OOTS is, for fun's sake, the very epitome of a dysfunctional party.
I'm still waiting to know someone who takes them as a model for roleplaying.
I had a player who was new to roleplaying, but had seen «The Gamers» like a hundred times and took the movie as both his model and his expectations towards what real roleplaying was like. His first roleplaying experience didn't end well.
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note how i said by themselves theres no party in this equation the party is in town or something and the rogue goes off and finds some secret tresure that treasure is theirs and they dont have to share if they dont want toif a rogue finds a secret door by themselves and theres treaure inside the treasure is theirs, their skills found the treasure.If the party goes into a dungeon and defeats various monsters and there is a huge treasure hoard behind a secret door and no other treasure anywhere and the rogue is the first one to make the perception check to find it... that seems like a terrible way to distribute treasure.
So by this description, how is a rogue that's with the party considered on his own, so that this is "his" loot? The party, while out adventuring, sees a corpse up ahead, and sends the rogue to do their role as a member of the party (look around and see if it's safe, or what's there if it's not) and then he signals that it's safe and the party starts to join. At this point, while the party is closing the undefined distance, the Rogue starts searching the corpse and decides Well the party isn't 'here' so this loot is mine, and keeps the bag of gold, but at the same time the party is here, so share's the masterwork weapon.
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OOTS is, for fun's sake, the very epitome of a dysfunctional party.Yes. Yes they are.
You forgot to mention that as the plot develops, each member of the party experiences character development and grow out of those bad habits. Even the chaotic evil comic relief character.
A professor I knew loved this quote, "Much of our disagreement comes down to whether or not we believe that, in any given situation, does Desire grant License."
I prefer the "What were you taught in Kindergarten?" analogy, but they come down to the same thing.
We don't know where Lady J, Raven, or any other poster is coming from. If you have had someone you should have been able to trust steal from you, this will make this a hot-button issue for you. If you have lived in a situation where you had no control over your means of survival and advancement, this will shape your viewpoint.
Either way, you are going to have a hard time not seeing all this as an attack on your identity and values.
Completely off topic, but who is your board icon?
Better late than never!
I had to look it because I chose it just for the looks.She seems to be Val Baine, from Iron Gods.
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This is all going nowhere good.
every one is up in arms saying kill the rogue for what could be like 6 gold 7 silver and 3 copper peices......
we dont have exact numbers so stop flipping your s@!$ saying burn the rogue at the steak
It's not about the value of the gold, it's about the rogue stealing from the party. It's a line that should not have been crossed.
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no they split the loot with every one present, if a person is missing cuz they a)cant make it to the sesion or b)they are off doing some other stuff away from the party they dont get a share of the loot. the rogue was the only one present when the looting ocured so the loot is all his no one helped kill the dude(grant it he didnt kill the dude either) and no one helped him find the loot so they cannot stake a claim to it. when loot is found all partisipants of finding said loot gets an euqal claim to said loot weather it be loot gained from combat or finding a well hidden treasure, in this instance the rogue was the sole partisipant in finding the loot, then all partisipants get an equal share of the loot, loot/1 = loot rogue...it is not he didnt go into their bags and steal items from their inventory, that is what stealing from a party member is, if its not on their character sheet it isnt theirs.That is stealing from party members.the discution is about a rogue who looted a corpse and (only) gave the party some of his loot, he did not steal from party membersMy DM in one of my FTF games allowed the rogue to steal like this. It ultimatly gimped the party as he stole a wand of ccw that the cleric had just had made.
This along with a time limit caused a tpk when the cleric ran out of the ability to heal after fights, and the rogue never did say he had it.
Although, we as players knew he had it, we played as if we did not.
So allowing the character to steal from the party in this way, ultimately messed up the party.
In the unlikely event that the other players agree, what are the likely responses?
The cleric won't heal anyone until all the loot is picked up.
The wizard won't share the results of his detect magic spells.
The back-rank PCs can start looting before the battle ends.
If the barbarian wants a full share of treasure, he needs to kill the rogue.
Last session, in our goblin adventure, our group had the opportunity to divvy up loot. Our cleric was not present. We set aside a share of the loot for him because it benefits the whole party for each member to be well-equipped.
Two sessions ago, in our Gaintslayer campaign, our group looted a +4 con belt with a cool rider effect on it that would benefit the fighter who was not present at the time. My character, a front-line paladin, could have used it but we all agreed to set it aside for the fighter because the best use of the belt for the whole group is in his hands, rather than mine.
Only two examples of how we clearly do not view loot the same way that you do, Lady J. I've been playing with goblin DM for over 20 years and some of the group members for coming on 10 years now. We have pretty much always treated loot in this fashion so these were not isolated incidents. The isolated incidents are the ones where someone secretly takes more than what our group perceives as their fair share like OP's rogue or where someone refuses to use the loot we've accumulated in the manner that is most beneficial to the entire party.
It's a little distressing how often I have to conclude posts with "Your game is not my game; the way you play is not the way I play" in discussions around here.
We've tended to find it too troublesome to split the loot by working out everyone's contributions, or by doing it when certain players aren't there.
In session A, the wizard teleports us to the island. The Fighter slays a bunch of monsters, and the cleric heals up the Fighter.
In session B, the fighter's player isn't there. The Rogue finds a treasure cache, disarms the traps on it, and opens it. Everyone gets a share, because we wouldn't have found it without everyone's contribution bringing us to this point. No finding the treasure room without actually getting to the island and fighting the monsters.
A Fighter who solo-killed a BBEG would split the loot, because we all got him up to that point together.
In my most recent party we just split the loot by giving each party member what he needed. I got all the scrolls to learn new spells, but we gave martials a bit more equipment just because they depended more on it. We had all the money together and when we needed something we just bought it.
It worked because we were a tight group but I don't think it could work for many groups. It was a good experience because we thought of the group as a whole rather than single individuals and it worked.
Usually we just split the loot evenly among the players who came to the session but if something appears that fits a character whose player is not presentwe save it for him. We couldn't share the loot with players who didn't because we have a player who comes once every 4 months.
you can make a character capable of killing the entire party with out that actually being your end goal
AM OBJECTIVELY UNTRUE. BARBARIAN AM ALWAYS WINNER, ALWAYS, BUT BARBARIAN DESIGNED THAT WAY.
BARBARIAN ALSO ABLE TO INSINUATE SELF INTO ALL PARTIES. BARBARIAN AM GREAT AT PARTIES. THEREFORE, AM NO PARTY WITH 0% CHANCE OF HAVING BARBARIAN IN PARTY. AS RESULT SUNDER CHECK THAT AM ALLOWING BARBARIAN CRASH ALL PARTY, ALWAYS, AM NO SUCH PARTY THAT AM ABLE KILL ALL PARTY WITHOUT ALSO KILL BARBARIAN.
THAT AM UNPOSSIBLE FEET EVEN IF AM TRYING TO MAKE THAT BE END GOAL, ERGO IF AM ABLE TO KILL ENTIRE PARTY ALWAYS, AM BY DEFAULT HAVING BEEN BUILT THAT WAY FROM BEGINNING.
Q.E.D.
(THAT AM PHD SPEAK FOR 'BARBARIAN AM ALWAYS WINNER.')
I don't think it's not possible to kill all the party with a character who wasn't created for it. There are a lot of ways to achieve it rather than by sheer force.
It's not the possibility but the motive what bothers me.
Why would you do that? Why would you think of doing that? You are part of a group and thinking of slaying them all speaks of flawed group dynamics at some deggree.
It's ok to play an antisocial character who wouldn't mind to kill all the party if needed, but that should be just a personality quirk, not something that it comes to the game (and if the other characters know your thoughts don't expect them to feel comfortable with you around anyway).
If you are playing a game with a lot of conspiration and backstabbing I guess it's OK but I think we are talking here about the classic cooperative game where the players are a team.
Not to mention, if this is reasonable and acceptable behavior, why is the rogue bothering to hide the theft in the first place?
It's the difference between meta level and in-character. Honestly, a rogue skimming a little cash off the top isn't much to worry about and fits certain tropes in the fiction from which D&D draws its inspiration. But, of course, in character, the rogue hides the coins he pilfers as a matter of course while we, the players on the meta level, recognize what's going on.
And, as I see it, a little pilfering of cash or small jewels doesn't do a bit to show you can't trust the rogue with more important matters. That really is a slippery slope argument - that lack of ability to trust the rogue with petty cash means you can't trust him to fully participate in a fight or avoid putting a knife in your kidney. They're two very different issues.
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Two sessions ago, in our Gaintslayer campaign, our group looted a +4 con belt with a cool rider effect on it that would benefit the fighter who was not present at the time. My character, a front-line paladin, could have used it but we all agreed to set it aside for the fighter because the best use of the belt for the whole group is in his hands, rather than mine.
.... please tell me you acquired said belt at the and of the session and not halfway through when you still had a really hard fight ahead of you.
Well... I have a long story of keeping loot for another characters on my body. If we loot something that fits another character but he's not there, there's no reason for not using it until you can give it away.
We have a Ring of Evasion that has been used by most of the party members at some time and now I have inherited it for some reason xD
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Not to mention, if this is reasonable and acceptable behavior, why is the rogue bothering to hide the theft in the first place?It's the difference between meta level and in-character. Honestly, a rogue skimming a little cash off the top isn't much to worry about and fits certain tropes in the fiction from which D&D draws its inspiration. But, of course, in character, the rogue hides the coins he pilfers as a matter of course while we, the players on the meta level, recognize what's going on.
And, as I see it, a little pilfering of cash or small jewels doesn't do a bit to show you can't trust the rogue with more important matters. That really is a slippery slope argument - that lack of ability to trust the rogue with petty cash means you can't trust him to fully participate in a fight or avoid putting a knife in your kidney. They're two very different issues.
Have you ever known a person who always skips paying for beer, skims the tips when several of you pay, and takes the petty cash that's laying around? And he also lies in small ways about lots of stuff? I have, and I certainly didn't consider the said person a friend, trusted him with anything material or would trust said person at all in a life and death situation. Not that he would backstab me but that he would be unreliable in a dangerous situation. The rogues (thieves actually) described in this thread fit said person perfectly.
Matrix paladins are the best paladins, obviously.
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except you never know when he'll pocket something that could be critical to the rest of the party, when he has no use for it but to collect/sell. Unless the guy is kept under constant surveillance, his untrustworthiness makes him a liability more than an asset.What I just don't get is why should the other members of the party be OK with this from a RP point of view. This kind of behavior shows that the thief is not worth of being trusted.As long as you're aware of it and he is useful, it can be tolerated
Indeed that must be part of the agreement, which works best when all the intra-party conflict happens in downtime
And the agreement must be revised if it impedes other players' fun
In all honesty though, PCs have an enormous leeway as far as in character trust is concerned. They readily trust their lives to strangers they have never met before no matter how outlandish or even despised/distrusted they should be (vampire PC, drow PC, necromancer PC, Cleric of Urgathoa or Norgorber PC, Red Mantis Assassin PC)
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Admittedly, the strip I linked was before they got out of the first dungeon, so they're at their worst.You forgot to mention that as the plot develops, each member of the party experiences character development and grow out of those bad habits. Even the chaotic evil comic relief character.OOTS is, for fun's sake, the very epitome of a dysfunctional party.Yes. Yes they are.
And we discover far later that the "stolen" gold was amassed for a worthy cause
Were I the GM in this and knowing that this gold was not used by the Rogue to beat her fellow PCs in the WBL race, I would have provided it in addition to the planned loot.
In a way, this gold was just a gimmick for the Rogue and not intended for any PC to actually gain, ie not part of the loot :-)
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OK, for those who deny the slippery slope. Real world, it happens. I have lost friends whose relatives decided that my friends' lives had less value than the money that could be gained. It isn't the amount of money that creates the slope, it is deciding that your desire for the money out-values any rights the other person has. Heck, in one of the defenses selling out the party's reputation by taking money to let the bandits go free was perfectly OK. The slippery slope is a cliche, because it is so common an occurrence. There is nothing clever and insightful about it, because it is so likely, it is prosaic.
If you don't like people telling you that you don't have the right to anything you want, whether or not it isn't yours, maybe the problem is in you.
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I did this years ago in my group... I was subbing in for another player and played his rogue... I decided to pickpocket from the party ranger, I thought it was great in game role playing. Next time I went out to scout ahead, I went into an alley and ran into some trouble... the party did not come to my rescue... lesson learnt!
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This all boils down to the rule of "don't be a dick".
Stealing from the party is being a dick.
Don't apologize for starting this. This kind of arguments happen often, and it's not your fault at all.
I'm glad to hear it went well with your players. Most players react well if you deal with the problems the right way and it's normal that a new player makes some mistakes. We all have been there.
I hope your students enjoy the story a lot. Good luck!
I agree with Kileanna this is exactly how many (dare I say most) discussions on the internet go.
When I was a teenager many years ago, I would do the "take loot before the party got there" thing. Back then the class was called "Thief" so I thought that was what I was supposed to do. I got caught. Later, after the character died disabling a magical trap that then allowed the group to complete it's mission, no one wanted to go to the effort of raising that character. Lesson learned.
Coming from a Barbarian, I think it should be "QUICKLY, EVERYONE DIE!"
=P
Two sessions ago, in our Gaintslayer campaign, our group looted a +4 con belt with a cool rider effect on it that would benefit the fighter who was not present at the time. My character, a front-line paladin, could have used it but we all agreed to set it aside for the fighter because the best use of the belt for the whole group is in his hands, rather than mine..... please tell me you acquired said belt at the and of the session and not halfway through when you still had a really hard fight ahead of you.
Not the end of the session but no really hard fight ahead either.
Dude, shank your wizard and move on.If you shank your wizard, you might as well shank yourself too.
BARBARIAN FIND THAT OBJECTIVELY UNTRUE. CASTYS AM SQUISHY, UNLIKE BEST CLASS OF ALL TIME.
BARBARIAN FIND THAT OBJECTIVELY UNTRUE. CASTYS AM SQUISHY, UNLIKE BEST CLASS OF ALL TIME.Dude, shank your wizard and move on.If you shank your wizard, you might as well shank yourself too.
Mediums?