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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dirty Magurdy" data-source="post: 4918837" data-attributes="member: 84787">Sorry for the delay in updating/responding and thanks for all the feed-back. I'll try to address all the many excellent points you all have brought up, unfortunately that means this will probably be a lengthy post. Apologies for that up front.  His intentions aren't to cause violence or steal from the party, I plainly stated from the onset of this campaign (which has been going on for almost two years) that this isn't the campaign for that and my players have obliged to the letter.His ideas are to check in on the party about once a day, essentially he plans to follow the trail of carnage and locate the group in the dungeon to check on their status. He wants to drag them out if they are dead, but he also has a few scenarios where he might approach the party with items they need or even decide that the middle of the dungeon is a fitting place to approach the party bard and repay some money he owes - essentially he seems bored and is looking to show the group that he's still around and hopefully enjoy some of the misery he assumes they'll be going through due to not having a rogue of his capabilities. In the end it's pretty foolish, but pretty harmless, but it's a distraction.    No, not really. The cleric in the group worships a CN god of trickery (Enkili) and he seems to get some kicks on sabotaging minor goals that the party or individuals in the party strive for. It's primarily stayed in character, though some are a bit annoyed that someone would create a character to cause such problems. I'm letting the players/characters handle it as they are all mature and long-time gamers, it shouldn't be anything they can't handle. It seems highly likely that the party will ask the cleric to leave, but they are planning to wait until after this lengthy dungeon crawl.But you're correct about the XP, I have no intentions of giving him any nor does he seem to expect any.    You're correct. The halfling fighter/rogue, is primarily a combat rogue with middling scores in search, disable and OL. He's not up for this and he's smart enough to know it.The retraining is a good option, but the timing for it is not ideal, as they are literally just outside the entrance to the dungeon. The group seems prepared to teleport back to a city and try to hire a rogue NPC. If a player asks or offers to retrain his character I may consider it, but I'd rather tell them to stick with the character they made and that they want to play, as their are ways to handle this without altering a character they're happy with.   Yes, I'm aware of the high likelihood that he would be spotted or sensed by something if he tries to remain hidden in such a high-traffic region of the underground, this is why I'm not liking his idea of trying this tactic while not showing up for the session. He seems to agree with that as of last time we spoke and he has actually suggested attending the next session but staying out in his car with some beer in case he is needed to handle one of these situations. I was surprised by his willingness to attend a session where he might not have much playing time at all. In the end I think he's decided to just scrap the whole idea as he didn't seem happy with some of my rulings on this.   Yea, it's been rather high drama so far, but it is primarily a city-based game and the players seem to be enjoying it for the most part. Characters have had their heated moments, but with a few execptions these have all happened and been handled in game and in character without violence or backstabbing.Thanks.   Not sure where you get the idea that anyone but me is setting the rules. He's waiting on my ruling and I've come here for a little advice - in all my years running games I've never had players setting the rules for me. I won't let players set my rules, neither will I let well-meaning posters on a D&D chat board set my rules. I appreciate your advice and find plenty of it useful, but telling me that he's immediately an NPC doesn't really carry much weight over here. Please don't assume that I'm being wimpy with him because I decided to ask for a little advice. I do agree with you in that he's pulling a stupid stunt and should be discouraged. As I see it, the source of the party's discontent and friction is the CN cleric; if the rest of the party decides, after this dungeon crawl, to give said cleric the boot, I can't understand why they wouldn't gladly accept the return of a very capable and loyal rogue who only left because he was fed up with the cleric's antics in the first place. I never really brought this up here because it's not what I need advice about, but as you're trying to help out with locking the rogue out of the campaign I figured I'd let you know why I'm not in a hurry to do that - though I certainly don't want this rogue creating a distraction or ruckus in the current adventure, especially if his player is going to try to do that while he's not attending the session. Maybe I need to take your advice and tell him that as of now, the character is an NPC. If the party decides at a later date to boot the cleric and ask your rogue back then I'll return the character sheet to you.    Not at all. There's some open dialogue (primarily through e-mail unfortunately) - I'm asking him to clarify what he hopes to accomplish by lingering outside the dungeon and where exactly he means to stake it out from, but he and the other players understand that it's not an open negotiation - they understand who makes the rules and has the final say without me having to remind them of it every other session.   Very well said and I agree 100%. I like the adversity, I like watching the rest of the party scramble to come up with ways around this. The halfing right away yells at the cleric, "Well, you drove off our rogue, so you take point and open all the doors, cause I aint doin it!" It's created a little more intra-party squabbling, but it's also made them think a little more about tactics, made them familiarize themselves with some spells and abilities that they don't use so much, and it will probably lead to future adventures as they will most likely try to hire a rogue from either a big-time rogue's guild or the continent's primary merchant house that has it's fingers in every pie and every nation there is. What's going to happen when they hire a rogue through one of these organizations and the leaders of said group decide they want to call the shots a little more? I think I have the solution I was looking for, as the player who runs the rogue was asked to either attend the sessions or give over his character as an NPC for now, which is what alot of you were saying. I want to thank you all for the advice and the quick responses. This is a great resource and I wish I had known about you all years ago, as the collective intellegence and D&D savvy here is better than any board I've visited in the past.Thanks again guys, great job.</blockquote>

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