Galeros said:
Well, i am sure a lot of you here are familar with the troubles i have had with my older brother. Now, it is not something he is doing out of game, but in game. Okay, here is the situation. Some oozes break free from a mine, and his Neutral Good Cleric of Lathander just runs away. Not even bothering to help. He constantly hits the Paladin of Lathander in and out of game. And does not seem to RP his uy like a follower of the sun god. I have let it alide, because despite the fact that he claims his is a heavy RPer, he is just a hack and slaher. So, any ideas what to do about his character?
EDIT: Not ot mention giving me a bunch of unneeded information before the game. Although my brain usually goes on wander mode when he starts doing this.
Bolding mine... I'm somewhat confused, as the title of your thread suggests an out of game problem you have with your brother, but your actual text seems somewhat unsure- focusing first with what he's doing in character, and later pushing it to an out of game issue, with how he's not a big RPer.
It seems that your problem is with your brother, but your bottom line is asking how to address your problems through dealing with his character. As far as I am concerned, his character does not need addressing as much as he does. If your problem with him revolves around him backseat DMing, tell him. Say things like "Please don't tell other players how to roleplay" and if he's not too too much bigger than you, lean over and dead arm him (kidding).
As for his character running away, and being a hypocritical, critical Cleric... that's something for the paladin to address, not you, probably not his church, and most likely not his god. A lot of clerics are abject cowards... a lot of them get to a certain point in their lives where they've done what they need to do and sit back, watching the world turn and face new problems, only to shove level 1 characters out there to deal with it while they sit in their temples. Unless Lathander's church is specifically all up on the heroism, the dying for one's faith or even just dying to kill whatever random encounter is before you... I wouldn't do anything in terms of game mechanics to punish him. I'm not terribly up on Lathlander, but I don't recall any lines revolving around "Dont be a chicken, you big baby" and there's most certainly no line that states all good or neutral clerics have to be nice, upright, fair, faithful to their companions, and brave in the face of dangers great and small alike. Unless you say otherwise, either in the context of you agreeing to DM, or in the context of the changes you've made to certain churches, having a disagreeable personality as a character is not necessarily something to be thumped by DM Fiat. Let the characters leave him to die, let them pack up their bags in the night while he's sleeping in a tavern and leave town without him, or let them simply say "We don't want you, Name_of_Cleric, coming with us this time. We're going to find someone more agreeable."
Furthermore, DMs have to be Very careful about setting this kind of precedent (Dont Run Away, Fight Everything) in their games. If you punish player characters for running like hell, even against things they can't handle, you should expect them to die and die often. You won't be able to justly throw at them things that you want them to avoid, like you could with a mentality of "well, if they feel outmatched they can always try to get away."
Plain and simple, if you don't want coward characters or jerk characters, say so and offer him the chance to either bring in a new one or rework how he plays the other one. If you don't want jerk players, tell him what you expect and what you don't at the table. If he can't handle it, regardless of if he's your brother, you can tell him to stay away from the table until he's ready to play nice. Not to reinforce stereotypes, but many siblings interact that way all the time... "if you keep being mean, I won't play with you if I can avoid it." It may be nothing new and almost easier doing to a brother than a friend.
