Heh. I'd have allowed you to kill the kid but rule that the murder, in those circumstances with the ritual already under way, would have completed the sacrifice. Killing the sacrificial lamb in the ritual location as an expedience is asking, nay, begging for trouble.
But then, I'm a rat-bastard DM/Keeper in situations like these.
Same here. I don't see any reason to keep the PCs from doing what they want to do. They just have to pay the consequences for doing it.
The DM was actually awarding himself XP based on the characters he had killed. Apparently he was excited as he had 'just levelled'.
Excuse me while I go get a cup of coffee so I can spit it out all over the screen...
We always joked about what level a DM is, or giving a DM xp, but to have one actually do it is beyond belief.
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I wouldn't say that I've 'walked out' of my last two gaming groups as much as 'just stopped playing.'
My current group of friends (who I've been playing with for about two years) are good guys and a few of them have taken a hand at DMing. The first major game was 4E and we played it for several months before I just decided that the constant combat and SLOOOOOOOOW moving story just didn't suit me.
The second game was a Star Wars Saga Edition game taking place in the Legacy Era. I just stopped going to that one because (maybe because of my focus on 4E rules) our PCs were ALWAYS just one hit away from death during almost every combat encounter. It sure didn't feel like I was a powerful Jedi (we were at levels 4-6 through that campaign). I don't know if I was spoiled or just disinterested. The campaign was okay but George Lucas really ruined my ideas about Star Wars so that could have been it.
Speaking of rules--if a rule seemed unpopular both DMs (in the above campaigns) would usually wing it for the session then we'd talk about it afterward. I really like that they listened to us about the things that we didn't like and they were continually seeking feedback.
I guess sometimes we just leave games out of lack of interest and not conflict.
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The DM was actually awarding himself XP based on the characters he had killed. Apparently he was excited as he had 'just levelled'.Excuse me while I go get a cup of coffee so I can spit it out all over the screen...
No, no, this could work. He just has to remember that if the party kills any of his dudes, he makes a new campaign and goes back to level 1.
And once he loses all his players, his DM Constitution score is 0 and he can never resurrect to create another campaign again.
The campaign was okay but George Lucas really ruined my ideas about Star Wars...
I can relate. Our most successful Star Wars campaigns have always been outside of the realm of the films, in eras such as The Old Republic, Legacy, etc. We've tried a few during the Clone Wars, but just can't escape the mental imagery of the prequels and.that.dialogue...
"NooooOOOOoooOOOOoooOOOoooooOOOOOo!!!"
I wouldn't say that I've 'walked out' of my last two gaming groups as much as 'just stopped playing.'
My current group of friends (who I've been playing with for about two years) are good guys and a few of them have taken a hand at DMing. The first major game was 4E and we played it for several months before I just decided that the constant combat and SLOOOOOOOOW moving story just didn't suit me.
The second game was a Star Wars Saga Edition game taking place in the Legacy Era. I just stopped going to that one because (maybe because of my focus on 4E rules) our PCs were ALWAYS just one hit away from death during almost every combat encounter. It sure didn't feel like I was a powerful Jedi (we were at levels 4-6 through that campaign). I don't know if I was spoiled or just disinterested. The campaign was okay but George Lucas really ruined my ideas about Star Wars so that could have been it.
Speaking of rules--if a rule seemed unpopular both DMs (in the above campaigns) would usually wing it for the session then we'd talk about it afterward. I really like that they listened to us about the things that we didn't like and they were continually seeking feedback.
I guess sometimes we just leave games out of lack of interest and not conflict.
About always being one hit away from death, you probably were. The original saga edition rules do an atrocious job of explaining how to balance encounters and how to pace adventures. I guess they figured everything can be extremely deadly since you wont die outright unless you are out of force points. There was some errata i think about how tough the challenges should be but that took it too far the other way (too easy), so basically a dm has to learn how to balance and pace that game pretty much on their own.
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About always being one hit away from death, you probably were. The original saga edition rules do an atrocious job of explaining how to balance encounters and how to pace adventures. I guess they figured everything can be extremely deadly since you wont die outright unless you are out of force points. There was some errata i think about how tough the challenges should be but that took it too far the other way (too easy), so basically a dm has to learn how to balance and pace that game pretty much on their own.
The fights were "okay" but I didn't feel particularly heroic. Ah I miss the days of actually BELIEVING my character was this amazing guy capable of great things!
I haven't begun to play Pathfinder yet, but so far everything about it just screams "good ol' days" to me!
Murdering children is simply not something I want in my games. Period.
Did I really have to just type that out?
The fights were "okay" but I didn't feel particularly heroic. Ah I miss the days of actually BELIEVING my character was this amazing guy capable of great things!
I had an AD&D campaign like that, back in the day. Every fight ended with us almost all dead and the bad guys coincidentally deciding to run away or give up just before we reached a TPK. Talk about frustrating...
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Murdering children is simply not something I want in my games. Period.
You know, if my character really believed - really truly believed - that the world would end, and I couldn't see a way to save the child with a plausible chance of success, I might have a character do that. I'd try everything that might work first, but...I could see, after our last chance to save the child failed, killing the child to stop the events. I'd probably have the character suicide afterward, though, in a kamikaze charge against those enemies that forced the decision, or after my character got everyone else out of whatever hell hole our characters were in out.
You know, if my character really believed - really truly believed - that the world would end, and I couldn't see a way to save the child with a plausible chance of success, I might have a character do that. I'd try everything that might work first, but...I could see, after our last chance to save the child failed, killing the child to stop the events. I'd probably have the character suicide afterward, though, in a kamikaze charge against those enemies that forced the decision, or after my character got everyone else out of whatever hell hole our characters were in out.
Honestly, I like the quandry related to this topic in Dragon Age: Origins.
Murdering children is simply not something I want in my games. Period.
Quoting this again.
Perhaps I should bold the "period."
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Murdering children is simply not something I want in my games. Period.Quoting this again.
Perhaps I should bold the "period."
Go ahead. But some people don't add the period. I wouldn't set up such a situation as a DM myself, but I could see running into that situation in a game and dealing with it. It would depend very strongly on how well I knew the DM and how they treated the situation. ::shrug::
Out of random curiousity, have you ever watched the TV series "Dexter"? I enjoy the show myself, but have a friend that refuses to watch it because the premise of a serial killer being the protagonist is something she feels should not be allowed to exist, even in fiction.
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The DM was actually awarding himself XP based on the characters he had killed. Apparently he was excited as he had 'just levelled'.
That's not really a fair fight. Even strictly following the CR rules you can set up an encounter that specifically targets the party's weaknesses and completely crushes the players' hopes & spirits. The solution is to bring in these guys...
When I tried to look at their character sheets to figure out what kind of supermen I was dealing with, they acted like I wasn't supposed to see their sheets. That kinda ticked me off because in other games I'd played, the DM was allowed to review players' sheets to make sure there characters were set up right. They just assured me that Character Builder program had told them their characters were "legal" and I was supposed to be satisfied with that.
... so everyone's going into the fight blind and they can all spin around with each other in an endless cycle of suck, thus freeing the rest of us to play games that are more awesome.
Murdering children is simply not something I want in my games. Period.
Heh. At least you've made up your mind about it. My regular DM decided he'd like to run a Conan game (already a pretty much amoral setting; even the 'good' deities there are at best aloof and largely unconcerned with mortal affairs) with us playing the role of a scoundrel mercenary company running from the victor of a coup/patricide-regicide gone bad (the son we supported but he elected to slaughter us rather than pay up). After we got involved in a kind of 'arms race' to recover some powerful starfallen juju that one of the setting's 'good god' faithful were hot on the trail of (keep it from falling into evil hands, etc) he ended up calling off the campaign cuz we acted, well, like bloodthirsty mercenaries. Apparently rounding up a handful of Mitran priests in their wagon and setting it on fire so they couldn't warn their church about us was too much for him, though the same DM ran a Call of Cthulhu game where a crazy evil bum lady took a hammer to a bag full of kittens in her crazy bum stroller.
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Heh. I'd have allowed you to kill the kid but rule that the murder, in those circumstances with the ritual already under way, would have completed the sacrifice. Killing the sacrificial lamb in the ritual location as an expedience is asking, nay, begging for trouble.
That was one of the things I was thinking of when I said:
There are at least a handful of ways I can think of off the top of my head to handle the situation without resorting to that.
:D
Murdering children is obviously not something to be promoted, but I wouldn't think twice about snuffing the kid to save the world. It is like in the movie Swordfish. "Would you kill a single innocent child to rid the world of disease?" My answer would immediately be yes. I may burn in hell for it, but the rest of the world be better off, so I wouldn't hesitate.
Out of random curiousity, have you ever watched the TV series "Dexter"? I enjoy the show myself, but have a friend that refuses to watch it because the premise of a serial killer being the protagonist is something she feels should not be allowed to exist, even in fiction.
List of things Dexter doesn't murder:
1) Children
2) Doesn't matter, No murdering children in my games.
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Out of random curiousity, have you ever watched the TV series "Dexter"? I enjoy the show myself, but have a friend that refuses to watch it because the premise of a serial killer being the protagonist is something she feels should not be allowed to exist, even in fiction.List of things Dexter doesn't murder:
1) Children
2) Doesn't matter, No murdering children in my games.
Yup, I realize that's a rule of the character's. Like I said, I was just curious. Wasn't drawing any direct parallels there.
Murdering children is simply not something I want in my games. Period.
I could understand a rule like that in your game as long as you tell the players ahead of time. I have seen similar actions in other games, but I have never done that in one of my games. A mage in one of the games I played in, webbed a whole family of goblins, including the children and set it on fire, killing all the goblins. (1st ed AD&D) I feel though it is up to the maturity of the players. If that is the direction the players take, fine, but there will be serious consequences for there actions depending on the genre and setting.
Murdering children is obviously not something to be promoted, but I wouldn't think twice about snuffing the kid to save the world. It is like in the movie Swordfish. "Would you kill a single innocent child to rid the world of disease?" My answer would immediately be yes. I may burn in hell for it, but the rest of the world be better off, so I wouldn't hesitate.
I would hesitate, because erasing all diseases from the face of the world wouldn't make the human condition much better, unless you see famine, old age, war and slavery as diseases...
As an educational note, infanticide is something that can be quite common in nature. This happens a lot with lions and gorillas: when a new alpha male take the lead, he, sometimes, kills all is predecessor's descendants, if they are young enough to be killed easily (thus eleminating/reducing his competitors' genotype from the genetic pool of the population).
Out of random curiousity, have you ever watched the TV series "Dexter"? I enjoy the show myself, but have a friend that refuses to watch it because the premise of a serial killer being the protagonist is something she feels should not be allowed to exist, even in fiction.List of things Dexter doesn't murder:
1) Children
2) Doesn't matter, No murdering children in my games.
Theoretically, if you were in a no-win situation where murdering a child was the only way to keep the world from being exploded, you'd be murdering a lot more children by not murdering just one ;)
But in all seriousness, I agree. I prefer not to run campaigns that involve rape or child murder.
Out of random curiousity, have you ever watched the TV series "Dexter"? I enjoy the show myself, but have a friend that refuses to watch it because the premise of a serial killer being the protagonist is something she feels should not be allowed to exist, even in fiction.List of things Dexter doesn't murder:
1) Children
2) Doesn't matter, No murdering children in my games.
In my games I wouldn't want to place the party in that kind of situation, tends to make people unconfortable. It's an overused moral dilemma in any case.
Although it does make me wonder at the whole 'children are always innocent' philosophy. It's a curious modern construction of 'childhood' (indeed, before the enlightenment period the philosophy was that children were inherently EVIL and needed to have devil whipped out of them). Regardless, it's something I'd avoid in-game.
But this is all off topic.
I've never actually 'walked out' of a game but have had one GM who I avoided from that point onwards. I played a cleric of hextor (fighter type, lawful evil deity) in a 3.5 game and our party was ambushed by bandits. After slaying all but one of them, the GM then grappled my character and, after rolling well, won the grapple. The GM then said, 'he puts a dagger to your throat'. I raise an eyebrow but figured it was just RPing fluff, since you can't actually coup de grace someone in grapple.
Being an arrogant martial type, I spit a litany of curses at the bandit. The ranger in the party then shoots at the bandit, but apparantly the bandit was using me as a human shield and I get hit instead (ignoring the fact that I was wearing full pate armor and the shot couldn't beat my AC). The bandit then coup de graces me with the dagger(!!!).
I complain to him that what he did was against the rules but he refused to acknowledge it. Used the old 'I'm the GM!' shtick. I've avoided all his games since.
Needless
Murdering children is simply not something I want in my games. Period.You know, if my character really believed - really truly believed - that the world would end, and I couldn't see a way to save the child with a plausible chance of success, I might have a character do that. I'd try everything that might work first, but...I could see, after our last chance to save the child failed, killing the child to stop the events. I'd probably have the character suicide afterward, though, in a kamikaze charge against those enemies that forced the decision, or after my character got everyone else out of whatever hell hole our characters were in out.
Interesting feelings on this one. In one of the official endings for one of my favorite roleplaying games of all time, Werewolf the Apocalypse, the players faced a quandry in that they had to kill
I had the same thought and I don't consider myself a rat-bastard. Just the type of DM that tries to force his players to THINK.
Yeah a "jerk-ass DM", making players think about the consequences of their actions...YOU FIEND!
Mr. Fishy, you always make me smile.
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2) Doesn't matter, No murdering children in my games.
Remind me, if I'm ever a player in a game you're running, to make my PC a child. Because then he'd be invincible!
Remind me, if I'm ever a player in a game you're running, to make my PC a child. Because then he'd be invincible!
2) Doesn't matter, No murdering children in my games.
I was in a nostalgia phase not so long ago, playing to good old Baldur's Gate AGAIN, and I discovered that a new patch I installed made me able to kill the children who were invincible in the original game. I was like : ''Now, after all those years, the time for revenge as come!'' :P
Murdering children is obviously not something to be promoted, but I wouldn't think twice about snuffing the kid to save the world. It is like in the movie Swordfish. "Would you kill a single innocent child to rid the world of disease?" My answer would immediately be yes. I may burn in hell for it, but the rest of the world be better off, so I wouldn't hesitate.
Of course, the chances that you find yourself in a situation where murdering an innocent child will rid the world of disease are not really high.
I wouldn't set up such a situation as a DM myself, but I could see running into that situation in a game and dealing with it. It would depend very strongly on how well I knew the DM and how they treated the situation. ::shrug::
And that's the core of the matter: If you don't want players doing certain things, then make sure you won't put them into situations where a character not overburdened with morals would think that this is the best thing to do.
I can totally understand someone having an absolute taboo about killing children in his games. That and a number of other things.
But if you think that way and maybe never really tell anyone (assuming everybody has the same opinion is beyond stupid, especially if we're thinking about RPGs where people someone play a character that is completely different from themselves), and then put them into a situation where they can think that killing the child would be the only (or even the best) way to prevent something really bad, and have non-good characters around, then you shouldn't just complain when they suddenly do something like that.
In that case, you're the one who messed up, and you should make amends. Not screw over the player to stay in character.
I would hesitate, because erasing all diseases from the face of the world wouldn't make the human condition much better, unless you see famine, old age, war and slavery as diseases...
After the week I just had, I very much disagree. I wouldn't kill a child to avoid it, but I would say that without disease, my week would have been a lot better.
And that doesn't take into account children dying of disease - children who would have had a great chance of a wonderful life otherwise, without famine, without war or slavery ever entering their life.
Still not commenting on the kill the child, kill disease nonsense, but saying that erasing all disease from the world wouldn't be much of a good thing is so far off base that people from the next stadium are complaining.
Remind me, if I'm ever a player in a game you're running, to make my PC a child. Because then he'd be invincible!
2) Doesn't matter, No murdering children in my games.
You'd be a level 1 commoner with all stats at 6 or something like that. Sure, you'd be invincible, but you'd have no useful abilities. And nobody would listen to you, because you'd be a little brat.
Tell you what: I officially include you in my gaming group now, as the invincible child. You are a level 1 commoner, with 6 in every ability score. The heroes, who won't bother with children, have met you once and ignored you, and as a child you cannot influence the outcome of the campaign, or indeed anything that happens, in any way.
And of course, you don't earn XP for playing hide and seek or stuff like that. You'll get your first level of an actual class, and actual ability scores and all that, when your character comes of age, which will be about a decade after the campaign's conclusion.
There! Don't bother to tell me about what your character does, because it doesn't matter. And no, you can't get a dog who can, with a series of barks, communicate that there are people in trouble over in the old mines or anything like that!
:P
Tell you what: I officially include you in my gaming group now, as the invincible child. You are a level 1 commoner, with 6 in every ability score. The heroes, who won't bother with children, have met you once and ignored you, and as a child you cannot influence the outcome of the campaign, or indeed anything that happens, in any way.
:P
Pfft he gets to make a Diplomacy, or better yet, Intimidate check to influence them otherwise, or its dirty dirty DM Fiat! :)
This thread is quickly on the way to an out-right argument. I think it may be time to drop the subject.
PS Yes I know that someone is still going to post and keep the arguement building, I just thought I'd try.
This thread is quickly on the way to an out-right argument. I think it may be time to drop the subject.
/DM Shifty "You attempt to get the Thread back on track, make a Diplomacy roll"
Mr. Fishy has this...
Get back on topic or Mr. Fishy releases hell.
>what's the DC to initmidate a whole forum?<
Mr. Fishy has this...
Get back on topic or Mr. Fishy releases hell.
>what's the DC to initmidate a whole forum?<
Not much, as we don't get a collective bonus to resist your attempt.
Although you may have dumpstatted CHA, but then you may have put a few ranks into intim to offset your minor stutter that was bringing down your stats in spite of your alarming good looks.
Fishy did not Dump Charisma. But he has a racial modifer.
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I was in a nostalgia phase not so long ago, playing to good old Baldur's Gate AGAIN, and I discovered that a new patch I installed made me able to kill the children who were invincible in the original game. I was like : ''Now, after all those years, the time for revenge as come!'' :PRemind me, if I'm ever a player in a game you're running, to make my PC a child. Because then he'd be invincible!
2) Doesn't matter, No murdering children in my games.
It wasn't until I played Fallout 3 that I regretted owning a console instead of a gaming PC, if only because I couldn't mod the game and deal with those brats in Little Lamplight.
==AKA 8one6
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It wasn't until I played Fallout 3 that I regretted owning a console instead of a gaming PC, if only because I couldn't mod the game and deal with those brats in Little Lamplight.
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AKA 8one6
Wow, I can't believe they won't let you kill those kids, especially considering some of the other stuff you can do in that game.
IDK maybe I'm just whineing but looking back it really just seemed like his whole goal was to tpk us.
I never got DMs that did this. I mean, what's the point? You go to all that trouble creating a character, just to snuff it? Boring.
Story number 2. This ones kind of creepy. Just say the dm and his wife turned out to be swingers. ( No, I did not go there!)
... but apparently a lot of others did? [ducks and runs away!]
Why? As far as I can tell, their job wasn't to bring the kid back alive, it was to stop the kid being sacrificed as the completion of some ritual that would end the world (or whatever).Honestly, if I were another player, I'd be telling this same story as a reason some players need to leave.Same DM we were playing 4th Ed and I was a tiefling warlock who was unaligned. Our mission was to prevent the sacrifice of a child at a theater ...
... The dragonborn player told him that he was using his breath weapon on the guy holding the kid. So we stopped playing when he wouldn't let our characters do things he didn't like.
It's not the DM's heavy-handedness (which was wrong) it's the translation of "unaligned" = "act chaotic evil without any of the downside" - you know, the same attitude that gave chaotic neutral a bad name ...
Murdering children is simply not something I want in my games. Period.
I agree with the sentiment, but the danger to the child is what separates the RPers from the others - I have had outright evil characters step in to protect the innocent ("I might be evil, but I'm not THAT evil") under some circumstances. If the player saw the descending knife and had only one chance to stop the sacrifice, that I could go with (blasting the knife would make more sense, though) and agonised about it, then I might even let them do it and live with the consequences. Just "This is too much like hard work, I shoot the kid" isn't that, though - although maybe I'm reading too much into the player's post, perhaps he neglected to mention his agonising? In that event, evil is never so easy to perform as when it is convenient and that act would make the PC evil to the core. It would also likely be counter-productive, resulting in summoned demons etc.
When I opened a game of Rise of the Runelords I used danger to children to galvanise the party in the goblin attack. If the party had decided not to act, the children should certainly have died, but I was pretty sure I wasn't gaming with ass-hats.
[QUOTE=
...This continued for a few minutes, while the rest of the table agreed that I couldn't successfully roleplay a straight character and that I should either play a woman or accept that my character is gay. When I looked to the DM, he only responded "he's just playing his character."
So I grabbed my books and left.
No, of course you couldn't play a straight bard, I mean that would almost be like a human playing an elf, or a dwarf... just weird a-and wrong and WRONG!
What a bunch of idiots! Hope that didn't stop you from joining new groups, though.
GRU
I dunno Fishy, maybe they wanted him to play a female so they didn't feel so awkward hitting on him, or at least handwave away any 'questions' by claiming "I know it sounds like we just hit this guy up for some hot and heavy man-love, but his character is a chick, we were just roleplaying, honest".