Typical Player Behavior, or Bad Roleplaying?

Hello everybody,

Here's the situation in my campaign... lemme get people's opinions...

Firstly, I'm running a game with no alignments, because it's a pseudo-historical game (Ancient Egypt) and I wanted the relations between different countries & factions to be fairly cutthroat. Secondly, I've established that the government of the country (Ancient Egypt) is corrupt and tyrannical.

Anyway.... one of the PCs recently was retired by the player, who introduced a new PC to take their place. The old PC was a basically good cleric; the new PC is a cleric of a different religion, who worships Ahura-Mazda, Supreme God of Good. I've told the player that, although there is no alignment system, I will give him certain abilities (the ability to spontaneously cast spells of either of his cleric domains) as long as he roleplays the character in a suitably pseudo-lawful-good fashion.

The old PC and the new PC meet up for about two hours' time, in-character. The old PC, who is retiring, gives the new PC (who she has never met before) her magic items since she is 'retiring from adventuring'. :/ Since the new PC is taking the old PC's place as the party cleric, this is borderline acceptable, I guess. (Although maybe this is where I made my mistake...)

Later the same night, however, the old PC (still being player intermittently by the player) goes off to talk to some government officials to plead for mercy in the case of an NPC who has been accused of treason. Instead of being friendly, the officials cast "Zone of Truth" on her, find out that she was involved with a fight with some government troops a few sessions ago, and throw her in prison. End of the old PC.

Except that, the rest of the party knows she's been imprisoned. They go to the city a few days later, and see their old former-PC friend chained up in the marketplace, being deprived of food and water until she agrees to give the names of other rebels (i.e. the player characters). (And if she dies of starvation and dehydration, the government will use "Speak with Dead" on her to find out the info anyway.) The party goes to the former-PC's temple to ask them for help, and all the priests are outraged to find out what happened, but they worship a pacifistic god, and the high priestess tells them that they can't directly confront the government; instead they'll just have to try to plead for mercy on the former-PC's part.

Now, at this point, I expected the party to get in a debate: should they try to help/rescue the former PC, or should they not bother? I was really prepared for either way. What surprised & irritated me as DM was that the player who used to play the imprisoned PC, who's now playing the Priestess of the Supreme God of Good, *didn't* want to rescue the old PC. :/

Now, since there are no alignments, I can't *force* or railroad the players into having their characters act a certain way. But I thought it would be more in-character for the Priestess of the Supreme God of Good to at least *try* to convince the other PCs to rescue the hapless prisoner. (Instead, she had this complicated excuse where she said she didn't want to interfere with the complicated political situation and possibly kill innocent guards, and she hoped that maybe the temple of the former-PC's religion would be able to help the former PC, etc.) Out of character, I think the player of the former PC is just tired of having to deal with the old PC and wants to put the situation behind him. But since THE FORMER PC GAVE ALL HER MAGIC ITEMS TO THE GUY'S NEW PC I THINK THAT THE NEW PC WOULD BE SLIGHTLY MORE WILLING TO GO OUT ON A LIMB TO HELP HER!!!

To be honest, I don't *really* care if the players leave the former PC behind; I've set up plot threads for either eventuality. They don't *have* to rescue the prisoner and become fugitives; they can choose to just go to another city and find mercenary work or go in a dungeon or whatever.

It just kind of pisses me off that the player of the "Supreme God of Good" PC would come up with, IMHO, lame & un-heroic justifications for not getting involved. I've set myself up for it by playing a game without alignments, of course. :/

In any case, if the party *doesn't* go back to rescue the former PC, I'm going to have a high-level NPC priestess rescue the former PC and take them away to some remote sanctuary. There'll only be one consequence for the party.... I'm also going to have the NPC priestess send a Planar Ally to go retrieve the former PC's magic items from the new PC. After all, the former PC's magic items were originally given to the old PC by their temple, so if the new PC is such a lame-ass they won't even help out the person who gave them a bunch of magic items, the temple will have to reclaim the goods. I think a Trumpet Archon should be able to take some magic items away from a 5th-level party without killing them...

So what do you guys think?

Jason

I'd never have let the old PC to just give all the magic items to the new PC

ptolemy18 said:

So what do you guys think?

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Yeah, you shouldn't have let the player play the old-PC after the new one was introduced. The magic item handoff was a bad idea. I agree that the new PC would have more of an inclination to help the old PC out.

But what's done is done.

What kind of magic items are we talking about? If the party is only 5th level, I doubt there could be anything game breaking. Toss a rust moster or digester at the group if you feel the need, but I wouldn't bother taking the items away. Let them off with a stern lecture in-game and after the game tell the players that they've seen the last of handing magic items off.

2 Issues:

1 - The old PC should never have been able to give magic items to the new PC.

2 - Once the new PC came in, you should have had the old PC fade into the woodwork. Any unfinished business with the old PC should have either been dealt with before the switch or it should have happened off camera.

I can't fault the player for not wanting to rescue the old PC. It seems that the player just wants to get on with playing the new PC. As long as this situation looms over you, the player can't do that. I suggest that you retroactively take back the items and offer an apology for letting it happen in the first place. Then, you should arrange events so that the old PC is taken out of the picture without being killed/imprisoned/etc...

I think doing anything punitive to the player in question is inappropriate. She was just trying to get on with things and play a new character.

I believe that handling items from one retiring PC to a new PC is a bad policy. I think that this creates a tendency to artificially connect two PCs.

As the player's actions seem to be antithetical to his character's stated ethical statements, I would argue that some consequences are in order -- even without a formal alignment system. If the PC's abilities are fueled by something besides faith alone, which seems to be the case in your campaign, then some options are open to you. A loss of the ability to cast spells until the new PC cleric atones for his indifference is justifiable, as is the action by the NPC priestess.

Also, I think that the party's inaction will be long remembered by allies of the former PC. Actions, as well as inaction, should have consequences.

Kill off the old PC, have one of the items the new PC got from the old PC really being a sacred something that some powerful mean people are going to want back.

Django said:

1 - The old PC should never have been able to give magic items to the new PC.

I can't fault the player for not wanting to rescue the old PC. It seems that the player just wants to get on with playing the new PC. As long as this situation looms over you, the player can't do that. I suggest that you retroactively take back the items and offer an apology for letting it happen in the first place.

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You're right that I shouldn't have let them hand off the magic items. Although it's not game-breaking -- it's just a Circlet of Blasting, a Ring of +10 Sense Motive, and I think one or two other minor things.

But I don't want to retroactively change what happened. I'd rather have some ally of the former PC show up and say "Hey, we busted the old PC out of jail, so now since you didn't do anything to help her, we'd like her stuff back, PLEASE. (hint hint)"

Jason

Adding to the chorus, once you allowed the PCs meet and give away loot thing, you set the tone for how much consideration the old PC should recieve. Not rsiking life and limb to save her is pro'ly more consistent with "she gives away her gear to someone she hasn't met" than saving her would be. So, frankly, if you didn't object in game to that series of actions, I wouldn't be inclined to say "make a big deal out of this one."

I would let this plot line resolve itself and go away ASAP. You already led them down this road with the items thing and making it now a game or metagame issue wount help at all.

Save the "do we rescue our friend" scenario for a time once you have established a character they care about.

As for repercusions, if the PCs do abandon someone known to be their friend, have people notice and have it be a reputation factor they run into. But let me be clear, probably not for this ex-PC. You don't want to have them get nailed reputation-wise for this one since you have already sowed the seeds of "treat the NPC like she doesn't matter" and pulling a reversal on them now might be an issue.

Django said:

I can't fault the player for not wanting to rescue the old PC. It seems that the player just wants to get on with playing the new PC. As long as this situation looms over you, the player can't do that.

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I've already established that the old PC is gonna become an NPC. As you point out, though, I think the player is just tired of the plots surrounding the old PC. BUT... NO PLOTS, NO OLD PC'S MAGIC ITEMS!!!

Jason

ptolemy18 said:

But I don't want to retroactively change what happened. I'd rather have some ally of the former PC show up and say "Hey, we busted the old PC out of jail, so now since you didn't do anything to help her, we'd like her stuff back, PLEASE. (hint hint)"
Jason

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If your hands were clean, Sure. But in this case, they aren't.

Don't jopist the PCs on a pitard you yourself put there. Let this now NPC go, let her get rescued, etc and be done with it. Don't try to "fix" things by reversing your direction. then your "fix" takes on the role of "a setup" and that won't usually go well.

Save the drama and moral quandries and other issues for characters you have had them treat like real people.