Dual issue! Ripple effect & personal responsibility

[ThoughtBubble]

So, at long last, I'm going to get to play in a game. YAY!

The concept I had was a charismatic Paladin who was good at finding the 'measure' of people, and seeing/cutting through falsehoods. Then I heard about a tweak the DM was making to the game, Detect Evil only detects clerics, outsiders, and other unnatrual or aligned beings. So, being able to tell if the tax collecter is a jerk who skims off the top is out. We have an iteresting side-discussion about how Smite Evil works, and I'm told 'don't worry about it'. As an alternate to maintain my character concept, I'm told to get sense motive. Now, sense motive is cross class, and there were a lot of skills I wanted to grab (or at least dabble in). So being a 2sp/lv class is pretty painful.

Before I caught myself, I was complaining the next day about how 'cross class skills sucked,' and '2 skill points a level isn't enough.' When I caught myself, I just realized that things within the system are very inter-related. Anyoen else have expierences where one change had a much larger impact than first expected?

Well, on wendesday we got to creating characters. Long story short, I couldn't spare a non-penalty stat for Int, scrapped the concept, and went with a wizard instead.

During chracter generation, we're told that our characters have been adventuring together since level 2, and we're level six. So, we should talk about our characters and our history together. Lots of jokes go around, but a few things are establshed. My character and our Barbarian met up early on and began a sort of muscle and brains combination. The Ranger and Fighter met early on, after a bad monster encounter in the woods. The cleric, who is CN and channels negative energy, still has no attachments, is an orphan who was raised in the 'Pirate's rest inn', and is thus called "Pirate", and the deomstrated bits of his personality lean towards "I hate everyone. People suck. Except you guys. You guys are alright... I guess."

The DM and I have had a conversation over lunch about it. We covered a lot of interesting things (notably me failing to explain the difference between banter and insults). But one particular part was where I was told that it was my responsibility to come up with a reason that my character would remain part of an adventuring group with Pirate. I countered by asking if Pirate's player had a responsibility to make a character that played well with everyone else.

Any thoughts on getting along with Pirate?

 

[Turanil]

-- Sense Motive and paladins. There is a feat in Grim Tales that basically enable to have a skill become a core skill (forever a class skill) for the character. IMO, a paladin having Sense Motive as a class skill (especially if he spends a feat for that) is not going to break anything.

-- Playing with a CN pirate cleric who channels negative energy is indeed a problem. A paladin is not supposed to associate with such characters. My guess would be: with whom the other characters would want to associate with? The paladin or the pirate? It is a roleplaying issue, and not an easy one where the group is concerned.

 

[Doug McCrae]

A paladin is not supposed to associate with such characters.

He's not playing the paladin any more. He decided to play a wizard instead. It's all there in the original post. Check it out, man.

 

[Wild Gazebo]

Having seen Pirate tenderly nursing an injured animal to health (unbeknownst to Pirate) you have decided to devote the rest of your time to 'saving his soul'. A worthy cause that is very difficult, and seemingly at times impossible, but if there is just a scrap of humanity in him that borders on 'good' there is a chance to make blossom a wonderful addition to the powers of your god.

Crap...you're a wizard. You need him to get powerful enough so you can sacrifice him for a great summoning spell that will help you gain immortality.

 

[Buttercup]

I'd tell the DM that my character would adventure with Pirate until he became a danger to the party, at which point Pirate would get a Lightening Bolt up the backside.

I'd also insist that the DM ask Pirate's player how he intended to prevent the rest of the party from killing him for his behavior.

 

[Templetroll]

During chracter generation, we're told that our characters have been adventuring together since level 2, and we're level six. So, we should talk about our characters and our history together. Lots of jokes go around, but a few things are establshed. My character and our Barbarian met up early on and began a sort of muscle and brains combination. The Ranger and Fighter met early on, after a bad monster encounter in the woods. The cleric, who is CN and channels negative energy, still has no attachments, is an orphan who was raised in the 'Pirate's rest inn', and is thus called "Pirate", and the deomstrated bits of his personality lean towards "I hate everyone. People suck. Except you guys. You guys are alright... I guess."

The DM and I have had a conversation over lunch about it. We covered a lot of interesting things (notably me failing to explain the difference between banter and insults). But one particular part was where I was told that it was my responsibility to come up with a reason that my character would remain part of an adventuring group with Pirate. I countered by asking if Pirate's player had a responsibility to make a character that played well with everyone else.

Any thoughts on getting along with Pirate?

Did the DM tell all the other characters they had to come up with some reason to accept Pirate? I agree that Pirate seems to need a reason to stick around; if he dislikes everyone but your characters then he has to have a reason for that. Your characters may need a reason not to smack him upside the head, especially the barbarian. They tend to not like the manifestation of Negative energy.

My other thought is that Pirate is part of a GM plot but he is trying to shoehorn it in instead of taking plot hooks from the way the characters interact during the course of the game.

 

[fusangite]

The cleric, who is CN and channels negative energy, still has no attachments, is an orphan who was raised in the 'Pirate's rest inn', and is thus called "Pirate", and the deomstrated bits of his personality lean towards "I hate everyone. People suck. Except you guys. You guys are alright... I guess."

I'm trying to read subtext here but I think you will have to spell it out. What is the player who created this character like? Chaotic neutral clerics who channel negative energy and are generally weird can be a lot of fun in a game. A friend of mine played one in a game I ran a few years ago and he was a blast. However, I'm getting the sense from the general tone of your post that the character may be reflective of the player. Are there signs of probable future interpersonal problems that are being hinted at? If so, please just spell them out for us.

(notably me failing to explain the difference between banter and insults).

This an example of text hinting about something here but not actually telling us what is going on.

But one particular part was where I was told that it was my responsibility to come up with a reason that my character would remain part of an adventuring group with Pirate.

But I thought you were playing a wizard. If so, obviously this problem cannot come from your class. Does the potential problem arise from alignment or have I missed a hint?

I countered by asking if Pirate's player had a responsibility to make a character that played well with everyone else.

This is as close as you come to declaring the interpersonal problem but I cannot tell whether you have already encountered it or just anticipate it. It sounds like a fine party to me -- there was a paladin in the party with the CN crazy loner cleric in the game I ran and they got along cordially, at a distance. It sounds to me like you may not have a fine gaming group, however; if so, drop all the game mechanical stuff and tell us what the lay of the land is on an interpersonal rather than mechanical level.

 

[ThoughtBubble]

Ok fusan, you got me. Thanks, by the way, for helping to keep me honest.


Let's start with the easy one. The conversation about the line between banter and insults came up early on detailing the interactions between one of my previous characters and another player in the group. I really enjoyed talking with that player. He stated that "All you did was insult each other." Wheras, I went on to explain that it wasn't insults, as we left openings for the other person to come back and make a different counter. An insult tends to end the conversation. Mostly, I think that he was trying to illustrate that you don't have to be friendly to have fun interactions. I tried, and failed to point out that the interactions were, largely a friendly contest of one-upsmanship.

On the out of game topography, Pirate's player has stated that he doesn't expect to enjoy the game, and is only coming along to hang around with his friends. The group has been together through another campaign. Talking with the players about it, I hear a lot of stories about the party not getting along. I'm afraid of doing too much, as I'm the new guy in the group, but it's already looking like I'm going to end up nominally as the party leader.

In character topography: The problem really comes up from cross sections of our characters. Pirate is a crazy drunken cleric who deosn't really care, has no reaon to be around, and has a grudge with being a part of the group. I'm playing a determined wizard who believes strongly that we have a responsibility to help each other, and that our lives may depend on it. It's a bad vector for interaction. He hates the man pulling him in directions, and I'm likely going to be the man pulling him in a direction. :\

I haven't encountered a problem yet. I'm mostly anticipating one. Or rather, I'm looking for a way to pre-emptively deal with it. The solution I'm going to try for is talking with him today, and then trying to set up some of that interaction early on, so we're more at angles than straight on. If I call him a worthless drunkard of a cleric, and he's ready for it, and he calls me a snobby prissy wizard, then we're all good. If he calls me a **** and I call him a worthless **** and tell him to get out if he doesn't want to be here, that's bad. Just gotta gravitate towards the former.

And, as to the final bit of conversation between myself and the DM, it was simply me whining about the unfairness of being asked to find a reason to bring the cleric along, when the cleric hasn't been asked to find a reason to come along yet. The inequity! THE INEQUITY!

Thanks for the insight however. Having to look at these things and explain them helps.

And Buttercup, I think I'm going to steal that for my end of some bluster. "Ok, but just keep in mind, fireball is pretty hard to aim. I miss occasionally."

Temple, I guarentee he's not a secret plot with the DM. About half the players had to come up with concepts on the spot on the table, Pirate was one. The DM told us that we've been an adventuring group since level 2, and that we needed to explain to him why. We've gotten everyone but Pirate into the 'story' now.

 

[Turanil]

He's not playing the paladin any more. He decided to play a wizard instead. It's all there in the original post. Check it out, man.

Sorry, I missed my Spot check on this info.

 

[shilsen]

As an alternate to maintain my character concept, I'm told to get sense motive. Now, sense motive is cross class...

Quibble - Sense motive is a class skill for paladins in 3.5.

As for the issue with Pirate, I wouldn't start worrying about it until and unless it does actually be a problem in-game. If you run into situations where everyone in the group wants to follow a particular lead and Pirate "just doesn't care", he'll have to find a way to be interested (even if it is just to stick with his buddies) or be twiddling his thumbs.

Where it comes to working him into the background for the adventurers, just imagine a situation where he was the only available cleric around and the others persuaded/hired/shanghaied him into accompanying them and after they'd saved his life a few times and vice versa, they decided to keep him as part of the group.