[wotbs] masochistic pc

**corwyn77** · 8th July 2012, 05:37 AM

So I have a pc who is, for lack of a better word, crazy. When in Seaquen, he volunteered for biomancy experiments; now he's a semi-aquatic orc with acid scars, lava burns over much of his body and he's somewhat nihilistic.

Most recently, at Castle Korstull, in rapid succession, he consumed necromantic cheese (from the throne room), and a big helping of blood red sweet viscous hellwasp honey. Now normally the honey would result in the character just taking poison damage and be done with it but I feel that the combination calls for some sort of punishment...entertaining result for all. Any suggestions? Maybe some interesting disease out there.

**Marius Delphus** · 8th July 2012, 04:21 PM

(1) Kill the character and let the player roll a new one -- it certainly seems like that's what the player wants. (Are there any other clues the player is unhappy with this character? )

(2) Reverse the biomancy experiments. The player may be regretting them.

(3) Turn the character's skin an unusual color (say, blue). The player may just like having an extremely silly character.

**N'raac** · 8th July 2012, 05:04 PM

Originally Posted by corwyn77

So I have a pc who is, for lack of a better word, crazy. When in Seaquen, he volunteered for biomancy experiments; now he's a semi-aquatic orc with acid scars, lava burns over much of his body and he's somewhat nihilistic.

Most recently, at Castle Korstull, in rapid succession, he consumed necromantic cheese (from the throne room), and a big helping of blood red sweet viscous hellwasp honey. Now normally the honey would result in the character just taking poison damage and be done with it but I feel that the combination calls for some sort of punishment...entertaining result for all. Any suggestions? Maybe some interesting disease out there.

Emphasis added. Why does the player need to be "punished"? Is his gaming style somehow detracting from the group's enjoyment of the game? If so, maybe an out of game discussion, rather than passive-aggressive "when you do things I dislike, bad things happen to your character" approach, might be in order.

Is there a concern raised by the players, or just your own perception that this player/character should be singled out for special "punishment" to correct some perceived flaw in his gaming style?

Marius makes some great points about working the game to enhance the player's enjoymnet, which is pretty much the opposite of "punishment".

**corwyn77** · 9th July 2012, 08:40 AM

Sorry, obviously my tone was misconstrued. "Punishment" was a joke. A new character is not needed; the player is having fun, though he does enjoy the crazy (all his characters are a bit loopy), and his play isn't an issue with me or the other players (mostly, he does occasionally go overboard but he's easy to talk down).

My intent was to find an entertaining temporary condition to inflict on him to reflect some of the crazy stuff he does. It's all in fun, I assure you. For his biomancy, he ended up with light scales, gills (water-breathing), a bonus to intimidation, and a penalty to all other uses of charisma. He enjoyed, no reveled in it; He even took Skill Focus (Intimidation) and the whole thing is now a major character focus. Though he looks a bit freakish and draws some odd looks, especially in cities.

**Marius Delphus** · 9th July 2012, 05:06 PM

Then I would say that what you have is not a masochist character so much as a comedian for a player. (The 3.5 DMG II calls this player an Outlier.)

Give him a fish's head (and don't let on that it's temporary).

Make him exude water (as though sweating) in inconvenient quantities.

Make him allergic to something common, like steel. (Similar to nauseated.)

Make him speak only Aquan (with a burbling, cartoon "fish man" voice).

**RangerWickett** · 9th July 2012, 06:07 PM

I recall in Sagiro's storyhour, the cruelest thing that was done to a spotlight-hogging character was to make people forget him. Everyone remembers the heroes who defeated the Ventrifact Colossus, and if pressed, some people might be like, "Yeah, I remember hearing something about them having a half-orc buddy." But no one remembers how cool the PC was.

If you wanted to vex your player, maybe the demon wasp honey gives him a weird psychic link so people who see him don't think he looks weird at all. In fact, everyone sees him and is like, "Have we met? Your face looks so familiar."

**The Red King** · 9th July 2012, 07:49 PM

Originally Posted by corwyn77

So I have a pc who is, for lack of a better word, crazy. When in Seaquen, he volunteered for biomancy experiments; now he's a semi-aquatic orc with acid scars, lava burns over much of his body and he's somewhat nihilistic.

Most recently, at Castle Korstull, in rapid succession, he consumed necromantic cheese (from the throne room), and a big helping of blood red sweet viscous hellwasp honey. Now normally the honey would result in the character just taking poison damage and be done with it but I feel that the combination calls for some sort of punishment...entertaining result for all. Any suggestions? Maybe some interesting disease out there.

GAS.

He has constant gas. Slightly painful at times, but it is constant enough that sneaking can be effected, and he "bubbles" when he swims.

**Primitive Screwhead** · 10th July 2012, 01:28 AM

When I was preparing to run that, I came up with an idea for the necromantic cheese that I posted here

In short, the cheese turns the eater into a corpse.... mechanically speaking. Which means all sorts of fun things with regards to spell targeting.

You could treat it as a disease instead of the way I have it written up, without the potentially permanent lethality. That would give the player an option of trying to avoid being 'healed'.

Your player does seem to be an 'Outlier' as as long as every body is having fun.. go with the weird. I have a similar player, and most of the time his sillyness goes over well.

**The Red King** · 11th July 2012, 04:45 PM

Originally Posted by Primitive Screwhead

When I was preparing to run that, I came up with an idea for the necromantic cheese that I posted here

In short, the cheese turns the eater into a corpse.... mechanically speaking. Which means all sorts of fun things with regards to spell targeting.

You could treat it as a disease instead of the way I have it written up, without the potentially permanent lethality. That would give the player an option of trying to avoid being 'healed'.

Your player does seem to be an 'Outlier' as as long as every body is having fun.. go with the weird. I have a similar player, and most of the time his sillyness goes over well.

This is pretty cool. Problem is that I have a party that has at least 2 PC's that would probably fight to the death to see who would eat it forst.

I will have to arrange fro them to find this soon.