So I'm running a homebrew PF game. Commonplace guns. Steampunky/Weird Westy setting. Not wanting to come up with a pantheon from scratch, I import Golarian deities.
Before we begin, Player A tells me that he wants to play an Undead Lord. As he's putting the character together, he asks to what extent Undead and the creation thereof can be considered an evil act. Not having thought much about it, I answer that it depends what you do with the undead. Command it to save a schoolhouse of burning orphans? Not so much. Animate a dead beloved comrade to carry your luggage? Kind of evil.
I warn him that another player has contacted me about playing an "Undead Slayer" type cleric. I'm hinting that he's going to be on thin ice with regards to PVP. I hate to ban classes, but I really don't want PVP right away. I should point out that A is somebody I've known and played with for a few years. I get the jist he wants to be experimental. I encourage that, but I worry about a True Neutral Cleric worshiping an evil god, channeling Negative Energy, creating zombies, etc, being part of the party.
Why I allowed it: there are no alignment restrictions on Alchemists who create Alchemical Zombies, Necromancers who cast Animate Dead, Oracles who use their Raise Dead power. Ruleswise (not Golaria, mind you), there's nothing to indicate that the alignments of these PC's need be evil, AFAIK.
First session. Undead Slayer Cleric (whom I never met) is a no-show. Player A uses all his spells to spontaneously heal other PC's (incorrectly, I realize. I'll talk to him about that) and used his archetype power to give a fallen PC undead traits so that he can be healed w/ a Neg Channel. So he's bending over backwards to heal the party.
Second session. The casters are out of spells and are dealing with a Poltergeist. Player A is nearby, ostensibly "Praying" over a dead NPC, but in reality performing his 8-hour ritual to acquire an undead sidekick (see Undead Lord). None of the other PCs know this (but some of the players have caught on. OOC we're not exactly keeping it a secret).
Almost none of the party has Knowledge: Religion. The Oracle flunked her check and the Bard flunked her bardic knowledge roll. Eventually, I make the cleric roll a Knowledge: Religion, and she (male player, female character) informs the party (Roleplayed as Chanting it into the ritual) that all they need do is move away from the Poltergeist's range. Player B, playing a Lawful Neutral Gun Tank without Knowledge: Religion, points a gun at the Cleric who is (far as he knows) perform funeral rites over a dead body. Says some warning about "You better deal with this (Poltergeist problem)".
Player A has a snarky retort to the effect of "There will be a time when you don't have your gun on you." A pretty mild warning for someone who has a gun pointed at them.
Player B's response? Boom.
At this point I shut the session down, as it was very near closing time anyway, and inform the group that there'll be a new initiative roll next week to deal with... that. Soon as everybody left, though, it occurs to me that what I really want to do is kick Player B (whom I had never met before Session 1) the f+!& out. He didn't seem like a problem player up until that point, but... damn. PVP in the second session? And shooting an unarmed cleric in the back while she was in her prayers? Lawful Neutral my ass.
Other factors are at play. The group currently has seven. One player will be leaving (moving away) after the next session, which will cut it down to six. I'd like to further cut it down to five. Of all the players at the table, B is the most likely candidate on my chopping block.
However, I'm hesitant for a few reasons.
One: Number of players is actually the foremost reason. A combat round is taking way too long to get through, and I feel like I'm spinning too many plates. There's a newb at the table who shows genuine enthusiasm and creativity and I feel like he's getting overwhelmed by the size of the group and I want him to be able to get a little more spotlight than he has now (which is almost none). I feel it's my (really, our) job to be a little more patient with him and inform him of all his options and the ramifications of his choices. You know, teach him to play the game. That's taking a biiig backseat to "keeping it from grinding to a halt".
Two: I'm pretty sure I would treat this with a warning if the group weren't so large. What he did was rash, impulsive, and came at the end of a session when I know I, at least, was getting tired. It certainly wasn't griefing.
Three: Won't it make my other players nervous if I'm already banning people after two sessions? I don't want this to come across as a "Don't F+#~ with the DM" warning.
Four: Another player disagrees with my assessment, and thinks Player A was "acting psychotic" and says that eventually he feels that he'll have to "kill her in her sleep" himself.
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Consider doing a "rewind" of a few moments, until before player B pulled the trigger. People may have cooled down between sessions. Sometimes people do foolish things; rewinding may be the lesser evil in this case.
Meanwhile, you can talk to player B, tell him that this isn't the sort of game you want to run. Telling people you don't like it is perfectly legitimate, and the most mature way to treat people.
For the most part, this looks like an emotional reaction to a stressful situation. Not the best course of action perhaps, but there are excuses. Surely, an 8-hour ritual should be interrupted if the groups is in immediate danger. Refusal to do so means you ignore the welfare of the group. As such, I would not be surprised if the gunslinger player would walk away if you don't address that - no need to kick him. Not sure I'd blame him, either.
As an aside, it looks to me like that cleric was cheating the rules. There's very few people that take an atypical concept like Undead Lord and NOT know they can't heal spontaneously. I'd address that well before the next session, so you don't have two problems on your plate at once.
Having said all that, banning players is a sign of weakness. It means you were unable to prevent your authority from being undermined, or unable to steer people in the direction you wanted them to go. I'd avoid it at all cost, and if you have to, discuss things outside of game nights. If necessary, ask someone to reroll, but don't ban during a session - it's a bad sign to the rest of the players and you'll lose respect. Since your group is so large, you'll need everyone to trust you or it'll be a huge mess before too long. Pray for one or two people to leave amicably and don't replace them.
Dont get me wrong, but sometimes - when reading all these threads about conflicts within a RPG session - I seriously wonder where you pick up these kind of players:P
Talk to B - as talking is all you can do. Kick him out if you think it would be fair and better for the group. For us its hard to judge B (or A) just from your little text there.
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OK so you have a guy raising undead in the party who is a follower of an evil deity who is in turn not helping the group when they are being attacked? Plus he has escalated a confrontation to threats of death and he knew this character would stomp all over other people's concepts? Yeah he's not blameless in this.
This PC is not conducive to party cohesion and worse he knew this would happen. He's not alone in the blame here, the Gunslinger shouldn't have escalated things that far, but what do you expect? The Undead Lord knew he was going to annoy the rest of the party and his actions support that hypothesis.
If you dump the Gunslinger player then you are condoning the actions of the Undead Lord and basically making him your pet player. I would not appreciate as a player my GM siding with a fellow player who seems to have created a deliberately antagonistic character.
My advice? Sit down with your players and discuss things.
Dont get me wrong, but sometimes - when reading all these threads about conflicts within a RPG session - I seriously wonder where you pick up these kind of players:P
Talk to B - as talking is all you can do. Kick him out if you think it would be fair and better for the group. For us its hard to judge B (or A) just from your little text there.
In this case, B came from Meetup.
The more I think about it, the more I'm cross at Player A, actually. He brought his son to the second session, and the son had rolled up a straight up evil character (the oracle). With more dead-raising nonsense. I'm starting to lean more towards Player C's assessment.
Although Player A did a good job of covering up his actions as far as the other character's perspectives, I can honestly say that - metagaming or not - if Player A hadn't rolled up an evilish character, none of this would have happened.
Would it be out of line for me to ask A (and son of A) to roll up new, not-evil characters? Such a request would come with an apology that I let things get so far, I suppose.
OK so you have a guy raising undead in the party who is a follower of an evil deity who is in turn not helping the group when they are being attacked? Plus he has escalated a confrontation to threats of death and he knew this character would stomp all over other people's concepts? Yeah he's not blameless in this.
This PC is not conducive to party cohesion and worse he knew this would happen. He's not alone in the blame here, the Gunslinger shouldn't have escalated things that far, but what do you expect? The Undead Lord knew he was going to annoy the rest of the party and his actions support that hypothesis.
If you dump the Gunslinger player then you are condoning the actions of the Undead Lord and basically making him your pet player. I would not appreciate as a player my GM siding with a fellow player who seems to have created a deliberately antagonistic character.
My advice? Sit down with your players and discuss things.
Bear in mind that Player A was completely out of Spells and Channels and has negative Dex and Str scores. So she probably wouldn't have been much help.
... except that her Knowledge would totally have helped.
Pet player?
... yeah, I guess I might be guilty of that.
Evil characters are only disruptive if the player is disruptive. From what I've seen in your post he went out of his way to fit in with the party and keep his "hobby" a secret and under the hood. There's no reason the Gunslinger player should've gone off like that.
Keep in mind, I'm not one of those people who's a die hard "play your role to the hilt" kind of person. A little metagaming to make sure nobody instigates trouble just because of someone else' character is nothing but a good thing.
In this case, the Gunslinger player was the instigator. Regardless of the other person's character choice and how supposedly disruptive it is, he didn't start anything.
I say give them a do-over and then keep an eye on the Gunslinger player.
This campaign is significantly wierd . . . . .I think you need to agree about whats going on, in a noncofrontational way.
I would recommend a campaign revamp, just so everyone knows whats expected, both from the DM and the players.
Step 1: Collaborate at character generation amongst the whole group
Step 2: Engage roleplaying thrusters
Players showing up in the first session as the surprise villain amongst the "normal" players...is dodgy. And while there really isn't a "right" way to do things. Not collaborating amongst the whole group at char-gen is a fairly tried and true way to inject potential for not having fun into a game that people supposedly play for fun.
I don't envy you the problems joeyfixit :-(. If you know Player A and Son of A and believe they would be willing to play nice in an effort to mollify the situation? Go for it. But the cat is pretty much out of the bag now. And if you lean on Player A and son of Player A in favor of newguy Player B...man...you are kind of Deep in the Fangwood with a Turd for a Sword at this point m'friend. Because now you could be seen as "punishing" two players in response to one player going PvP.
It may be quite jarring for all involved, but perhaps you just have your next game session devoted to rolling up a new cast of characters entirely. If it can be pulled off...the group needs to work together to defeat the most dire foe imaginable...Internecine Bickering...and come up with character concepts and you want Player A and Player B to work together to come up with somewhat linked character concepts (siblings, in-game friends, SOMETHING).
Hope things work out okay for you man. Sucks to have games go all wopty copter on ya.
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Before we begin, Player A tells me that he wants to play an Undead Lord.
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I warn him that another player has contacted me about playing an "Undead Slayer" type cleric. I'm hinting that he's going to be on thin ice with regards to PVP. I hate to ban classes, but I really don't want PVP right away.
This isn't a question of banning classes. This is a question of shooting down unworkable character concepts, which you should never be afraid to do, or else games fall apart right out the gate.
What it seems like from here, particularly the bit with the cleric missing the first session, is that you saw the obvious conflict down the road, but out of fear of being the bad guy or whatever, you didn't want to tell either of these players that their character concept wasn't going to work out with this group. Better to give someone the minor letdown that they can't run with their first choice than eventually have a situation like this on your hands.
That's pretty much just saying "learn the lesson here, don't do this again." As far as digging yourself out of the mess here, there's no easy answer, but you're more or less definitely going to have to do some history revising, and you are definitely going to get your whole group together to talk out how everyone wants to move forward.
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Honestly... I'd have a difficult time sharing a table with player B. Player A was just kneeling there minding his own business, and player B took an aggressive metagame action that could result in a lost character.
Also, realistically speaking, as soon as player B pulled the trigger the rest of the party should have been on his ass. They're supposed to be working as a team and this guy kills one of their own over a half-assed threat (in response to his own threat first)? Who's next?
In my opinion (based on what you've told us thus far, which granted is an incomplete picture) Player A IS being a team player, and his undead sidekick will be an asset to the party in the same manner as a Druid's Pet or a Summoner's Eidolon.
Can't speak for the Oracle kid, but Evil isn't always a bad party member.
I'm not saying Player B is right in what he did but player A is also wrong.
Sure an undead "cohort" may be useful from a mechanical perspective but it's a terrible decision when you have an Undead Slayer Cleric in the party. It's deliberately antagonistic and both Player A and the GM knew that at character gen.
But yes, player B takes blame for metagaming and escalating the situation too.
The more I think about it, the more it sounds to me that your best course of action is to scratch ALL characters and restart the campaign, at a maximum level of 2. And have the players make characters *together*.
I was in a campaign once that had zany, uncooperative character concepts that basically required the rest of the party to revolve around their concept. It wasn't fun.
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To the OP. I think your issue is that you want to say yes to your players because you want them to do whatever they want. That's laudable, you want people to have fun and that's a good position to start from.
The problem though is what you have encountered here, if you say yes to everybody then you get clashes of this nature. The environment you have created is that everybody has created individual characters not a coherant group. As a result it's causing clashes because everybody is connected to their characters but not the group.
Here's what to do:
1) Learn to say no. If you are not comfortable with anything or you think it will cause problems then say no. Prevention is better than cure.
2) Read the riot act. Before the next game session say that you don't want the players fighting each other. One of the signs of a good player is acting with a group and mitigating his actions in order to maintain a harmonious environment. Try to encourage this and exert some control of your group.
3) Lay the ground rules... Say exactly what you want to the players which I assume at this point is a group of PC's that work together and try to get along without blowing each other's heads off.
4) ...Then let them sort it out. Playing RPG's is a group activity so everyone should have a say. When you talk to your group as players they don't have the old "it's what my character would do" excuse. Instead they have to work this out amongst themselves as players. Try to get the group to come to a consensus and compromise as a group.
Hopefully having a group meeting should sort this out. Make sure to do this in person, not online and be prepared to allow players to create new characters or alter existing ones as necessary.
Good luck.
I would say ask player A (undead master person) to roll a non-evil character. I mean, technically he could have gone the undead route without being evil by playing the juju oracle and perhaps he didn't see that, however he chose to go the evil route, which unless done really well can easily cause pvp in a party.
As for gunslinger, I would say the way he handled the situation wasn't good, but I don't believe he was kick out worthy. On the one hand he was trying to get the cleric to help the party, on the other he shot the cleric because he didn't do as "ordered". I have a feeling that was out of metagaming but there's the possibility that it wasn't.
Both are at fault, to "fix" this, perhaps have him switch to the juju oracle (if willing) or roll up a new character. If player B's antagonism continues, then you know to kick them.
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That also depends on the Undead Slayer Cleric and how he reacts to it. I know that, personally speaking, having an ally to help me kill the undead that need to be killed is a good thing.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Sure I'd be watching the guy and his necrohort like a hawk, but that can be a fun and interesting roleplay scenario as well.
(I'm not saying this wasn't making the party dynamic more difficult than it had to be, because it certainly did. I'm just saying it didn't have to be a bad thing.)
I don't think the OP would have mentioned it if it wasn't a problem...
from the description I dont understand what the problem was.
The cleric in session 1 healed everyone, in session 2 is going through a ritual that no one is the wiser of, there is 6 other characters to deal with the poltergeist and they are in no way in any real danger, because the oracle has just figured out all they need to do is back away.
So the first question is, why must the cleric do something about the poltergeist? How do any of the other characters know the cleric CAN do something about it, any more than they can? OOC assumptions?
The evil undead lord cleric (who isnt even evil, technically) hasnt done anything wrong, yet. Infact, he may even find a way to conceal his undead buddy depending on where that goes.
Raistlin Majere was a neutral (evil) character is a party of mostly goodie goods, even in the beginning when he was red robed he was a reluctant help and somewhat of a menace, which only got worse with time. But he was never a full disruption to the story.
I think the gun tank is using out of game knowledge and deciding he's had enough.... and what has the oracle done that has become a problem?
First character that was rolled up was a drug addict, rogue that wouldn't reveal his character class or skills to the party or players and kept misleading us as to his abilities. He kept having quiet conversations with the GM or mentioning cryptic things which apparently was code for taking some drug or other.
That character died and a new player joined at the same time and those two players rolled up a couple of characters that were from a primitive tribe and spoke their own tribe's unique language and none other. They couldn't communicate with the rest of the party and roleplayed up doing whatever they wanted according to their tribe's customs regardless of what the party wanted to do. In the first interaction they tried to kill a prisoner we were going to interrogate for information which led to a PvP situation as I cast sleep on the character who was about to CDG the prisoner and the other character attacked me.
I don't think the OP would have mentioned it if it wasn't a problem...That also depends on the Undead Slayer Cleric and how he reacts to it. I know that, personally speaking, having an ally to help me kill the undead that need to be killed is a good thing.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Sure I'd be watching the guy and his necrohort like a hawk, but that can be a fun and interesting roleplay scenario as well.
(I'm not saying this wasn't making the party dynamic more difficult than it had to be, because it certainly did. I'm just saying it didn't have to be a bad thing.)
Undead Slayer cleric never showed up, and I haven't heard from him since (or ever met him, for that matter). So after what seemed like a pretty successful first session, I thought the matter solved.
Tell player a (and son) to roll new characters. When next you meet, the gunslinger shot an killed the cleric... The evil oracle took the body and left the party to become recurring antagonists at a later point. Player a and son arrive seeking vengeance upon player a's original character for some past necromantic atrocity. The newly formed party fights the poltergeist and continue on their merry adventure path.
Recruit a few more players and split into 2 different groups. This way you don't have to kick anyone.
My take...
from the description I dont understand what the problem was.
The cleric in session 1 healed everyone, in session 2 is going through a ritual that no one is the wiser of, there is 6 other characters to deal with the poltergeist and they are in no way in any real danger, because the oracle has just figured out all they need to do is back away.
So the first question is, why must the cleric do something about the poltergeist? How do any of the other characters know the cleric CAN do something about it, any more than they can? OOC assumptions?
The evil undead lord cleric (who isnt even evil, technically) hasnt done anything wrong, yet. Infact, he may even find a way to conceal his undead buddy depending on where that goes.
Raistlin Majere was a neutral (evil) character is a party of mostly goodie goods, even in the beginning when he was red robed he was a reluctant help and somewhat of a menace, which only got worse with time. But he was never a full disruption to the story.
I think the gun tank is using out of game knowledge and deciding he's had enough.... and what has the oracle done that has become a problem?
Nothing... yet. I have asked him privately if he would consider switching to a non-evil alignment (he's straight up NE on his sheet) and picking a mystery that isn't resurrecting dead critters.
Tell player a (and son) to roll new characters. When next you meet, the gunslinger shot an killed the cleric... The evil oracle took the body and left the party to become recurring antagonists at a later point. Player a and son arrive seeking vengeance upon player a's original character for some past necromantic atrocity. The newly formed party fights the poltergeist and continue on their merry adventure path.
My take...
Wait wait wait wait wait
You're telling me the gunslinger player gets off scott-free for murdering a party member in cold blood???
It sounded like an iffy situation to me... Tell everyone at the beginning of the next session that PVC is strictly not allowed from this point forward. Anyone testing the waters will need to retire their current character or find a new group...
That sound better? I didn't mean to convey that player b was right, just that player a is/was a bit more wrong. Obviously a discussion about table manners needs to be had, but the Camelot post pretty much covered that...
It's called Vigilante Justice, nor murder. PCs do it to kobolds all the time ;)
To the OP. I think your issue is that you want to say yes to your players because you want them to do whatever they want. That's laudable, you want people to have fun and that's a good position to start from.
The problem though is what you have encountered here, if you say yes to everybody then you get clashes of this nature. The environment you have created is that everybody has created individual characters not a coherant group. As a result it's causing clashes because everybody is connected to their characters but not the group.
Here's what to do:
1) Learn to say no. If you are not comfortable with anything or you think it will cause problems then say no. Prevention is better than cure.
2) Read the riot act. Before the next game session say that you don't want the players fighting each other. One of the signs of a good player is acting with a group and mitigating his actions in order to maintain a harmonious environment. Try to encourage this and exert some control of your group.
3) Lay the ground rules... Say exactly what you want to the players which I assume at this point is a group of PC's that work together and try to get along without blowing each other's heads off.
4) ...Then let them sort it out. Playing RPG's is a group activity so everyone should have a say. When you talk to your group as players they don't have the old "it's what my character would do" excuse. Instead they have to work this out amongst themselves as players. Try to get the group to come to a consensus and compromise as a group.
Hopefully having a group meeting should sort this out. Make sure to do this in person, not online and be prepared to allow players to create new characters or alter existing ones as necessary.
Good luck.
As to 1 - there may be some truth to this. But also, I have no idea how a particular character is going to play out. I've certainly seen many PvP and near-PvP incidents come about with no evil PC involved (at least not on paper).
And even CE characters can be a good fun, in the right company.
I can't really see a connection between your problems and the ones the OP put forth Hugo. Those are players who were clearly not trying to cooperate with the party, while the Undead Lord in the OP was cooperating really well with the party. He got ganked by a gunslinger for (as far as I can tell) no legitimate reason.
The players had created characters they thought were going to be fun to play, without considering how the character concept would sit with a general party. The player who created an Undead Lord did the same. In most parties playing an Undead Lord can be predicted, as the OP did, to cause problems.
The gunslinger certainly wasn't in the right his actions but he was provoked - whether metaknowledge is involved or not is pretty much irrelevant to how the group of players get along.
How was player A more wrong for playing a cooperative party member who was contributing to the team (even providing knowledge through his character's ritual when there was a chance the DM might force a concentration roll or something to not negate the ritual) and got shot because the character refused to cooperate at gunpoint?
*Points a gun at Person who is out of spells and resources with which to fight anyway* "Take care of this problem or I'll blow your brains out."
*Person without a means to fight and in the middle of an important ritual comparable to the one made to call an Animal Companion* "Better watch who you point that gun at boy, you won't always have it."
*BOOM! HEADSHOT!*
Um.... who's in the wrong there Byrdology?
This pretty much was my impression of the scene. To provide more context, the cleric burned up all his channels to heal one guy earlier in the day, negated a hostile lion by healing said lion's wounds and helping the bard with her handle animal check, and used healer's kits to heal wounded party members and bystander NPC's.
Along the way, there was some friction between the cleric and the gun tank, in which the cleric "threatened" (teasing, really) to withhold healing next time the gun tank went down.
I can't really see a connection between your problems and the ones the OP put forth Hugo. Those are players who were clearly not trying to cooperate with the party, while the Undead Lord in the OP was cooperating really well with the party. He got ganked by a gunslinger for (as far as I can tell) no legitimate reason.The players had created characters they thought were going to be fun to play, without considering how the character concept would sit with a general party. The player who created an Undead Lord did the same. In most parties playing an Undead Lord can be predicted, as the OP did, to cause problems.
The gunslinger certainly wasn't in the right his actions but he was provoked - whether metaknowledge is involved or not is pretty much irrelevant to how the group of players get along.
Respectfully disagree. With that last statement, anyway.
How was player A more wrong for playing a cooperative party member who was contributing to the team (even providing knowledge through his character's ritual when there was a chance the DM might force a concentration roll or something to not negate the ritual) and got shot because the character refused to cooperate at gunpoint?
*Points a gun at Person who is out of spells and resources with which to fight anyway* "Take care of this problem or I'll blow your brains out."
*Person without a means to fight and in the middle of an important ritual comparable to the one made to call an Animal Companion* "Better watch who you point that gun at boy, you won't always have it."
*BOOM! HEADSHOT!*
Um.... who's in the wrong there Byrdology?
Maybe I was reading this thread the wrong way... My impression was that the PC (b) was wrong while the the player (a) was wrong by trying to pull this character off in the first place and opened pandoras evil box when his son rolled up an evil character while following his fathers lead...
There is a carton of neopolitain wrongness here with the DM not firmly setting his expectations and rules up front being the vanilla flavored wrong, the gunslinger cold blooded murdering a PC being the chocolate wrongness, and player a and son by proxy being the strawberry wrong (and potentially the most long term problematic).
Penalize the players how you see fit, by all means! I was just offering a way to save the story...
And please call me Byrd... Calling me byrdology makes me feel like I am in trouble and you are calling me by my first middle and last name to emphasize it ;)
Having seen the last couple of responses, I should clarify the provaction I meant was metaknowledge not the in-game threat. The gunslinger appears to have been OOC antagonised with the undead lord's character concept and metaknowledge of the undead lord's undead creating in-game actions which are directly opposite to his character's primary motivation. This was then manifest in-game with the headshot, for which the gunslinger's player is in the wrong.
But the undead lord's character was always going to create OOC player friction in the average party [that is generally good aligned and fights evil like undead] and it is quite selfish of a player to play that type of character as part of a general party
You've got to keep the campaign's particulars in mind when considering Advice Hugo ;)
Before we begin, Player A tells me that he wants to play an Undead Lord. As he's putting the character together, he asks to what extent Undead and the creation thereof can be considered an evil act. Not having thought much about it, I answer that it depends what you do with the undead. Command it to save a schoolhouse of burning orphans? Not so much. Animate a dead beloved comrade to carry your luggage? Kind of evil.
True and good point well made, but was the Undead Slayer Cleric told that in this campaign that Undead are not necessarily evil and neither is the raising of them when he created his character? Come to think about it was he ever told that?
Fair enough Byrd.
It's just that the way I see this, as soon as the Gunslinger pulled the trigger the rest of the party would jump him, kill him or knock him out and hog tie him, and administer treatment to the wounded Cleric (whom I can't imagine would automatically die from a single gunshot unless it was a lucky crit, but he might be bleeding out.)
Then the Gunslinger's player can roll up a new character with an understanding that you don't turn on the party and the story is preserved.
(Granted that's a story response. This should be discussed among people out of game before the game resumes, in accordance with FallofCamelot's awesome post upthread.)
EDIT: and just a note, unless I've missread something, the Undead Lord himself is neutral, although the Oracle his player's son plays is indeed evil (but evil isn't always bad either. I tend to play more evil characters than other alignments- depending on DM interpretation of alignment- and I can't remember being a problem player since my first campaign ever a good six years ago.)
It would be unfair to force one player to roll up another character while the other is allowed to continue as is - both characters are in the wrong - possibly not equally but it takes two people to cause a dispute in the first place.
either both players should start new characters or neither should. Prehaps the gunslinger forgot to reload or was just messing with him ("did he fire 6 bullets or only 5")
True and good point well made, but was the Undead Slayer Cleric told that in this campaign that Undead are not necessarily evil and neither is the raising of them when he created his character? Come to think about it was he ever told that?You've got to keep the campaign's particulars in mind when considering Advice Hugo ;)
Before we begin, Player A tells me that he wants to play an Undead Lord. As he's putting the character together, he asks to what extent Undead and the creation thereof can be considered an evil act. Not having thought much about it, I answer that it depends what you do with the undead. Command it to save a schoolhouse of burning orphans? Not so much. Animate a dead beloved comrade to carry your luggage? Kind of evil.
The better question is, was the gunslinger ever told that?
I agree that everyone needs to get together and hash out what needs to happen to avoid PvP in the future.