Inspiring pragmatic PC's to heroics

[S'mon]

Magic Missled a Baby?!?!

Was there a Paladin in this group?
"Was" would be the operative word IMNSHO. This would be such an abominable act, I would have had the Evil priests ritual still succeed...except it would have beenthe wizard that would have become the Avatar of the Dark God.


Geez, where have all the Heros gone?

There was a great Anderson: Psi Division story in 2000AD many years ago where Judge Cassandra Anderson (chaotic good character) was trying to stop demons from sacrificing a boy in a ceremony that would open a gateway to Hell. The boy was surrounded by demons - realising she had no chance to save him, she shot him dead before he could be sacrificed. It was a lesser of two evils case, and she was pretty anguished about it - particularly tough on a CG character for whom the good of the individual tends to outway the abstract greater good. If a LG Paladin PC genuinely felt they had absolutely no alternative, I wouldn't penalise them. If it was simply the most convenient solution, bye-bye paladinhood.

 

[Black Omega]

Well, just a thought.

Don't reward overly pragmatic behavior. MM'ing a baby is just plain bad. So maybe they simply completed the ceremony for the bad guy. Or maybe it was finished, but improperly, so the big evil summoned is out of control, with the end result being much worse than if the bad guy had been in control.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'd say this is a case of impropper bad guy protection!

Certainly, they would have surrounded themselves on all sides (except the very center, where the ritual was being performed) with Anti-Magic Fields. I mean, when you have a treasure as fragile as that, you're going to protect it, yo!

Plus, he shoulda made the altar so that he could stand in between the door and the baby, obstructing the view. Also stops bow shots from being pulled off.

It's goofuses like these that are giving those sodding Do-Goodders the impression that they can just waltz into any Evil Plot and disrupt it. Back in my day, Evil Plots were solid! We had those heroes quakin' in their boots! Heh. Once made a Paladin pee himself with fear! *That's* evil! None of this pansy runnin' around using *babies* to call up the great darkness. What's up with that? I mean, come on? Any good villain knows that if you're going to summon a dark god into a kid, ya gotta get one no one will miss! Get an orphan, and then the Heroes never find out!

Bah! I bet the new creatures of wickedness and malice can't even pull off a decent calling of a powerful outer planar force to eat souls and such without gettin' it mucked up by leavin' their trails all over for Heroes to follow!

Bothered About Disposable Dragons? HA! How about Bothered About Dipshyt Demons And Sucker-punched Satans?

I tell ya, villains these days...

 

[Frosty]

Limper Laws of Gaming One:

Kill all potential romantic intrests in game 80% will stab you in the back the other 20% will become leverage against you..... if you can't kill em avoid them.

Why? If it will lead to a good story I leap headlong into any situation. I'd rather have an ex-lover as my enemy than some anonymous bullywug.

 

[LostSoul]

If hitting the baby was in character for the party, why worry about it? The Players obviously enjoy playing that type of game. There is no reason to force them into something they don't want.

You could try talking to them about your wishes for the game and thiers. Hopefully you can come to a compromise.

 

[hong]

Why? If it will lead to a good story I leap headlong into any situation. I'd rather have an ex-lover as my enemy than some anonymous bullywug.

You missed the point.

It wasn't a "law" about recommended roleplaying style. It was a "law" about observed behaviour by jaded gamers who have experienced one too many stabs in the back. After N years of D&D, as N goes to infinity, the same way you would feel.

 

[Al]

Nothing wrong with pragmatic characters. It just means that you have to adjust the campaign setting to suit your players. For a pragmatic character, the choice was trying to kill the big bad guy and potentially getting slaughtered, leading to the dark avatar being summoned. It was a simple task to kill the baby- no risk, 100% return (well, near enough).
Pragmatic characters are best suited for intrigue campaigns, self-suited adventuring, freelance mercenary work and the like.
Idealistic characters are best suited for epic struggles between good and evil, rescuing hostages and that sort of thing.
Simply tailor the campaign to your players; don't try to do vice versa- else you'll have neither players nor campaign.

 

[LostSoul]

After N years of D&D, as N goes to infinity, the same way you would feel.

Unless you enjoy being attacked by an NPC you already knew and had interacted with, rather than some new, no name grick or arrowhawk.

 

[hong]

Unless you enjoy being attacked by an NPC you already knew and had interacted with, rather than some new, no name grick or arrowhawk.

Tell me again what "enjoyment" has to do with it.

 

[Inez Hull]

Pragmatic characters are best suited for intrigue campaigns, self-suited adventuring, freelance mercenary work and the like.
Idealistic characters are best suited for epic struggles between good and evil, rescuing hostages and that sort of thing.
Simply tailor the campaign to your players; don't try to do vice versa- else you'll have neither players nor campaign.

I agree with your analysis Al, and in general my players do prefer self-directed freelance adventuring. However, this always leads to problems in the long term. A campaign based on this style of play never holds their interest. They like to think of their characters as heroic, generally choose good alignments (although we're never big sticklers over alignment), want to be renowned for their great achievements and will usually define themselves in terms of their opposition to the bad guys of the campaign.


Most of our gaming history (with another GM who's now a player) has been using Rolemaster. The lack of alignment system, low magic world and deadly combat system of Rolemaster generally encourages pragmatism and moral ambiguity, and is great fun when played that way. However, it lacks that ability to perform heroics that the D&D system provides. When playing D&D the players generally play more heroic and nobler characters, but years of pragmatism from playing Rolemaster still linger.


My dillema then is, how to enable my players to play heroically and generally good in alignment, whilst catering to their love of outwitting their enemies and playing a self directed campaign. How can the players exert a high level of control over the direction of the campaign and choice of adventures, yet leave the campaign open for doing heroics, achieving good and providing enough of a storyline and purpose for acting that the campaign doesn't become stale.


Only one option presents itself to me at the moment - insane amounts of preparation for me, much of which will be passed over depending on the whims of my players who want to be the good guys but don't want to commit to acting by any kind of code of behaviour.


Any thoughts?