D&D 5E Next session a character might die. Am I being a jerk?

[dave2008]

Party will contest their disturbance of their long rest, and it will probably result as a harder debate on resting than the fight with the revenant.

I must say when I read these forums I do feel thankful for my players. They would never do that.

 

[Todd Roybark]

If the player in question returns to the game, I think a conversation with them is the best solution. Given this is a new player, and one I presume you don’t know very well akr71, this seems to be a misunderstanding.

I would have thought the statement 'murder of helpless people is wholly evil' was self evident.

It is literally self evident, in that it might appear to be obvious to you, but not necessarily to others.

In a game that I am a player in, our group of players, (that are chiefly new to D&D), were in a gnome retreat searching for a mimic. Frankly, it was a bit dull going from room to room, making Wisdom: Perception and Intelligence: Investigation checks for 30 minutes of real time.

As often happens at a table, we started making out of character jokes, often at the expense of the as written, somewhat silly gnomes. Including a non serious joke about breaking up the tedium, by attacking the gnomes.

Unfortunately one of our party mates missed the social cues that these comments were in jest, and shot an arrow at the next gnome we encountered. The group was horrified, and it was very apparent he was mystified at our reaction....he thought we were serious.

(The fact a gnome shoots a ballista bolt at the party, doesn’t help signal what is the moral course)

I personally, believe the, aforementioned party-mate is on the autism spectrum. Moral reasoning in a context that requires imagination, varies wildly from person to person.

which to me is flat-out railroading.

Train rides can be nice. Seriously, though, some modeling of behavior for new players is required...a bit of hand holding can help.
Hand rails on steep stairs also restricts movement....sometimes this is warranted, so you don’t fall into the abyss.

Facepalm.

Sigh...is this where you say that any use of a Vampiric Touch spell, is always evil?

Typing “Facepalm” is not really an argument, so outside a vague sense of disagreement, we don’t really know what you mean here, Flamestrike.

Chaotic Good,(in my experience), encompasses individuals whom consider their personal code of ethics to be more binding than a traditional societal code. Chaotic Good is often the alignment assigned to social reformers, in games I have played in.

A chaotic good wizard could, reasonably, have no moral qualms about using Vampiric Touch on a devil in Avernus,for example.

Neutral Good to me is the alignment of Utilitarians...concerned with promoting the maximum amount of ‘The Good’ without being overly concerned with methods...be it a traditional moral framework or code as a Lawful Good character would feel bound to, or a personal moral code as a Chaotic Good character.

As bild91 wisely pointed out, opinions vary widely on what constitutes appropriate actions for each alignment, and frankly between editions of D&D as well.

 

[billd91]

Sigh...is this where you say that any use of a Vampiric Touch spell, is always evil?

Typing “Facepalm” is not really an argument, so outside a vague sense of disagreement, we don’t really know what you mean here, Flamestrike.

Chaotic Good,(in my experience), encompasses individuals whom consider their personal code of ethics to be more binding than a traditional societal code. Chaotic Good is often the alignment assigned to social reformers, in games I have played in.

A chaotic good wizard could, reasonably, have no moral qualms about using Vampiric Touch on a devil in Avernus,for example.

Neutral Good to me is the alignment of Utilitarians...concerned with promoting the maximum amount of ‘The Good’ without being overly concerned with methods...be it a traditional moral framework or code as a Lawful Good character would feel bound to, or a personal moral code as a Chaotic Good character.

As bild91 wisely pointed out, opinions vary widely on what constitutes appropriate actions for each alignment, and frankly between editions of D&D as well.

I may have pointed out that opinions vary, but I will also point out that not all of those opinions are well thought out and supported opinions. Honestly, Flamestrike's facepalm is pretty much right on the money in this case. Finishing off a wounded and helpless rando you stumble upon really isn't the stuff Neutral Good and Chaotic Good are made of in any edition of D&D. Make a habit of it and you're on the road to Evil Alignment, population: you.
The fact that the helpless guys really were innocent and the people the PCs were supposed to rescue underlines the point very clearly. Callously meting out death and destruction is evil's business, not good's and that's true whether you're lawful, neutral, or chaotic.

 

[Krachek]

I must say when I read these forums I do feel thankful for my players. They would never do that.

DnD needs a willing cooperation between all the people around the table, including the Dm.
it’s an attitude to install and keep on.
glad you have it, try to keep it.

 

[dave2008]

DnD needs a willing cooperation between all the people around the table, including the Dm.
it’s an attitude to install and keep on.
glad you have it, try to keep it.

Well, we've been playing together for 30+ years, so that helps!

 

[Shiroiken]

Hmm... They are acolytes of Lathander. The dialogue I wrote for him alludes to his soul being offered revenge while awaiting his judgement in the afterlife. Who or what offered it, he doesn't know. He took the opportunity.

I'd probably have this offer not come from Lathander, but from either the current god of Death or the god of Revenge. The acceptance of this offer has now damned the acolyte, cutting him off from Lathander. One possibility to end the Revenant is to bring the Revenant to a temple of Lathander, where after it's defeated, Speak with Dead is cast so that the necromancer can appologize and the acolyte is given a chance to repent. Unless the necromancer actually feels repentent, the Revenant shouldn't ever stop until the necromancer if finally dead.

I really like the encounter, but I fear the player - and possibly the rest of the group - might feel I've unfairly targeted this one player. However, I didn't make them murder an unconscious human. I've had this encounter set to go for a while now, but the player hasn't shown up for several sessions. We moved to a virtual setting (global pandemic) and the player hasn't bothered to join. I really don't feel right about killing a PC without the player present, so I keep putting it off.

I HATE when that happens. A time sensitive event occurs while a PC is away, so you have to put it off, but have a hard time explaining why it hasn't happened. The only suggestion I'd have would be that the Revenant is still looking for the PC. I'd probably have some common folk talk about a scary man came to them at night asking about the necromancer by description (they don't know where he/it went). It doesn't actually catch up to the group until the player returns.

Oh, something else: given that the player hasn't bothered to show up for several sessions once you've moved to VTT, I'd ask them if they plan on joining. Some players really don't like VTT, and they may want to wait to return to live gaming. If that's the case, I'd tell the player about what happened, and that his character was killed by the revenant. This way you can continue with your campaign and not worry about it. When the player comes back, either they can be brought back from the dead or they can make a new character.

 

[was]

If the player is no longer in the game then I would let it go.

 

[Todd Roybark]

Finishing off a wounded and helpless rando you stumble upon really isn't the stuff Neutral Good and Chaotic Good are made of in any edition of D&D.

Which, I tend to agree with. I apologize, if the nuance of my point got lost in the verbiage.
We don’t know what the player in question was thinking.

We, EN World, know absolutely the Lathanderites were a non threat, because akr71, the DM, told us.

Akr71, also indicated that the party as a whole was wary, and suspecting some evil afoot with the unconscious trio.

While it might seem to many that, a priori, someone should not, (as it was so elegantly phrased), “murder some rando”, there are plausible explanations for why a new player, may not know, a priori, that such behavior is frowned upon in this establishment.

If Mike Merals, or another experienced D&D player did this, then we know the character is evil.

For a really new player, that has never shown up again to play, we can only speculate.
I think one way or another there was a misunderstanding, even if the misunderstanding was that evil characters were ok.

I prefer dialogue to presumption, but hey, that is my opinion.

 

[Maxperson]

Chaotic Good! WTF?

Have you explained to the player that... you know... murder, is evil?

And if so, any reason you haven't changed their alignment?

One act isn't enough(generally) to change alignment. I had a CG ranger once engage in cold blooder murder. From his history he had a passionate hatred of slavers. One day he was scouting up ahead with the gladiator from the party who was an abused former slave. We came across a slave caravan stopped for lunch. We both looked at each and then descended. We gave no warning. We accepted no surrender. After we cleared away the bodies, we freed the slaves and went back to the group.

My character's personality did not change. Nor did his alignment. People snap and do bad things. That doesn't make them evil. It takes more than a one off to change someone to evil.

 

[Maxperson]

I must say when I read these forums I do feel thankful for my players. They would never do that.

Same here.