Nearly PvP

[felwred]

This discussion branches from a prior post discussing a PvP event in an AL game. Although I think the rules are pretty clear that you cannot attack other player characters (code of conduct, etc.), it seems like there are cases that come pretty close. I was curious to get impressions from other AL folks regarding this.

Example "near pvp" scenarios...
1. Wild mages intentionally surging while the group is badly wounded and tightly packed in.
2. Players going "chaotic stupid" and attacking a king or other clearly unbeatable opponent where the party could get drawn in.
3. Players "accidentally" including friendlies in spell effects (ranging from fireball to slow...)
4. Players intentionally destroying rewards the party could get.

The wild mage example seems to come up the most. People who want to play wild mages just like the chaos it creates and, often, without regard for their compatriots. I played in a session where the party was trapped in a 20 x 20 room - outside was a force that would finish us off and the sorcerer took a pot shot at an outside foe with a ranged attack and missed. He intentionally surged to re-roll resulting in an 01 roll (surge every round for 10 rounds). 3 fireballs, 1 necrotic drain, and a modron later - half the party was dead. Not fun. I could have seen the justification when that happens for another player to kill the wild mage to protect himself. That scenario pits the conduct rule against itself.

The chaotic stupid can be solved with good DMing - the offender is taken away and the DM imposes light penalties against the party. A weak DM may take that as the party, as a whole, attacking. Demogorgon shows up with a tier 1 party so the paladin charges him casting compel duel. Hopefully the DM would only take out the lunatic character rather than his whole party but that wouldn't always be the case.

The accidental spell effects seem to cause more heartburn because it's up to us to decide if we believe the player saying "oops." First time - no problem. Fifth time, I suspect it is intentional.

Destroying rewards, etc happens sometimes. Not sure how to handle this.

Thoughts?

Fred

 

[RulesJD]

This discussion branches from a prior post discussing a PvP event in an AL game. Although I think the rules are pretty clear that you cannot attack other player characters (code of conduct, etc.), it seems like there are cases that come pretty close. I was curious to get impressions from other AL folks regarding this.

Example "near pvp" scenarios...
1. Wild mages intentionally surging while the group is badly wounded and tightly packed in.
2. Players going "chaotic stupid" and attacking a king or other clearly unbeatable opponent where the party could get drawn in.
3. Players "accidentally" including friendlies in spell effects (ranging from fireball to slow...)
4. Players intentionally destroying rewards the party could get.

The wild mage example seems to come up the most. People who want to play wild mages just like the chaos it creates and, often, without regard for their compatriots. I played in a session where the party was trapped in a 20 x 20 room - outside was a force that would finish us off and the sorcerer took a pot shot at an outside foe with a ranged attack and missed. He intentionally surged to re-roll resulting in an 01 roll (surge every round for 10 rounds). 3 fireballs, 1 necrotic drain, and a modron later - half the party was dead. Not fun. I could have seen the justification when that happens for another player to kill the wild mage to protect himself. That scenario pits the conduct rule against itself.

The chaotic stupid can be solved with good DMing - the offender is taken away and the DM imposes light penalties against the party. A weak DM may take that as the party, as a whole, attacking. Demogorgon shows up with a tier 1 party so the paladin charges him casting compel duel. Hopefully the DM would only take out the lunatic character rather than his whole party but that wouldn't always be the case.

The accidental spell effects seem to cause more heartburn because it's up to us to decide if we believe the player saying "oops." First time - no problem. Fifth time, I suspect it is intentional.

Destroying rewards, etc happens sometimes. Not sure how to handle this.

Thoughts?

Fred

1. Only intentionally griefing players look for a way to try and create PVP situations, ala the discussions that happened in several threads recently. The reality is that AL admins and the rules have been crystal clear in this regard. No intentionally disrupting other players, which includes dropping AoEs on them.

2. That's not how Tides of Chaos (the re-roll thing) works. You have to declare it BEFORE the roll. Not on topic but I wanted to clarify.

3. Chaotic Stupid is a DM problem, not a player problem. I had a player in Season 2 that thought it would be a good idea to fight like 20 guards. He was promptly arrested and had to roll on that getting arrested table, trial, etc. Chaotic Stupid players are incredibly easy to deal with AND has the added benefit of showing the rest of the players that their actions have consequences.

4. What rewards can be destroyed?

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Unlike other Organized Play systems from other companies, this one does not have a specific rule stating "no pvp". And even though there are the more general "don't be a jerk" and "don't be disruptive" rules, it seems many people do not know how to translate that into "no pvp". I make this clear whenever I DM and tell people that there is no pvp allowed and no damaging fellow party members unless the other players agree to play along with you in character.

 

[felwred]

Examples of disrupting rewards are things like destroying items that could be valuable or magical, warning NPCs about the PCs so they can flee, etc. Sometimes there are potentially legit reasons (e.g. a LG paladin is concerned that Hariziwan could take over the fighter so he throws the sword off the cloud castle to never be seen again or similar alignment or religious convictions)(a druid being opposed to Hew being taken by the party isn't unreasonable). The most blatant I've seen was a player who had DM'd Hoard of the Dragon Queen killing the unconscious Rezmir before the mask had been found knowing what would happen. Definite jerk move but unless you can prove it was intentional, hard to enforce.

PvP in any case except mind control or similar is pretty clearly outside of the rules. In reading through the player's guide, I found something interesting that I hope I just overlooked - I always assumed treasure had to be split equally. I can't find anywhere that forbids players from stealing (i.e. open the chest, take the ring and not tell the party). Did I overlook that?

Fred

 

[RulesJD]

Examples of disrupting rewards are things like destroying items that could be valuable or magical, warning NPCs about the PCs so they can flee, etc. Sometimes there are potentially legit reasons (e.g. a LG paladin is concerned that Hariziwan could take over the fighter so he throws the sword off the cloud castle to never be seen again or similar alignment or religious convictions)(a druid being opposed to Hew being taken by the party isn't unreasonable). The most blatant I've seen was a player who had DM'd Hoard of the Dragon Queen killing the unconscious Rezmir before the mask had been found knowing what would happen. Definite jerk move but unless you can prove it was intentional, hard to enforce.

PvP in any case except mind control or similar is pretty clearly outside of the rules. In reading through the player's guide, I found something interesting that I hope I just overlooked - I always assumed treasure had to be split equally. I can't find anywhere that forbids players from stealing (i.e. open the chest, take the ring and not tell the party). Did I overlook that?

Fred

Yeah throwing away magic items like that is definitely griefing other players, period. You (and make no mistake there is zero difference between you and your character) might not like the magic item, but that is intentionally being disruptive. Like most adventuring parties, certain "characters" will not like each other. Yet the demon hating Paladin can't intentionally interfere with the playing of the Tiefling, and vice versa.

As for treasure, it's all equally divided at the end of the adventure (for expeditions) or end of the session (hardcover - if merchant available).

 

[Pauper]

I can't find anywhere that forbids players from stealing (i.e. open the chest, take the ring and not tell the party). Did I overlook that?

Well, there is this:

"Any gems, jewelry, art objects, and trade goods you find during adventures are automatically converted to their full value in gold and divided up among the adventurers in your group." (ALPG 4.0, p.7)

If the ring were simple jewelry, it would fall under this rule and get converted to party gold at the end of the adventure. If it were a magic ring, it would be distributed according to the magic item distribution rules in the ALDMG 4.0 (p.6).

The ALPG doesn't include coin in the treasure that's automatically distributed among the party, but the ALDMG does (p.6), so even that would be disallowed. Anything 'stolen' by the rogue would end up becoming part of the common pool by the end of the module.

The ALPG and ALDMG both allow you to make use of mundane gear you find in an adventure, at least until the adventure ends. So if you want to pick up one of those shark-tooth swords used by the water cultists and wield that, you're totally within bounds. It's up to the DM to decide if you can use your proficiency bonus with such a weapon, though.

--
Pauper

 

[Pauper]

One thing I discussed with my RC after our game last night -- the rules say that art objects, jewelry, etc., *are* converted to gold, but doesn't say that they *must be* converted into gold. So, if a player expresses a wish to possess one of the trinkets recovered as treasure, and the value of the trinket either falls within that PC's share of loot, or the PC is able to kick back an amount of gold so that he's not removing more than his share of loot from the treasure haul (e.g.: everyone gets 50 gold with the paladin kicking in 25 gold to claim the statuette of her patron deity worth 75gp found in the ruins and thus getting no coin), that's allowable.

--
Pauper

 

[Tyranthraxus]

The problem is that the campaign calls for a level of maturity in its gamers that quite often does not exist.

 

[kalani]

When I take valuable treasure (art, gems, etc), I usually record it on my logsheet as follows:

GP + X (where X equals my character's normal share of the treasure); GP - Y (where Y = the value of the art object, or objects). Then in my notes section I record something like the following: Treasure - 500gp gem (-500gp).

 

[Green1]

This brings up a bigger issue that I have always wondered about with public play.

How come no one runs arena battles with point buy DnD characters at Cons or FLGSs?

I know, I know. The whole adventure on rails thing. But, I think even a game like capture the flag or skirmish with plate mail and spells with DnD rules would be awesome and the market is underserved.

If you doubt me, think Bloodbowl without tons of expensive minis or the complexity and tables.

That said, anytime you are in a public session you deal with folks that may not have another game for a good reason.