the way, so I may be missing or wrong on a few points. The player of the Paladin thought the "scale" was a measuring scale and not a dragon scale? You caught this at some point, but the other players, and possibly the GM did not?

Assuming I got those parts correct, my next question is, why does that matter? Except for a little embarassment on the part of the confused party, whichever kind of scale it is, presumably he knows that the "scale" was sent on behalf of the dragon that he himself had chosedn to communicate with.

The player of the paladin sounds confused an unreasonable. However, the GM is not handling things well either. Social skills should never be allowed PvP from a mechanics perspective. You should have the chance to role play it out, and you may use the terminology. But player agency should never be taken away from a social skills die roll. That's your GM's big screw up. The punative attitude towards the player of the paladin now is also unhelpful.

All that aside, the paladin player needs to explain what he thought he was agreeing to when he signed the contract, and what he's objecting to now. Arbitrarily deciding the good dragon isn't just because the player is mad isn't going to fly.

There's going to need to be a session (probably a good deal out of character) where everybody gets on the same page. If, once all points are made clear, and the paladin still wants out. The only honorable thing I see to do, is to undertake a quest to find an acceptable replacement canidate to assume the contract. The paladin will also need to do some type of atonement to make up for either his brash actions and/or violating his sworn oath.

This is going to require alot of tact, and probably several one on one conversations. But, if everyone still wants to play, then they're going to have to pull on their big kid pants and work it out. Obviously, that phrase should probably be avoided ;p

We play a variant of pathfinder first addition with The Eberon Dragonborn concept loosely. Currently we are level 11. In our GMs world it’s an honor to become Dragonborn (you have to gain the favor or attention of a dragon basically to do so).
One of the characters who is newer to gaming was put in an odd predicament. He is a half orc paladin with an identity complex due to his upbringing and the nature of half orcs. Although we aren’t crazy role playing with the back stories that is part of his characters core identity.
His character privately sent a letter to the ruling dragon who is lawful good (like himself of course) without telling us requesting lordship over the land.
He received a response from an envoy who gave him terms and a white scale (from the white dragon ruler) as part of the terms (which were written out by the GM and handed to the player to review privately).
The paladin read the terms, some out loud against the envoys demands not to read it out loud. The paper spoke about a ritual with the scale (which one of our party members has done previously albeit about 5 to 6 months ago in real life to become dragon born )
The GM at this point has stated a large white scale is being given to him of which all of us (but the paladin and rogue AKA husband and wife on real life) knew was a dragon scale. The paladin and rogue assumed it was a scale (like to weigh items).
The paladin (although advised strongly to think on it) immediately agrees to the terms (4-5 terms beyond the ritual requirement) and accepts the scale and signs his name with 2 of the other party members accepting a geiss saying that we would fulfill the requirements.
Due to him accepting terms we are given an airship and a crew of a good size. We spend about 4 hours outfitting the ship.
As we start our journey a day in or two it becomes extremely apparent the player did not realize this was a dragon scale.
He suddenly becomes irate in real life and in character and decides he doesn’t want to become Dragonborn. I explain to him outside of game that we are going to be in huge trouble if we ignore a promise made to a dragon. He doesn’t ask the GM at this point to stop and reverse anything but says he is Going to find a way to get out of it.
I at this point am questioning why a lawful good character would go back n a contract with a lawful good dragon that benefits the well-being of the land in general. But half the team doesn’t comprehend that He thought the stupid scale was a dragon scale.
I feel like at this point the player should have asked to stop and talked through things with the GM but I think he didn’t because he thought ina. Meta way he could just get out of this.
In character I try to persuade him threatening basically (I play a fighter with high intimidation and rolled a 19 or 20) I assumed the GM would play this out differently than an intimidation against an NPC and merely take the time to explain to the player character WHY he should be convinced to follow the contract -the geiss would start hurting part of his party which a lawful good character should not typically choose to hurt his party for the sake of his pride in my opinion. (My fighter is chaotic good and would very much not want to be handicapped or killed by some magic contract just for the sake of the other characters identity issues)
The GM decides to play the intimidate out as on an NPC and makes the character (to my dismay and his) go through the ritual.
Fast forward to the next session.

Angry angry player. Plays it off as his character having been betrayed by a lawful good white dragon who he says “tricked him and isn’t lawful good obviously” because he forced him into doing this and swindled him basically. But there was not any in game swindling by the dragon, it was just the player himself not understand. By those terms the dragon did not actually do anything wrong. He claims his character feels betrayed and doesn’t trust my fighter anymore and purposefully plays behind my back to change the mission take the ship somewhere else and wants to find a way to get back basically at the dragon who has swindled him. The Gm clearly states that the dragon IS lawful good. That it is an honor in this world to be Dragonborn.
The player tells him that he’s wrong obviously.
This short session seems to go alright after we get over that but unfortunately the paladin has completely run away from the mission which we are about to find out is going to also impose side affects from the active geiss.
Beyond the fact try at the GM and the character obviously need to talk this out, how do you think you remedy this level of misunderstanding? We have 4 young kids that can be loud and distracting and they claim that is part of the issue why they didn’t comprehend the situation.
But other than ending the session or completely reversing things and going back from hours of play, what would you do with this type of situation?
I personally feel bad about the way the intimidation played out as I assumed it would provide clarity or suggestions basically from the GM to the player not force someone into doing something.
But I also feel like reversing isn’t fair to everyone else and the Gm shared with me that he doesn’t really want to give that much of a “give me” to this character cause he feels like he’s just throwing a fit. in the world the Gm created all of us should view this ritual as a privilege anyways, and as a blessing basically (which he explained to us how dragons are the sole rulers basically from the beginning and have a high level of respect from all races). He feels the player is basically pissed by the transformation because of the way it’s affecting his stats and not for valid storyline reasons.
Thoughts? I want peace not fighting. I also get how feeling like you are being forced to Change your character ticks people off.

I think it depends on the back story. Why is he skilled at torture? Was he raised by perhaps an assasins guild or evil person and forced into the skill reluctantly? If so he could easily be good and have that knowledge and background (and ability to do so) while be conflicted about it. I think the character in this case would be struggling with their own alignment. What he was raised to do dueling and feels like he has to, to protect himself/those he loves, with his beliefs or viewpoint in life.

However if you make him a good alignment and have him be skilled at torture just because he thought that was a cool trade to learn... that doesn’t make sense to me.