Player with D&D Game Problem - Advice requested!

[Devo]

Evil GM online

So, this is the evil GM.

I'm not so sure where to start with this, so let's start here: There are things going on in the background, and I don't really like sharing information that the players don't have some way of getting. It's hard to justify my actions (as is clearly needed in this situation) without explaining too much backstory. There is a story, there, though.

I'm not sure if Jubilee could have prevented the attack. Partly, that's because the story was scripted out, and I had in my head that it would happen. That's not to say that I am intractible with storylines -- I'd like to think that I provide elements of the story, then let the characters drive it. I'm just saying that I had a plan, and it would have taken something serious to deter me.

The other reason it would have been hard for Jubilee's character to prevent the attack is because of everything going on in the background.

The wizard who was being hunted is named Gadron. Gadron is very powerful, and he has a secret to protect. As such, it is very, very hard to get at that secret, or at Gadron. The best an Elder of Halruaa could do is find a general area to search. So he gathered his mage-hunting party and came to Camber.

Pascal (the evil spellcaster that Jubilee noticed sniffing around Camber), has the ability to detect the spellcasting prowess of anyone he touched. He was looking for Gadron in disguise. Other members of his party were subtly asking around town for a powerful wizard, but since Gadron kept a low profile, virtually no one knew anything about him. The evil group knew he was around here someplace (they didn't even know it was a "he" they were looking for, in fact), but they couldn't narrow down their search any further. They also knew (via high level divinations) that Gadron would protect those closest to him.

Jubilee confronted Pascal and told him that there was a powerful wizard named Gadron in the Winterwoods. She couldn't say where he was exactly, though, or give up any means of finding him. She did say that her party communicated with Gadron while here in Camber, though. Pascal (and those he reported to) rationilzed that either Gadron was in hiding in Camber, or he had a contact here who could provide the information they were given.

At this point, Pascal and his friends had the choice of searching the Winterwoods (no small feat given the protections Gadron had already shown, and the elder of Halruaa was a little pressed for time), or continue with their plan of striking at Camber in hopes of flushing Gadron out. These people were evil enough (that is, they believed in what they were doing strongly enough) that the lives of these 400 people of Camber didn't matter in the grand scheme of things. So they chose to attack Camber.

First, they checked out the PC's -- maybe one of them was strong enough to be the one they searched for. No luck. They then watched the PCs to see if they made contact with a more powerful person. Again, no luck. Then they waited for the PCs to leave. They verified that the PCs were actually gone and not trying something tricky. Once they were sure of that, they launched their attack. The PC's were still close enough to see the attack, so they turned around and began their counter-attack, so to speak.

By the time it was all done, there were some signs that Gadron had been around, and that he had struck out against the evil NPCs. In fact, Gadron had been fighting against those who attacked Camber, but he had to wage a guerilla war against them. He knew that he was being hunted (hence the warning to the PCs before they got to town), so he had to figure that whoever was attacking the town would be capable of dealing with him.

There was another sinister NPC in town for the festival. He served as both a red herring for the PC's investigation and as a replacement NPC for one of the PC's to play in the event they fell during the game. (I knew this one would be tough.) In the end, he served both purposes.

So now here we are. The PCs killed everyone who attacked the town except Elder Furnael. He was spotted in the town and though there is no direct evidence that he orchestrated the whole thing, the magic necessary to accomplish the deed was phenomenal. The PCs have (probably rightly) assumed that he was not only involved, but responsible.


So how does a Paladin deal with that situation? She is on a quest for her god. (It's a complicated story, but her god has been missing for about four thousand years, and she has been tasked with uncovering him.) How to find her god isn't terribly clear, yet -- there are few signs left. She does know that the quest that the rest of the group is on will lead her in the right direction, though. Her god has been missing for four thousand years: is it so bad to delay his awakening for another six months or a year in order to see this gross injustice dealt with?


D.

 

[jezter6]

Damn. That sounds awesome. I quit playing D&D because it became boring and cliche. Obviously you have a good campaign and at least 1 great player.

I only wish I could D&D like that again...

 

[Zora]

Well, if you've read Sniffles' story hour, you'll have read some of my posts. My character is Rock Battlehammer.

Now, a couple of things before we start: the GM is my best friend and his wife is a dear friend to me, so what follows is with the utmost caring.

To be honest, with as many people as we have in the game, it's hard to get in a LOT of in-game intense roleplaying; one of the reasons I do the journal entries in the Story Hour. So I admit to being a little surprised at Jubilee's level of intensity for her feelings. Actually, having known her, I'm not surprised at the intensity of HER feelings, but those of her paladin's. As she does not do journal entries or write-ups herself, I had no idea. Currently, only Sniffles, myself, and Gumball (character=Liadan) do these.

To be honest, it didn't seem like anybody else professed any great love of Camber or its inhabitants like maybe Liadan and Rock.

Now I can tell you with a little bit of embarassment that when I do my write-ups, I get a little misty-eyed at certain roleplaying things. I'm able to show a little more depth to my character than I can in-session. Personally, Rock is devastated at the tragedies that have befallen Camber, and the place he considers more of a home than the one he came from.
One of the things I've tried to subtly get across is that Rock is now an Outwarden (Deepwarden), and wanted to possibly settle in Camber after everything was done. He's trained himself to be the first line of defense, to protect those around him. He also feels like he failed.

If Nekaya were to find reason to stay behind, so would Rock. Unfortunately, all the players involved KNOW that I have no problem removing a character for roleplaying reasons.

If you've read the story hour, you can guess that Rock is dedicating himself to the idea of bringing Elder Furnael to justice. However, there is a quest underlying the party's existence, so now you have two huge vows you need to take care of.

I've known the GM for awhile, and I know he likes to put things of this sort in there, as a roleplaying device. It adds realism and feelings, in my opinion. I know some of the players aren't entirely vested in these kinds of things. It broke mine and my character's hearts when this happened. I'm trying to use it as a motivation for my character to work with in the future. I fully expected my character's "love interest" to be amongst the dead. I felt the GM might have held back on that to soften the blow of losing Camber. Upon reflection, I'm not entirely of that opinion anymore. I don't think he has a problem killing off something as a great story device or motivation.

If anything, he probably left her alive to mess with me personally.

Slightly off-topic, but we levelled after all of this. I agonized for days over where to put my SKILL points, for chrissake! I ended up putting them into Survival, Spot, Listen and Search; all things to help me track down people. For me, that was a personal roleplaying thing, as he has yet to go a level and not increase his Craft: Silverworking. He didn't this level. Nor did he take the Halfing language. Again, that was meant to be a completely internal roleplaying thing - except now you all know.

Let's try not to bash the GM...he's just trying to make a good story. Not everybody is going to appreciate every aspect of it.

And after hearing Jubilee's reaction (and Nekaya's), I can only imagine that this would bring her and Rock closer together. Rock's never really had a reason to bond with Nekaya. They've never had a common thread to pull them together. And to be honest, out of the current party, Rock's got probably the least reason to be on the underlying quest.

On a player's side, I would hate to lose Jubilee. She's obviously another player who gets into her character as much as I do. I know that Devo's games are spectacular, story-wise. I can honestly say he has run my favorite campaign ever...it was a previous one that ran awhile, and was very intense. This looks to be on par with his style.

I'd hate to lose you as a player in Shadows. I've already minimized my gaming to Friday nights, and that would mean I wouldn't see you as much. If an interim character helps you gain focus on Nekaya, then by all means. Just do it AFTER the Lake of Steam, 'cuz if you stay in Camber, you'll make Rock doubt his decision, then HE'LL have to stay, and I'll have to create a new character, and you know how the GM hates that...

 

[Hedrin]

Liadan's Response

Hi, I'm a guy playing the female cleric in this game. I'd like to chime in a few things my character is doing to see if any of them make any difference to Jubilee's decision. Others can ignore this post if they want. Also to correct something in her original post, it is 23 alive out of 400, not 23 dead.

***********************

Liadan feels you are taking way too much responsibility on your shoulders for what happened to Camber. She would do her best to try talk you through this. Did your mentor or mine start out holy and powerful? No they started like us, vulnerable and inexperienced. Take what you have learned here, and start again. This day was lost in part because their evil was better than our good. That will not always be the case, if you give up now, you will waste the expensive lessons these lives have bought for us.

Gadron is a powerful wizard and he was curt with us in our initial communications with him because he told us he had to prepare. There was no way we could have know that the hammer of evil would have struck so hard here. Especially when Pascal pretty much admitted that he could not find whom he was looking for in the town. Liadan assumed that they would pass through Camber and at worst, the town would feel the backlash from the battle between these guys and Gadron. You're not he only character feeling survivor guilt. She might even get angry and weepy with you if you continue to try and take all the guilt. She'll try and get you to see we're all hurting.

Live. Learn. Turn around. Start again. Lathander bless!

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Now this is what I call group support and a great game!

I can easily see at least two members of the group (Rock & Nekaya) make Camber their base of adventuring after this event, protecting and supporting it while they are there, travelling out from it to fulfill their quests otherwise, maybe training a few people in their downtime to watch out for the village while they are gone. Nothing like a few paladin and ranger-trained villagers to kick the common goblin or orc.

 

[Radiating Gnome]

It really does sound like this is a good game, with good players -- players that are invested in their characters and the story, which says a lot.

In an old campaign of mine, with a group I recently disbanded, I used to have occassioanl debates and problems along these sorts of lines with one of my players. She had a narrative of the game going on in her head, and when things that happened didn't follow the path that she had laid out in her own mind, she would get upset and we would end up having a long email conversation about it between sessions. I used to think that I had her understanding things, and trusting me again by the time we got to our next game session, but the next time there was a moment of dissonance between my game her the story in her head, our email dialog would start up again.

Now, the first bit of good news is that she would talk to me about it, and we could always have an intelligent discussion and debate about things. Often I would end up having to reveal things to her about the background story so that she could get a sense of what was going on behind the scenes that forced things to go the way the did.

The bottom line, though, is that you and your husband have two different esthetics about the game -- you're sitting down at the table with two different ideas about what's going to happen. You're there for escapism, for success, for the fun of being active in ways the real world tends to deny us. Your Husband is obviously very invested in telling a good story -- and a good story has ups and downs, peaks and valleys of plot that help to push things along. Bad times make the good times better and keep the story interesting.

Most of the time those two ideas about the game are close enough that it all works out -- after all, the good story that the DM is trying to tell does end with the players succeeding -- but every once in a while there's a big enough gap to cause this sort of discomfort.

The things that happened leading up to the big firestorm -- some foreshadowing, some sense of bad things going on -- and the idea that you were "set up" to care about the town before the attack -- those are all classic narrative techniques. In any Stephen King movie, the plucky likeable minor character you meet early in the movie is the one who will be dead before the first act.

So, yeah, as others have said, it would be good if you turned your emotional discomfort into character development and roleplaying fodder. And, probably, this is going to make your eventual defeat of the Elder that much more cathartic and sweet.

But the other things I'd say to you are that you should keep talking about things. Talk with the group and with your husband about what's going on in the game and how you feel about it. Because, maybe the type of story the DM is trying to tell right now isn't the type of story you want to play a part of. And while I don't think the DM should jump the tracks and change gears now, for the future having this sort of dialog will help him shape the story into something you'll be more comfortable with.

And, at the same time, have some faith in the story and the job your DM is doing. Most DMs get their pleasure out of gaming by feeding off the pleasure the players get from the game. A few just like to kill PCs, but most of us are there to have a good time, and we only have a good time if the players do. We get very invested in our stories, our plots, and our NPCs. And we put a lot of work into the game. We're not doing it to mess with your head and make you miserable -- or, at least, only a little miserable so the taste of success later is that much better.

I dunno. I hope that helps. Reading this thread has told me one thing, though -- I need to go read this story hour. Sounds like a good one.

-rg

 

[DragonLancer]

Personally I think your DM played right into what he knew would rile the party up. Thats a good thing.

Now, this is not an attack on you, your playing or your character but you had an opportunity to stop it. You were warned by the old wizard before you arrived and then you saw these strangers touching/casting on the locals. A detect evil showed them as evil. You questioned one of them and then left town with them there. Thats the reppercusion on your actions. I (as a character and/or as party) would have stayed and investigated further, rather than wander off on another task or errand.

He hasn't done this to screw you or the party, but to generate an emotional response to the deaths of people your characters have come to know and perhaps love.

Think about that.

 

[sniffles]

As another player in the above-mentioned campaign, I'd just like to say, in defense of the GM, that he is not railroading by not allowing us to try to stop the destruction of the town. Well, I suppose in the technical sense he is, but it's not railroading in the most derogatory and despised sense of the term. He has an over-arching plot going here, in which all the PCs are vested, and if he TPKs us he might as well throw out this campaign and start a new one. I know some folks would say "then so be it", but that's not how our group usually works. I for one would really like to see this through to the end if at all possible.

Jubilee, I personally hope that you can use the weeks of hiatus from this game to come to terms with your situation and decide what is the best option for you, hopefully one that won't hurt you or the game. Just from personal experience, though, I have to advise for taking a deep breath and a step back. Don't get too involved in your character. It's a fine line to keep yourself and your character separate enough to empathize without getting so close that you let in-game events ruin your out-of-character life. I nearly ruined a game once by getting into character too much - just ask your husband about RuneQuest!

 

[diaglo]

take levels in blackguard and kill the other PCs.

 

[Hedrin]

Fantasy Hero Experiences

Jubilee, let me tell you a little story about a Fantasy Hero campaign we called the Dreadnaughts, lead by a GM I won't name. Perhaps we'll call him Mr. YourHusband.

I played Shaper Irongrip, leader of the mercenary company the Dreadnaughts. Not long before the start of the campaign, the former leader Sol Covenant attempted to lead them on a personal quest. This resulted in almost half the company being killed. Shaper took over leadership in the field after he saw everyone else fall, and was never allowed to relinquish it. He had never had the ambition to lead, but I played him as extremely honorable. In his back story, he joined the Dreadnaughts after his father hired them, then got out of paying them on a technicality in the contract. Shaper was appalled at the actions of his father and ran away from the dwarves to offer his services as a mage to the Dreadnaughts to try and repay some of the debt he felt his family still owed. The company's first real contract under Shaper was the start of the campaign. We were hired to assist Master Sindar to make a magical rune sword, a legendary work, and the culmination of a lifetime of sword making. Long story short, ancient evil powers returned to the land (our fault) bringing with them an army of foul misshapen monsters that they used to attack the land. At the time we were in a holding pattern at a key point in the defense of the east while our patron bartered for something or other to help complete his sword. Our company had a mistrust of the Church of War, the entity that was charged with defending the land, also the people who oversaw the swearing of contracts for mercenary companies. Sindar loaned us to the Church to help defend this walled city while he was there. If this city fell, the east of the continent was open to being plundered. The church was adamant about stopping them at this point. When we went to them to offer our services, we told them that they could count on us until Sindar called us back. They very suavely offered us to let us out of our contract and an easy position in the defenses if we only signed onto the Coalition that they had been creating. Essentially almost every mercenary company in the land was now under the banner of this Coalition. Shaper refused, partially because we had knowledge that this sword was essential to our survival, and also that he didn't find it honorable to break his contract. The Church placed us at the front center right position in the defenses while our caravan of support people, cooks, families, etc, were billeted in relative safety behind the wall. Our placement in the defenses almost certainly guaranteed us to get killed before anyone else. When we got there, a number of us who had acquired ancient knowledges and skills could see where the defense plans of the Church could be bettered. Ordering our own part of the defenses to be build with the improved earthworks we managed to convince the field commander (one of the few Church of War people we got on with!) that our plans were better. We played out this siege over multiple weeks of gaming. We survived a number of brutal waves, managed to lead a commando team to destroy a vital enemy siege machine, and it was actually looking as if we might be successful at holding them back. We could see a final massive assault coming across the barren plains between the armies. They would reach us within minutes. As our group prepared to meet the charge, Sindar's underling appeared at Shaper's elbow telling him that their time here was over and that we had to pull out and meet Sindar to the north of the city. I remember the chill that went down my spine at that moment. I only had moments to make my decision. If we were going to pull out with the least loss of life to my forces, we had to get away before the assault hit, but if we left now, our main center section of the wall would be unmanned during the assault, allowing the enemy to be able to decimate the earthworks from within. We had finally started to win the respect of some the of the Church and other mercenary companies, a goal that he had harbored for a while. Our name would be run through the mud for generations if we fled, but Shaper's personal sense of honor had to go with the contract, regardless of what that would do to the Dreadnaught name. He gave the command to bug out and sent runners to the earthworks north and south of their position letting them know that they were leaving the field. He then sent a runner to the command post to let them know what had happened and told the Church that they should have coordinated better with Sindar and reminded them that the Dreadnaught participation at the defenses was at Sindar's sufferance. We pulled out to the North, actually taking fire from our former allies' magical sun cannon. He had hoped that this contract with Sindar would bring glory to the name Dreadnaughts, instead it brought infamy. He knew he was sacrificing the three runners to fate, either death at the hands of the enemy or torture and imprisonment at the hands of the Church. Ditto with our support crew and families of Dreadnaughts (about a hundred people) still billeted behind the lines.

I was personally depressed for weeks, and I actually found myself angry at Mr YourHusband for making me make that decision, but things got better. Nothing in his games are done without purpose, but you have to suffer through the bad to get to the good.