NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 9257059" data-attributes="member: 29398">Outright betrayals like your Star Wars example are rare IME.  Far more common are in-character arguments escalating to swords and spells, or (sometimes elaborate) in-character practical jokes, or characters taking each other to court over something or other, or in one memorable instance characters selling* other characters into slavery; that sort of thing.* - it was more like a donation, as the "sellers" received nothing in return; they just wanted to get rid of a couple of nuisances who also happened to be PCs.  This was 15 years ago, and everyone involve - including those whose characters became slaves - still laughs about it to this day.  Even more bizarre: the next series of adventures for that party consisted of busting up that slaving operation, and they ended up rescuing one of the same characters they'd sold.Some characters can be trusted, others can't; and whether they're PC or NPC matters not.  I've played characters who will try to turn any situation to their own advantage regardless what it means for anyone else; and I've also played characters who have been on the receiving end of such.  It all depends on the specifics of character and situation.Ona broader scale, one thing I do not generally assume is that real-world ethics and morals fully translate into the game world.  Here in the real world we try to be respectful, inclusive, considerate, and all that; while in the D&D game world it's pretty much wild-west law of the jungle when you're in the field and something like "the king's word is the law" when in town.I don't** do the bolded.  The treasure pile is the treasure pile, often set before I even know which characters will potentially find it; it's up to them to decide what (if any) use they can put it to, or whether to just sell it off for cash or futures next time they're in town.** - the one exception being if the characters are receiving in-game rewards or items tailored to them specifically, a la Galadhriel's gifts to the Fellowship in LotR.The camera in the shower wouldn't fly here either.  But charming other characters?  Won't say it happens all the time but it sure ain't unheard of.  PCs routinely charm NPCs in order to a) extract information and-or b) take them into the party as meat shields, and if its good for the goose it's good for the gander: if the situation allows, I'll sometimes have NPCs try to charm PCs.  And PCs charming other PCs, often as a non-painful means of keeping them from doing something stupid, is almost a tradition in some parties.An enemy charming (well, dominating) a PC in fact caused the only TPK I've ever DMed: the party's heavy fighter was first down a ladder and got dominated by the enemy that waited there; said fighter then pretty much chopped down the rest of the party one by one as they descended the ladder.  Soon he was the only character left, in a place with no food of any kind, and his new (undead) boss just kept him dominated until he starved to death.Both of these are tangential at best to the question of the party protecting Jocasta more so than they'd protect anyone else, because she's the last of her kind."Well, let's see how much help she is, first; but if she's any use then we'd better do whatever it takes to keep her upright as we ain't gonna get another one if she dies."Your suggestion was that the bodyguard character agree to be hired as such by the last-mage character; and "hired" implies many things: a boss-employee dynamic and authority structure; an expectation by the employee that there will be recompense (i.e., pay) for time spent at this job, perhaps in lieu of a share of treasury; an expectation by the employer that the employee's first loyalty will be to the employer and that the employee will put the boss' interests first, and so on.  In other words, a hench.By "players" here you mean "characters", I assume.  Are these secretaries truly employees of those who they secretary for?  I ask because if yes, the boss-employee authority dynamic means there's a situation where one character can legitimately tell another character what to do and expect it to be done.  Not every player is going to be cool with giving away that much control over their character; if yours are, that's both cool and IME very unusual.Though I have to ask: if you care about them that much then why are you exposing them to the (undeniable!) risks of field adventuring in the first place? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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