Player, DM, or PC call? (longish)

[billd91]

I can see not giving the character as much of a bonus (rather than docking XPs) for his play since the bonus was dependent on being able to, as it were, loosen a few bolts and he had a hammer.
As far as his rather quirky behavior and tardiness, those are issues that should be brought up out of game anyway and should not have ramifications in-game (except for getting lower XP for missing sessions or something).
Really, that just sounds like he's a bit of a problem player from time to time but not really horrible. Just kind of thoughtless. That's potentially forgivable, especially if there's a good excuse for being late.

The player may have had metagame thinking about leaving a PC (whose player isn't even there) behind... but it's not all that bad either. It's not all that out of character for a rogueish sort to want to get a little extra cash without having so many people to divide it amongst. But it still brings up the issue that's really the problem as I see it. The other players didn't immediately go back for the other rogue, suffered the consequences, and now are blaming someone who should only share an equal burden of that blame.

 

[Centaur]

There are a couple of different ways this could be handled.

First and most obvious is to let the players/PCs handle it in game. It looks like there were a number of bad desisions made that started with leaving their primary PMD behind in the first place. Based on this, I think that party got what was comming to them and therefore they should work it out themselves.

However, we are all in this to have fun. If everone in group disliked how the last session went, and this has to include the GM, then maybe a deam sequence is in order. Simply declare the last session a mutualy shared dream of what could go wrong if they don't bring the primary Rouge and then redo the session. Just remember to change up some stuff so that not everything is how it was originaly.

I've had to do this a few times in games I've run over the years. Don't like to do it. but sometimes it works out for the best.

 

[Fenes 2]

As for how they know he's a rogue, he admitted to them that the local theives guild tried to recruit him before, so they know that much. Their knowledge that I use traps is both IC and OOC.
Z

So they can't imagine a member of a thief guild that does not disable traps? Like a thug, a con man, an enforcer, a mole, a forger, a lookout, a pickpocket...

 

[Tsyr]

Personaly, I would have Yondalla come to the Cleric and give warnings of the train of thought the cleric is heading down, and potentialy do something to the Cleric's spellcasting... Perhaps, every time the Cleric tries to charge the Rogue for healing, the spell casts anyways, or something.

Personaly, if I were the rogue, I would say "Forget you guys, I'm going to go find a group that isn't composed of evil, vindictive psycopaths"... For god's sake... A good-alinged Cleric considering trying to make the Rogue an effective slave, a wizard considering turning him into a fish... An entire party who forced him at swordpoint/spellpoint to open a door he KNEW was trapped... These are NOT people I would want to hang around.

 

[Voadam]

Two separate issues here, your and your group's relationship with this guy and his GF (he did stuff to offend you, he tries to hijack your DMing, shows up unapologetically late), and this situation. It sounds like you don't want him there period and that should be resolved one way or the other.

But for this situation, I don't think he's the bad guy, the other characters are blaming him and want to lash out but they are going off the metagame of a rogue party role, after he admitted he didn't fit that role. He is a con man but not a trapfinder.

Ooh he has good reflex saves and evasion, but he has always been a bit cowardly and likely has fewer hit points and lower AC then anybody but a straight wizard. There are spell traps with wil and fortitude saves and attack traps that high AC and high hitpoints work better for. He was not heroic here in not taking one for the team and taking the dangerous trap triggering job that he wasn't any better at than the others were, but geeze, he found the traps, he contributed something useful.

 

[Belen]

ZSutherland,

Have you thought to talk to hm out of game and ask him what's going on? To me it sounds like he is having some personal problems. As a friends, maybe you should talk with him and/ or just listen.

People do things that make you mad. You have to decide if he is good enough a friend to keep around or if you need to break ties.

I think you should talk to him about the out of game stuff. Maybe he showed up that first session because he needed you guys.

 

[Arnwyn]

So, my question is, did I do the right thing telling the players to handle the squabble amongst themselves

Yep, it's the players' problem - they can handle it themselves. (Because of this, try not to interject and take sides...)

 

[ZSutherland]

So they can't imagine a member of a thief guild that does not disable traps? Like a thug, a con man, an enforcer, a mole, a forger, a lookout, a pickpocket...

I agree completely with you. I didn't dock him at all for his metagaming comment about not wanting to lose exp by widening the split and I didn't penalize them for their metagame assumptions (I figure they got plenty of comeupance all on their own). So I figure that balances.

While I admit I have a problem with the player's out of character behavior, I can take his tardiness & interruptions up with him in private. My original post was a question, a request for help from fellow players and DMs, not an attempt to justify what the PCs were doing. I don't, however, have a problem with his role-play and have, in fact, been giving him a bit of a bonus for it since it's so different from his normal and it's consistent (yes, I even gave him a bonus last game because he's consistantly played a coward.)

Originally posted by Tysr
Personaly, if I were the rogue, I would say "Forget you guys, I'm going to go find a group that isn't composed of evil, vindictive psycopaths"... For god's sake... A good-alinged Cleric considering trying to make the Rogue an effective slave, a wizard considering turning him into a fish... An entire party who forced him at swordpoint/spellpoint to open a door he KNEW was trapped... These are NOT people I would want to hang around.

Tsyr, no offense, but please stop shouting. I did tell the cleric's player in no uncertain terms that using Mark of Justice would probably be very much against the will of Yondalla, and she dropped that idea. I also told the wizard player that an alignment shift would immediately follow such an action, and then told them they both had to make up their minds about the matter one way or another. I am not trying to justify their behavior. In fact, I completely agree that some of it is over the top. On the other hand, PCs are people too. What I originally told them when they came to me was, "If your character feels that the rogue caused or contributed to the death of the ranger, then decide how your character would deal with that. The only action I will certainly dock you for is if your character thinks that, but takes NO action." Frankly, I'm a bit taken aback by their level of vindictiveness. I thought they'd give him the silent treatment or something or tell him he didn't fit in with their adventuring needs and take him to the local adventurer's guild and set him up with some other group. This might well force him to make a new character if he wanted to continue to play (though I wouldn't insist on it, I'd let him try and follow them or whatever he wanted to do so long as it didn't monopolize the game for everyone else), but this is a bit out of whack. If the cleric decides to charge him for heals, I'll see how it goes. If she tells him up front that's she's putting him on "probation" or something like and maybe fudges a little if he drops, to truly give himself a chance to redeem himself, I'll probably accept that, no penalty. She's playing the mother figure to a wayward child. If she just springs it on him, I'll dock her RP exp and may drop her caster level until she desists as punishment from Yondalla.

What I'm trying to do is get feedback from all of you to see if letting them handle their little tiff IC is the best way to approach the situation. Most of you have said yes, but I'm still giving weight to the rest. All I've seen out of you is screaming about the way my players handle their PCs.

 

[Tsyr]

Tsyr, no offense, but please stop shouting.

Fine, I'll start using italics. Capitilizing a word here and there is just a habbit, since most of the message boards I read don't have support for HTML/vB code.

 

[Fenes 2]

Well, from me there is a clear and loud vote for not handling it in game. As soon as the players have problems - which seems to be the case here - then the players should solve them, not their PCs. Trying to solve such things with IC actions often results in bad blood between the players.