Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="fusangite" data-source="post: 2405595" data-attributes="member: 7240">Fascinating! I'm so glad I looked at this thread. I had my tired, "This isn't about system. This is about human relations" line already to go and lo and behold, the problem here, although a social one, can really be solved on a systems level.I recently skated my way through just such a conflict in my campaign, even though I realized only in hindsight that this is what I had done. The problem you are really dealing with here is that your game system is failing to represent the physics of the world you are running. From what I can gather, in your world (as in mine), if you are a priest, you actually have to care about certain things, act a certain way and embody certain values. Unfortunately, the D&D game system doesn't represent any of this beyond the alignment system; needless to say, the D&D alignment system would do a pretty lousy job of representing most requirements of pre-modern religions. I think the way you need to deal with this player is to explain that his deity really cares about how his priests conduct themselves, what they care about and what they believe. And if they fail to live up to his requirements, they may not get the spells they pray for in the morning. And then you need to spell this out in terms of house rules so that the player can see that not knowing or caring about certain things will cause him to lose his cleric abilities. It sounds to me like this player isn't really up to the task of living up to the requirements such a house rules document might spell out. But why not let him have a try? Just in case, though, see about getting a backup priest/religious official in the party in case things go terribly wrong.Another possible solution is a brief 16th century Catholic innovation: the Simple Priest. Certain people too stupid to comprehend theology were made into a lower order of priest who could do certain rituals but couldn't do the really intellectually complex stuff like preaching homilies. Such a class might be a fun core class to make and one that the player and GM could collaborate on.Basically, Bob cares about system. He pays attention to system. So, make the system reflect your ideas about how he should play a priest. Either he will be up to the task and grow as a player or he will fail and beg to switch characters after a while as his spell acquisition and turning abilities keep screwing up.</blockquote>

Verification