I have a PC who rolled a rogue and took the swashbuckling archetype. His character background says that he is from a desert culture on another continent and that he came to the current locale by way of a pirate ship, which is filled with all manner of fantastical characters that he has rolled stats and made sheets for. He aspires to become a master duelist and make his mark on the world by being a world renowned swordsman. His character has no reputation in this setting, is rather aloof to the party and NPCs, and unfortunately, tends to be the first to fall in combat. Actually... he's the only one to have fallen thus far, and has done so twice, once to non-lethal damage.
Two other characters are on a quest for a special herb to cure loved ones of illnesses, and the paladin has just decided to tag along an play as a sort of "knight errant/evangelist"... the pirate-duelist wannabe acts like he's being dragged along. He expresses a desire to DUEL people, but never initiates role playing. I've tossed a few things his way, but the individuals he fights are usually beaten in a few rounds, which plays out fairly, but he acts as if these are just after-thoughts.
In the elf city they are about to travel into, there is a prestigious swordplay school that I planned on letting him visit, however, the nature of these duels is such that the other three players are left out. A one-on-one fight is not a party oriented activity, and I am having second thoughts about setting up an entire session for him to roll dice back and forth with half-baked NPCs while the rest of the party screws around in another town.
Last session when they arrived in town (these towns are days apart, so other things happen), his character "got bored" and went to the inn and crashed. It was still day time in game. The player walked away and passed out on the couch instead of role playing, while the druid advanced the storyline and the paladin won a convert. The other rogue shopped around.
What might I do to engage his character without breaking off the rest of the party? If our next session goes poorly, I am going to have words with him, but I would like to make sure I haven't exhausted my resources first.
Having fun in a D&D game is both the player and the GM's responsibility. It sounds to me like you're holding up your end and more, and he isn't contributing.
This really isn't a problem, unless it bugs you. If the player just wants a solo game, then he pulled his chair up to the wrong table, and he's going to have to either accept what he gets or go take some naps on the couch. You can't please everybody, not completely.
If it is bugging you, definitely have a talk with him. Ask him if he's having fun, or if there's something he wishes was different about the game. Maybe he has an idea that you can accommodate - it would certainly be easier than making you guess what he wants all the time.
My suggestion: You could make up some dueling legends that he can aspire to beat - they should be higher level than him, such that if he goes to fight them now, they'll beat the pants off him (though they may still praise him, if he shows promise). They can be scattered around the world, conveniently placed near locations where the main storyline will take the party. Pitch the adventures that the party undertakes as chances to improve his game. One way to get him to roleplay with the other players a little more is to have them spar with him while on the road. A friendly rivalry with one of them (say, the paladin) might work well, too. The more involved he is with the others, the more likely he is to take interest in storylines that affect them.
But in the end, if he isn't putting effort into it, he shouldn't expect to get much out of it. I applaud you for putting care and effort into your half of the bargain.
I like Chris P. Bacon's idea but I would suggest a small change.
Kick the character's butt in a duel. Roll up the NPC keep him around and just have him play the foil (this is a duelist's thread of course the pun is intended!) to the duelist, but don't let this NPC level too often or too fast -- the idea is to give the character something to beat that is personal.
I would definitely put a little time into some master duelists that the PC could learn/challenge off to the side, but it seems to me that this PC wants something of a continuing personal nature that could possibly be good-spirited (hence why he tries to duel other PCs -- it would give him someone to banter with that will also be around so he doesn't feel like he's investing in the role playing on a character that isn't going to be around much -- like most NPCs).
I would definitely put a little time into some master duelists that the PC could learn/challenge off to the side, but it seems to me that this PC wants something of a continuing personal nature that could possibly be good-spirited (hence why he tries to duel other PCs -- it would give him someone to banter with that will also be around so he doesn't feel like he's investing in the role playing on a character that isn't going to be around much -- like most NPCs).
Yeah, he doesn't do that. In fact, unless I specifically point him out and tell him that something is happening to his character, he sits there like he's bored out of his mind. If he was doing this, I probably wouldn't have as much of a problem out of it.
I'm just going to ask him what he wants. And if he gets up from the table again next session, I'm going to tell him that his character can just stay in town when the party moves on. I had to tell everyone in our first session that I wasn't going to role play for them (hell, they wouldn't even move their own minis around on the table at first, and we have ALL been playing 3.5/4e for at least 2 years).
But everyone else picked up and started doing things, and this guy just kinda rolled over.
EDIT: I buried my true problem amid the flurry of complaints that I let loose (accidentally of course). I can deal with his lack of interest, but I need to know how I can do so without leaving the rest of the party on the bench. I don't want him to get his 15 minutes of limelight in single combat while the rest of the players mill around and lose interest.
That's understandable. Heck maybe he's just there for the hack and slash. If so *shrugs* not much you can do really. I feel your pain though.
It's depressing when a character with awesome flavour potential for role playing decides to be a sack of spuds with a dice-roller at the table ///
I can deal with his lack of interest, but I need to know how I can do so without leaving the rest of the party on the bench. I don't want him to get his 15 minutes of limelight in single combat while the rest of the players mill around and lose interest.
I work with my players before the game even begins to make sure that they have a character who is invested in the main plot arc (or otherwise has a good reason to be involved), and that the players themselves have goals and an interest in the story. It sounds like you do, too, so I don't know why this player is being such a slouch.
I really don't care to run a separate little story for a player who can't be arsed to take part in the actual game. In my games, the adventure follows the players and the players follow the adventure, you know? If the adventure takes them to another town, I expect them all to go to that town, together. Unless they have a damn good reason, if a player says his character is bored and decides to sit out of the adventure, he can wait until the rest of the party gets back. Nothing interesting will happen to him just because he's a PC; I'll let him just sit there growing moss.
I don't ever recall reading about that one hobbit who stayed in the Shire, or the fifth Pevensie sibling who thought that Narnia was for losers. Those characters do not get written into good stories. ^__^
I think you're being pretty patient with this guy already - if there is a solution here, it will be had when you talk to him about it. If that doesn't work, start thinking of some stuff he can do for you around your house while he isn't playing. Does your fence need a new coat of paint, maybe?
EDIT: I meant to suggest this earlier: You could always have the character's father killed by a six-fingered man.
I don't ever recall reading about that one hobbit who stayed in the Shire ...
Fredegar Bolger, one of the group of hobbits that knew about the Ring and Frodo's quest, remained in the Shire to make it look as if they had all remained behind and draw off pursuit. When Saruman's agents' slowly took over the shire in their absence, he formed a resistance cell and was captured, but later released up on the return of the other four and liberation of the Shire.
You could always have the character's father killed by a six-fingered man.
Ha-ha! ;D That would be cool. Except all but one of the party has parents that are either dead or disowned. I made them give me a list of at least 3 NPCs I could use to drive the plot.
I got two dead parents, a mentally disabled sister and her keeper for one rogue (despite his tales of underground connections), that list of pirates and such from the duelist, an aasimar paladin with no mother, a jerk father, and a wandering paladin who trained him (the only usable NPC thus far). My g/f plays a druid who lived with her grandmother and has come to the south to find an herb to cure a friend's illness.
Any NPCs I have at my disposal are either really far away, or dead or incapacitated. I think I plan to remedy this by creating a few new ones, or making them flesh out older ones, maybe even make them retcon to have more or make them more accessible...
Actually in the op you mentioned that he is the only one that has dropped, I think that has a lot to do with it. He realized that he can't make the character work if all he ever does is get his but kicked. Talk to him see what is up, you might find that due to his failure to survive he has given up on the role play aspect of the character and is waiting for the character to die so he can come up with something else.
if a player of mine ever just got up and crashed on the couch cuz he was "bored", id throw him a big ugly thingy that would eat him up, crush him, and then spit him out at -9 HP, stabalized. or id have a higher level thief come along and steal all his stuff, including his pants.
If the person is still a pain in the collective butt, ill ask the others what their thoughts are and if they want the person to stay.
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This might be counter-intuitive but...
I think you're holding his hand too much.
Give the players an adventure to go on. A quest, or something.
Character-driven stories can be awesome sauce but giving the group a common, clear goal that they can all work toward together (get the McGuffin and save the nice people, yay!) may well be the way to go.
You can be a spectacular duelist in a dungeon and come out with awesome stories of dueling an orc warlord! Paladins can be saving the world!
Send these adventurers on an adventure!
This might be counter-intuitive but...
I think you're holding his hand too much.
Give the players an adventure to go on. A quest, or something.
Character-driven stories can be awesome sauce but giving the group a common, clear goal that they can all work toward together (get the McGuffin and save the nice people, yay!) may well be the way to go.
You can be a spectacular duelist in a dungeon and come out with awesome stories of dueling an orc warlord! Paladins can be saving the world!
Send these adventurers on an adventure!
They're on an adventure. Several actually, they just don't know about a few of them yet. I'm peppering in clues towards other forces at work in the setting, and they have caught wind that the clues are important, but can't see where they go yet. They know there are things that they are going to be doing.
And I'm not really holding his hand. I have planned on them arriving in this particular place (with the dueling school) since the first session. I don't even have to guide them, they found a map in a journal written by a traveler, and that's where THEY decided to go.
If he wants the character to die, then he would have already said something. Another player asked if they would be allowed to reroll new characters if they decided the ones they were playing were not fun (the paladin was unsure about "tanking"). I am cool with that, as long as they accommodate the story by making a local character, or continuing to play until the party can go somewhere where they can pick up a new member. I want them to have fun, but I don't want them getting "altitis" as we called it in WoW...
I have a PC who rolled a rogue and took the swashbuckling archetype. His character background says that he is from a desert culture on another continent and that he came to the current locale by way of a pirate ship, which is filled with all manner of fantastical characters that he has rolled stats and made sheets for. He aspires to become a master duelist and make his mark on the world by being a world renowned swordsman. His character has no reputation in this setting, is rather aloof to the party and NPCs, and unfortunately, tends to be the first to fall in combat. Actually... he's the only one to have fallen thus far, and has done so twice, once to non-lethal damage.
Two other characters are on a quest for a special herb to cure loved ones of illnesses, and the paladin has just decided to tag along an play as a sort of "knight errant/evangelist"... the pirate-duelist wannabe acts like he's being dragged along. He expresses a desire to DUEL people, but never initiates role playing. I've tossed a few things his way, but the individuals he fights are usually beaten in a few rounds, which plays out fairly, but he acts as if these are just after-thoughts.
In the elf city they are about to travel into, there is a prestigious swordplay school that I planned on letting him visit, however, the nature of these duels is such that the other three players are left out. A one-on-one fight is not a party oriented activity, and I am having second thoughts about setting up an entire session for him to roll dice back and forth with half-baked NPCs while the rest of the party screws around in another town.
Last session when they arrived in town (these towns are days apart, so other things happen), his character "got bored" and went to the inn and crashed. It was still day time in game. The player walked away and passed out on the couch instead of role playing, while the druid advanced the storyline and the paladin won a convert. The other rogue shopped around.
What might I do to engage his character without breaking...
A one on one fight is not bad, but it should be limited to once or maybe twice a session.
It also seems he just wants to fight things. I was the same way when I first started. RP'ing is hard and/or not fun to a lot of people. I do suggest the earlier suggestion of creating an NPC that can kick his butt though.
What might I do to engage his character without breaking...
Have an elf rake from the dueling school be a pivotal character in the plot. While the PC's off dueling the elf (with a reminder that killing him would be illegal and punished by the city guard) and competing against him in an obstacle course of some description, the rest of the PC's can search the rake's home or elfy dojo for some lost/stolen item. Switch back and forth between the fight and the seach effort. Eg.
Challenge one: Agility
Rope climb to duel on rickety platforms 30 feet up, Climb checks to get up, first one up gets bonus points. Acrobatics checks each round to not fall prone on the platform (or off of it while standing back up.) 3 rounds of combat with either practice swords or healing at the end of it. Winner gets a more points for some goal... maybe admission to the academy.
Go back to the other PC's and go through the search of the house, room by room. Cut back when they find the wall safe.
Challenge two: Endurance
The contestants run some distance or on elfy hamster wheels. (Winner of the race gets some more "points") then they fight for 3 rounds with the fatigued condition. Healing and rest followed by a third challenge.
Switch back to the other PC's. They open the safe and find, minor treasure, but not the plot item. They continue search when they get to the office switch back.
Challenge three: Wisdom
The contestants have to memorize and then recite poetry while fighting. (It's an elf school afterall). Three verses, an Int check DC 12 to memorize each verse. Failure means the check while fighting goes up to DC 20 instead of DC 15 for that particular verse. During the fight the constestants can trade Dex bonuses and then AC for bonues on their Int check, but if they drop to Dex mod +0 they're vunerable to sneak attack as they stand there trying to remember the poem. The one who recites the most verses correctly and is still standing at the end of the fight wins more points.
Back to the other PCs. They search the desk/rest of the house, find the item and leave.
Flash back to the PC interacting with the elf rake. The best part is that it's win/win situation even if the PC swashbuckler loses. As the rake gloats over winning, the PC can smile because he knows his friends won. If the PC wins, well he won admission to the school and the party got their item... and the DM wins a new recurring villain.