Player Dilemma

[swrushing]

[/QUOTE]

In last nights game we came across a goblin village and found a hut full of goblin children. As a Paladin I decided to spare teh children lives. My plan was to try to enlighten them at a later date.

So what was your character's plan? Was he going to take them to a nearby orphanage or stop adventuring and raise them as his own?

The p[roblem is one of my companions a dwarf who has the feat 'Foe Hunter' with goblins been his foe also found teh hut. I warnbed him off, but once i had left he snuck in and killed the all the goblin kids. He is know going around calling my Palidin a girl and boasting about the killings.

Well, Ok i would have to say that with most any good charaxcter i ran if he had done this AFTER i told him of my intention and warned him off, then either conflict between us or my leaving would soon follow unless there was a darned good compelling reason for me to stay.

Then again, walking off in character is a fine choice. its the rest of the group who really makes the decision which character theirs follows, and that pretty much tells you which of you gets to roll a new character.

The problem I have is that I am not sure how to respond. My first thoughts are that my paladin does not want to carry on with the group due every one else not taking sides. I had hoped that in a party of supposidly good characters someone would have backed me up. Or do i try to reason with the dwarf and try to get hiom to see reason. But hesees his feats means that he needs to kill all goblins on sight. He has all ready killed two goblins who were surrending instead of questioning them.

i wouls say do what you character would do and leaving seems appropriate barring some other goal for staying together. make your next character a bit more conducive to their chosen morality. Not every group should have a paladin.

 

[Crothian]

It's "[t]he lowest common denominator and I are close friends...."

right, it has to do with math and numbers...not this englash and letter crap!! stupid spelling!!

 

[reveal]

i wouls say do what you character would do and leaving seems appropriate barring some other goal for staying together. make your next character a bit more conducive to their chosen morality. Not every group should have a paladin.

How come the paladin player is the one who should have to change? Do you automatically assume that the party is more in tune with the morality of the dwarf than the paladin?

 

[BlackSilver]

The paladin needs to speak up, explain to the group what the dwarf did, and that you feel it was wrong and perhaps even evil to slaughter children without giving them the chance to be good or evil.

Take no boarder statements- everyone must pick a side- the dwarf was right or he was wrong. When all is said and done the Dwarf goes, the paladin sees the Dwarf's side and stays with the group or the Paladin leaves.

To the GM- if it is really well role played by the Paladin's Player and the Paladin leaves then allow the Player to make a character with a wealth level higher then the present PC level. If it is done poorly then do not give him any additional money.

The Dwarf's Player might be a problem within the group, speak to him, tell im the problem he is creating. If he can not change or refeuses to then refuse to GM for him if the GM does not want him there and the Players want him to stay, then let them GM for him.

Try to communicate your thoughts and feelings first and kick him out after you have exhausted all other options.

 

[swrushing]

How come the paladin player is the one who should have to change? Do you automatically assume that the party is more in tune with the morality of the dwarf than the paladin?

because in the initial post he said the others would not support him in this. he gave his reasons for why his character would leave the group. i see no reason to dispute his own reasons for his character choices.

if the group was more in line with the pally and more against the dwarf the discussion would be seriously different.

this isn't by any means saying the pally player is in the wrong or anything like that. Rather that his character is the one with the problem "staying with the others" and since they wont support him it just makes sense his character would not stay.

METAGAME, trying to figure out which player is right and which player is wrong and which PLAYER should have to change characters requires a lot more info than we have. It ought to include at least some info from the dwarf player.

 

[boredgremlin]

I think this is really an issue with the palidan class period. Unfortunately sometimes people see the concept of it and think they should do dumb things because they are holy. I find this is honestly because of a lack of direction by the game designers on the class.

Modern sensibilities arent even remotely similar to the european crusader knights this class is based on. If anything more of those knights would likely be blackgaurds in game terms then palidans. Unfortunately it sticks players in these funny situations sometimes where players do the things that we have been raised to think of as right in western societies but which are not necessarily the smart thing. Because unfortunately most of those modern ideas are just foolhardy in a D&D world.

Blind compassion in a world full of demons and monsters is a recipe for suicide, as is the lack of practicality that some players see in the palidan class. Laying out an actual palidans code in plain lettering can make some of these issues go away since its not really possible for some of us to get into the mindset of people in the far more savage world of D&D. So for the sake of conveniance here are a few knightly codes from a google search of historic chivalric codes.

http://www.sirclisto.com/chiv.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chivalry

Lol on a side note the more i search for things the more i see wikidpedia is great for all kinds of stuff.

But whats good about this is you might just teach both players something. After all you said that the dwarf is a priest of Moradin if i recall. That means he worships a lawful good warrior god. So find or create a code of honor you like and make him follow it too. After all a cleric who violates the code of his god is just as likely to get pounded and lose class abilities as a palidan is. They are divine gifts after all.

The characters might or might not work this out. Whats important isnt the characters, its the players. If one of them makes this personal then he needs to go, otherwise give them both a code, keep track of it for future lawful good clerics and palidans and let the players bring it to an in-game decision with one them saying it was wrong and walking away. That will force the other players to make some sort of stand.

One of 3 things will happen.
1) they will go with with the dwarf and the paly makes a new character.
2) they will go with the pally and the dwarf will make a new character.
3) they will say both characters are a pain in the ass and make them both make new characters.

No matter what the problem is solved and both players learn a valuable lesson about this particular group of gamers.

 

[Geoff Watson]

The paladin detected evil on the goblin kids, which came up as faintly evil.

The goblin kids are evil. Evil! EVIL!!!
The 'faintly' bit just means they are low power (low level, not clerics/undead/outsider/etc).

If they are evil enough to detect as evil (slightly bad creatures would be neutral), they are evil enough to deserve smiting.

Geoff.

 

[reveal]

METAGAME, trying to figure out which player is right and which player is wrong and which PLAYER should have to change characters requires a lot more info than we have. It ought to include at least some info from the dwarf player.

There was a thread on here before about the player in question. He played a psion who was very disruptive. Ellie_the_Elf is the DM and asked for advice. From that point of view, it seems the dwarf player is simply falling back into old habits.

Here's the thread: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=144371

I, too, would like to hear the dwarf players side but, since we haven't and since the player has a history of disruptive behavior, I'm not too keen on giving the dwarf player the benefit of the doubt.

 

[BlackSilver]

I, too, would like to hear the dwarf players side but, since we haven't and since the player has a history of disruptive behavior, I'm not too keen on giving the dwarf player the benefit of the doubt.

Hearing both sides of the story allows you to gain an insight to those involved.

If one person is willing to talk and seems willing to speak their mind and the other is reluctant, aggressive and unyielding then its quite clear that the first is a better source.

If they tell a similar story but each has a little twist then it might be a matter of perception (what I say and what you hear could be two different things).

Both sides of the story usually result in the third side which is quite often the truth (or as close as we can get).

Always stay open to the possiblity that the truth is hiding just around the next corner.

 

[LostSoul]

I may warn the dwarf about a possible alignment shift if he keeps attacking helpless foes. Since I only allow good alignments (after too many neutral PCs who saw any kind of neutral alignment to mean they could play chaotic evil without being smited by paladins), this would mean his character got NPC'd.

Does this come to mean that you can play a Neutral or Evil character in your game, but on their sheet (and in terms of game mechanics) it says "Good"?

If you're not going to enforce their behaviour, you can't really put alignment restrictions in your game.

I think that you need to define what is Good and what is Evil (and what is Neutral), tell the players, discuss with them, and come up with something that works. Well, maybe not in your situation, but in general.