RPG Superstar 2010 Top 32
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So I stole Mr Pett's idea of the Necklace of Lovelies and dropped it into my Savage Tide game, strung around the neck of the disguised Jujalimus in the fake Noltus Innersol attack.
The Dragon Shaman breathed acid on the beast and it activated the necklace. Cue tiny screams and a red furry neck. The pixies, now awake, begin to scream and beg. "Please don't hit it again! Pleeaassee!"
The Lawful Good party fighter proceeds to spend four rounds pummeling the beast into the dirt, earning the deaths of four more pixies and ignoring their increasingly shrill screams and then tears.
The player says if he gave in to blackmail he could never fight evil.
I think he's due at least a few nightmares. What about you guys?
Couldn't he have tried to pin it, and then had someone else try to remove the necklace or free the pixies? If that was an option, or if an allied spellcaster could cast some sort of hold person-like spell, then I don't buy the blackmail-excuse.
Nightmares should be in order :)
I just had to deal with that item in my groups KM game, but I don't recognize the situation in Savage Tide. What level was the fighter and what options did he (and/or the group) have? What did you expect him to do? At least some nightmares are probably due. Though since I don't know the player I don't know how they will be received. My character had access to Limited Wish and used that to free the pixies.
I once tried a hostage situation, a lower level party (4th level I think) was confronted by a Kyton devil holding a child and it's mother. They had met the mother and child before. They were told "Don't move or they die." The hostages were far enough away that the party could not readily save them. I had everybody write thier response on a piece of paper, so they wouldn't be influenced by anyone else. Instead of not moving and trying to talk, most of the party drew weapons or cast spells. Cue death of hostages.
In 25 or so years of gaming, I'd have to say the hostage move by a GM is the most frustrating for me as a player.
There is no good answer.
Either you allow evil to occur or you trigger the threat from the villian and take the consequences.
I play to enjoy the heroics.
I understand that some enjoy delving into the gray areas, but why play a no-win scenario?
Occasional use of this is still a poor experience for a me as a player.
Continual use makes me copy the real world and tell the GM and the NPCs that my character will not negotiate with hostage takers.
Or it makes me leave the game.
As a one shot, if a GM has to, allright.
But unless it has a built-in fix or an NPC who triggers the threat, I hate this scenario.
Sounds like your fighter felt the same way.
If you want to give him nightmares because of this, keep it low key.
Otherwise his reaction may be extreme.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 32
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Well, it was a demonic hit-squad disguised as a group of missing NPCs whose memories had been eaten. The party is 14th level and the demons were nasty, bite-your-baby-then-quickened-death-knell-it types. Pinning would have been tricky as it was a huge beast. He definitely could have kept it busy by, say, going total defense (AC in the low 40s) until the wizard had Limited Wished the necklace away or cast any number of spells.
I know its frustrating but the player has been an inveterate min-maxer from the start. He's changed alignment twice to multiclass and the last change was to LG. He came up with an in character justification every time, this one about how fighting demons has shown him what uncontrolled chaos really is and there needs to be law and consequences and strict systems of punishment to keep civilization working. Blah-di-blah can I take a level of this or what?
Normally I don't bother much about alignment but when you declare yourself spontaneously LG after 10 levels of CG...
I first had the party encounter a Bullywug refugee escaping the slaughter of his village (carrying eggs). The fighter one-shotted it after it said "Kind humans!"
So, after discovering that item I've been wanting to throw him another little alignment test ever since.
I can see you thought about this before hand and I don't argue it was appropriate.
I just know I hate it. Mostly from over-exposure to it.
I had a Champion's DM who used it more than I was comfortable with.
I agree that I find it irritating when changing alighnment is a casual act for a player. Which probably puts me, personaly, on the lawful side.
When you do set up a hostage situation, make sure the villain's plan has a flaw that the PCs can exploit. Otherwise it's just GM dickery.
(truly capable and ruthless villains will come with other plans that don't involve something so uncertain as hostages...)
(truly capable and ruthless villains will come with other plans that don't involve something so uncertain as hostages...)
Unless said villain realizes how much hostages throw would-be heroes off their game.
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I understand that some enjoy delving into the gray areas, but why play a no-win scenario?
Why it should be a no win scenario?
In the real world there are plenty of hostage scenarios and more often than not they end without the death of the hostages and that without the use of magic.To me the problem seem to be that most player will choose the "act immediately, don't try anything that isn't the direct attack approach" solution.
A hostage scenario is the perfect situation for a "face" guy to try diplomacy and speaking with the BEEG to stall him, while a sneaky character try to get to the hostages from another direction and free them. Or you can back down now to try to find a way to resolve the hostage situation.
This is a face to face game, not a computer game where you have option a or B and anything different can't work. sure, if the GM is playing the omniscient and infinitely ruthless villain that will kill the hostages even if it mean that he will lose his action and be put at a disadvantage resolving the situation is almost impossible, but usually that is not the situation and there are ways to get a positive result.
Continual use makes me copy the real world and tell the GM and the NPCs that my character will not negotiate with hostage takers.
Care to show me what police force, government or organization don't do that?
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So his response to the deaths of innocents was basically "Meh"
Not Lawful Good. He could have sundered the necklace to release the pixies, checked with the spellcasters to see if they could get round it, have the casters cast hold person/hold monster on the bad guy, grapple the bad guy etc. etc. A lot of this may not have worked but he should have at least tried to find another solution.
As for the Bullywug situation if it wasn't a threat and was basically defenseless then slaughtering it is again an evil act. If he's constantly doing stuff like this then he's not Lawful Good and should have his allignment shift to Lawful Neutral.
The thing is though, this is an allignment thread. Check these boards and you will find a bunch of them because allignment is subjective. What my opinion of LG is will be vastly different to someone else's. Eventually you are going to see the "Lawful Good doesn't equal Lawful Stupid" argument to justify these kinds of acts. You may also see people comparing fictional characters to try to come to a definition of Lawful Good. What you won't get is a clear answer, you will find lots of opinions but no consensus.
At the end of the day that's all this is, opinion. My best advice to you is to lay down the law about what you expect of a Lawful Good character. Write out a quick definition of what you think a Lawful Good character should be (bullet points would be useful) and hand it to every LG character in your party. The last bullet point should be this:
"This list is not exhaustive but rather a guideline for play. It should not be treated as a challenge to get round. If you are looking for ways to get round this code then you should not play a Lawful Good character."
Simple.
I understand that some enjoy delving into the gray areas, but why play a no-win scenario?
Why it should be a no win scenario?
In the real world there are plenty of hostage scenarios and more often than not they end without the death of the hostages and that without the use of magic.To me the problem seem to be that most player will choose the "act immediately, don't try anything that isn't the direct attack approach" solution.
A hostage scenario is the perfect situation for a "face" guy to try diplomacy and speaking with the BEEG to stall him, while a sneaky character try to get to the hostages from another direction and free them. Or you can back down now to try to find a way to resolve the hostage situation.This is a face to face game, not a computer game where you have option a or B and anything different can't work. sure, if the GM is playing the omniscient and infinitely ruthless villain that will kill the hostages even if it mean that he will lose his action and be put at a disadvantage resolving the situation is almost impossible, but usually that is not the situation and there are ways to get a positive result.
Care to show me what police force, government or organization don't do that?
Continual use makes me copy the real world and tell the GM and the NPCs that my character will not negotiate with hostage takers.
Well said. A hostage situation does not have to be a no-win situation, though a DM could make it a no-win situation, especially if there is a paladin involved, "you fall if you do, you fall if you don't". Don't be THAT DM.
Take the position of the hostages, sounds like a good thing to do.. You save them, and put yourself in harm's way (without gear, no struggling)..
Also: that guy definitely deserves nightmares, in the harshest ways. Maybe even leave a permanent trace on his body so that future Fey will know to RUN OR CHARGE when they encounter the BIG BAD MAN... *whimper*
That player though: definitely NOT good.. I would make him neutral neutral, or chaotic.. He seems to do whatever he wants, without pondering too much about the consequences...