Sorry if this isn't the correct place, this is my first post. I'm a (Very) rookiee GM, and I've fallen in love with the apthfinder system. The only reason I GM at all is because none of the party is willing to. So I've gotten a good campaign module started, but while the party is easily a powerful, all-star combination, here's my problem. We have a Paladin, LG that venerates Cayden Callien, a CN Bard that doesn't want any trouble from anyone, he's in it to learn more, and make some money on the side. And recently, the party has been more or less brow-beat into accepting the company of a LN inquisitor who venerates Asmodeus.
Now so far, things are off to a rocky, but not violent start, as the inquisitor and the paladin are having heated philisophical debates, but, thankfully, They're both flexible enough in their viewpoints not to draw weapons on eachother. Yet. However, things are always tense in the party, and I'm wondering. Is there any way aside from pulling the "I am GM, and you will fear and obey." Card, or forcing the party into such harsh situations that they have to put aside what they believe in to survive? I love a degree of party 'conflict,' but I don't want the party coming to blows over it, I just want a driving story.
Thanks in advance for your help.
Well, I don't think paladins can venerate Cayden Cailean, since he's Chaotic Good, but as you have already allowed it, and it is your campaign, go with it.
I think you already hit the nail on the head - ensure that they need each other to survive. Put them in situations that require teamwork to live through it. It is really hard to stab someone who has saved your life. This isn't GM fiat, this is setting up the story for healthy character/plot development rather than player killing.
Well, I don't think paladins can venerate Cayden Cailean, since he's Chaotic Good, but as you have already allowed it, and it is your campaign, go with it.
I think you already hit the nail on the head - ensure that they need each other to survive. Put them in situations that require teamwork to live through it. It is really hard to stab someone who has saved your life. This isn't GM fiat, this is setting up the story for healthy character/plot development rather than player killing.
How I run it, is just because you are lawful good yourself, doesn't mean that you can't uphold the virtues of a god that works outside the system himself. We've talked it over extensively, and the paladin is one of the few people whom I feel confident can handle that kind of 'conflict' with themselves. As for the difficulty, I understand that, but I don't want it to feel like I'm forcing the characters to get along, I'm just looking for tips to help keep this strained alliance from deteriorating.
•Everybody hates demons, right? If they're having trouble finding causes to be both for, then offer them a demonic cult to both be against.
•The philosophical debate has the potential to be both a pressure-release outlet for their conflict, as well as a starting point for some memorable roleplaying. Possibly encourage this by planning encounters with npcs who want to talk about that kind of stuff, like revolutionaries, street preachers or academics. Someone could present a point of view with which the paladin and the inquisitor can both disagree, or someone could even presents a kind of middle ground.
•If the two characters are well-connected to their church-organizations, those organizations could have an uneasy truce that they encourage the PCs to preserve, or they could each individually pressure their member PC to get along with the other at least temporarily, so they can report back valuable information on the other's organization.
•Beware of captured or helpless foes. The bitterest in-party arguments I've seen have been about what to do with prisoners.
Inter-party conflict can be quite an issue to resolve, depending on the characters and the circumstances.
Paladins could very well work alongside Inquisitors and other party members as long as nobody in the party is Evil alignment (Paladins will NEVER work with these individuals if they know there is one in the party). An Inquisitor who venerates Asmodeus on the other hand?, while the Inquisitor isnt evil himself the being he venerates clearly is, if the Paladin was made aware of the Inquisitors faith he might have some arguements to raise though he would never resort to physical actions unless in self defense against a Lawful Neutral character.
As far as I am aware, Paladins can venerate any Good aligned god, as it states in the religion requirements that followers be one step away (at the most) from their God on the Law/Chaos and Good/Evil axis but Paladins must ensure the God they follow is Good alignment at least. So the Paladin can very well worship a God thats Lawful, Neutral or Chaotic as long as theyre Good alignment also.
As to the subject of how well the Paladin and the Inquisitor can work together thats a toughie - actions speak louder than words, and if they work together for an end that suits both of their goals then they could forge an uneasy alliance of sorts. But nobody has to say they love each others company of course - they could be frosty to one another, etc.
Paladins arent supposed to associate with Evil characters, the Lawful Neutral Inquisitor (who venerates Asmodeus, a Lawful Evil Archdevil/God) is loosely tolerated at best but the Paladin would scrutinise his actions and behaviour, watching for any signs of 'evil deeds' and would respond accordingly.
(On a side note, Blackguards have been interestingly enough removed from Pathfinder, though options for 'Paladins Of Freedom' and 'Paladins Of Tyranny' and so forth can be found in the Unearthed Arcana 3.5 book.
After all, why should only the Good Gods have champions?, nothing about Paladins are so unique that the bad guys cant make a polar opposite - I use Paladins Of Freedom (NG-CG) and Tyranny (LE-NE) and Slaughter (NE-CE) all the time in my game to reflect that other Gods can have their champions too)
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Inter-party conflict can be quite an issue to resolve, depending on the characters and the circumstances.
Paladins could very well work alongside Inquisitors and other party members as long as nobody in the party is Evil alignment (Paladins will NEVER work with these individuals if they know there is one in the party). An Inquisitor who venerates Asmodeus on the other hand?, while the Inquisitor isnt evil himself the being he venerates clearly is, if the Paladin was made aware of the Inquisitors faith he might have some arguements to raise though he would never resort to physical actions unless in self defense against a Lawful Neutral character.
As far as I am aware, Paladins can venerate any Good aligned god, as it states in the religion requirements that followers be one step away (at the most) from their God on the Law/Chaos and Good/Evil axis but Paladins must ensure the God they follow is Good alignment at least. So the Paladin can very well worship a God thats Lawful, Neutral or Chaotic as long as theyre Good alignment also.
As to the subject of how well the Paladin and the Inquisitor can work together thats a toughie - actions speak louder than words, and if they work together for an end that suits both of their goals then they could forge an uneasy alliance of sorts. But nobody has to say they love each others company of course - they could be frosty to one another, etc.
Paladins arent supposed to associate with Evil characters, the Lawful Neutral Inquisitor (who venerates Asmodeus, a Lawful Evil Archdevil/God) is loosely tolerated at best but the Paladin would scrutinise his actions and behaviour, watching for any signs of 'evil deeds' and would respond accordingly.(On a side note, Blackguards have been interestingly enough removed from Pathfinder, though options for...
Actually they removed the cant work with evil character clause They can now work with evil characters if it is to prevent a stronger evil.
Welcome to the boards, Shiney. :)
Yes welcome.
My advice: Let it play out.
If they can play their characters and not have violence or hurt feelings, then that's great. If it comes to blows and the adventure is ruined, then that is also good. Why? Because they will have learned a valuable lesson. It's important for you as the DM to adjudicate correctly in-character knowledge. WARN people before they act on OOC knowledge and don't allow it. DO allow sense motive checks and the like to make sure people are on the up and up. Doing these things will gurantee that when the s#$& starts flying, YOU are blameless and you get the opportunity to explain exactly why it happened and give suggestions on how to make sure it doesn't happen again.
It's also your job to set the tone. If there's a player-kill, don't take on the mood of either the killer or the kill-ee. Be upbeat about it and clap the player on the back while handing them a character sheet. Keep the game moving. Don't dwell too much upon it, but be sure to explain, as I said why it happened and how to make sure it doesn't happen again (I.E. more cohesive party).
The GM's most important task is establishing a common goal early on.
As an above poster said : rampaging demons should tie this party together if all else fails. If you just keep the pressure on, the Inquisitor and the Paladin will earn one other's respect.
Make sure communication between the players (and the GM) is clear. The PCs can differ on philosophy and that actually makes for a better game, so long as the GM can keep them focused on a common goal. But if the players start to differ instead of mutually enjoying the in-game bickering, then you'll have serious problems.
Dissonance between PCs is good if it doesn't get out of hand. Dissonance between players has to be handled out of game, as a social issue.
How do the players in question get along? Are they merely acting out their own personality clashes with their characters? The DM's role as arbiter doesn't extend beyond the game, and if the players are having a conflict you may need to involve the group as a whole.
If it's just a matter of specific characters interacting negatively, I agree with Loopy: let it play out. I'm against PvP but it doesn't sound like you want to solve the problem by being heavy-handed. If the players can resolve their problem in-game (and by doing so perhaps learn a lesson in the futility of bickering) so much the better.
Zo
...Inter-party conflict can be quite an issue to resolve, depending on the characters and the circumstances.
Paladins could very well work alongside Inquisitors and other party members as long as nobody in the party is Evil alignment (Paladins will NEVER work with these individuals if they know there is one in the party). An Inquisitor who venerates Asmodeus on the other hand?, while the Inquisitor isnt evil himself the being he venerates clearly is, if the Paladin was made aware of the Inquisitors faith he might have some arguements to raise though he would never resort to physical actions unless in self defense against a Lawful Neutral character.
As far as I am aware, Paladins can venerate any Good aligned god, as it states in the religion requirements that followers be one step away (at the most) from their God on the Law/Chaos and Good/Evil axis but Paladins must ensure the God they follow is Good alignment at least. So the Paladin can very well worship a God thats Lawful, Neutral or Chaotic as long as theyre Good alignment also.
As to the subject of how well the Paladin and the Inquisitor can work together thats a toughie - actions speak louder than words, and if they work together for an end that suits both of their goals then they could forge an uneasy alliance of sorts. But nobody has to say they love each others company of course - they could be frosty to one another, etc.
Paladins arent supposed to associate with Evil characters, the Lawful Neutral Inquisitor (who venerates Asmodeus, a Lawful Evil Archdevil/God) is loosely tolerated at best but the Paladin would scrutinise his actions and behaviour, watching for any signs of 'evil deeds' and would respond accordingly.(On a side note, Blackguards have been interestingly enough removed from
Yeah, there is one AP where the pregen iconic party includes both Seelah the Paladin and the Lawful evil eldritch knight
This is a tough thing to deal with i as a DM typically don't allow party members to go off and kill each other, now getting in a scuffle is ok i've had that happen. But let me tell you how this very well could play out because is what happend to me when i was in a party and it was sad because was one of my more favorite characters.
I joined an online game because my friend said needed a healer, and since i was more of a caster person i agree'd. Now i decided i wanted something strange and enjoyable so i decided to play a lawful good Shugenja(divine sorc) with a big focus on healing. It was fun for most of the game, i was a healer with a dash of arcane(we modified ultimate magus to allow divine magic, so i had a few levels of arcane levels as a sorc it was far from optimal but was fun). Now down line DM decides i am by far most good character i make myself known and so he decides to allow my character to pick up the living saint template. Since despite being a shugenja i did follow a god. So here i am a holy lawful good living saint and i rp'd it to that effect. I promoted non-violence talking things out and the like however...
party consistently would tie bad guys up then execute them after they got info out of them. I time and time again made the point that, my character isn't happy with way your doing things. He stayed because he felt they needed him and because he understood what they were fighting for. Eventually however they decided it would be smart to invite the Chaotic Evil Undead Necromancer into the group... after they mercilessly slaughtered executed a group and necromancer raised them as undead... well all Morales aside no way he would stand for it. He told group was a simple choice... necromancer or himself... because he wasnt going to watch a bunch of people be damned by being raised as undead evil or not he was against that. So told him if he didnt like way he did things to leave so he did... and then complained OOC i was leaving and my response was pretty basic... don't be so evil then.
Morale of this story? when your party creates characters everyone needs to get together and discuss character there making and talk about cohesion. If one person wants to be uber evil psychopath probably a bad idea to have some one else make a lawful good paladin of justice cause he's not gonna stand for that behavior!
in your current situation it could end like mine does where other does something that paladin just cant abide by...however i don't think thats the case if i were you... i'd do something like this. Put paladins life in hands of the other inquisitor i think was. Make the paladin aware of this and a big choice of ultimate power or something like that by some villian " join me and can have world all have to do is kill the goodie goodie!" and if all works out... he saves paladin and makes hard choice but main goal here. Paladin will always remember no matter how bad other might be at times, he saved his life and he knows he can trust him.
Inter-party conflict can be quite an issue to resolve, depending on the characters and the circumstances.
Paladins could very well work alongside Inquisitors and other party members as long as nobody in the party is Evil alignment (Paladins will NEVER work with these individuals if they know there is one in the party). An Inquisitor who venerates Asmodeus on the other hand?, while the Inquisitor isnt evil himself the being he venerates clearly is, if the Paladin was made aware of the Inquisitors faith he might have some arguements to raise though he would never resort to physical actions unless in self defense against a Lawful Neutral character.
As far as I am aware, Paladins can venerate any Good aligned god, as it states in the religion requirements that followers be one step away (at the most) from their God on the Law/Chaos and Good/Evil axis but Paladins must ensure the God they follow is Good alignment at least. So the Paladin can very well worship a God thats Lawful, Neutral or Chaotic as long as theyre Good alignment also.
As to the subject of how well the Paladin and the Inquisitor can work together thats a toughie - actions speak louder than words, and if they work together for an end that suits both of their goals then they could forge an uneasy alliance of sorts. But nobody has to say they love each others company of course - they could be frosty to one another, etc.
Paladins arent supposed to associate with Evil characters, the Lawful Neutral Inquisitor (who venerates Asmodeus, a Lawful Evil Archdevil/God) is loosely tolerated at best but the Paladin would scrutinise his actions and behaviour, watching for any signs of 'evil deeds' and would respond accordingly.(On a side note, Blackguards have been interestingly enough removed from Pathfinder, though options for...
CG isn't one step away from LG. Also, Paladins don't have to follow good deities. There are plenty of LG paladins of LN deities. Abadar springs to mind. (LE is right out, though.)
Nothing units like shared suffering. A good villain/s that hits a party where it hurts (usually the hip pocket) always seems to bind even the most conflicting groups I've played in. Whether this villain is a mastermind or simply a thief, if you get a party feeling like they've been cheated out of whats theirs they get become focused on the culprit and not turn on each other.
Set up a villain that cheats the party out of their dues after they've slogged it out in a tough adventure. Maybe the villain leads a bandit group that hits the PCs when they're spent or hey a rival adventuring group thats either beating them to the juicier quests. Or could be a group or individual smearing their reputation.
If its still trouble at the table and players are getting worked up I'd have a chat about it before the next game. Ask for a gentle man's agreement on dialing things down and not pushing things too far.