Traitor party member advice


Advice

Liberty's Edge

A party member recently turned on our party in the midst of an encounter on promise of gaining greater power from our opponent. Now that combat is over we have to decide what to do with him. Now, he was really just roleplaying his character so we don't want to screw him over too badly. Still he got one of us killed (me) and almost killled two others. Any ideas on appropriate penance/punishment? (We already have resurrection costs covered)


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What would your characters do?

Would they want vengeance?

Would they ever trust him again?

Th PC and GM mau have a plan for the character involved, and it's best to sit down and discuss OOC where to go from here.

But except for exceptional circumstances, I wouldn't expect to be adventuring with the traitor in the future.

Liberty's Edge

Rubber Ducky guy wrote:

What would your characters do?

Would they want vengeance?

Would they ever trust him again?

Th PC and GM mau have a plan for the character involved, and it's best to sit down and discuss OOC where to go from here.

But except for exceptional circumstances, I wouldn't expect to be adventuring with the traitor in the future.

They don't have a particular plan. Bit adventuring with him anymore isn't really an option. So I'm looking for an interesting punishment that won't involve just killing him off


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Salabrian wrote:
A party member recently turned on our party in the midst of an encounter on promise of gaining greater power from our opponent. Now that combat is over we have to decide what to do with him. Now, he was really just roleplaying his character so we don't want to screw him over too badly. Still he got one of us killed (me) and almost killled two others. Any ideas on appropriate penance/punishment? (We already have resurrection costs covered)

You know, I dont buy the "he was really just roleplaying his character " excuse. After all, who decided his character was going to be a "Richard' rat traitor? He did, right? (once in a great while the DM will force a player into this, true).

IC? Evict him from the party. Turn him over to authorities. Wash your hands of him.

Talk to the Player OOC and tell him you won;t put up with this type of crud anymore.


Salabrian wrote:
Bit adventuring with him anymore isn't really an option. So I'm looking for an interesting punishment that won't involve just killing him off

Adventuring with who? The player or the PC? Of course not adventuring with the PC is an option. Just say "NO". See how easy that is?

And inflicting punishment in game? This is a bad idea. Players act up like this as they want attention. That's just giving him more attention, which encourages him to act up more.


Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Maps Subscriber

There are valid in-game reasons and situations that cause things like this to happen. Whether or not his is one of them, the end result is the same: that character has proven to be an enemy or, in the least, not an ally.

As posted above, how do the characters feel about it? One option might be to strip the character of his/her loot and part ways. Executing the traitor is a valid option, however. Other options might open up a door for a recurring villain as the PC becomes a NPC. Most of my characters would choose to execute the traitor because of this reason "why let this person become a villain and cause others to suffer? Might as well just end that path now".


As a GM I would advocate him living so he could be used as an NPC another time. As a player I would praise his role play, if it trully was, but ask that he not make a habit of it. Your characters are unknown to me.

If this was a state sponsored mission by a king or something I would take him to them and have him charged with treason. You could sell him to be a slave to repay ur resurrection cost. If he is evil go find a paladin :)

If the character is valuable enough to keep then make a business deal of he loses his share of the loot perhaps?


Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Maps Subscriber

Oh, and remind the player when a replacement PC is made that we are all on the same team here. You can play a douche, but the number one rule is don't mess with other PCs. That causes bad feelings around the table and can destroy gaming groups.


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Yeah, my group went through this once, too. His excuse was, "but I'm roleplaying my character." As GM, I did find the story angle interesting and allowed it (big mistake). This caused hard feelings for the other players. They bound the character and took him back and imprisoned him, but the player was voted out of the group. I felt pretty bad about it, and should have done something different, but I think ultimately, the player would have done the same things somewhere down the line anyway, so it was for the best.


1) not every group can handle this. Honestly in not sure my group could. We've experienced a little but of it but nothing that resulted in PC death.

2) is there a non "good" PC in the party? It the traitor to the sword. If you can think about how murderous the average group of pcs are objectively then it's not such a stretch.

3) talk to the group and agree either that these situations are potentially ok in the future, or that they are definitely not.

Scarab Sages

You could kill/kick out the character, and have the player roll a new one that is the sister or brother of a character already in the group, and maybe less likely to betray the others.

That is the problem when people betray others and say "I was just role playing" Ok, but then the revenge is also "just role playing". Because no way would the characters trust that character for a long time. If evil, they may just kill the character. Hopefully that person is mature enough to take what they have already dished out.

Also, out of character, did the DM approach the player with this opportunity to betray the others? Why? Since this could be an issue that has nothing to do with a character, and fixing it once won't fix the underlying issue. Some people think causing drama is fun, and just "role playing" , but if you do any improv you learn quickly this is no fun for anyone.


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Salabrian wrote:
A party member recently turned on our party in the midst of an encounter on promise of gaining greater power from our opponent. Now that combat is over we have to decide what to do with him. Now, he was really just roleplaying his character so we don't want to screw him over too badly. Still he got one of us killed (me) and almost killled two others. Any ideas on appropriate penance/punishment? (We already have resurrection costs covered)

Ironically, I had one group go through a similar situation: One PC started helping (or rather, protecting) a foe who happened to be her father, now undead. She had been in denial about his death, and was basically nuts. The player was fully cognizant that it might mean that her character may have to leave the party, and was fine with that if the rest of the party decided to boot her. Although it nearly killed two other PCs, they forgave her because they understood that she was basically nuts, and it was an exceptional situation and with the undead father destroyed would never recur.

However, this is not that. This is someone making the character a better offer and them taking it, plain and simple. I would expect any well role-played response to be to take revenge on the betraying the person, or deliver justice for the slain in some way. If the player of that character has a problem with this, then they have no business claiming "but I was only role-playing" in the first place when they expect everyone else to meta-game away the consequences of their decision.


If you do not want to kill him take/chop off his strong arm, heal him up and chase him away with only minimal stuff (a knife, a waterskin and a blanket) in the wilderness.


Odd, the Op doesn't seem to want to come back and explain?


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1. Feeblemind him
2. Cut out tongue
3. Cut off All Fingers but one
4. Put Ring of Sustenance on last Finger
5. Wall him up in a cave


I suggest you trap his soul, then put it in a permanent demi-plane with the dead magic quality (you have to create a non permanent non-dead magic demiplane first, and then the dead magic adjacent to the first and then put the stone in it, when the non-permanent demiplane ends you have a demiplane with no access to it. A fate far worse than death, your soul trapped forever in an unreachable location with no way of locating it. Of course, this is also very high level.

As a low level option consider raising his body as zombie (so he cannot be raised by any resurrection magic so long as his undead form exists) and lock him away somewhere where no one will ever find it. He is barred from returning to life in this manner.

Shadow Lodge

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Wow Unklebuck, remind me never to piss you off!


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

I had a friend of mine whole told us a story about him being approached by a DM to play in a DnD game where his current players were too trusting, and metagamed alot (well, this will be ok, the DM wants us here, etc.). He was asked to join the party, for the sole purpose to try to sow dissention and add some fear back into the other players.

This does happen on purpose, is all I'm saying here.


DrDeth wrote:
Salabrian wrote:
A party member recently turned on our party in the midst of an encounter on promise of gaining greater power from our opponent. Now that combat is over we have to decide what to do with him. Now, he was really just roleplaying his character so we don't want to screw him over too badly. Still he got one of us killed (me) and almost killled two others. Any ideas on appropriate penance/punishment? (We already have resurrection costs covered)

You know, I dont buy the "he was really just roleplaying his character " excuse. After all, who decided his character was going to be a "Richard' rat traitor? He did, right? (once in a great while the DM will force a player into this, true).

IC? Evict him from the party. Turn him over to authorities. Wash your hands of him.

Talk to the Player OOC and tell him you won;t put up with this type of crud anymore.

This. A whole lotta this.

Except for the eviction part. He's definitely earned the death penalty.


Kryzbyn wrote:

I had a friend of mine whole told us a story about him being approached by a DM to play in a DnD game where his current players were too trusting, and metagamed alot (well, this will be ok, the DM wants us here, etc.). He was asked to join the party, for the sole purpose to try to sow dissention and add some fear back into the other players.

This does happen on purpose, is all I'm saying here.

This is when the player should say 'no'.


Broken Zenith wrote:
Wow Unklebuck, remind me never to piss you off!

Agreed, wtf man xD

On topic though i think people are taking this a little too seriously. First off its a game that advertises that you can do "anything". Second if the person was truly roleplaying his character then people that kick the person out of the real life group are a bunch of children who would prob cried the same amount if they had died to anything else.

As for what they should do with the traitor it really depends on what level you are. If its early on and you just started traveling with him then most often the PC is slain just as quickly and ruthlessly as the people he joined. If its later down the road and you all have been traveling for a while and grown at least a little bit of attachment for the character then maybe have him sent to a local jail or distribute some kind of justice yourself as a party that you feel right.

All in all if it was my group and even if i was the one to die i would be totally fine with it. Its stuff like this that makes the game fun. It would have actually been a bit funnier if he succeeded xD

The only way i could see this being messed up(even for role playing). Is if he was going for sure kills instead of the win. IE. after you are knocked out he keeps attacking you to make sure you die even while other PC's are still up and attacking. Other then that you should be allowed to do anything you feel your character would do.

The game is supposed to be a reality sim. Massive amounts of people have betrayal from someone close in their backstory so why would they not think it would happen in their game aswell?

Edit: As a matter of fact it was part of the story line that greater power was offered in return for his service. Why put stuff like that in the game if your not ready for the consequences. Players shouldnt be punished for a part of a story line that the DM put in him/herself.


Damiancrr wrote:


The game is supposed to be a reality sim.

No, it isn't. Not even a little bit. D&D is a cooperative game. And even if you CAN do anything, that doesn't mean you SHOULD. Being disruptive and asinine is NEVER good.


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Zhayne wrote:
Damiancrr wrote:


The game is supposed to be a reality sim.
No, it isn't. Not even a little bit. D&D is a cooperative game. And even if you CAN do anything, that doesn't mean you SHOULD. Being disruptive and asinine is NEVER good.

Funny, dont remember the OP mentioning either of those traits. Seems rage is a great blinder as always. Dont even have the full story and already judging him xD

OP asked for what they should do IN GAME and he gets a forum full of haters saying to kick him from the real life party. If he had a issue with the character IRL and wanted advice, maybe he would have added that line himself.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Zhayne wrote:
Kryzbyn wrote:

I had a friend of mine whole told us a story about him being approached by a DM to play in a DnD game where his current players were too trusting, and metagamed alot (well, this will be ok, the DM wants us here, etc.). He was asked to join the party, for the sole purpose to try to sow dissention and add some fear back into the other players.

This does happen on purpose, is all I'm saying here.

This is when the player should say 'no'.

Oh, agreed, and it did not end well.

He managed to kill off 3 of the characters over a few month time before the players had any in-game reason to believe anything was amiss.
he was asked not to come back after the third kill :)


Unklbuck wrote:

1. Feeblemind him

2. Cut out tongue
3. Cut off All Fingers but one
4. Put Ring of Sustenance on last Finger
5. Wall him up in a cave

umm... jeez... THIS! :XD


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Does the "traitor" have a high Bluff skill? I think an abject apology and obvious contrition, coupled with a story about being weak-willed in the face of the enemy's foul enchantment magic that temporarily turned them against the party should buy a lot of forgiveness - probably total forgiveness and some grumbling about upping one's WILL save.

Because if the only difference in how the party treats this "traitor" when he genuinely fails a WILL save and turns against him versus when he chooses to turn against them is based on the metagame knowledge that he failed a WILL save, that's a problem.

.

P.S.: I'm assuming that this group is made up of mature individuals who are more interested in having a fun roleplaying experience than keping track of slights and plotting vegeance for every (real or imagined transgression.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Damiancrr wrote:
Broken Zenith wrote:
Wow Unklebuck, remind me never to piss you off!

Agreed, wtf man xD

On topic though i think people are taking this a little too seriously. First off its a game that advertises that you can do "anything". Second if the person was truly roleplaying his character then people that kick the person out of the real life group are a bunch of children who would prob cried the same amount if they had died to anything else.

...

All in all if it was my group and even if i was the one to die i would be totally fine with it. Its stuff like this that makes the game fun. It would have actually been a bit funnier if he succeeded xD

If you'd be fine with it, that's cool, and it seems like the OP was fine with continuing to play with the player. Other people might not be fine with it-- doesn't make them "children".

The game's supposed to be fun, not drama camp. In most cases, RPing a complex character in a consistent, predictable fashion makes the game more fun. But the point of the game isn't to RP such a character, at least to me. If I sit down with a CE rogue who poisons me and steals my stuff, I think he's playing like a donkey and I don't care if "it's what his character would do". I think RP that makes the game fun is "good" RP and RP that makes the game less fun is "bad" RP, and how complex or consistent the RP is has comparatively little to do with it.

But that's just me, and you and the OP don't seem to have a problem with the PC's actions, and that's perfectly valid as well. I think a lot of people who advise the OP to be careful of doing too much PvP are speaking from their own experiences in which it torpedoed their game. If you don't want to kill him, then you could Dominate/Geas him to make him do "good" style deeds, take some kind of glorious non-fatal revenge, gate him into an outer plane, etc.

The Exchange

Bigrin da Troll wrote:
...P.S.: I'm assuming that this group is made up of mature individuals who are more interested in having a fun roleplaying experience than keeping track of slights and plotting vengeance for every (real or imagined transgression.

Wouldn't that be lovely?!


I'd suggest just hanging him and burying him in a shallow grave. Seriously - Throw a rope over a tree, hang him until he dies, player rolls a new toon. Assuming he's mature about it then his toon made a play, got some people killed, and lost. Oh well, s!!@ happens, he screwed up, and he's paying for it with his life.

And of course you pass him a note that less than a week later he's dug up and turned into some kind of gribbly undead by a Necromancer who needed the body of a hanged traitor, with the character set aside to be brought in as an antagonist at a later date.


Damiancrr wrote:


OP asked for what they should do IN GAME and he gets a forum full of haters saying to kick him from the real life party.

Most posters just answered what to do to the PC ingame. And that's what the OP asked.

And there is really no reason to keep adventuring with a pc that betrayed the party like that. That would be totally meta-gamey.

Just to be sure: PC means player character and describes the role you are playing. NOT the player.


haha gods the shenanigans i have pulled in some of my older games. I bet i am responsible for the death of at LEAST 20 party members.... If the dead player is cool with having been dead, you guys are ALL overreacting. Sometimes the attitudes of the avatars are in direct opposition and "stuff" needs to be done about it. Would you be mad if the groups lawful good paladin killed the chaotic evil assassin in the group? Why? Lawful good SHOULD shut down Chaotic Evil. That being said, direct oppositions are usually frowned on, but that is simply the extreme.

In one of my games, I coup de grace'd 5 captured and tied up bandits as soon as the paladin left, because i could tell they were lying to her about reinforcements coming. I didnt wanna deal with fighting the same people again (in character i was kind of a coward). As a ranged specialist, i couldnt afford the enemy knowing my tactics or warning their comrades, so i ended the threat. Paladin was not very happy, she attacked me when i refused to "surrender". Several rounds later after a quick retreat and quite a few arrows with various effects later, i CRIT with one, and dropped the paladin where she stood, boom, dead. Ce la vie`

Our paladin player laughed, congratulated me, then rolled up a Barbarian.

Silver Crusade

Dabbler wrote:
Ironically, I had one group go through a similar situation: One PC started helping (or rather, protecting) a foe who happened to be her father, now undead. She had been in denial about his death, and was basically nuts. The player was fully cognizant that it might mean that her character may have to leave the party, and was fine with that if the rest of the party decided to boot her. Although it nearly killed two other PCs, they forgave her because they understood that she was basically nuts, and it was an exceptional situation and with the undead father destroyed would never recur.

This really needs its own storytime thread, for srs. :)


I don't think there should be an alignment check for something like this. Any alignment would see a PC that turned on them as a betrayal and would certainly either kill the PC or kick them out of the group for it.


I think the other PCs would (in character) rightly decide that the traitor can't be trusted in dangerous situations and kick him out of the party.

Out of character the players might also wonder if this is a player that they want to continue gaming with. If the answer is yes then a new, more trustworthy character for that player is in order.


Swift Execution. Preferably with Fire.


We played a game where the villain was ever tempting the morally questionable PCs (like my evil cleric and my friend's insane summoner). We had opportunity to screw over the party, of course, but doing so would take the character out of group (making them an NPC) and we'd make new characters. That damn tiefling cleric I rolled up became the main villain of the campaign, and a royal pain n the ass!


There are two ways to address this:

1. PC to PC: Let each player accurately role play their character and see what happens.

2. Player to Player: Either your group enjoys this sort of play or it doesn't. If it enjoys playing in an environment where party members can be traitors, can steal from each other and can generally make the game more about inter-party politics and vengeance, then this just goes back to #1. If your group is more of a "heroic adventuring party" group, then the player doing this is not in alignment with the group and should be talked to.

If this happened to the vast majority of my PCs they would enact swift and brutal justice on the offending PC and move on.


Start playing Way of the Wicked...


Mikaze wrote:
Dabbler wrote:
Ironically, I had one group go through a similar situation: One PC started helping (or rather, protecting) a foe who happened to be her father, now undead. She had been in denial about his death, and was basically nuts. The player was fully cognizant that it might mean that her character may have to leave the party, and was fine with that if the rest of the party decided to boot her. Although it nearly killed two other PCs, they forgave her because they understood that she was basically nuts, and it was an exceptional situation and with the undead father destroyed would never recur.
This really needs its own storytime thread, for srs. :)

Did she actually attack the party or just try to defend her father's corpse?

I think most of the posts on this thread are borderline sadist.


What would your PCs do if it was an NPC that betrayed them?
Probably kill/imprison/petrify/etc that NPC and make sure they never came back. The same is appropriate for a PC regardless of whether they were roleplaying or not. The PC stamp on the forehead is the most prevalent (and to my opinion, the most obnoxious) form of metagaming out there. People put up with stuff from PCs that they'd NEVER tolerate from an NPC that they were in an equal-shares of the swag partnership with. One of the things that really really aggravates me as a GM is when a player pitches a new PC to me and wants ME, the GM to effectively spend metagame suspension of disbelief resources to answer the question---why would the other PCs want to adventure with yours?
I'll grant you a little slack, allowing you, to, for instance, say your character of appropriate background is a cousin or the like of another character, or an old army buddy, or the like, but I will NOT press you onto the other PCs through plot manipulation just because you're a PC.


Friends, the OP is not coming back. I have even PMed him.

So, this thread should be laid to rest.


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Adamantine Dragon wrote:

There are two ways to address this:

1. PC to PC: Let each player accurately role play their character and see what happens.

2. Player to Player: Either your group enjoys this sort of play or it doesn't. If it enjoys playing in an environment where party members can be traitors, can steal from each other and can generally make the game more about inter-party politics and vengeance, then this just goes back to #1. If your group is more of a "heroic adventuring party" group, then the player doing this is not in alignment with the group and should be talked to.

If this happened to the vast majority of my PCs they would enact swift and brutal justice on the offending PC and move on.

I think you nailed it.

There are (apparently, judging by the thread), people who consider 'fun' in D&D to be maximizing their chance of 'winning', and who prefer to have all PCs share a hivemind. Not everyone likes that, many groups prefer to have the player characters be characters, with individual motivations.

Obviously, a PC who betrays the party lowers the party's odds of achieving whatever "win" condition they were shooting for. It can also create a spectacular roleplaying opportunity for the group. An enjoyable failure is better than a dull success. So if the other players can handle it, nothing wrong happened. And you should handle it in-game how your character would. Ignore all the people telling you to 'solve an ooc problem ooc', because there is not OOC problem.
If, on the other hand, one or more of the other players in the group follow the mentality where all they care about is some sore of "winning", then the party member betraying the party didn't help everyone have fun, and an ooc problem does indeed exist and should be dealt with out of game.


It depends really on the players overall. I have had a player approach me about going darkside. He was a Paladin becoming an Antipaladin. In that case when he betrayed everyone no one was too upset because it made for great roleplaying. He killed his brother's famailier for trying to spy on him. It was expected and fun. He also didn't make a habit of doing things like this.
Now if this guy has a bad habit of doing things like this punishment should be harsher and also maybe out of game a discussion about this. It's one thing if it's a one time thing especially if the adventure calls for it. It's not okay to have a player constantly betraying everyone. Players get upset and at some point someone is calling for someone else to be banned.


The last traitor character in one of our groups turned for basically the same reason....we polymorphed him into a boar, took his mind with feeblemind, ruined his constitution with permanent spells enchanting him with resistance to fire and acid and a 3.0 spell called Trollish fortitude that gave him regeneration then charged peasants coppers to beat the immortal pig to death with clubs til we recouped the losses of enchanting him.

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