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Message: <blockquote data-quote="N'raac" data-source="post: 6206933" data-attributes="member: 6681948">Why would the noble Paladin and his righteous comrades seek the aid of a despot who pays off enemies with the lives of his people? Again, I find it odd that the king is discovered to routinely trade with dragons when their arrival and departure at his castle would seem obvious to the denizens of the area. Why are they not aware of such routine comings and goings?  Looked at another way, if the PCs logically have some knowledge of the local area, do they have the fictional positioning to reasonably establish dragons coming and going?Seems like the player would be quite justified believing his efforts were to prevent the Drake drawing retribution on the city.  He spent resources to ensure success. I thought success meant success – full stop – and not success that later has adverse consequences like retribution on the city. I can impact on the fiction without having that impact be the best possible one to achieve our goals.  I do not believe that every attribute of the PC’s must be a strength in every situation. Weaknesses, flaws and foibles also contribute to making an interesting, fleshed out character. Sure. And if the best tactical response is to engage in dialogue with the King and agree that we will not expose the fact that he is delivering babys to appease the dragons, will your Paladin stoop to that level as well?  Perhaps the King also wants him to swear an oath by the Demon Prince Orcus to get the aid and assistance we set out to obtain. Will he do that as well?  Or must there never be a situation framed where the Paladin will be placed at a disadvantage if he honours his principals and beliefs, so such choices must never exist in your game? “reward” need not be cash.  Did they advance their cause? Did they defend the innocent and uphold righteousness (assuming these are things their characters value)?  Then they did this for their own reasons, just as the Glabrezu might grant a wish in exchange for causing evil and chaos, even if such evil and chaos aligns perfectly with the wizard’s desires.  The wizard is getting his wish at no cost, because the Glabrezu gets what he wants out of it as well.Good example of characters who are mechanically identical but play completely different. Great term, that!  There is, to me, an implicit onus on the GM to value role playing, not just tactical excellence.  Just as I don’t expect PC’s will always choose perfect tactics, I expect the NPC opponents to also have personalities and blind spots – they, too, can make mistakes.  If any tactical error means character loss or TPK, then PC's who are free to always select the best tactics will arise. Agreed – you can play your character, or you can play a chess piece.  Being an honour-bound Paladin is a good character and interesting to play. Being honour-bound only when it is to your benefit is not being honour-bound at all.  What happened to “Indie play tests the characters’ beliefs”?  Who was it that said “having principles is easy – it’s living up to them that’s hard”?Heaven forbid the spotlight shine on another PC for a while – or that the PC’s actually live in a world where things happen without their direct guidance and direction.  If that’s what Indie players want, good for them.  That being the case, I understand enough to know an Indie game holds no interest for me.  Though I'm not sure that is everyone's Indie game - [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] seems to grasp that the character with great social skills will have more impact in social scenes, and the others may be relegated to secondary roles for a time. The other characters should play in character as well.  And I agree that the characters must develop over time. That same berserker spent some time being very down on the wizard (a wild mage).  He should go back to spell-school and learn to cast properly – his incompetence endangers us all!  Until the day we debated how to get past two guard towers held by Bugbears and, while we’re debating, someone asks where the wizard went.  Just about that time, he comes racing back in, half a dozen bugbears hot on his heels.  He Webbed up one tower luring out the guards in the other, getting us past both - while we stood around and talked.  Now, had I been playing a lawful, tactics oriented warrior, he’s a loose cannon and an idiot.  I wasn’t playing that character.  The Berserker sees that, well, maybe the lad’s spells don’t always work perfectly, but he’s got courage and he doesn’t hesitate to risk his life for his teammates.  You have a problem with him?  Then you have a problem with ME.   A great summary.I think you could not contribute as effectively as you wanted in the manner you wanted.  You could still attack and have some impact, just not as much as you want.  Just as flanking allows you to Sneak Attack some opponents, it also gives your teammates a bonus to hit, so that's a further contribution.  You could certainly use the Aid Another action to contribute to party success.  But you could not benefit from your Sneak Attack, so you look to have chosen to sit on your thumbs for three sessions rather than think outside the box and contribute to the extent possible in other ways.  The GM did not exclude you – you excluded yourself.  And, for a change, the fighter got to be the guy inflicting the most damage on the enemy, rather than being in the rogue's shadow.</blockquote>

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