Jubilee
First Post
The DM has placed our group in a hard situation and I'm having trouble dealing with it. My particular character is a Paladin, which has some bearing on the situation.
Here is the scenario (Please bear with me, it's very long. Those who read sniffles' story hour can probably skip to the end):
Due to various circumstances, our characters were forced to winter in a small town (Camber) in the middle of nowhere in the Forgotten Realms. It's a walled city and orc & goblin incursions are the expected entertainment of the winter. They're for the most part farmers & the orcs get hungry. The winter we happened to stay there saw, of course, the worst winter ever, with the orc and goblin tribes united under a single leader setting seige to the city.
Over the course of the winter, which lasted a good 6 months real time (playing, at most, two sessions a month), most of our characters formed strong bonds of friendship with many members of the community and it began to feel like a sort of home. After the orcs were defeated, Winter thaw came and our party went off to Arrabar on other business. After a couple of weeks in Arrabar, we set off for the Lake of Steam and happened to arrive back in Camber just in time for their big Spring "Festival of Days" celebration. Among other things, this is when people usually get married.
Along the way, we were warned by a powerful wizard in the Winterwood that we shouldn't tarry in the area, because danger was coming. We knew from past experience that the people in the village didn't take dire warnings of threats to come very well, and we had very little chance of convincing them to leave or even take our warnings seriously, and we thought the danger was mostly to the Wizard himself, so we didn't trouble ourselves much with warning or arming Camber.
When we arrived in Camber for the Spring celebrations, we found out that alot of other strangers had appeared - something very unusual, because Camber is not really on the way between any two important places, there's not a major road of any sort, and no trade routes. Our cleric learned that one of the "vistors" was making an effort to be very touchy with EVERYONE, and also that there was a flash of magic whenever he touched anyone. She told me, so I checked to see if the visitor, Pascal, was evil. Lo and behold! He was.
My paladin followed him and eventually managed to confront him alone in an alleyway. She demanded to know what he was doing (he started this conversation with trying to use, my character thought, some sort of either truth spell or thought-reading spell on her) and why. She also told him that she would take it as a personal affront of she should learn that his spellcasting or his intentions brought any harm to the people in the city. He told her he was looking for a powerful wizard - She told him that the only wizard she knew of any power was living in the Winterwood, east and north (I as a player later learned that evidently said wizard generally kept his home a secret, though I didn't know I knew this at the time). Suspicious but unable to prove anything or get any real answers from the NPC/GM, my character let the matter drop with a stern warning.
We should have been suspicious that the GM was encouraging us to head out as soon as we politely could, but we left before the morning of the last day of the festival. At noon, when we stopped for prayers & lunch, we saw bright lights behind us, possibly over the city, that looked suspiciously like a rain of fire a la New York in Armegeddon. We made all haste back to the city and found the gates guarded by devils, the city filled with roaming living spells of cloudkill & raise dead, and we learned that all of the "mysterious visitors" were actually working together to do this to the town, presumably to flush out the aformentioned Wizard.
In the end of the day, only 23 people of a city of 400 are alive, and my Paladin feels (I think) understandably responsible, or at least really guilty for not doing more. She knew danger was coming. She knew there was a suspicious and evil spellcaster in the city. She knew that there were alot of unusual personages in a town that shouldn't have unusual personages (although they had plausible stories).
As a player, I feel angry and upset that the GM forced us to get to know and like this town so he could blow it up and kill everyone inside. It feels like a cheap trick.
Due to the holidays, the game is not set to resume until January. The current plan is for us to spend about a week getting the living healthy again, the survivors of Camber as well as ourselves, and then to spend 3 weeks or so traveling south to deliver something to the Lake of Steam for the aformentioned powerful Wizard. It's also the idea that when we start again, the intervening time will be handwaved and our party will be arriving at the Lake of Steam. It feels like we are running off with a wave and a smile after a great tragedy, but some of the party is in a bit of a hurry to get to Calimport after the errand at the Lake of Steam.
If the GM were anyone other than my husband, and the game were at any place other than our house, I would be sorely tempted to drop out of the game. The idea of continuing makes me sad and depressed. However, quitting is not an option, so here are the options I have come up with:
1. Suck it up, try to distance myself emotionally from the character, and stop empathizing so much. This is probably the most difficult for me pesonally but the least disruptive option. Knowing myself, it'll also leave me lackluster and depressed about the game, and bound to have repercussions on my relationship with my husband.
2. Find a way to cut the character loose and make a new one. Also a difficult option because I would like to see the character's story finish. Plus, adding a new character to the group is always tricky and it was hard enough to fit in the first time.
3. Take a temporary hiatus for the character, to meet up with the party in Calimport after their errand in the Lake of Steam. The GM has agreed to allow me to play another character in the interim. A person seen as a temporary addition would probably be less disruptive to the party as a whole, it would give me the time and distance that I need, and it would allow the character to do some kind of pennace and have some closure on the situation.
Any other suggestions? Want to help me put this in a better perspective? Which option would you pick, and why?
Here is the scenario (Please bear with me, it's very long. Those who read sniffles' story hour can probably skip to the end):
Due to various circumstances, our characters were forced to winter in a small town (Camber) in the middle of nowhere in the Forgotten Realms. It's a walled city and orc & goblin incursions are the expected entertainment of the winter. They're for the most part farmers & the orcs get hungry. The winter we happened to stay there saw, of course, the worst winter ever, with the orc and goblin tribes united under a single leader setting seige to the city.
Over the course of the winter, which lasted a good 6 months real time (playing, at most, two sessions a month), most of our characters formed strong bonds of friendship with many members of the community and it began to feel like a sort of home. After the orcs were defeated, Winter thaw came and our party went off to Arrabar on other business. After a couple of weeks in Arrabar, we set off for the Lake of Steam and happened to arrive back in Camber just in time for their big Spring "Festival of Days" celebration. Among other things, this is when people usually get married.
Along the way, we were warned by a powerful wizard in the Winterwood that we shouldn't tarry in the area, because danger was coming. We knew from past experience that the people in the village didn't take dire warnings of threats to come very well, and we had very little chance of convincing them to leave or even take our warnings seriously, and we thought the danger was mostly to the Wizard himself, so we didn't trouble ourselves much with warning or arming Camber.
When we arrived in Camber for the Spring celebrations, we found out that alot of other strangers had appeared - something very unusual, because Camber is not really on the way between any two important places, there's not a major road of any sort, and no trade routes. Our cleric learned that one of the "vistors" was making an effort to be very touchy with EVERYONE, and also that there was a flash of magic whenever he touched anyone. She told me, so I checked to see if the visitor, Pascal, was evil. Lo and behold! He was.
My paladin followed him and eventually managed to confront him alone in an alleyway. She demanded to know what he was doing (he started this conversation with trying to use, my character thought, some sort of either truth spell or thought-reading spell on her) and why. She also told him that she would take it as a personal affront of she should learn that his spellcasting or his intentions brought any harm to the people in the city. He told her he was looking for a powerful wizard - She told him that the only wizard she knew of any power was living in the Winterwood, east and north (I as a player later learned that evidently said wizard generally kept his home a secret, though I didn't know I knew this at the time). Suspicious but unable to prove anything or get any real answers from the NPC/GM, my character let the matter drop with a stern warning.
We should have been suspicious that the GM was encouraging us to head out as soon as we politely could, but we left before the morning of the last day of the festival. At noon, when we stopped for prayers & lunch, we saw bright lights behind us, possibly over the city, that looked suspiciously like a rain of fire a la New York in Armegeddon. We made all haste back to the city and found the gates guarded by devils, the city filled with roaming living spells of cloudkill & raise dead, and we learned that all of the "mysterious visitors" were actually working together to do this to the town, presumably to flush out the aformentioned Wizard.
In the end of the day, only 23 people of a city of 400 are alive, and my Paladin feels (I think) understandably responsible, or at least really guilty for not doing more. She knew danger was coming. She knew there was a suspicious and evil spellcaster in the city. She knew that there were alot of unusual personages in a town that shouldn't have unusual personages (although they had plausible stories).
As a player, I feel angry and upset that the GM forced us to get to know and like this town so he could blow it up and kill everyone inside. It feels like a cheap trick.
Due to the holidays, the game is not set to resume until January. The current plan is for us to spend about a week getting the living healthy again, the survivors of Camber as well as ourselves, and then to spend 3 weeks or so traveling south to deliver something to the Lake of Steam for the aformentioned powerful Wizard. It's also the idea that when we start again, the intervening time will be handwaved and our party will be arriving at the Lake of Steam. It feels like we are running off with a wave and a smile after a great tragedy, but some of the party is in a bit of a hurry to get to Calimport after the errand at the Lake of Steam.
If the GM were anyone other than my husband, and the game were at any place other than our house, I would be sorely tempted to drop out of the game. The idea of continuing makes me sad and depressed. However, quitting is not an option, so here are the options I have come up with:
1. Suck it up, try to distance myself emotionally from the character, and stop empathizing so much. This is probably the most difficult for me pesonally but the least disruptive option. Knowing myself, it'll also leave me lackluster and depressed about the game, and bound to have repercussions on my relationship with my husband.
2. Find a way to cut the character loose and make a new one. Also a difficult option because I would like to see the character's story finish. Plus, adding a new character to the group is always tricky and it was hard enough to fit in the first time.
3. Take a temporary hiatus for the character, to meet up with the party in Calimport after their errand in the Lake of Steam. The GM has agreed to allow me to play another character in the interim. A person seen as a temporary addition would probably be less disruptive to the party as a whole, it would give me the time and distance that I need, and it would allow the character to do some kind of pennace and have some closure on the situation.
Any other suggestions? Want to help me put this in a better perspective? Which option would you pick, and why?
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I roleplay to escape rotten realities about life, not to experience rotten un-realities.
See the situation as a character-building one, learn from your mistakes, and seek redemption in any form your God/dess requires.
