| 8 people marked this as a favorite. |
He should have to roll, yes.
Then no matter the outcome smack him upside the head and tell him to stop being a prick.
A masterwork weapon but no cash?
I'm sure the party will never even wonder about this.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
This sort of action generally winds up causing in-game conflict between the characters at some point. Some groups don't want that sort of game and ask that all the players have their characters deal fairly with other players' characters for the sake of group cohesion. Other groups find this too meta, are more accepting of conflict between characters in game and are able to prevent this conflict from escalating to conflict between players at the table.
It's a good idea to discuss with your players where you fall on this spectrum. All the players should be involved in the discussion so it's prolly best not to make it about the rogue's behaviour. You are simply establishing what sort of game you want to play and hopefully the rogue will adjust his behaviour if needed based on the groups' preference.
I've not really answered what you asked though and I do apologize if you've already had the conversation I recommend. I agree that the rogue needs a sleight of hand check to hide the gold from the party and a bluff check to convince them that he's not hiding anything.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Be prepared for this to cause further and further problems. Betrayal is not a fine brandy. It does not improve with age. The effort to fix this is going to be far greater than the gold was worth.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
And I will bet anything that the masterwork shortsword was more valuable than the entirety of the gold coins. The smart thing to do would have been to keep the sword (which can't be split among the party anyway) and toss the bag full of coins to the rest of the party, leaving it to them to split it up as they please.
One nice thing about the shortsword is that the rogue is probably the best character to wield it anyway, so he can probably talk the other party members out of rolling dice to decide who gets it. Worst case, the shortsword would replace his share of the gold.
Whoa. Your rogue problem just gave me a flash back to 1989 or so... although we didn't have the term 'rogue'.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Many new players mistakenly think that to play a rogue you must be a thief and if you are a thief you are doing good roleplaying by stealing to your party.
Sometimes they find it funny, sometimes it's just the lack of experience in the game.
Talk to your players and tell them they shouldn't do that kind of things. Not only the rogue, ask all your players to play fair with the rest of the group. That will make clear that you don't want infighting.
If the rogue wants to steal some money and share it, let him. That will benefit the whole group. But I'd discourage him to steal only for himself.
I'd let them steal from other people for themselves all they want (it's the Rogue equivalent of a Profession check to make money in downtime). Stealing from other players is a non-no though.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Solo thieven' is ok, but there are some simple rules.
1). Never bring problems home when you are out "foraging".
2). Do not target your party's people.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Make no mistake that this is a form of PVP. If you willing to have a PVP game then no problem. When the barbarian finds out that he has been stolen from he will solve the problem with his own style of PVP.
If you do not want PVP at your table then tell the rogue that this is a form of PVP and will not be tolerated.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Here's my top tip:
Learn to differentiate between players and player characters. And teach your players the difference too.
As many has pointed out in this thread, a player keeping secrets from other players can lead to a lot of hurt feelings.
But the thieving rogue is a fantasy trope engrained in our minds. It is an interesting character to play. Yet, how to do it without causing arguments and trouble with your fellow players?
Well, you tell the table what you're doing. Loudly. »I loot the body, giving the sword to the fighter but hide the coins from her and my other companions!« Pathfinder is a coopetative game, and since you've talked to the other players beforehand they know that you're not actually being uncooperative. Your rogue is stealing those coins because you think it'll be interesting story and eventually the coins will wind their way into the party stash one way or another, so everyone follows Wealth by level and whatnot.
And then you roll Sleight of hand vs. Perception to find out if the theft is discovered right away or if you'll get to take that awesome scene where the PCs (but not their players) argue later.
This is how you make interesting PCs who has conflicts with other PCs in games like Apocalypse World. Most Pathfinder players, I dare guess, aren't used to this play style, but I have hopes the can learn =)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Pocketing a bag of coins is nothing: the first time I ever played D&D (back in second edition), my first Paladin kept waking up to discover his possessions disintegrated. Including, one time, his Holy Sword! He kept assuming it was some incredibly stealthy monster, but it turned out to be one of the other PCs with some kind of grudge!
If I could survive that, the other players in the situation above can live with losing a little gold. Remind them that it's *pretend* gold if they forget ;)
Another way could be making the search roll and loot a non-zero sum affair. If another party member searches the body 1st, find the short sword, if its the rogue then add the gold (rogues know where to look).
This way the rogue gets to feel their skills are appreciated (extra gold) and the party isnt directly loosing out. and if the rigue does start to share the illicit loot then the party will be begging him to do the searches. Just make sure the bonus gold is a fraction of what you expected to be looted and shared (eg. you find a masterwork short sword worth 300g, the extra gold should be about 5% (ymmv) so about 15g. still a lot but not too much to skew wbl)
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
But the thieving rogue is a fantasy trope engrained in our minds. It is an interesting character to play.
Never understood how it's supposed to be interesting. It's annoying AND nonsensical. Any party with two brain cells between them all would boot (or worse) the klepto at the first opportunity and hire someone who can be trusted.
If they steal from their allies, they can't be trusted not to backstab in more literal ways later.
You're probably one of those people who think Kender are cute, aren't you? I've got my eye on you.
I thought I was cute!
Actually, I hate the stereotypical thieving kender. I tried to portray them in a more wide and interesting way but typical kender are a typical pain in the ass who bring trouble to a party. As a race they are stereotypical and flawed, and need a complete remake to be playable.
Allowing a party member to steal from you is illogical from a roleplaying point of view. If I found a trusted friend of mine who is stealing from me, I'd be very mad at him. Why a Pc should react in a different way? Specially when you are facing dangers that put your life at a stake and money means survivality.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
What the...?
I saw there was an answer by Tableflip McRagequit and when I checked it was no longer here!
He has reached a new level by ragequitting his own post!
*Bows to Mr. Tableflip*
We are saying he's stealing from the party having in mind that the gold in that corpse was supposed to be looted by the whole group, not by a single party member.
It's a bit metagamey, but sharing the loot evenly often avoids conflict.
In my experience I've never seen a PC who was looting by his own that didn't cause further conflict in the party.
|
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
But the thieving rogue is a fantasy trope engrained in our minds. It is an interesting character to play.
Never understood how it's supposed to be interesting. It's annoying AND nonsensical. Any party with two brain cells between them all would boot (or worse) the klepto at the first opportunity and hire someone who can be trusted.
If they steal from their allies, they can't be trusted not to backstab in more literal ways later.
Slippery Slope Fallacy.
There is absolutely no reason to think that someone who steals a bit of cash here and there will later escalate to any larger crime. I'm willing to bet you, yourself, (in real life) have nicked a bit of cash from your parents at some point in your life, but never went on to become a hardened career criminal.
That's not the slippery slope fallacy, that's consequences.
"You stole from me so now I don't trust you."
I hope we were of help. Good luck with them!
|
He should have to roll two skills:
1. Sleight of Hand to actually steal the gold.
2. Bluff to not let on that he's stealing from them.The party should resist this with both Perception, then Sense Motive.
Stealing from the party is rarely a good idea in a group, especially one with a new GM.
This, but as the OP mentioned he's not trained in sleight of hand, which is a trained only skill. So I'd run a fairly low DC (probably like the Rogue's Dex Mod + Distance penalties **NOTE: Hiding the bag is not a skill check since he is untrained, no d20 roll**) perception check to have the party be able to notice him putting something away as he searches the body. Additionally he will need to try a bluff check to tell the party he only found the short sword. Which all of them can make a sense motive check for, with penalties to his bluff if they noticed him trying to stash the coin purse.
It may seem harsh to have his sleight of hands be a straight dex mod for the DC, but if a rogue (of all classes) is going to go around attempting sleight of hands and has not even put a single point in the skill, he needs to learn quickly that without proper training/practice, that sort of thing is easily detectable!
I thought I was cute!
Actually, I hate the stereotypical thieving kender. I tried to portray them in a more wide and interesting way but typical kender are a typical pain in the ass who bring trouble to a party. As a race they are stereotypical and flawed, and need a complete remake to be playable.
Allowing a party member to steal from you is illogical from a roleplaying point of view. If I found a trusted friend of mine who is stealing from me, I'd be very mad at him. Why a Pc should react in a different way? Specially when you are facing dangers that put your life at a stake and money means survivality.
@ Tasha the half-kender
Completely off topic, but who is your board icon?
-----
On topic, don't steal from party members...never ends well.
I see nothing wrong with a character stealing from the group if that's how the character would play it.
I also see nothing wrong with a character getting booted from the group if that gets discovered. You're playing a dangerous game when you play against the party, and accepting the consequences is a part of that. You just... make a new character. Life goes on. So the only thing that would irk me is players being surprised and indignant when things go sour.
But I mean, I find stories to be more interesting if the players have conflicts with each other. There's a fine line to walk- characters have to be able to work with each other (in a traditional game- I enjoy nontraditional narrative structures that don't involve a traditional "party" at all, but that requires tweaking expectations and skilled GMing), but if they're forced to work with each other for some reason or another then that helps.
Then you just have to hope your players can get into the right mindset. Some players love telling stories with conflicts between characters... some players despise working with any character that doesn't share their character's goals and methods (as a GM I find this frustrating... some of my players would have dropped Boromir from the Fellowship the moment they got a chance, long before he tried to steal the Ring, and that just doesn't make for an interesting story!). Knowing your players and what they're playing for helps.
I used to love stories that involve conflict between characters too, but I have two kind of players in my group: the first ones love roleplaying conflicts and creating interesting stories around them, the second are competitive and love picking on other PCs trying to start PVP conflicts or to betray them to «win the game». As I don't like the behavior of the second ones, I only allow conflict by roleplaying arguments and discussions but not by acting directly against a party member or doing anything that would break the group.
Yeah. I can understand that. Thankfully, in my main group I don't have any players like that- it's 100% cooperative storytelling. The main problem for me, then, is the "I can't work with Evil" philosophy(which is understandable) or "I can't work with Lawbreakers" which is also understandable but creates problems in groups with people who lean more chaotic.
Definitely need to know your players to know what you can or can't do. Saying up front what you want to get out of a campaign also helps- whether you want it to be a standard "party faces evil and hopefully emerges victorious" or something more complex.
In my experience (holy crud,I got old at some point...) the only times this DOESN'T hurt party cohesion (and sometimes even player interactions) is when everyone has agreed beforehand that it's a backstabby game where the whole point is that the PCs are Bad People.
But the thieving rogue is a fantasy trope engrained in our minds. It is an interesting character to play.
Never understood how it's supposed to be interesting. It's annoying AND nonsensical. Any party with two brain cells between them all would boot (or worse) the klepto at the first opportunity and hire someone who can be trusted.
If they steal from their allies, they can't be trusted not to backstab in more literal ways later.
You're probably one of those people who think Kender are cute, aren't you? I've got my eye on you.
Actually, I had to google Kender in this very instant just to find out what the it is.
I'm not one for playing thieving rogues, I prefer to be a party face and righteous leader. But I could see my self having fun playing a noble warrior who has to put up with a thieving rogue. And there are players who like those kind of characters.
I don't necessarily find the idea of a thieving party member nonsensical. What would you choose, having a rogue who finds traps for you yet sometimes helps himself to some of your coins or to have no-one and be killed by a swinging axe trap? Sometimes, there aren't anyone else there to help you. Sometimes your fates are intertwined anyway. Or maybe, as a hardened paladin, you think it's better that the rogue tags along and takes from you rather than from poor beggars and orphans.
Anyway, taking coins from party members (or, in the OPs example, secretly taking more than your share of the loot) isn't perhaps the most interesting conflict between PCs. But conflicts between PCs are interesting. That's what makes them heroes. Sometimes, I find PCs in Pathfinder and similar games becomes hyper-efficient, completely focused on their objectives and, therefore, almost entirely without personality. That's the hallmark of evil villans.
Think of your favorite groups of heroes. Think of Star Wars and Firefly, or of the fellowship of the Ring and Order of the Stick. They don't always get along, they even cause challenges for them self just by bickering and having personal flaws. That, at least to me, is crucial to make their stories compelling.
I want that in my RPGs. I want conflicts, bickering and hard feelings between PCs. I want the party stick together despite incompatibilities.
What would Lord of the Rings have been without Legolas and Gimli being hostile towards each-other? When they met, they made terrible party members. But their hostility grew into friendship.
If LotR was an RPG campaign (yes, there's a comic about that. No, I haven't read it) and the players was of the old-school, keep-secrets-from-eachother type, Legolas and Gimlis players might have fallen out when their character's did. That would have been terrible. So the GM might ask her players to avoid PC conflicts. But then, elfs and dwarfs would never hate eachother at all and we'd never see Legolas and Gimli grow from enemies to friends.
That's why I'm advocating that you're open with what you're doing. That you allow PCs to keep secrets from and have conflicts with other PCs, but every player is on board and enjoying what's happening.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Think of your favorite groups of heroes. Think of Star Wars and Firefly, or of the fellowship of the Ring and Order of the Stick.
All of these make my point for me. There was no real betrayal by an ally in Star Wars (Solo repented almost immediately). The one betrayer in the Fellowship died. The minute Jayne went from "useful a!#**%+" to actually betraying the party for money...Mal nearly killed him, and he vowed never to do it again under pain of death. Belkar was kicked from the group the second he became more inconvenience than help...only reason it didn't take is because of a mind wipe.
This?
What would you choose, having a rogue who finds traps for you yet sometimes helps himself to some of your coins or to have no-one and be killed by a swinging axe trap?
It's a non-issue. Mechanically you never need a Rogue. Use the money you saved from everyone in the party getting the Rogue's full share AND not having a chunk of it stolen to buy a Wand of Summon Monster. Or hire an NPC. Or anything else.
RP-wise, it doesn't make sense to keep someone around either unless your character's an idiot or for some reason you don't really need the money.
I both do and don't agree with this. I do, because using the game mechanics to force a change of attitude on someone else's character is a blunt force approach.
On the other hand, some players may want to play a charismatic character then they themselves don't have the gift of the gab - not letting those players make use of the mechanics is denying them a benefit of their build.
It also lets a particularly talented IRL-fibber bluff with little chance to get caught.
Best way to handle that IMO is to use Bluff / Sense Motives for hints. If the character's sense motives roll higher than the other character's bluff, then they get a hint. They get a distinct feeling that the other character isn't telling the whole truth. That's a significant hint, but can easily be danced around by a professional liar.
From there, the ball is in the player's court to figure out what's going on..
The rogue in my Runelords game will occasionally nab something for himself if he's the first to find it. It's more of a roleplaying callback to his character's upbringing as a thief than any real thing against the other players. In fact, his first interaction with another PC was picking their pocket at the festival that kicks off the whole AP. At most it's usually a couple hundred gold, so it's not like he's skewing the wealth chart, and the other players don't seem to mind. The only time it's really been an issue is in our last run, when he nabbed an important item (a key) and didn't tell anyone, but I'm sure that will resolve itself when we resume.
So, if the other _players_ are cool with it, I say let him skim a bit off the top when the opportunity presents itself. Maybe their characters will remain oblivious, or just roll their eyes and accept that as the cost of doing business with him, or get super pissed off. Just deal with that in character when (or if) it comes up. If the group has no charter or established rules for how loot gets divvied up, then maybe this is a good reason for them to establish some.
If the other players get pissed off about it, though, then this probably isn't a good table for a character that does that and you should bring that up and encourage him to find some other way to act out his thief-y tendencies (picking NPCs' pockets, burgling them, etc.).
Would it be fair to roll for the character's and inform them about their PC's perception of the bluff? If they all believe the lie, let it run, if they don't inform them about their disbelief?
Since it sounds like the players are all aware this is happening, I don't really see any reason for them not to roll themselves. The main reason to hide a check is if doing so would let the player know something is up (like an ambush or something). Keep in mind there could be various penalties at play, like lighting or distance for Perception checks, for even seeing him take anything. If they didn't see him take anything or have any other reason to be suspicious, I wouldn't even have them roll.
If the other players don't know, then yeah, have the rogue roll, then make rolls for the players. I don't recommend keeping something like this from the players long-term though. It could lead to resentment. It works with my players because of my particular group's dynamic. Not all groups will tolerate this kind of stuff.
Thank you all for the feed back. I'm trying to introduce tabletop RPG's to some of my students. I think having a conversation with the group will be helpful.
This added fact changes a lot. I think most of us were assuming that the players were adults who had some idea of the consequences of their actions. Depending on their age, they may need a more basic discussion about ethics and cooperation.
Thank you all for the feed back. I'm trying to introduce tabletop RPG's to some of my students. I think having a conversation with the group will be helpful.This added fact changes a lot. I think most of us were assuming that the players were adults who had some idea of the consequences of their actions. Depending on their age, they may need a more basic discussion about ethics and cooperation.
I agree. I understand the in-character motivation and how that ends up manifested at the table, but it's worth explaining to a relative novice that, as Jiggy once put it, gold is merely a secondary experience track and stealing from the party like that really is a detraction from both the party and the players' experience.
I remind people who like group PVP that medieval justice is often brutal and retributive. Keeping people in prison is expensive and is mostly a modern concept. People were typically only imprisoned if you couldn't let them go and you couldn't kill them. Maiming, restitution and execution are much more common solutions to crimes.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Ripping off people whose career choice involves killing dangerous things, especially people who you go off into the wilds with, is always a bad idea. At my tables, playing and GMing, it mostly goes bad. We've had a thief left naked deep in a dungeon, with predictable results. Usually it just goes to taking valuables and running the thief off. The couple thieves who violently objected to street justice died.
As for the predictable comment that this is an overreaction for the mere theft of some things, the reaction is to the thief deciding that the rest of the party did not have equal rights to what they are fighting for.
Think of your favorite groups of heroes. Think of Star Wars and Firefly, or of the fellowship of the Ring and Order of the Stick.All of these make my point for me. There was no real betrayal by an ally in Star Wars (Solo repented almost immediately). The one betrayer in the Fellowship died. The minute Jayne went from "useful a##~*#~" to actually betraying the party for money...Mal nearly killed him, and he vowed never to do it again under pain of death. Belkar was kicked from the group the second he became more inconvenience than help...only reason it didn't take is because of a mind wipe.
What? Are we completely talking beside each other? Are you saying these stories would have been better without the conflicts between the heroes?
I'm not saying I want full on, stab-in-the-back betrayal. I'm saying conflicts between PCs can be interesting and that theres a way to play these without disintegrating the party or causing conflicts between players.
Say we were to play Star Wars and I wanted to play Solo. I want my PC to be just a bit troublesome and uncooperative, with a strained relation to Leia. If I tell my fellow that I'll play that way, but that when push comes to shove, my PC will still be there, then everything will be fine. We'll get that Solo from the movies. If I don't, the other players might think I'm an ass, they'll dislike me and try to dump my PC. Or I'll have to play a watered down, not very interesting Solo just to keep the party together.
Or take OotS. Belkar (and, to a lesser extent, Hayley) cause troubles for the party and aren't trusted by the other members. Yet the comic wouldn't have been better if everyone was like Roy and got along all the time, right?
So how would you play OotS? Well, Belkars player is open with her intetions and every player and the GM is fine with Belkar being the belkster as long as it adds to the story. But then it starts to strain belief, why does the party put up with Belkar? Maybe it's Belkars player who raises the concern. The GM steps in »Just hold in there a while longer, I've got a solution«. And you play out the mind wipe, the PCs "resolve" their differences and the players are enjoying themself.
If Belkar's player wasn't open, you'd probably have hurt feelings not just among PCs but among players. And players are harder to mind wipe.
In LotR, I think Legolas and Gimli is a better example for what I want than Boromir. But let's go with Boromir. Say his player wanted a sour character. He's not that much of a trouble, a mild annoyance, at first. He could be played like Solo, slowly learning to be a team player. Bu instead, something happens. Boromirs player will move and quit the group soon, or has just grown tiered of playong Boromir. So the player and GM works put a plan: Bormoir will become a real betrayer and then be killed in poetic justice. Awesome story!
This?
What would you choose, having a rogue who finds traps for you yet sometimes helps himself to some of your coins or to have no-one and be killed by a swinging axe trap?It's a non-issue. Mechanically you never need a Rogue. Use the money you saved from everyone in the party getting the Rogue's full share AND not having a chunk of it stolen to buy a Wand of Summon Monster. Or hire an NPC. Or anything else.
RP-wise, it doesn't make sense to keep someone around either unless your character's an idiot or for some reason you don't really need the money.
Well, rogues are mechanically irrelevant in Pathfinder, sure. But the principle holds: sometimes you need a specialist that's hard to find. And not every campaign is PFS style expendable heroes. Sometimes, the party consists of social outcasts and there aren't that many new adventures willing join you when you kick out the unruly party member. Or maybe the rogue is your characters brother, or a god has commanded you to keep watch over and straighten a thieving orc orphan.
| 8 people marked this as a favorite. |
You're also missing a big point here: RPGs are not books or other passive media. If your character is an a+!+&~%, everyone at the table has to deal with you acting like a jackass for 4-7 hours at a time every week. It grates. It gets old. It really doesn't add as much to the story as you think it does.
Characters can have conflicts without a player going out of his way to make everybody miserable at the table week in and week out to make the story "better". The BEST CASE SCENARIO is this kind of character gets a quick comeuppance and is either replaced or learns their lesson...as all of my AND your examples do. This either results in an isolated incident or a revolving door character. In either case, it's just as well handled by an NPC.
The healthier conflicts (and more interesting ones) are all represented in those same media. Gimli and Legolas have a rivalry, but neither would ever betray the other. Roy and Haley conflict...but Haley also has the best interests of the party in mind, just like the rest of them do. And so on, and so on.
Ideological conflicts add more to the game without being a betrayal of trust.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
The rogue player should decide what he wants his next character to be when the other Pc's kick him out of the group or beat him to death.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
No Lady J, the rogue has PROVEN that he will put his own interests above the party's for a marginal reward. How can they trust him, after all, they are bound to come across more powerful temptations.
The fact that he fell to such a little temptation just makes it worse. I have seen from your posts over time that players getting called to task makes the game less fun for you, so obviously you won't like our take on this.