Rant: Why must thing always be obvious in D&D?

[Nyeshet]

It doesn't seem like the player is being unreasonable to me. If the temples are so secret that even Shar's followers aren't allowed to know about them, how can the religion exist at all? If I had a PC that was the member of an organization, I'd probably expect that organization to be relevant to the campaign.

It is also partly the fault of the setting. Forgotten Realms specifically states that a deity's power is directly proportional to their number of worshipers. Shar, as one of the few (relatively speaking) Greater Deities, therefore, must also be amongst those deities with the most worshipers.

Granted, nothing says they have to be scattered all over the place. I tend to suspect 1) that most of her worshipers are in some few foreign lands where they control most things, &/or 2) that many of them are in the underdark. (She is the faerun deity of darkness, after all.) Also, I suspect that there are a several minor religions and cults whose worshipers are deceived - in truth they are worshiping a guise of Shar. (She is the faerun deity of secrecy and deception, as I recall.)

Also, as some have said, I would suspect that cults devoted to her would have signs that can be used to find the local meeting places or at least point the person towards someone in the know - who might be willing to speak if you give them the right pass-phrase or show them the right sign (a holy symbol of Shar might suffice, especially if the bearer calls upon Shar's name, swearing their allegience to her while showing the holy symbol).

I wouldn't kill off the PC, but I would require he make Know (religion) checks to 'remember' what he should be looking for, and Spot checks and Gather Information checks to actually find the person / place where the direction he seeks can be found. Of course, if he rolled poorly and tried to speak to the wrong person he would risk meeting the wrong people (ie: the authorities, or those who would soon call upon them).

 

[Hussar]

There are basic problems with the assumptions of both the DM and player here:

With the PC:
1) As a player, you have no right to challenge DM authority even if the information you are being provided seems illogical too you. Your first assumption should always be, "The DM has a good reason for this, but its not been revealed yet." And even if the DM doesn't have what strikes you as a good reason, its his campaign.
2) The player is out of character. The player is arguing with the DM over the metagame. None of these problems would have come up if the player stayed in character and tried to find a temple of Shar through in character means. Instead, the player tried to force the DM to give him a temple of Shar by out of game means, and naturally a conflict occured.
3) The player did not phrase his requests to the DM as a question, but rather as implicit demands. He's not trying to figure out how the campaign world works and then work within the framework. He's struggling to gain control over how the campaign world works by manipulating the framework. If the player approached the question of, 'Where are the temples of Shar?', 'How do I find a temple of Shar?', or even 'Where is the nearest temple of Shar?', then the onus is placed on the DM to give the player a means of resolution. Instead, the player chose to demand a particular type of resolution - one that would make no in game demands on him.

On the part of the DM:
1) Major issues regarding the organization of the religion should have been addressed at the time of character creation. A player should begin play knowing basically what his character should know in order to be his character. That means that if a player has ranks in Know (Local), and Know (Religion), that you give him some overview and briefing and answer questions before play - especially if your campaign is going to not rely on published cannon. Your Centaurs may be blood thirsty cannibals, but if that is so, the first time that a character with Know (Arcane) discovers this should not be when he gets hit by an arrow. At the very least, you should have the characters roll knowledge checks as soon as they see centaurs. Now, if a character fails a know check (either from luck or lack of ranks) if they insist on acting on meta-game information that isn't applicable to your campaign, they get what they deserve. But not providing in game information to a character that is in character is bad DMing.

From the 1st page. Just cos I so rarely get to do this:

I 120% agree with Celebrim.

Communication broke down and the fun went from 60 to 0 in a few seconds. Much like the communication has broken down in this thread.

This is one reason why I've taken a break from gaming. Terms are not defined ahead of time. For example...I played in a game that was "low magic" I thought that meant no magic items, magic monsters, and low level magic for players and npc's alike. To the DM it meant no magic items. That's a huge difference that lead to many discussions on the topic, caused tension, and slowed down game play.

This issue goes back to character creation and the style of game that the group agreed to play in. The player believes that finding other members of Shar is important and should be easy because of his understanding of "Major Deity" and the game world, the DM thinks the opposite.

They should attempt to get on the same page and compromise.

OR...have ninjas attack. Either way the fun will increase dramatically. In the case of the ninjas it will probably get everyone involved pumped up and perhaps involve a wicked guitar solo.

Ninjas FTW. Also an excellent point.

*snip*

If a player doesn't want to skulk around or search, fine. Why make them do something they've already told you they won't enjoy Then the challenge is to come up with something that addresses both the players desires and the logic of the game environment. Make everything fit. Or, in the sage words of Tim Gunn from "Project Runway", make it work! Then, once we've mutually agreed on a set of challenges, I can try to get the player to broaden their tastes a little. I've found the most effective way to do this is to say 'yes' to them.


I could have been more constructive in these exchanges. So it goes. 'Best to you' back at you...

This is a very, very excellent point. Why should finding the basic premise of the PC be a major undertaking? What purpose does it serve? Does it add to the fun at the table when the player who is being dragged through all this has already shown his preference?

As Celebrim and others have rightly pointed out, there was a serious miscommunication during chargen. It's basically up to the DM now to sort that out. Li can either stick to it and rule that the player has to do X, Y and Z to find the cult (if possible) or can simply handwave it. At the end of the day, assuming the cult can be found, why not make the player happy and skip the hoops? The end result - finding the cult - is exactly the same and it saves lots of frustration.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

And yet the DM allowed a protagonist to worship the god. Don't you think that act carries some implications?

No.

Unless the player is a complete moron, they know that Shar is a goddess of secrets shunned in polite society. The player knows enough to start pointing to pages in books and squeal "MAJOR GOD OMG!" That the player didn't then read down another line and see "operates based on secret cells to prevent discovery" is hard to believe.

This is someone wanting kewl powers without wanting to, you know, actually live with everything that goes with it.

If they want a god that will have a temple on every corner and be easy to find, there are hundreds of bland FR gods that fit the bill.

The DM creates a world and relays the consequences of player character actions. They are not responsible for wiping the nose or any other orifice of the players for them.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Because the player consciously chose to be part of a sekrit cult that even a passing familiarity with the setting would suggest would create this very problem.

If he wanted to go grab blessings and maybe a healing potion at the local temple like he's swinging by the local 7-11, the FR has nine thousand other choices, most of which won't put the player character in this situation.

Exactly.

 

[Raven Crowking]

If most players take for granted that a Neutral Evil goddess has street corner temples in every major city IMC then most players don't belong in my game.

Whether or not a neutral evil deity has a "poorly conceived" religion backing them is a question somewhat out of our league considering there are no self-identified "Neutral Evil" religions in history, or any logical basis on which to have an opinion. But I imagine you fantasy world sociologists will keep at it anyway.

In any case, I find rephrasing this as "shop at a temple to your god" severly misses the point - perhaps that was the player's problem in the OP as well. The main point is that the goddess is evil and a secretive cult.

"My character wants a Holy Avenger longsword at first level. Why does being able to have a longsword represent some enormous boon?" - See how the rephrasing thing works? Players that debate things using this technique in my game are instantly converted to Chaotic Evil.

Well said, Sir.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I think the main point here is that the DM allowed a PC to play a member of secretive and evil cult.

That isn't what the OP says.

I think that you are making too many assumptions here. All the OP says is that the DM allowed the PC to call his character a follower of Shar. To my mind, that entails writing "Shar" on the character sheet under "Patron Deity".

There is no indication whatsoever that the DM allowed the PC to "play a member of secretive and evil cult".


RC

 

[Li Shenron]

Hi all, and thanks for posting. First of all, SORRY to have caused some troubled discussion here... I want you to know that this was not really a big issue in our game! We had like 10 minutes of argument, but then the player accepted the situation without bad feelings. But after the session I recalled the "accident", and in a whiplash of mild irritation I posted this rant I didn't actually want to rant about this specific case, but similar precedents came to my mind about how players assume that certain things "just have to be" and complain if your setting doesn't follow the staples of the majority (NOT to start a much bigger flame war, but availability of magic equipment and easiness to sell it too is a much worse example of a staple that whenever I try to change I find strong resistance).

There is undoubtedly some responsibility of my own for this kind of accidents... The problem is indeed 50% player and 50% DM, and 0% game's fault. Of course I make assumptions too when running the game. In this case I remembered several things (but certainly not with strong confidence) about Shar, and decided on the spot that temples would be rare and secretive. That's an assumption too, but I feel that there is a fundamental difference between a player's assumption and a DM's assumption.

Anyway, since you want to know more about the specific case:

- The setting is not Forgotten Realms. I just use the pantheon because it's my favourite. I've made it clear to anyone that we're not FR! Exactly because I have a few books only (which I certainly haven't learned by memory), and I'm not able to run a perfect replica of the setting. I don't want to run a specific setting knowing that a fan of the setting easily knows 50 times more than me (it would probably spoil his own fun to play in a butchered setting). Plus, there's adventures and other books non-FR which I use all the time... So officially we just play a custom setting that uses published stuff from many settings. I do try to use the FR pantheon the closest I can to the original, just to take advantage of F&P and spare myself from more work, but I can't always follow the letter.

- The player in question joined the game quite recently. He knows the setting is custom, and we all told him many things about what's going on. Anyway, the other players have "learned" the setting by playing in it... and me too! So I thought he didn't need a full explanation of every single issue beforehand, and in fact I think he's ultimately fine with discovering things gradually.

- He is not a cleric, just a generic follower. We don't even require PCs to have one and only patron deity (like in FR). Some of them (player's choice) have one deity written on their char sheet, some have none, and some have more than one, just because their PCs happen to worship more in different occasions. Doesn't mean they have an in-game advantage from that. To be honest I didn't explain this to him, I think it just didn't come up during character creation.

- I indeed noticed that he wrote Shar on the character sheet when making the character. The PC is neutral and we briefly talked that the choice was fine as long as PC conflict doesn't disrupt the game. Actually I remember I even made a couple of suggestions about how to make it work: he could be a delusional-type hero, pessimist or nihilist that revers Shar only becaused disillusioned by the strength of good ("evil will win in the end "), without necessarily be evil or hurting others; or he could be just a juvenile mind with fascination for dark stuff (someone who likes "pretending to be evil", as long as it is really only about the image - think Alice Cooper ). So far he hasn't actually roleplayed anything really about his worship choice (as other PCs also, their choice remained a sentence written in their char sheet but didn't have in-game repercussions).

- The player just spoke out the idea that while doing preparations for a long trip he wanted to visit the nearest temple of Shar, in hope for some interesting items or discounted potions. My own idea is he was just trying to think something useful to do during downtime, was browsing his char sheets, read "Shar" and thought "hey I have'nt used this character feature yet" . Perhaps I was too fast to react, and I made up on the spot that the cult of Shar doesn't really have temples in the most common sense of the word (an organized group of clerics & other people running a building with worship facilities etc.). At that moment I pictured a religion made of individuals, and I said such thing, like I was a denizen of our setting answering someone's question "where can I find a temple of Shar?". Of course I didn't mean to completely rule out the existance of such temples, but I was rather establishing a starting point for the campaign.

So I guess the problem is this... Yes, I may be a lame DM because I make things up on the spot like that. But the player was assuming things that really isn't his responsibility to design... It would have been different if for instance he had mentioned in his background that he took part in Shar-ite gatherings, or that he has lived in a Shar temple or anything like that: in that case, I would have either (a) assume myself that such things are possible in our setting, practically adapting the setting to him or (b) told him that I had different plans for the setting and ask him to adapt to it. But because nothing was agreed beforehand, during game I am not so keen in letting the players decide...

In the short argument we had a table, the slightly irritating thing was that his reaction was to cover his assumption with another: "oh come on, it's a major deity, it must have hundreds of followers and temples everywhere...". He didn't say it but perhaps he was also assuming that it must have high-level clerics somewhere, otherwise it's not "major" And it must have (anti)paladins, every religion has paladins! And they must make magic items and potions, every cleric can so every cleric does!

So here I am, trying to suggest nice not-obvious (to me at least...) ideas about how to be a non-evil follower of Shar that goes along well in a good-neutral party, and then having to struggle to make players accept that things don't have to be always the same in every single campaign...

 

[Raven Crowking]

Centaurs as chaotic neutral (sometimes good, sometimes evil) berserker barbarians isn't all that far-fetched.

No...it's mythologically accurate.

In any event, people know about the area that they are from. If your game is pre-industrial, there should be a lot of misconceptions about other areas/places/peoples and the things that live there/eat those other people.

IMHO. YMMV. YDMB.


RC

 

[Doug McCrae]

I may be a lame DM because I make things up on the spot like that.

Absolutely not. Much of a DM's job is extrapolation from a few pieces of information. In other words, making things up on the spot. It's impossible to prepare everything and too much preparation kills the spontaneity of interaction with the players. I've found my best sessions have been those for which I did the least work.

 

[Numion]

No...it's mythologically accurate.

In any event, people know about the area that they are from. If your game is pre-industrial, there should be a lot of misconceptions about other areas/places/peoples and the things that live there/eat those other people.

I understand what you're saying, that's realistic etc.. but I can imagine that it would get tiresome pretty fast. I wouldn't advocate players knowing the MM front to back either, but somekind of compromise. Make assumptions about centaurs, yes, but probably don't blurt out their dietary choices (not to mention game stats). I would never want my players to feign surprise everytime they encounter a kobold or orc or zombie for the first time.

Some designated DMs underestimate the ability of players to switch to DMing and back to playing, thinking that it's difficult to disregard the DMs information to a reasonable degree. The fact that I've DMed D&D hasn't affected my enjoyability of playing one bit - it's easy to suppress parts of DM knowledge (or alternatively I just never bothered to learn MM like I should've) to play a beginning adventurer.

IMHO. YMMV. YDMB.

This seems to be your standard disclaimer now. Been in too many 'ENWorld threads gone wild'?

(I know I have)