My group will head to Magepoint next session.
We've been running into a little bit of trouble lately, as most of the party have begun to skew good lately thanks to all of the horrible things they've witnessed, while the party's chaotic neutral fighter has been as stubborn and borderline evil as he's always been.
Even the player admitted that his character is going on a different path from the group and that he's probably one bad choice away from getting into a fight with the rest of the party.
He also feels like he's becomming underpowered compared to the rest of the group, as he's taken almost straight fighter levels.
So, I decided that I'd use Tenser's gift giving session as a way of solving two problems. His conflicting alignment and his relative lack of power.
Tenser is going to take each group member aside individually and offer them a choice of what they'd like from his trove in exchange for the Rod. The other party members will get two nice choices to choose from. Bishop, the fighter, will be baited into choosing one item, and I believe Tenser knows this from the information Celeste has given him about the group.
Bishop will have two choices, the Bullybasher Gauntlets from Weapons of Legacy and something considerably less cool sounding. Tenser warns Bishop though, that the Gauntlets will compel him to consider deeds he wouldn't otherwise consider. Assuming I convey it correctly, he's leading Bishop to believe that the Gauntlets will give him considerable power but change his alignment to evil. So when Bishop dons the Gauntlets and he feels compelled to do good deeds, he should be surprised.
Now, I'm seeing a few potential problems with this. The main one is that the player might feel like I'm tricking him into being good. I don't think he'll have too much of a problem with this since he's expressed concern about the inner party conflict that might be ahead and I imagine he'd rather keep this character, albeit a little differently aligned, rather than make a brande new one.
I sort of figure that if Tenser is willing to give these powerful items to these characters he's going to be damn sure they'll be used for good purposes. And if he knows this one character might hinder the rest of the party from great deeds, he has no problem tricking him into shifting his alignment.
Alright, so sorry this went on so long.
Do you guys think I might be overstepping my bounds with this? Should I ask the player first, telling him what I plan on doing? Would Tenser actually do this?
Also, sort of related, but are there any good pictures of Tenser available anywhere? I thought it strange the adventure offered a giant profile of Agath who'll probably play a small role while there is no picture of the famed archwizard save for the small one where he has the glass of wine.
The Adventure Begins module (from the 2nd Edition Greyhawk revamp) has a lot of material on Tenser and a full-body illustration of him in the appendix. It's $4 for download as a pdf here on the paizo website.
As far as using Tenser's gift to change this character's alignment, I would say include the character in the process. If he wants to become good aligned, it's probably best (and more interesting) if he roleplays his character that way, rather than being railroaded into it with a magical item. Plus, from what I've read of your post it sounds like you're planning on making the obvious choice (the more powerful item) a tool for changing your player's character, which isn't really fair. If he wants to play a borderline evil character in a good party, let him. Part of the fun of playing such a character is the inter-party (role-playing) conflict this creates. It makes sense that even a self-serving fighter would travel with these altruistic types because of his hope for fortune and glory and maybe on some level because he genuinely doesn't want the world to be overtaken by undead; makes life in the campaign world for living people a lot less fun. It's in his personal best interest to maintain the status quo; just because he's leaning towards evil doesn't mean he's in favor of the coming Age of Worms. Evil isn't monolithic, it's just as likely an evil character will oppose an evil force as a good character will oppose an evil force.
Yeah, I was worried it would seem a little too rail-roady. I get the feeling he doesn't really enjoy being at odds with the rest of the party but he really likes his character, so I was hoping this would give him the excuse to play a little differently.
I'll probably discuss it with him first.
And thanks for the suggestiong about where to find a good picture of Tenser, but I couldn't find any picture of him in The Adventure Begins. There does seem to be a picture of the Circle of Eight in the Player's Guide to Greyhawk but it's hard to tell who is who.
In our campaign, I had a group of players who were largely evil travelling with a good druid. It worked for us and the good druid was low-key so no problems there. One of the evil characters was growing apart from the party, however. It would come down to blows very soon, and I liked all of the characters too much to let that happen. Besides, I had bigger and better plans for this PC.
I took the player aside and told him that I loved his character (and I did), but it was becoming obvious to me as a DM and he as a character that he had run out his welcome; it was time to leave. I would not penalize his next player - same XP and other benefits. His old character rode off into the sunset to become a recurring enemy of the PCs. Its worked out well.
Yeah, I was worried it would seem a little too rail-roady. I get the feeling he doesn't really enjoy being at odds with the rest of the party but he really likes his character, so I was hoping this would give him the excuse to play a little differently.
I'll probably discuss it with him first.
And thanks for the suggestiong about where to find a good picture of Tenser, but I couldn't find any picture of him in The Adventure Begins. There does seem to be a picture of the Circle of Eight in the Player's Guide to Greyhawk but it's hard to tell who is who.
Aw, man, that's because I gave you the wrong title. It's the Return of the Eight module that has Tenser stated out in 2nd Edition terms with an illustration. Sorry about that.
I think if you convey to your players your wishes not to railroad his character, it'll go a long way to making the choice palatable. The Bullybasher gauntlets idea is a good one; one of my players went from CG to LG by voluntarily failing a will save from the Rod fragment they found. His choice, and I was surprised he chose it. Now I'm :gently: reminding him about the choie by having his new familiar ask if his bed's made neatly, if the inks are put away, if he's cleaned the alchemy lab... >< Everyone else thinks it's hi-larious.
An item that compels a character to good (or evil) acts is pretty difficult to employ without seeming like a railroading, but if I were planning on trying it I would use an intelligent item instead. The item could communicate with the character and advise, while still leaving the character in charge of their actions. Should it come down to an ego check, the player is likely to get mad if they fail--trust me, when my party wizard's NE Pearl of Power that's been belittling him for not being powerful enough to use it took control when to preserve itself from winding up as a component in the next Identify spell, there was lots of anger!
But, as others have mentioned, there's no reason good and evil PCs can't get along, particularly when thown together to save the world. I once ran a campaign where the paladin and the LE assassin sent to kill him became good friends.
I recomend talking with the player and seeing what he wants to do. Sometimes good characters are group efforts.
Actually I love the idea of Tenser forcing him into this decision. Players should know that if they hob nob with the rich and powerfull so to speak, that these NPCs have their own agenda's, and see the PCs as little more than temporary pawns, even if they are LG.
It also make's doubly good sense given what we know of Tenser's personality:
He was run out of the circle of 8 for his crusading zeal, and the fact that he couldn't stand Mordenkainen's stand on supporting Neutrality. Out of all of the Wizards in the Circle of 8 he stood as the most vigilent and willing to pop into this or that temple of evil, smoke them and then go home and have a beer. He was also the second most powerfull wizard of the cicle next to Rary who was the most powerfull at 23rd level, and Tenser next at 21st, then Mordenkainen at 18th, and not surprisingly it was Tenser who Rary needed to get out of the way in his attempt to derail the Treaty of Greyhawk.
So I think that Tenser would be rightly worried about something too powerfull ending up in the CN characters lap and causing problems for the forces of good down the road, like say the hand of Vecna. An ounce of prevention can prevent a pound of cure......
Well just in case anyone is wondering what happened..
Tenser didn't offer Bishop, the CN fighter, the Bullybasher Gauntlets. Instead, he gave him a relatively nice, 40kish piece of chain mail armor.
Then Agath asked to speak to the party, telling them that he'd been studying the stars recently, and they'd asked to speak to the party.
Now, I know very little about Agath other than what is presented in Dungeon, so when the party's cleric of St. Cuthbert asked him what god he worshipped, I had no idea and just came up with 'the stars.'
The party seemed somehow impressed with this, so I ran with it, having Agath say that the stars wanted to speak to the party personally.
So, one night, atop Tenser's tower at midnight, the group sat, holding hands, and communed with the stars thanks to a block if incense.
I had them all witness visions of their past or their future, and in Bishop's case, he had a memory he barely remembered about his father killing his sister when she witnessed him meeting with two other followers of Hextor, a younger Theldrick and a pre-Kyuss worshipping Loris Raknian.
In his real memory of the event, he felt helpless against the much older and much more powerful men. In this vision, he found large, even oversized gauntlets on his fist and he proceeded to pound their faces to bits.
When he awoke from the vision, the Gauntlets were still on his hands and he now has a desire to defeat all bully's in the world, foremost the still-alive in my campaign Theldrick and Loris Raknian.
Oh, and he doesn't like his dad now much either.
Then Agath asked to speak to the party, telling them that he'd been studying the stars recently, and they'd asked to speak to the party.
Now, I know very little about Agath other than what is presented in Dungeon, so when the party's cleric of St. Cuthbert asked him what god he worshipped, I had no idea and just came up with 'the stars.'
That would be Celestian if you are running in Greyhawk. He's the brother of Farlanghn and has a lot of nice details written for previous editions of D&D. I had a few tidbits of Celestian included in the observatory at Diamond Lake more for flavor than anything.