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My group is preparing to enter the Runeforge and I've been trying to figure out various characters Virtues and Sins. I'm not quite sure as to what led to this exchange with one player (I think he was arguing that his character had more greed than gluttony but hadn't been drinking lately. And I realized his spending a month doing nothing but Item Crafting and transcribing spells into his spellbook could be considered Zeal.
So I asked him a simple question: If your character was in a position where he could either stop the enemy but would not be able to go back for that enemy's treasure, or let the enemy escape but seize his treasure, which would he do?
The player ultimately chose stopping the enemy because otherwise it might cost more resources down the line to stop him when the enemy returned. That to me said "Zeal."
But it got me thinking. These sorts of scenarios are better suited for determining a character's Sins or Virtues, especially for GMs who didn't track these traits early on or for characters who didn't go overboard.
So I figure why not open this for discussion.
What vignettes would you come up with to help decide if a character is Sinful or Virtuous? What questions would you ask and scenarios offer to help better determine, at that character's heart, what their sins and their virtues really are?
Early in the campaign, I asked my players to assign values to each of the opposed virtues and sins, according to how they saw their character. I encouraged them to be honest and to have at least one character flaw, so they wouldn't be total saints.
I needed to know who had the most of each sin in order to assign individual haunts for the Foxglove manor, which went perfectly in that regard. My intention was to periodically review each character's actions and adjust their position on the sliding virtue-sin scale accordingly. But in fact, we've been so busy investigating, roleplaying and in the most recent game (the Xanesha fight) dying that we never got round to it.
It's good, though, to have a baseline against which I can peg each character. And it's a good thing that "raise dead" exists. <g>
I wish I still had the list I made of all my players sin/virtue actions. I considered almost nothing that had to do with the main campaign for sin/virtue points, or even mostly points toward any aspect. Is an adventurer greedy because they go ape s@~+ when they find the dragon hoard, no, it's a dragon hoard, you take that s%&@, even if you are the vow of poverty Monk.
Letting a bad guy go for more treasure, yes greedy, but spending a bunch of time learning new spells, and creating magic items, I'd say that's just what an adventurer does. I don't think it would register one way or the other.
I judged my players primarily on their small actions with non quest related NPCs, and with each other. More heavily on the with each other section, because I found my players would act more to one extreme or the other to each other, knowing they can get away with it. For me the best judge of this, was to record their out of game reactions to in game actions.
Example: Did the wizard identifying the magic gear in the dragon hoard take the by far most expensive item because no one else made the check, even though he doesn't need it? None of the players know, and as far as they know he has never lied to them before. Meanwhile, the guy playing the barbarian, who know exactly how much that item is worth, is looking for a reason to Full attack the wizard, but without Metagaming super hard, he can't even though he wants to.
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I watched their actions in the campaign, but I also started everyone off with a point or two based on their class and race. The dwarf got a greed point, the summoning druid got a sloth point, the elven wizard blaster got a pride point and a wrath point, etc etc.
I watched their actions in the campaign, but I also started everyone off with a point or two based on their class and race. The dwarf got a greed point, the summoning druid got a sloth point, the elven wizard blaster got a pride point and a wrath point, etc etc.
I did something similar as a starting point (e.g., Barbarians and Rangers get a Wrath point), but have been adjusting the points now and then during the game. For example, if the Rogue or Aldori Swordlord eyes the bronze bells in the Shadowclock and tries to figure out if he can grab them in order to sell them ... that's definite over-the-top Greed in my eyes.
Both of my groups are just starting Book 3, so it will be a while before the sin points become relevant. I had deliberately downplayed my sin-related comments at the start of the AP, until the end of Book 2 revealed that the various sins/virtues were of interest to the (still somewhat unknown) foes. From now on, I'll try to end each session with a group discussion of whether or not any character needs a sin/virtue adjustment. I've told them that the "final score" will give them both bonuses and penalties at a later point.
I never told them anything about Sin Points at all until they set foot in Runeforge. I didn't want them to play any differently knowing such a thing existed.
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Running this campaign now. We are only at the very beginning, but I've been reading a lot about the S/V point system to better understand it and see what people are doing with it. I haven't deep dived into the part of the book yet that deals with it, but it seems pretty vague and under-cooked at first glance. Tracking points for an entire campaign to have some minor bonuses / penalties in the final battle seems like a lot of work for very little payoff. (I've read a lot of similar opinions online and that could be why I feel that way)
That has lead me, however, to play with the system a bit and see how much fun I could have with it as a GM. I've decided to "make it my own", if you will. I'm posting this in case there is anyone else out there looking for a way to "spice up" the S/V points in their own RotR adventure.
SPOILERS
As I said, we are only at the beginning. Burnt Offerings. But my players have been hard at work racking up the sins. I don't mean run of the mill adventuring stuff - I mean, the party formed at the festival by deciding to revenge kill a nameless NPC who won their money gambling on one of the games kind of sinning. So they each have some points racked up going into the catacombs.
As I'm prepping for this game, I've decided to add the following rules:
* Sin-Scent: S/V points will affect the degree to which creatures with this ability sense them. ie - if it's a Wrath Sinspawn, they will be attracted to the character with the most sin points in wrath. Being more likely to attack them in battle and getting a bonus on perception checks against them equal to the # of sin points that character has. Virtue points have the opposite effect, essentially helping shield a player against this ability.
* Sinful Bite: S/V points will be added to the DC for this ability. If a character is already predisposed to give in to a certain sin (as noted by the number of sin points), then they are more susceptible to the Sinful Bite. Virtue points have the opposite effect, essentially helping shield a player against this ability.
I will try to remember to return here and post any other ideas I have for S/V points