RunawayFreak's page

I have to admit that I am completely torn on this one.

Love nothing more than a story (or a DM ;)) that can make me go "Waitwaitwait...whaaaat?" on a regular basis. I love being surprised, I love things that I could never have thought of myself. Part of the reason I got into RPGs.

On the other hand, spoilers do have a tendency to imrpove a scene from an acting/drama point of view. Players have a tendency to get so stuck in the 'WTF' that the subsequent scene is not as good as it could be. Basically the scene becomes about the reactions of the player, not the character.
Not necessarily bad, but I don't mind spoilers every now and then because it gives me time to think about how my character would react to that situation. And then I can try to steer the scene in more dramatic directions.

I think I like a good mix of surprises and pondering time. Usually fellow players tell me stuff, so I have spoilers on their character's identities en motivations but none or hardly any on the story itself.

Apart from my regular CoC campaign where the ST has a tendency to start spoilering when he's had too much to drink, and since he is my regular bar buddy I sometimes have to remind him I don't want to know all that stuff ;).

I am surprised that nobody mentioned the dramatic potential of good metagaming yet.
If your friend makes a character who is skittish around women you will do the player a favor ( in the role play oriented games I play in, at least) if you 'coincidentally' draft him for guard duty with the pretty sorceress for three nights in a row.

Most players make secrets and dramatic character traits because they want to act out on them, escalate them or 'heal' them. Good metagaming is giving them the opportunity to do that by manipulating scenes so that their triggers come up in play.

Same goes for Serpents Skull I guess, just run it without the castaway-plot of the first book, make sure that the players get into the story without it, and the level range should be just about right.

I've read that it takes more time than usual to mod though (wouldn't know, only ever played it) so keep that in mind.

I really like the idea of the gnome starting some weird cult all by himself :).
I also like your own idea of making the cape and become obsessed by the idea of flight. You should get loads of roleplay out of that.

Otherwise I can only think of small things, like eating a lot of pine nuts, sunflower seeds and the like, and going out of your way to take those with you instead of the regular rations.
Learn to whistle and wake the players early in the morning with the same tune every day (in roleplaying campaigns the early riser is always very annoying and thus awesome. I've been in a party with a cleric of Lathander for years, bloody hymns at 5 in the morning ;)).

Now that I've come to think of it, my suggestions are more fit for a character actually wanting to *be* a bird, instead of just having a fondness for them. Ah well.

Please let us know how long it took for the other players to realize something was amiss. This really sounds like fun!

Are there players with a better grasp of the rules and how to use them?

I am not at all rule-focused as a player, and do not know all of the feats and rules. Thus I always level up with the help of another group member who is DM in another campaign, and is very good with the rules. I don't want to make mistakes or misinterpretations. I am not fond of rules and stats, that should be my problem, not the problem of the other people at the table.

Anyway, what I was trying to say is: if possible, delegate. That is, if you have a trustworthy and rule-savvy player in the party.

Certainly true. I don't think my current group could handle it. Sometimes they are practically at each others throats all on their own with no notes from me. And they're all playing good characters. And 2 are lawful good. And 1 is a paladin.

Any notes like those above will probably end in a TPK very quickly.

This intrigues me. I see no reason why this couldn't work for a 'good' party? You find an evil artifact, and now it's your responsibility to keep it away from the cult and try to destroy it, right? Agreed, some of the (imho) best stuff like the slow corruption and following sense of guilt would not sit well with all parties. But man, my paladin would be *so* into this.

Depends on how much roleplaying your party does. And whether they like In-character humor to invade the gaming table, but that's up to you to weigh out.

If it's just about the dungeoncrawling you can do this for a change of pace, I guess, especially if you go easy on the racial effects, rulewise.
If it's roleplaying they want, they'll probably not be as upset by the feat/class limitations as by the background limitations: "I see here that you are the youngest son of a powerful nobleman, who was given to a cloister at an early age and always resented your parents for deciding that for you (insert long tearful story), only you are not, sice you are a goblin."

I have nothing against Powerteens either (must...not...respond...by...posting...Power...Ranger...intro...), but to me it seemed like the OP didn't like it all that much.
And as said, there are RP advantages to have more diversity in age within a party.

So, if the BBEG wants to destroy as much of Arodens creation as possible, that's his goal. And in general, cults have a reason to want their god/leader in power, so they usually share this goal.

You could go in different directions from here.

1. There is a huge scam going on, with the BBEG promising his followers something he is never even closely going to give them. This can make for nice drama, especially when the followers think they'll get the opposite. So in this case, the cult could consist of slightly naive but well-meaning people who believe this powerful demi-god just found a possible way to revive Aroden, or something along those lines. But some evil adventurers cut off his hand and trapped it in a jer! Quick ye good people, get that hand back!

Or, the grittier 2.
The cult knows full well what is going on, and they want exactly the same thing. This can really make for creative, nasty backstories for individual NPCs. They all want people to die, because they have had horrible things happen to them. Hell hath no fury...Nice Farmer Norm can turn into a bitter, bitter man indeed, in many creative ways. And of course he does not believe that the BBEG will kill *all* humans in the end. Just the ones that are not loyal. Or he believes all humans will die and not care, as long as he gets his revenge. Maybe worse.

3-100 will probably be provided by all the gifted people on this here forum :)

You generally don't buff them as an inquisitor, you buff yourself. And I see it taking up time that could be spent with that wonderful damage output. Because that is what they do best.

But as said, I don't have a very broad scope of experiences with them.

I am not very good at rules, but from observation I found that the buffing usually takes quite some time, even up to a point where the other heavy hitters (if the party has any) have already vanquished the enemy while you are still casting.
So if any feats or something exist that can speed this up, I think that would be awesome for the class.

Yes, but interesting villains always have a reason for wanting power. It can be something really basic or really complex, but villains who just want to rule the world because that's what they want are something of a pet peeve of mine.

One thing to note. You have to remember about the age bonuses and penalties. Epic for spellcasters but a drag for militant classes although a great RP experiance to roleplay aching back.

The thing is: you don't *have* to remember bonuses and penalties at all. You can just ignore them and see age as fluff. Then you can avoid having to play an all-teen party if that feels unnatural to you.

I wanted to tell you guys I can't stop grinning now. Storytelling genius at work.
But it's I think one point away from being a story.
So, we got a what and a how. What about the why? The BBEG is trying to influence the players towards which more or less nefarious goal?

And the first one to say 'because he wants to rule the world. Because er...he wants to rule it. For power. And stuff' does not get a cookie.

I think you could do it once or twice, and just be honest OOC as to why. Too long of too often will feel artificial, unless your game is, as Grandmikus stated, about citybuilding.

On a slightly related note: I've never played in an 'All Teenage Party' before. Every group I played with considered age as fluff.
Which makes for nice incentives for roleplay in my opinion: my character is in his 30's and is travelling with an 18-year old, who has come to see him as the father he never had. Beautiful roleplay, that I would have missed if the campaign had just been Teens Gone Wild.
Is this uncommon?

Yeah, me too. But then the motivation would be 'it's an awesome way to tell stories' instead of 'if I don't, you'd be cheating all the time'. Huge difference.

Not sure if troll.

@Lightbulb: out of sheer interest, why have charisma as a stat then, if it doesn't influence social interaction?

I agree with most of what's been said above. I've never played an inquisitor myself, but I've played with them. Their strength is in damage output and versatility. And they are awesome at that.
They could make a secondary healer, just not a *good* secondary healer unless you buff them with slots you probably want for other stuff.

That is why I put the apostrophes there. I am sorry, english is not my native language ;).

I wholeheartedly agree with you.
But I know there are people who feel like low CHA should have consequences beside lower rolls on certain skills. Like a low CON also makes my character easier to kill, DEX also influences armor etc.
So I know there are people looking for ways to make low CHA have a bigger influence on the game. That is what I assumed the OP intended, asking for character traits that would make social contact harder on his character as a way to represent that.

True, but then other people might conceive him as too silent, or boring, or something like that, due to his CHA 7.

I've always found this a bit of a tough one. I know it has been discussed at length in these forums: how to roleplay and 'punish' low CHA scores.

You are right Robespierre. Let's change that to being perceived as rude then. Because it would have something to do with whether other people have a tendency to view all your words in the worst light possible.

Pfew. You got me worried there for a second ;)

Talk to the DM. Make it clear that you appreciate the fact that he doesn't use CdG on PC characters, but that it feels like he negates the investement you made in getting allies when he uses it on NPC for no reason.

If he does it because he doesn't like playing the NPC allies, he should change the story so the battles involve NPC characters fighting alongside you less often.

LG could go in lots of different directions with CHA 7. Humorless, uninventive, set in his ways...

Meek was also a good one. I don't see why a LG could not be stern, or rude. I don't think that's an alignment thing.

Or somebody who is not the type to inspire others, but fails to see himself in any other role than the Leader/Authority. People who overestimate themselves like this can be annoying, but in an acceptable way, since the other players should have plenty of ways to work around it. This type is also known as Every Manager I've Ever Had.

I think every option is fine, as long as it doesn't get annoying Out of Character.

Also, don't do that to your CHA. ;)

I think that, given the posts above, the player of the ranger didn't feel like going PVP and asked for the DM to do something about it. Which he did.
If Quarotas managed to fix the situation by talking alone, more power to him. If he had felt like kicking the player out of the game without a chance at redemption he wouldn't have asked for opinions.

I think that the plausibility of the various tech systems is a bit of a weird standard for defining which one you enjoyed watching more, but to each his own.

I went with Star Wars because I like it better, gut feeling-wise.

I realize I just picked 'feelings' over 'awesome tech thingies', and am thus banned from nerdhood forever. I'll be over there in yonder corner.

I don't see the point of rolling at all in this scenario. If he wants to be able to control the outcome of challenges this much, he should just make it freeform/interactive storytelling and be done with it.
If people want to play RPG, they should be able to make their own rolls. It's a *game*. In a game, you roll your own dice.

I would personally be more than a bit annoyed and insulted if the GM declared he would make my rolls from now on since I couldn't be trusted to play fair. So I wouldn't play for that reason, I am not that fond of the mechanical side of the game at all.

There is a thrill to rolling though, even I have to admit that. For example, I once had to make a roll to grab a party member who would have drowned in the next round if I didn't succeed. DC was pretty high, and I remember literally shaking when I made the roll (and rolled a 19, and I couldn't stop smiling afterwards. The thought of a DM trying to take that away from his players irks me.

On another note: apparently I have been metagaming all my gaming life without realizing it. I never knew that assuming the monster to have spell resistance after failing a couple of spells, or deducing AC was metagaming. Agreed, it would be bad form to yell 'it must have an AC of over 25!' in-game. But after a couple of hits, you know what worked and what doesn't. What is metagaming about that?

...wait a sec.

Did you manage to convince a certified Jerk@ass Player(TM) to rethink his ways?

I mean, even if we don't know if it's going to last, that's some good real-life Diplomacy check made there. I applaud you, sir.

And @another_mage: that system is sheer brilliance. I applaud you as well.

I didn't notice the alignment in the OP at first.
Apart from all other things mentioned in this thread, this character is not Neutral Good, no sirree.

@Truesidekick: alignment discussion aside (don't think it's all that interesting), to me it boils down to this: if the guy who played the monk had asked you to change your character because he or others in the party didn't want to roleplay with your evil concept, would you have done so? Did this happen? Or did he just start metagaming it from the start?
Also, I think you should have talked to him about the metagaming instead of 'putting the twerp in place' with ingame actions. The moment people start seeing their party members/friends in that light a game tends to go nowhere FAST.

I don't mind evil concepts as such (even though I agree that NE might not be the way to go if you want to have a genuine (non manipulative) team player as a character), but if the group is out, the concept is out.

If it's really about metagaming, you should find out why he is so frantically trying to avoid that stigma. Has he been accused of metagaming in the past?

While I'm known for making sub-optimal choices if I think they make for better story, I know the type of player you describe, and they usually push this idea too far.
More often than not it's not about story at all (since it's basically random) but about 'Uh oh, this thing has not been about ME for the better part of half an hour. Better do something that makes my weird action decide the outcome of this thing, and blame it on the quirkyness of my character'. I my experience this type of player can usually not be convinced to drop this behavior.

Personally, I wouldn't mind the mind control at all, if used in moderation. I can see a lot of roleplaying opportunities there. And I agree with most of the above posters that while it would be wrong to kill you character beforehand, afterwards all bets are off. I assume your problem is not with the possible reactions, but with the threat of getting killed before you even started playing the character.

However, if any of your fellow players are really opposed to the idea of the mind control, then that should be your cue to just don't. For me, the same goes with players pushing to introduce evil characters to good campaigns when such is not appreciated, making characters that outshine an existing character in their party role, making silly characters in gritty hardcore campaigns etc.
Talk to the party beforehand. You are in it to have a good experience together. And if they really don't like that aspect of the character, then think of something else.

The whole 'this is what my character would do'- thing is never an excuse. You make the character (at least I hope so, 'but this is what the character wants' always sounds like a person needs professional help), you can change it at any time, before and during play. If the character is disruptive, you should have thought before creating that character.
If somebody gave me a dollar for every jerky player I've known that justified him/herself by going 'but I am just being true to character!'...well, I could at least ameliorate the Hurt of Parties Past with some pretty expensive champagne.

Again, I like the idea. But I am not in your adventuring party.