D&D 5E Player agency and Paladin oath.

[ZeshinX]

Okay, you don't want to ditch the group.

Well... don't allow reviving defeated monsters. The dying rule is specifically for PCs and important NPCs. Force the players to use Speak with Dead instead.

For my own games I don't allow excessive inter-party conflict. If one PC does something that egregiously disenfranchises them from another PC, the offender becomes an NPC. Take that beech tree.

I joke that that their level becomes CR and equipment treasure. Not really joking, someone has upset people, including me.

This is the harsh stick that the players know is there. So what they then have to do is find some compromise that makes everyone equally unhappy. I consider this a social encounter and tell the players, so it's worth XP. Heck, I might even work in a treasure drop if remotely plausible. Ime, characters usually seem to be under-treasured.

The carrot-on-a-stick approach. "Take the carrot or get whacked with the stick. Your choice."

 

[Tonguez]

Okay

Id suggest you sit the group down and ask them why they are staying together - let them come up with the motivation to stay together and play it out (in Downtime if you have to)

if they cant think of a good reason then play that out too - have them get into a conflict and choose to split IC then work out what they are going to do next. Next might include rolling up new characters AND you now have two NPC factions in your game

I always ask the players to tell each other WHY they are willing to work together - what is their motivation and how do the characters relate/connect to each other.

 

[Orcslayer78]

So to start with I don't like Paladin PCs. Did not like them in 1Eor 3E, 5E is a little better but they still have that silly oath. They are great for that knucklehead NPC.

We have an oath of devotion Paladin in a game I am DM ing. His Deity is Tyr. He is Lawful good, the rest of the party is Chaotic (CN fighter, CG warlock/rogue and CN Barbarian). As an aside I am not a fan of CN players either but that is another topic.

Well there is constantly friction in the party as to how to handle things. For example they typically want to kill prisoners after interogating and promising to let them go, they have no problem lying and well acting Chaotic. The Paladin tries to role play his character with his oath but it is causing a lot of friction. It came to a head in the last game when they let a stone Giant go after they got done arguing with him. The two CN characters wanted to kill him because they thought he would come back and attack them. the Paladin stood his ground and said no way and drew a line in the sand, the CG warlock rogue sided with the Palidin but would have been fine with "looking the other way" if the Paladin did not make a big deal out of it. OF course they were ambushed by said giant and friends later that session. It could have been a TPK, and would have but I played the Giants poorly in battle, making some bad decisions and the party scraped out of it (barely).

I am really having trouble with this because I think in real life those characters would just part ways - the Paladin can't accept such behavior and the others can't stand the goody-goody Paladin. Of course in the real world parting ways means an end to our game. If it wasn't for his oath I think he would just relent and basically look at alignment as a guideline or belief instead of a code to live by.

Me and my party lived the same exact problem and the exact same conflicts about prisoners you describe with one of our players who roled a paladin like Sturm of Dragonlance, being a huge pain in the a** for us other players and the DM.
The only solution has been to persuade him to change alignment and way to play, focusing of the fact that the fun of everyone and the unity of the group of players is more important than the roleplay.

About your last sentence, the characters who stay together only because the players stay together, I think that's your responsibility as DM, when your players build a party and decide their characters you shouldn't let them do whatever they want, cause as you can see they can create characters who have nothing to do with each other. As DM you should make a session 0 where together with your players you all decide a "theme" for the party and create the characters in a way they all can fit in with each other, who have compatible purposes and alignments. The characters don't need to be childhood friends or something, they can even meet "by chance" inside a tavern but they must be built to get along and become quickly allies and friends.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

I'm upfront about the stick.

Some DM's promise unfettered freedom -> abuse of freedom -> game collapses. Effectively there was a stick but the DM neither showed nor used it. So everyone got whacked with it, as they deserved.

[Edit]

Also, characters agonizing over disagreements and trying to do what they must while not hurting their trusted friends. That is the stuff which social encounters are made of. It gets political at higher levels where PCs have influence, retainers and holdings. How is this not a social encounter worth XP?

 

[Stormdale]

Finally the fight with the Giants happens no matter what they did. It was designed to be the tough battle in this part of the adventure. It just would have been tough without the ambush. Adding the ambush made it overwhelming and it would have been if I had not made some combat mistakes.

As a DM you are responsible for the tone of the adventure and rewarding the style of gameplay you want to encourage in the game- in your case it sounds like murderhobo.

In this situation it doesn't matter what the PCs do they are railroaded into a confrontation no matter what- barter with the giants, parley, some sort of agreement, nope its a fight to the death no matter what they come up with. Lucky players.

IMO you created an opportunity to reward the paladin for choosing good but decided not to and actually reinforced that mercy is not be to given as it will come back to bite you. The freed prisoner does not have to betray his saviours, maybe he intercedes on their behalf and convinces his leader to let them leave.

Stormdale

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

Wait a sec...

What exactly is the problem with letting prisoners go?

They might come back with buddies to fight you again? Extra XP! And you get to pick the spot to ambush them - and then track to their lair where their loot is stashed. Heck maybe just track them and ambush them at their lair.

Or maybe they blab all about your PCs, building up your fearsome reputation? You might want to even give them a message.

They could be ashamed or so hurt from the beating, they just want to forget it ever happened. In which case letting them go is a big meh.

More powerful minded PCs wouldn't bother killing prisoners; it's beneath their notice.

Geez, I mean these are not exactly altruistic reasons, but in a D&D world, why not let the prisoners go?

 

[humble minion]

I have no problems with the freed giant coming back and attacking the party (as long as it makes sense in-character and that's not the sort of thing that happens EVERY time the PCs are merciful, and when the shoe is on the other foot sometimes there's negative consequences for casually murdering prisoners too). Sometimes, these things happen. If you're only doing the right thing in the hope of getting rewarded for it later, then that's not good, it's transactional.

However, in the original post you're acting as thought the 'goody-goody' paladin is the only problem. The 'kill him because he's inconvenient' other PCs share at least as much of the responsibility. And the paladin at least has the justifiable reason for his behaviour of 'i'm acting according to my oath', whereas the others are actively CHOOSING murder. And they're getting upset when someone tells them not to murder!

As others have said, this is an issue you have to deal with out of character now. Talk to the group and decide if their characters can continue to work together. You've certainly got some unambiguously evil characters there, that'd be your #1 priority to address. In games I've run, if a PC decides to break up the party by going evil and forcing decisions like that on other PCs, I've always ruled that the evil PC must be the one who leaves, but your mileage may vary. If you get through that, can the paladin persuade the others to look at things from his point of view? Are they chaotic characters fond enough of the paladin PC to go along with his moral strictures out of friendship (even with eye-rolling and snide comments)? It's not anti-chaotic if they weigh the options (losing a friend and being able to murder, vs keeping my friend at the cost of stopping murdering) and CHOOSE to restrain their own behaviour. There's group dynamics that can work perfectly well with this alignment composition, but the players will have to put the work in, and I'd suggest most of the compromise will need to be on the prisoner-murderer's side...

 

[MostlyHarmless42]

I am going to agree with the others in this thread whom have claimed that killing prisoners that have surrendered after you have promised to let them go if they give you information is evil. Specifically Chaotic Evil. We literally have international laws that are designed to prevent such actions in wartimes, and that specific sort of lying and ruthlessness is exactly the sort of thing a villain would do. Hell it's a common thing for Joker in Batman who is the practical poster boy for Chaotic Evil.

That all said, there is nothing wrong with having chaotic evil characters in a party, but there should be consequences for their actions (more on that in a bit).

What mainly concerns me, however, is this:

So to start with I don't like Paladin PCs. Did not like them in 1Eor 3E, 5E is a little better but they still have that silly oath. They are great for that knucklehead NPC.

Right here is your real problem, you have a self-stated strong bias against paladins that can and will cloud your judgement on this issue, and frankly you should've told the player not to play this character if you cannot or are not willing to overcome said bias in order to make the game fun for him as well as the rest of the group.

What might be the best thing for the group collectively is for him to reroll to another character, but the issue isn't just Paladins or their oath, and I assure you it will not just "go away" if he just rolls a fighter. What you've an issue with is a miscommunication of expectations on the part of what are clashing wants/needs from the game for your different players and yourself.

OF course they were ambushed by said giant and friends later that session.

This right here is again said bias popping up. You say "of course" when I say how was this a certainty that the giant would come back? He could've gone his separate ways and decided to vent his anger and stress on another weaker target. Less specific to the giant, this is a negative instance that the rest of the group will surely use as "proof" that their evil ways are better and the paladin is dumb for being the only one in the group that values lives.

Additionally, I should hope that the rest of the groups actions have consequences that are "of course" the logical outcomes as well:
Actions and deeds get around, if a particular group of adventurers develop a reputation for not honoring their word over prisoners not only should they NEVER expect mercy or kindness on the part of their foes should they lose, but they should realistically expect others to not with to work with or hire them. After all, why would a random tavern keep want such bloodthirsty people in his inn? Why should the king trust to hire cutthroats who do not honor their word with their prisoners? What happens when they murder a noble whom they've interrogated? It's not like no one would investigate them going missing and I remind you that speak with dead is a spell.

These are the natural results of such behavior and they should expect it to happen. Hell, who's to say they shouldn't get ambushed by a group of holy paladins seeking to slay this group of "honorless murdering psychopaths" they heard are "terrorizing the countryside".

If you are going to effectively punish the paladin for roleplaying his character, you should do the same with the rest of the group. Were I the paladin player I would reroll, and when I did I would secretly inform the DM that I would want to have the character head off directly to the church of Tyr and inform all he can about precisely ALL of the things that they have been doing, just to attempt to force said ambush to occur. Furthermore, depending on if I felt it justified, my next character would not only be firmly Chaotic Evil just to further spread this bad reputation and outright caricature the rest of the groups actions, but I might even mentally clock out of any investment I had in the game for the rest if the campaign (and possibly longer).

 

[doctorbadwolf]

To clarify - the entire plot is based on the idea that they are invading the Giants home and causing their family harm (and they are), although they did not know that before this encounter. The fight was inevitible, but an ambush wasn't.

They snuck up on this giant and decided to confront him. The guy was obviously angry at them, but none of the party spoke giant (and to be more specific didn't want to waste a spell slot to cast comprehend languages and at least understand him). After yelling back and forth and no one understanding the giant runs away. It was at that point both CN characters wanted to go into combat and take him down and said (rightly) he is going to get reinforcements. To their credit they could have forced combat but didn't.

I did not punish them per se. The giant ran back to his clan and told the clan where the invaders were. I guess I could have cheesed it and said he got lost on the way (even though it is his home), or that he tripped and fell off a cliff. I could have also said he told the clan about the invaders and they chose to stupidly stuble into the fight like they would have in the original script.

Instead of leaving the area or hiding or setting up a pickett or a watch or doing anything else after the Giant fled, the party (the entire party) starts searching the area looking for a plant they are seeking. If they got punished for something it was this.

Finally the fight with the Giants happens no matter what they did. It was designed to be the tough battle in this part of the adventure. It just would have been tough without the ambush. Adding the ambush made it overwhelming and it would have been if I had not made some combat mistakes.

Wait, so not even a prisoner? Just a giant they encountered who ran away?

Yeah, the characters who wanted to kill him are Evil. Full stop.

For example, I doubt anyone would call Cattie Brie from the Drizzt novels "evil", yet in one of the novels she states that Goblin children should be slaughtered in their nursery without mercy and Bruenner (her also good father) agrees with her. I think that act is undeniably evil even though both of those characters as presented in the novels are undeniably good.

Are they? If they believe goblin children should be murdered...then, no, they aren’t.

They are killing prisoners because they are enemies and in general prisoners that they first "killed" on the battlefield and then stabilized.

That is definitely evil, and any non evil character I’ve ever played would refuse to let that happen without a fight. If I wanted to play someone who would let a cold blooded murder happen right in front of me, I wouldn’t be playing an adventurer.

 

[Lanefan]

So to start with I don't like Paladin PCs. Did not like them in 1Eor 3E, 5E is a little better but they still have that silly oath. They are great for that knucklehead NPC.

We have an oath of devotion Paladin in a game I am DM ing. His Deity is Tyr. He is Lawful good, the rest of the party is Chaotic (CN fighter, CG warlock/rogue and CN Barbarian).

So far this sounds like an excellent party! Love it! Seriously.

Well there is constantly friction in the party as to how to handle things.

Of course there is. That's what makes it interesting.

I am really having trouble with this because I think in real life those characters would just part ways - the Paladin can't accept such behavior and the others can't stand the goody-goody Paladin. Of course in the real world parting ways means an end to our game.

Why in the hell would the characters parting ways lead to the end of the game? Are none of your players capable of rolling up another PC?

Sooner or later they're going to split - either that, or throw down and kill each other. Let it happen however it happens.

You just might have to wait a bit longer to run whatever adventure you have in mind, but that's no big deal.