When you don't fit in

[Simm]

This will probably be a bit of a rant.

So I'm making a new character for next session. My old one didn’t die but things happened that will put him out of action for the next few sessions. My paladin was captured after holding off sixty bandits long enough for the rest of the party to escape, having already incapacitated, but not killed, their leader. No real complaints there, it was a pretty epic way to go. I’ll probably play the new character until we’ve rescued the old one or he’s been killed off. I’ve come to the conclusion that although I really enjoyed my character he didn’t fit in well with the party.

My party: 4e just reached fourth level
Unaligned tiefling warlock (fey pact)
Unaligned human cleric (Ioun)
Good eladrin wizard (orb)
Lawful good half elf paladin (Bahamut) me, and now gone

The players of the wizard and cleric are both fairly new with about one years experience, the DM has about five or six, I’ve got eight, and the warlocks player has more thatn the rest of us combined.

My objective when creating this character was to break type with how I usually play. Before this I had never played a lawful good character, a half elf, or a paladin. Additionally I had noticed that all of the characters I’d played tended to be jerks so I was trying to play a genuinely nice guy for a change. This however has not been easy.

Here are the major party conflicts my player has encountered. The first session was something of an introduction, none of us having played 4e before. We had a fight against fire beetles in a wine cellar and I stopped the cleric stealing wine. The second session I had to bail the warlock out of jail on break and enter charges. I managed to negotiate a conditional discharge. The next few sessions were dungeon crawls against undead and other non intelligent enemies so nothing particularly untoward happened. Two sessions ago the warlock pushed my character down a thirty foot mine shaft with a gelatinous cube in it for kicks.

Last session, the one in which I was captured, things came to a head. At the end of the previous session our character had fought a small group of bandit, two fled and we captured two others. Questioning them we discovered a bandit ambush farther down the road. We decided to reverse the trap. During that fight my character captured three prisoners, the other characters fought to kill. Going back we found someone had freed the other two prisoners, we assumed the two who fled came back. We picked up the trail followed them. We finally caught up with them but were lead into another trap, this time against overwhelming numbers. After some rather tense negotiations we came to a tentative agreement, this was broken by that bandit leader when he accused me of killing my prisoners I retorted and a fight started which was us against the entire bandit camp (about 60 people). Using some quite clever tactics, the rest of the party fled while I distracted the bandits, with the party safe I surrendered.

Out of character I discovered the reason the captives were dead is because the warlock and the cleric CDGed them while I wasn’t looking. The DM has dropped the warlock to evil for this action; she was the one who wielded the knife. My character doesn’t know what happened but will probably find out eventually and if he does it will likely destroy the party.

Now I like playing heroic characters, they are doers of great deeds, savers of kingdoms and so forth, even the jerks. So while making my new character I wonder if I should create the character I want to play (I mostly DM so I’ve got a whole stack of waiting to be played character ideas), or bow to the party and create a character who fits in?

 

[Wisdom Penalty]

Two sessions ago the warlock pushed my character down a thirty foot mine shaft with a gelatinous cube in it for kicks.

Dude, you just made my day. I was giggling soda out my nose on that.

But, to your point, it's hard being the "odd man out". I ran an semi-evil themed campaign a couple years back and one guy was the only "do gooder". He did it to flex his RP muscle, but he ended up retiring that character because it just became burdensome on him, and everyone, and we lost sight of the main goal: fun.

That's one of my beefs with old edition paladins: If one guy plays a paladin, the whole darn group plays a paladin.

WP

 

[Dolfan]

The only thing that I could suggest would be to try and discuss with the players and the DM what the direction of the campaign is and what sort of character would fit with that direction. I once played a ranger who had paladin-like ethics, while two of the players in my group were very much evil. They also killed a prisoner that we had taken while I was out of the room, and I turned them into the guards for trial because of it. Ours didn't result in too much of a distraction because the prisoner was a goblin and the other PCs got off with a hefty fine, but the impact on the party was a little different. Thankfully there was another PC there to balance my side off, but we more or less had to just ignore character development with those characters so that someone didn't have to end up creating a new character. Eventually one of the PCs left the group and the other one turned evil, but the campaign ended up becoming more of a number crunching combat campaign than a roleplaying one, because if we actually got right down to it, the party wouldn't really have much of a reason to travel together.

I think that you have a chance to create a character that has the potential to play a "redeemer" role, but it doesn't sound like the party is really up for that (what with shoving their friends down giant pits to their death and all), so I guess if you can't talk to them and get a consensus on what sort of direction the campaign is going, I would begrudgingly have to say that you'll need to make a character that is going to get along with the party.

I feel very sorry for your DM.

 

[Dragonbait]

CDG'ed?

Have you talked with the other players on what you should do or what you should make?

It seems, to me at least, that the tiefling character (or possibly the player) is an issue. Pushing people down pits for laughs? What kind of adventurer would ever want to travel with a person that they are supposed to rely upon to SURVVIVE when the person pulls this stuff?

Also, LG paladins are often seen as jerks because people have it in their head that the paladin is the unyielding authority and dictating to the other characters how they should act. Players often feel that THEY are being ordered around, even if its supposed to be all in-character. In turn, their characters often start acting rather unpredictably or dangerous because their player is trying to resist the perceived authority figure and imposed rules.

 

[el-remmen]

This is the reason why as GM I set a guideline for character types whenever I start a new game so that everyone has an idea of what to expect.

 

[roguerouge]

Playing a paladin should not involve wearing a "Kick Me" sign.

The problem isn't you. The problem is those two other players. The warlock should have been evil-aligned for pushing you down a shaft, and doubly so for the gelatinous cube. The DM should have spoken to that player out of game and told him to stop being such a jerk. Actually, he should have just booted him from the game for that. The fact that the dingus is experienced and that he should know better only means that he's going to keep doing this stuff.

In addition, I can hardly understand why the good wizard stands around and does nothing during this. Evidently his alignment should read: "Doormat".

If neither the DM nor the wizard player aid you, quit the game and play with someone else. Life's too short.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Kill them. They aren't expecting it.

No, seriously, they've shown themselves to be evil and harboring evil. Both of them should be dropped to it for killing unarmed, surrendered prisoners. It's your duty to uphold the law and the good. Kill them. It's perfectly in character and you know it'll make you feel good OoCly when they whine about it off the game, and you can just smile and say "Choices and consequences. Maybe next time you'll think things through."

The problem with paladin isn't that "OH GREAT MORALITY POLICE NOW WE HAVE TO ALL BE LAWFUL GOOD." The problem with paladin is that some players see it as an obscene challenge to be the biggest dickhead they can. You can be neutral in a party with a paladin. Sure, you might find being evil to be problematic, but quite frankly if you're just twisting your moustache while killing random people and talking about how EVIL and RANDOM you are, you should be sucker punched in real life.

 

[Mallus]

So while making my new character I wonder if I should create the character I want to play (I mostly DM so I’ve got a whole stack of waiting to be played character ideas), or bow to the party and create a character who fits in?

You could make the character you want to play, but talk to your fellow players OOC about setting guidelines for acceptable intra-party conflict.

(Don't try to solve what are fundamentally out-of-game issues using in-game means)

 

[WalterKovacs]

We had a sort of similar situation in our party, interestingly enough, the tiefling feypact warlock being the "borderline evil" guy. He technically killed our wizard, although it was part of an area of effect attack that happened to hit her, and at that point the fight was already pretty bad (the fighter and warlord were also dying, although the fighter popped back up and the warlord surivived long enough to be stabilized after the fight). So technically only the rogue knows the warlock killed the wizard, and the rogue is similarly unalligned.

The party's original makeup was mostly unalligned with a lawful good fighter in the mix. It didn't come up often, the first case was the warlord intimidating a foe into surrendering. However no one in the party, except the warlock could see the person that surrendered ... and the warlock basically finished the guy off anyway. Later the group had just taken one person prisoner ... and they still had ANOTHER prisoner that basically led them to this guy. The group started to argue over whether they needed to keep track of both characters ... and the warlock basically kills one of the prisoners. The group then starts arguing with each other, although most were actually just checking out the "loot" (killing the one prisoner caused the other prisoner to become more helpful and offer up the key to the chest). Amidst the confusion, the second prisoner made a break for it ... and the lawful good fighter launched a javelin after him, killing him.

Eventually the fighter left and was replaced by the Rogue, so the whole party is pretty mercenary/unalligned at the moment, although they are doing good deeds (for a price) with somewhat underhanded tactics. In our case the person that was playing the lawful good character eventually left the game going to another. It was mostly that the kind of game he wanted wasn't the kind we were running (more hack'n'slash, the other person that runs in the store is doing the same modules but a slower more rp based game).

Still ultimately, regardless of in character conflicts, the big thing comes down to what each player wants to get out of the game ... if that doesn't sync up, it doesn't really matter what the characters are.

One suggestion though ... you could approach it from a Roy/Belkar situation from OOTS ... accept the disfunctionality and try to "channel" the warlock's evil towards good/productive means knowing that without a lawful good influence he may do much worse deeds. Or something like that. Or you could always play the game our paladin in 3.5 did. "I'm going to go over here now ... don't tell me what it is your doing". If the group is a bit more ... careful ... about being evil than they can cooperate with the party without drawing attention to it. I actually had a full blown evil running with a psionic/telepath that was lawful good ... albeit thanks to a mixture of events (having to infiltrate an evil cult) and some powerful magic at DM approval (some mind blocking magics, and undetectable allignment) and a backstory that "made" me evil (although there was a point in game where the character decided to stop trying to get better and embraced the evil). In generally because the character wasn't CE = chaotic stupid ... she avoided making it blatant that she was evil ... once we ended the "infiltrate the evil cult" mission ... it was a bit harder to keep her around so I had her retire ... but it was fun for the group to have the evil character running around under the noses ... heck the players enjoyed the horrible things the character would do when she knew they weren't doing.

So, there are some solutions, but that has to do with what all the players and the DM wants out of the game.

 

[Simm]

CDG'ed?

coup de grace

OH GREAT MORALITY POLICE NOW WE HAVE TO ALL BE LAWFUL GOOD

Interestingly this was exactly what I was trying to avoid, the idea behind my character was to try to make a strictly lawful good character who is not lawful stupid, and not a jackass about it. Although I am unwilling to bend my own morality I've tried to be forgiving and understanding towards others. The concept is that the character tries to be a symbol of good to inspire others.

Now I don't know how well I've been accomplishing those goals, but that's the theory and I don't feel I've ever stepped over the line.

In addition, I can hardly understand why the good wizard stands around and does nothing during this. Evidently his alignment should read: "Doormat"

This is true the wizard's player is almost entirely passive. Outside of combat or planing combat he seldom says anything at all.

Kill them. They aren't expecting it.

I really would like to do this but its just not feasible. What with the character being gone and everything. Although perhaps my new character has been scrying on the party and knows what they have done...
The other problem with that course of action is that it would probably kill the campaign.