When you want to strangle a player

How soon after this issue started did he issue his "Ultimatum"? It might just be a momentary lapse in judgment that he'll regret later. He does sound like a hothead.

Elf Witch said:

His total roll was an 18. I added a +2 for him being a non human to the modifiers for the cleric of St Cuthbert. I also added a +2 to both clerics because of the situation and the bard not being known to these two people.

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What's the Bard's modifier? What did he roll on the die, a 3?

Elf Witch said:

I have not nerfed the bard. Unless of course you consider applying modifiers to situations to be nerfing.

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Well, it depends. Does the bard get bonuses for the situation - a +2, say, because the Clerics are both good guys and know each other and wouldn't normally fight and etc.

Anyways, you're penalizing the only thing he's good at (he's playing a Bard, after all). I imagine that he wants to come to the game to play the face. He can't do that with all the modifiers thrown against him. Maybe he just needs to min-max more, I don't know. But I don't see why I would drive for a half-hour, spend money, waste time, and not get to do what I want.

I don't think the issue lies only with the player. I think it's a group issue. You have to sit down and figure out why you are role-playing. What brings you all to the table?

If, after answering this question as a group, you realize that you are doing something - like, oh, I don't know, adding modifiers - that goes directly against the "fun" that you have, why are you doing it?

And yeah, maybe some people will have to leave because what's fun for them isn't fun for anyone else.

Kill the bard.

Then let the player roll up a character that is worth having.
(I'm kidding.)

Seriously, it sounds like you are being very fair, logical and true to your storyline. We recently started playing a Dragonlance 'War of the Lance' campaign and are having similar issues with people not understanding the racial tensions inheirant to that particular storyline.

Maybe you can give the Bard 5 or 10 levels and reduce the other characters to the roles of henchmen. They can just follow him around and bask in his glory. Carry his bags and saddle his horse. Every hero has that sidekick that bites it in battle, they can leap in front of oncoming arrows and cast the occasional spell when he allows. Also, you should throw the current storyline out. That really isn't working for his character. Can't you use two rival thieves guilds instead of churches? What if all the characters have to be bards?

What about this, kick all the other players out of the game except for his wife. Especially the guy who is balancing real life responsibilities and still making time for the game and being nice enough to host the game as well. He is a jerk for picking a cleric. I bet you and he made a deal on the side to make the game all about his character just to screw the other guy over.

At what point is the bard going to be happy? We have a word for this type of person where I am from: Campaign Killer. Actually what's his name I may have played with him before.

"Listen, Bard Dude. I like you. You're a cool guy. I want you to play and have fun in our game. I want Mrs Bard Dude to play and have fun in our game. Thing is, I can't do what you want to Cleric dude. Making him less good at what he can do makes HIM have less fun, and I know you don't want to make the game less fun for anybody else. And if we want him to chip in for gas, then WE should be chipping in for vacuum bags and soda and X guys worth of stuff in the dishwasher, and we don't need to get that nitpicky cuz we're all pals.

If you're not having fun, we can try to make the game more fun for you. Do you want to change characters? We can work something out. Do you want some ideas on how to make Bard a little more streamlined? No problem. I think Bard's pretty cool. He's good at what he does. You're good at running him. That thing with the clerics was no big deal. You helped that situation a lot. The only reason that Cleric Dude got a little further was cuz he rolled better, and he got a bonus because of who the people he was diploming were. In other situations, you're gonna get that bonus and he won't.

If you really want to leave, I'm sorry to see you go. I want you to stay. I also want Mrs Bard Dude to stay, and I think it would kinda suck to make her choose between quitting a game cuz you do and staying if it ticks you off. Now come on. Lets go kill some bad guys and take their stuff."



Best I can think of. The situation you described seems fair to me. Sometimes it seems like the bad guys are always just a little bit better than the PCs in the areas they want to shine in (especially skills) and that sucks. Part of the game. IF it's not happening all the time, I don't see the problem. Perhaps suggest that he use alter self if he knows hes gonna be dealing with bigoted people.

LostSoul said:

Anyways, you're penalizing the only thing he's good at (he's playing a Bard, after all). I imagine that he wants to come to the game to play the face. He can't do that with all the modifiers thrown against him. Maybe he just needs to min-max more, I don't know. But I don't see why I would drive for a half-hour, spend money, waste time, and not get to do what I want.

I don't think the issue lies only with the player. I think it's a group issue. You have to sit down and figure out why you are role-playing. What brings you all to the table?

If, after answering this question as a group, you realize that you are doing something - like, oh, I don't know, adding modifiers - that goes directly against the "fun" that you have, why are you doing it?

And yeah, maybe some people will have to leave because what's fun for them isn't fun for anyone else.

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Oh, nonsense. Hell, everyone gets penalties now and then! Should Elf Witch make sure that characters are only rolling dice in optimal situations where no one will ever get penalized? The penalties were entirely appropriate - presumably, the player knew about the prejudices against his race. Plus, he just didn't roll as well. Maybe he needs to suck it up and not act like a pouty little kid because someone did something better than he did. Plus, he's the one who initially stopped the fight between the opposing clerics in the first place WITH his diplomacy - it sounds like he's pouting because someone else was able to do something in "his" scene. Screw that - if I had an adult who complained for TWO FREAKIN' HOURS about that, I'd tell him to stop being a dick and cool it if he was a good friend. If he wasn't a good friend, I'd just to tell him to get the hell outta the game.

Oh, and the complaining about gas money? Yeah, that's even more petty and ridiculous. I already don't like this guy at all.

LostSoul said:

What's the Bard's modifier? What did he roll on the die, a 3?



Well, it depends. Does the bard get bonuses for the situation - a +2, say, because the Clerics are both good guys and know each other and wouldn't normally fight and etc.

Anyways, you're penalizing the only thing he's good at (he's playing a Bard, after all). I imagine that he wants to come to the game to play the face. He can't do that with all the modifiers thrown against him. Maybe he just needs to min-max more, I don't know. But I don't see why I would drive for a half-hour, spend money, waste time, and not get to do what I want.

I don't think the issue lies only with the player. I think it's a group issue. You have to sit down and figure out why you are role-playing. What brings you all to the table?

If, after answering this question as a group, you realize that you are doing something - like, oh, I don't know, adding modifiers - that goes directly against the "fun" that you have, why are you doing it?

And yeah, maybe some people will have to leave because what's fun for them isn't fun for anyone else.

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He has five ranks in diplomacy plus +4 for stat and +2 bonus because he has five ranks in bluff. He rolled a 7. He has not put ranks in diploamcy every level the cleric who also has the same chr has put levels in it and he does not have any ranks in bluff.

The clerics involved may be good guys but they don't like each other there is a lot of tension between the two churches. The clerics of St Cuthbert are fantatics who havea strong belief in punishing wrong doers. In my world they make up the judges and in a lot of areas they are the police force.

They often can't see gray areas. For example the penalty for being caught stealing for the third time is to lose a hand. It does not matter what you stole. So if a hungry child gets caught stealing food three times a cleric of St Cuthbert will not hesitate to cut off that child's hand. This has but them at odds with the church of Pelor many times who have been known to shelter these children also clerics of Heirenous have been known to offer santuary to evil doers who truly want to repent. The church of St Cuthbert in my game does not believe that evil doers can be redeemed.

So there has always been tension between the churches and someone is trying to make it flair up.

I get frustrated that just because he was not in his eyes succesful in the diplomacy situation that he has nothing to do. That he has been nerfed. First of all he did get through to the one cleric and his actions delayed things long enough for the other character to get there and help. If those two clerics had started fighting then there would have been a war going on when the other clerics there jumped in. The bard prevented massive amounts of bloodshed he saved the freaking day.

I don't always give him negative modifiers. Earlier in the game the party came across a tribe of goblins. In my game goblins are not evil they are a nomadic tribes they don't trust humans and they don't have clerics they have shamans and druids. In that situation it was the bard who shined he was the face that day. If the player of the cleric had tried to use diplomacy he would have faced some modifiers the same way the bard did in the sitution in the last game.

When he made his character he knew that Chris was going to play a cleric/paladin who was going to take the leadership feat . Rich had not made up his mind what he was going to play he was leaning to sorcerer. When he made a bard I pointed out that because of Chris's character he would not always be the clear cut face of the party. I had the players sit down ahead of time and discuss what they were going to make os that we could avoid a situation like this.

We also talked about what kind of game we wanted to play. They want a game heavy on role play a lot of intrigue and where in the end they become hereos of legend.

Tewligan said:

Oh, nonsense. Hell, everyone gets penalties now and then!

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I'm not talking about penalties. I'm talking about social expectations for having a good time.

I was asking questions about penalties and PC build to get an idea of what was going on.

Elf Witch said:

He has five ranks in diplomacy plus +4 for stat and +2 bonus because he has five ranks in bluff. He rolled a 7. He has not put ranks in diploamcy every level the cleric who also has the same chr has put levels in it and he does not have any ranks in bluff.

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The player hasn't made an optimized face. He should have it maxed out, with +6 synergy, for a total of modifier of 10 + ranks. Maybe you should point that out and allow him to rework his skill points.

Elf Witch said:

The clerics involved may be good guys but they don't like each other there is a lot of tension between the two churches. The clerics of St Cuthbert are fantatics who havea strong belief in punishing wrong doers. In my world they make up the judges and in a lot of areas they are the police force.

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Don't get me wrong - I think the situation you came up with was awesome. It's just a matter of you guys being on the same page.

Elf Witch said:

Someone set fire to the temple of Pelor killing almost every cleric there and severly injuring the primate of the temple.

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The followers of Pelor are ape worshipers?