Alright, I just need to vent, because I've had a heck of a crazy session today. this is gonna be long so brace yourselves folk.
Allow me to set the stage
Our group, myself (an alchemist), the slayer, and the paladin, ran into a moral dilemma (Those are always fun). The Slayer, who used to belong to a thieves guild, learned that her guildmates had suddenly up and vanished, with the guild leader (who she's at odds with) being the only survivor, barely. The paladin had gone with her, and used lay on hands to bring her from the brink of death and stabilized. Being the guild leader of a thieves guild, I suggested OOC to bring her in for a bounty rather than kill her off. Later on, the Slayer learns from the guild leader that the guild members had been spirited away by a warlord-turned-noble-except-not-really to the undercity for who knows what.
It's at this point that a fissure in the group starts. Our group had gathered together as the chosen of a god of fate and dimensions, and eldritch creature type thing that oversees all that is, was, and shall be, across all parallel universes at once. Due to monsters from beyond the Dark Tapestry being upstarts, rifts began to appear in our universe, causing creatures from other universes to start coming in and wreaking havoc, each in their own alien way. The only way to close these rifts, is via the divine marks we all received from the god. One such rift had opened two weeks north of the city we were in.
The Slayer wanted to go rescue her guildmates (mainly her boyfriend), I wanted to go close the portal, and that's when things got heated. The slayer berates my character for acting as group leader for wanting to stick to our mission rather than get sidetracked. I counter that our -literal- god-given mission was probably just a touch more pressing than her need to save her boyfriend. Meanwhile, the paladin is getting some good leg exercise hopping the fence over and over, saying we're both right without ever devoting to a side. After a certain point, it becomes obvious to me that there's not changing their minds, let alone mine, and my character leaves.
Up to this point, everything is fine, everyone is acting to character as they see fit, and while our priorities are different, there's no real resentment as far as who is right or wrong goes.
And then the next day comes.
My character gets up early, saddling up his camel (don't ask) and wagon with supplies to start making the trip north. It's at this point that paladin has a severe lapse in sanity. My cart is chased down by a paladin on a camel (don't ask), who then attempted to stop the wagon by grabbing onto the back of it. A nat 20 and a +5 strength modifier later, the wagons back is torn out and all my food supplies roll out onto the street. But it doesn't stop there, the paladin then climbs up onto the wagon, and sucker punches me from behind. But wait there's more! After I refuse to stop despite the shiner, he wrestles the reins away from me. I let him have them, and just grab my bag to get off and walk on foot, making a two week long trip into a month. Then he gets off to tackle me down, but misses this time and I return to the wagon. Determined, the paladin breaks one of wagon wheels, effectively putting the wagon out of commission. So I get off again, and go to unhitch the camel (don't ask) from the wagon to ride it. The paladin proceeds to tackle me off and grapple me. It is at this point, finally, that the DM informs the paladin that he gets a tingling in the back of his head, and that maybe continuing to hold me down isn't such a great idea.
This is enough to convince him to let me go.
All this in the name of friendship.
Phew, hope everyone had a blast reading that!
hmm, usually pallies are trying hard to split a group up not keep it together!
Where's the moral dilemma? This more a case of some people want to do one thing, others want to do something else.
I suspect the rift will still be waiting for you when you go back.
Take a vote on it the respect the party decision.
@Orville: Our pally is all about friendship and generally being a shonen hero, to the extreme, ontop of trying to play an innocent/stupid character. So displays of emotion like this are the norm, and I can imagine this won't be the last time he gets physical with me.
@Sword: The dilemma, at least as I saw it, was priority mission vs personal agenda.
Jerk owes you a new wagon.
Also, was he even talking when he was beating you up? This sounds like a friend running up, destroying your car, and slapping you around for no reason. I hope there was some conversation going on, inane and senseless his statements may have been.
The rift is two weeks north of you, while the people your group wants to rescue are in the same city as you?
I think I understand the slayer's annoyance at your willingness to abandon her friends to die or whatever's going to happen to them =P
Other question: did your character reasonably expect to be able to solo a rift? It sounds like you were actually heading out alone, which sounds suicidal if the rifts are actually dangerous.
@Raven: He's CG Paladin of a CG deity. It's a homebrew setting. So he kind of has free rein to do anything short of physically detaining like with the grappling, everything else is fair game.
@Trigger: It basically all amounted to blubbering and saying not to leave. There was no actual attempt at trying to talk me out of it besides all the violence.
@Zhangar: I wasn't planning on soloing, more scouting and assessing the danger and how best to deal with, I'm the only real thinker in the party. Ontop of that, her friends are all from the biggest thieve's guild in the city, so it's not exactly innocent lives on the line here.
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So she wants to rescue her boyfriend and the rest of the party wanted to help (based on the Paladins actions) and you wanted to leave them behind and do your own thing?
I can't stress this point enough NEVER split the party!
Lol
Does this sort of thing happen a lot in your group? (Inter-party conflict which can't be reconciled, I mean). Is everyone fine with it?
If so, it doesn't seem too bad to me - the paladin seems to have become a bit "task-oriented" but I can understand how that can happen. Hopefully, he'll pay for your repairs.
@Steve: Yeaaaaah, this is pretty common. Out of game, we're all friends of 5 years and going, in character, we can't teamwork for our lives. This is due mostly to a vast difference in system mastery, with them knowing enough to roll dice without any problem, and me being able to plan ahead for more than the session we're in. They've also got a pride thing going on that stops them from asking for help no matter what.
The paladin is 'hero-oriented', whatever he feels will be the most heroic is what he'll do. Assaulting me in the name of friendship being the result. And I know he won't, he and the Slayer left the broken cart in the middle of the streets when the Slayer came upon the scene. Fortunately, we have an account in the First Bank of the city after receiving a huge amount of gold due to the previously mentioned bounty (I was the only one to think that maybe walking around with 30,000 gold coins wasn't the best of ideas and pushed for the bank account), and knowing the paladin to be the kind of person to write someone a blank check, set up a 'Barbarian Stipend' of 500 gold for whenever he needs to pay damages of any kind. So I'll be going ahead and taking some out of there to get a new cart and rebuy all the wasted supplies.
How about a compromise OUT of character? So there's a dispute, your character stalks off to go scout the next rift. Meanwhile...
You roll up a new character. Easy for you since you have such good system mastery. Said new character will be a new contact of the slayer's. It works like this:
Paladin: well, I did all I could, even trying to restrain our friend but the alchemist simply won't see our side on this.
Slayer: He has his reasons. Besides, I can't think about that right now. My man needs help now! If the alchemist can't help, maybe there's an old friend who might...
Paladin: What "old friend?" I thought all your guildmates were compromised?
Slayer: Well, this guy got out of the guild just before me. We had a... rivalry. We clashed a bit, things got heated and, well... let's just say, he could only sing soprano for a long time. Still, there was that one job on the riverbank he still owes me for so...
At this point you introduce your new character for the first session after the wagon incident, have a side adventure with that guy, and help save the boyfriend. Now you get to play, your "party" such that it is now stays together which helps the GM and if things go really well, you could pull the same stunt with your lone character in the north.
Your guy stalks off alone at the beginning of the second session, wanders for a bit, runs into an ambush. Two other adventurers appear out of nowhere and help you out. The three of you form a friendship in the crucible of battle and you decide to let them in on what you're doing. Now you head off to the rift.
Now, if your GM does it JUST right, on the THIRD session after the wagon-breaking fight there's first a cut back to the guys in the city. Your new character there, the slayer's old rival, has a tip about something bad going down in the north. His info implicates 2 new players, hiding in plain sight.
Cut back to your guy, moving on towards the rift. There's another fight and you and your new "teammates" really seem to be doing well. They begin to press for more info though. Like a lot more. They want to know details, they ask to see the mark if you've mentioned it, etc.
Now cut back again to the party back in the city. They need a way to catch up to you, and fast. They recognize you may be in danger and the 2 spies may be stalking you in the wilderness even now. The guildmaster you saved has a contact, a wizard powerful enough to locate you and put the party with you immediately.
You visit said wizard, he uses some scrying and he's struck with pain while spotting your friend. He's getting some terrible interference from powerful entities extremely close to your alchemist. He's got a rough area though and can teleport you close. He casts his spell and then the GM sets up a fight:
The GM takes control of the two companions traveling with the alchemist. He spontaneously gives them a couple extra "evil" powers that make them a challenge to your whole party combined. The paladin and the slayer come upon the scene as your alchemist is sleeping and his "companions" are using extreme stealth to root through his things or whatever.
The battle ensues, with your party banding together to fight these spies. In the aftermath you talk and realize that, although the boyfriend is safe, splitting apart like this put you all in jeopardy. You find a new birth of friendship and commitment to one another and since, now you're all together you can finish the adventure to the next rift as a team.
Plus, you've got at least 1 new NPC (the slayer's rival) that you feel a connection to in the game. If the GM wants, he could have the 2 adventurers who were spies simply be unknowing puppets or possessed or something and, after the battle they too become NPCs. The game grows out from your actions and decisions.
@Steve: Yeaaaaah, this is pretty common. Out of game, we're all friends of 5 years and going, in character, we can't teamwork for our lives. This is due mostly to a vast difference in system mastery, with them knowing enough to roll dice without any problem, and me being able to plan ahead for more than the session we're in. They've also got a pride thing going on that stops them from asking for help no matter what.
Yeah, how doe your GM feel about all this? Sounds like you guys, in your inability to cooperate, have just handed him an enormous headache. Unless he's the rat bastard type GM who sees this as a way to get an easy TPK or at least a dead alchemist off scouting a rift without any backup.
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Maybe it's just the way you told it, but that game sounds like it's coming along with a GREAT story! You've got a bit of an Empire Strikes Back thing happening with the way you're splitting the party, on what sounds like two reasonably important missions.
Even the paladin's attempt to stop you but ultimately letting you go sounds epic!
Paladin damages innocent vehicle? Paladin falls. His god informed him that he's a dragonslayer, not a wagonslayer.
What? Oh, I thought this was the "The Paladin Fell Because..." thread.
Nothing really seems that amiss here. The group splitting is rough, so I agree that you should hash out OOC what the party should do. If it's determined that the group needs to split to keep characters true, be prepared to sit around a lot of the time over the next few sessions. Bring a book or something, or volunteer to help the GM run encounters (perhaps they could give you a new antagonist to run for a little while).
Or you could just get a temporary PC when the story is focused on them, and when it's focused on you, the rest of the group can play temporary PCs of their own. Maybe NPCs you already know.
The GM will be the resolving factor. So far, it sounds like they're relatively okay with the group splitting up (after all, they nudged against the paladin's attempted capture). If they aren't prepared to GM a split party, though, you'll need to decide what's more important: Your roleplaying consistency, or your campaign?
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Sucker punching is dishonorable. The Paladin should fall
A CG Paladin forcing people to act in ways they do not wish would fall hard and fast in my game
Boy, you really want to start something, don't you?
Take it somewhere else.
Updated on the situation, sorry for the delay, we don't really have a set game day, it's just whenever everyone's available.
So, I went off on my camel (don't ask) into the deep dark woods to search for the cave with the rift. Using knowledge nature and survival, I was able to survive easily in the forest, although it took me about two weeks to find it since it was sort of like Kingmaker in that I had to search each hex. I tried to ask for guidance from the god of fate, but his ways are mysterious and unknowable, thus got nothing but my wits to survive on.
Meanwhile, the slayer and paladin had a nice afternoon stroll into the undercity, found what looked like the lab where the human centipede was made, and also all the thieves guild members who were kidnapped, and put through a teleporter with a fly inside. Lots of gross yucky experiments, and the slayers significant other was missing an eye. With the paladins brute strength (+5 str mod), they tore open all the cages in about half an hour (taking 20 for all of them) and were merrily on their way back up to the surface with no interference whatsoever. After leaving all the afflicted with the paladins church to heal, the slayer wrote the church a check for 5 grand, and then went to sleep.
Having left behind all the supplies, it took the paladin and slayer a bit to catch up with my character. But, due to having his god on speed dial, the paladin was able to ask for a Cassisian Angel every day to scout ahead and also look for my character. At the same time, we found out that the Slayer had her Primal Essence awakened by a fallen star piece she'd been carrying around since the start of the campaign. What this means is that she essentially gets the dire template (Bunch of stat bonuses, land speed raised to 50ft, along with at-will spells like detect poison, detect magic, etc) that continually grows with every full moon (I'm guessing she'll get at-will invisibility and pounce and other such things appropriate to a catfolk). Naturally the paladin (ooc) gets a bit huffy and jealous that she's getting all these boosts (the DM needed to reassure him he'll be getting something cool too, barring the god-on-speed-dial thing).
So now we've all met up at the cave and have started exploring/clearing it out (I'd staked out the cave while waiting on them to figure out as much as I could.). The cave is filled with gorilla-headed spiders, nasty bite attack (with poison!), and webbing. We'll be fully going through it next session.
I talked to the DM afterwards because the list of the Slayers bonuses was starting to get pretty long. He explained that he needed to do this so the Slayer would feel helpful, and that he was working on a sort of Holy Ironman Armor for the paladin with a constant detect evil in the helmet since he always forgets to use smite evil.
I completely understand the need to, I've been playing with them for a few years, and like I said, the system mastery between me and them is as about as wide as the grand canyon. Although, I am admittedly starting to feel a bit shafted by all these things they're getting to be competent, it's sorta like they're playing the game on easy while I'm on the expert difficulty. Which, again, I understand, and would pretty much do the same were I in the DM's chair, but it's getting to the point where the Slayer and Paladin are starting to think that they don't need my character, and are starting to have a little us-vs-him thing going on.
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I can't help having the feeling that your DM is trying to replicate Dragon Age: Inquisition. The "rifts are opening and allowing otherwordly monsters to appear; only the PCs have the power to close the rifts" plot sounds a lot like that game. That may be part of why the DM is giving all those powerful items to the other players - aside from just trying to keep them happy.
Nah, plot is derived from a joint world we all built together, each of us came up with a god, race, monster, continent, city, etc, and then he put it all in a blender.
The rift stuff came from the god I created, Yulaxis, who is all about dimensional shenanigans.
Edit: If anyone's interested, here's the short portfolio I wrote up for Yulaxis
Described as a butterfly of unimaginable size, Yulaxis governs all avenues of time from inside a temporaly isolated dimension. Whether Yulaxis is simply a manifestation of the aspect of time, or an extradimensional creature cannot be said for certain, but its influence can be seen in the normality of everyday life and its rigid, monotonous continuation. Worshipers of Yulaxis adorn themselves in butterfly masks whose eyes are fashioned from multiple, faceted gems, favoring cool hues on one eye, and hot on the other, referencing Yulaxis' ability to see the past in one eye, and the future in the other. Many of its worshipers claim that reality was created when Yulaxis emerged from its chrysalis, and end when Yulaxis does, leaving behind a chrysalis from which a new reality will spawn.
Yulaxis domains encompass both chaos and law, given how often fate can both be followed to the letter and completely subverted on a case by case basis.
Domains: Chaos, Knowledge, Law, Luck, Void
Subdomains: Entropy, Aeon, Judgment, Fate, Dark Tapestry