How to prevent the "rolling" of halflings

[Brisk-sg]

Recently my group began a new campaign of D&D, the 1st session of which I could not make. To simplify matters, my character was assumed to have been traveling with them when we started the 2nd session. We were running through the “What is that smell?” module and were just entering the cavern’s beneath the town to save the Halfling villagers at the beginning of the 2nd session.

Our party is composed of the following:

ex-Knight (My Character) NG
Half-Drow/Tiefling Ranger/Cleric of Vengeance God CG
Halfling Barbarian Berserker CN
Human Mounted Knight who is a Watchman/Judge CN
Human Female Thief CN
Human Wizard CN
Human Male Thief CN


Little did my character know, but some members of the party (Mainly the Female thief and our Mounted Knight who served as a Watchman/Judge in the nearby cities guard) had already robbed everything in the vicinity of the town while checking things out during the 1st session.

At the beginning of the 2nd session my character joined the group and our party descended into the caverns beneath the Halfling village, with a few members soaked in beer as a possible deterrent to the tick like creatures that were found scurrying about the town.

After several encounters through a maze of shifting rooms, a fight with duplicates of ourselves, and the death of one queen tick like creature we come upon a cavern with several crystal spiders creatures. After besting the spiders we find two Halflings. One of the Halflings is a young female Halfling we had freed earlier who had wondered off to find her uncle… the other Halfling was her uncle, a famous adventure who’s mansion we just happened to be delving beneath (which most of our characters were well aware of).

My character approaches the unconscious old Halfling, kneeling next to him to attempt a healing roll with my pathetic healing skill of 1. The Half-Drow/Tiefling Ranger approaches and begins his healing attempt with a much better healing skill, so my character sits back and just watches. That is when things begin to hit the fan.

The Ranger turns to the young female Halfling and convinces her to go see how the other Halflings we had gathered were doing, then the player of the ranger tells our DM, “I roll him”, and his character immediately begins pulling his magical gloves off, looking for rings on his hands while the female thief searches his body. My Character is seeing all of this, sitting right there. He is neutral good, and somewhat heroic. He has already exploded at the Ranger earlier in the adventure for murdering a helpless insane drow stuck in a wall (though this is very IC for the Ranger since he hunts his kin). While considering my options for resolving this, the Halfling woke up.

The Halfling springs to his feet and jumps back, drawing his short sword and shouting at the party, asking who we were, what we were doing, and to put his stuff down immediately. All the characters not protecting the other Halflings, my character included, immediately tried to calm the Halfling down. The ranger said “I was just trying to help heal you” and failed his bluff roll, however the female thief succeeded in her diplomacy check and the ranger handed the magical gloves back.

But then disaster struck.

As we strolled through the shifting caverns looking for the exit, our male thief tried to pick pocket the old Halfling. The old Halfling just happens to be a 12th level rogue being a famous adventurer and all. So of course he catches him in the act, thus throwing all recovered trust strait out the… uh… cave. He stated that if the male thief got within five feet of him he would slit his throat. The male thief said “ok… ok… ok…” and backed off, but the damage was done.

The old Halfling went back, surrounding himself with the other 15 odd Halflings we had recently freed down here and began whispering to them. That is when we stumbled on a cave with a collapsing portal to another plane. The wizard was able to close the portal after some deciphering of a found scroll, possibly saving the multi-verse from tearing itself apart.

Well we get back to the surface and my character is able to smooth over things pretty well with the old Halfling, but he does ask a good question, “Why are you traveling with these guys?”

I honestly cannot find a good reason as to “why?”

The back story Is that we are all acquaintances in the big city nearby and are traveling to a fair. And the thing is, I know stuff like this is probably going to happen again due to greed and lust for Magical Items. And I am not sure what I should do when it does occur again, as any such action would likely create an IC rift in the group.

Any thoughts?



- Josh

 

[ATO_DM]

Talk to your DM about the characters playing their alignment. Chaotic Neutral is not just an excuse to act in a selfish or deceitful manner. I am going to break down the definition of the Chaotic Neutral Alignment from the PHB to let you know exactly how screwed up these characters are. Oh, but before I get to that I have one question: How the heck is a KNIGHT going to have a CN alignment? Especially when he's a "watchman/judge" everything about the terms knight and judge SCREAM Lawful something.

Anyway check this out: CN neutral "values his own liberty but doesn't strive to protect others' freedom" this doesn't mean that CN will infringe on the liberty of others it just means they might not go out of their way to protect it. This is definitely not a free invitation to loot a helpless person. Also, the ranger is supposedly Chaotic Good. Unless, this is a misprint the CG character should have been the last person to even think of taking from the helpless. The archetype for the CG alignment is Robin Hood, whose attitudes/beliefs/actions are the exact opposite of the Ranger in your game. If I were the DM I would have had serious reprocussions for the Ranger for such a blatant disregard of his characters professed alignment.

If some serious changes don't happen on the part of the group I would definitely role-play my character in a NG manner. Even if it would entail turning the party into the authoroties, or maybe even armed conflict between yourself and the group.

This is definitely a game I would not like to be a part of. It just seems like a bunch of munchkinizing fools that are going to use every possible excuse just to power up their characters as much as possible. If you can't talk some sense into this group my best advice is to avoid the frustration of playing with them, and quit the game.

Best of Luck, in a bad situation.

 

[bwgwl]

i fear that any party with five Chaotic Neutral characters in it is doomed to not stick together for very long...

good luck...

 

[Brisk-sg]

The DM has already stated that the Character who is playing the watchman (known as the Judges) was recently allowed into the organization and probably won't last very long in it. In fact he has planned to put the character in a situation where his status with the organization will be put in jeopardy depending on what actions he takes.

Most of the group does lean toward the power gaming department, with the exception of myself and the DM, and that might be part of the problem. Some of the players felt we were started at too low of level. When the DM asked at the end of the session what he could do to improve his game one of the suggestions from the Female Thief’s player was “more magic items”.

I agree though that the Ranger, being the only other good aligned character, definitely shouldn’t have been rolling the injured Halfling.

 

[Metalsmith]

Sounds like your group is trying the old, "The DM won't let us play evil characters, so I'll play Chaotic Neutral charcters so I can do any damm thing I want." trick.

Heal up the old Halfling and friends and then go get those thieving bastards. The sneak attack damage from a 12th level thief should be enough to drop a character a round with Full attacks. He can even use a sap to knock them out instead of killing them, and then turn the whole lot of them in for banditry. After examining the belongings of the Female Thief and mounted Knight and discovering their ill gotten gains would be enough to get their neck streched on the spot. Start with the Thieves (sneak attack alone should be enough to drop both on the spot) and then the Barbarian then the fighter and wizard. Hell a few halflings with burlap sacks full of rocks should be able to take care of the wizard.

I especialy love the idiot Lord or Captain of the guard who hires a CN Aligned guy as a Guardsman or Judge especialy a Judge. Can't the lord cough up a few GP to have an detect lie or know alignment spell cast just to be shure the jerk he's hiring is up to the task?

Metalsmith

 

[Brisk-sg]

Actually the CN Halfling Barbarian had nothing to do with the thievery, and I don’t believe the mage did either (though I could be wrong about that because I missed a session). The CN Halfling Barbarian should be CN due to the character concept which is a little zany I will admit. The Halfling Barbarian and my character actually befriended the old Halfling by the end of the adventure, and the Halfling barbarian started seeing the niece of the old Halfling. And everyone was provided a reward for a service to the town… everyone except the female thief who had broken into the safe in the old Halfling’s manner.

She wasn’t too happy when everyone else was given 500 gold pieces for helping to save the town.

The old Halfling new it was her because a cat that was lounging the room with the vault is intelligent, at least according to the player of the Barbarian Halfling who’s character talked to it for a while.

Hopefully the other character will stop acting like hooligans, other wise my character is going to get up and leave (if it is minor) or bring some of them in for justice (if it is major).

 

[Shin Okada]

I think ATO_DM have said most of the things I want to say. CN is chaotic Neutral. That means, a character is not as good as classified as a good aligned character, and not as evil as classified as an evil character. Reading your post, your CN friends seems to be doing evil act as often as they could. Alignment is an abstract system and always need DM's call, but you may talk to you DM, and he can order them to change alignment (CE).

Basically, all you need is to act according to your alignment. It may lead to some party infight or, maybe your knight will leave the party, and report to the authority that those evil self proclaimed adventurers are roaming their reign.

But If that kind of trouble often happens in your game group, maybe you should talk to all the other members, about what kind of game you all can have fun with. That kind of argument can be ended in various way. You may convince other members to play more cooperative characters. Or maybe you find it is fun to play evil adventurer by yourself and start an all-evil campaign.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

To put it simply.

Your screwed.

Its generally pretty obvious when an entire party decides to run as Chaotic Neutral that they are in the mood to play as complete pricks and just see how much they can get away with.

Trust me, a campaign like this just has no decent future.

 

[Corinth]

Yep, kick these losers to the curb. Tell everyone you know to not play with them because they're losers and wankers, and then get some people who don't suck to play at your table instead.

 

[Metalsmith]

The old Halfling new it was her because a cat that was lounging the room with the vault is intelligent, at least according to the player of the Barbarian Halfling who’s character talked to it for a while.

Hopefully the other character will stop acting like hooligans, other wise my character is going to get up and leave (if it is minor) or bring some of them in for justice (if it is major).

I dont understand why the Halfling hasn't already gotten her.
You'd think a Halfling Rogue would know all about not letting people walk all over him. The major Hooligan antics have already happened, are you going to let them do it again? Are you shure your characters Alignment is Neutral Good? Sounds like all you have are 2 bad apples, turn them into applesauce.

Metalsmith
You can get more with a kind word and a 2x4 than you can get with a kind word.