Rotten Apple?

[Newbie]

Hello Everyone
I haven’t played in a game in quite awhile, although I have recently been inspired to run a lower magic campaign, this will have little effect on the actual spell casting classes, and a greater effect on the availability of magic items.

I have run into something I foresee as becoming a problem, one character wants to be a holy cleric of some undetermined FR god, and another player wants to be an honorable Knight like character, playing a fighter but actually adopting a heavy portion of the knights code from PHB II, the last player is a player that I have never played with or DM for and he seems to have his heart set on playing a hexblade. A character that is known to be greedy, selfish, and cannot be good. I’m worried that this player will, cause nothing but trouble and end up dying all to quickly.

I have tried to talk him into other classes but it doesn’t seem to have any effect. He has also tried, to explain to me how being greed can be used in a good way (again to no effect). Has anyone ever run into a situation where one of the players throws off what would have been a solid functioning party?

I want a portion of the very first quest showing the characters exactly where they came from, a small farming village. So they have good sense of their roots and hopefully adopt a “underdog” and “protecting the weak” ideals. But I really don’t want to go through all of the trouble, if the character is just going to die in the first two or three quests and re-role.

If you have any good stories of these disastrous players I would love to hear them.

Or if you have any suggestions to how to get this player on the same page as the others or visa versa, that would also be good to hear. I wouldn’t mind if they were all bad, or all good, or all greedy or whatever, as long as they are on the same page, I have played in games where they oppose, and its not fun to always “Mom” them, and nor does it really fit roleplaying to just ignore them either.

Thanks for any help.
Newbie

 

[Darklone]

I had a party once of 9 similar players. Noone trusting each other nor working together.

It worked.

Try to propose to him some kind of ex criminal who's let outside under the watchful eye of the other two guys because some higher power needs his unique abilities.

 

[grimwell]

Kill his character(s). Repeatedly.

When I was in college and had players who insisted on playing the same character over and over again (in multiple campaigns and with different names if necessary) I made a house rule that you couldn't play the same class/race combo as the last four characters you played in my game. It was an open game where anyone could join (gamers club) so I'd kill disruptive characters that weren't in line with my *clearly noted ahead of time* "Good Guy Centric" campaign.

One of two things would happen. The player would either catch the clue and try something new for a change (and find that they still liked the game, and the new character), or the player would find a new game that suited their tastes/styles/needs.

Evil? Yes, it says that right next to my UPC barcode. "But... but Uncle Grimwell, the game is supposed to be about the players having fun!" Yup. If one player is ruining the fun of six others -- he stands for correction and I've got the dice of doom to deliver it.

Never once felt bad about it.

 

[Andre]

Does he want to play a hexblade because of the class abilities, or because of the flavor? If the former, simply work with the player to rewrite the flavor to fit the party. There's no reason the abilities couldn't be explained in any number of ways that do not require a non-good character. And greedy can be an interesting character quirk, so long as the player doesn't take it too far.

Regardless of his reasons for wanting this particular class, I would recommend stressing to all players that their characters must have reasons for working together - somthing in their backgrounds, motivations, whatever. I've had too many disastrous experiences with players who just wanted to disrupt things to ever waste my time that way again. Interpersonal conflict among characters can add to the game, so long as everyone is focused on everyone having fun.

 

[Corsair]

As the poster above me, but if re-writing it is too much of a chore, see if he'd be happy with a duskblade instead.

 

[Particle_Man]

A LN Hexblade could be as devoted to a Knightly code as any Knight (since knights also can be LN). Depending on the holy god, LN might fit in (you could have a LN, LG and NG spectrum without too much disruption).

The greedy thing might be a problem, though.

 

[Newbie]

Thanks they are some good ideas, I do like the killing him over and over idea.

I tried discussing his character with him, I got the impression that he liked the idea he had now real teacher and he was naturally gifted, and he also believed the combination of arcane and melee strength would give him a “ready to fight anything” idea, giving me the impression he wanted to be a one man army.


His example was that if he fought a powerful wizard he could just silence him and stab him to death, or if he fought a power melee opponent he could use his spells to weaken him then kill him in melee combat. I tried to explain splitting your stats between spell casting and melee would make him medicare at both and master of neither.

As I had said before he also tried to explain that being greedy could be used in a good way, like he would do good acts for people as long as they promised to do a favor for him later. I still don’t really see that.

I guess I’m not really worried about him being a hexblade specifically but more so to the respect that he would wants a soloing greedy character and sees nothing wrong with it.

 

[Aaron L]

In all honesty, Hexblades suck as a class. Convince him that Duskblade is a 5 fold improvement and have him play one of those. Keep the same flavor even.

If he still wants to play a Hex, just let him know you don't want a character that's going to screw with the other characters. Just because he can't be Good doesn't mean he has to be Evil.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

About your "Rotten Apple":

I think you have to make it clear to him that you will not tolerate him desrupting the story or the party just to roleplay the Avatar of Avarice. Let him play his character, but tell him that if you - or the players - think that the character doesn't fit, you reserve the right to take the character out of the party and make him roll up a new one. Also make it clear that if he actually ruins the game for others, you will kill his character and kick him out of the game. Might sound harsh, but it's better to kick out one guy than to let him kill the whole game.



About our "Rotten Apples":

There is/was one guy who just couldn't play a character that fit in. Ever. He always has to play something that somehow clashes with the rest. He's like that in real life, too.

For example, in his first game, a good FR group with my elven bladesinger and a half-elven druid, he played an elven wizard. Only, he didn't rever the elven gods, but something else (forgot which it was at first). He later took a level of cleric (for what I have to assume was power gaming reasons), and changed his deity - to Selûne (my tries to convert him to Corellon - the elven deity of magic, which would be perfect for an elven Wizard-Priest - were met with "I don't want to play a cookie-cutter character" answers). This character couldn't cast teleportation spells (prohibited schools) and so used shadow walk. Yes, a cleric of the Deity that is the shadow goddess's Nemesis used frikkin' shadow walk.) That char's alignment was CN - on the sheet. In actuality, it was CE, and the player had the character prepare to win the fight against my character when that one would start fighting the evil in their midst. Did I mention that there was a row - in-game and even a bit out of game - when my character destroyed a very evil sword (like, evil epic weapon abilities) instead of selling it?


Our next campaign was Star Gate (d20M houseruled), and he played an Irish IRA double agent that would steal stuff from the StarGate project to help the IRA out (and with "stuff" I mean "warheads" and the like)

The third character was a priestess of Eilistraee, the CG goddess of good-aligned drow who forsook their race's evil ways and underground home. Playing a cleric - a class that is as much about supporting others as it is about outfighting a fighter - is probably worse than the worst choice for him. He'd whine around every time he "had to heal someone", often insisting that we should convert to his faith or buy healing potions.

Right now, he is away for Uni most of the time, but I think I won't invite him back when next he's back - he just can't work in a team, and that's what D&D is all about.




There was another guy who played a minotaur (in AD&D), and min-maxed that thing so much that none of the other characters could defeat him. Then he proceeded to take all the treasure for himself, justifying it by saying he roleplays his greedy character. The fact that the DM wasn't the most confident person on earth didn't help at all. Eventually, the game had to be stopped because of that guy.

I didn't play in that game, and only occasionally had him in my team, but by all accounts, he always played to win. He tried to get away with using as much player knowledge as possible, tried to get something on the other characters, all that.

From what I heard, he didn't seem to be a nice player in board games and the like, either: If he couldn't win, he'd ruin everyone else's strategies.




And we had one player that lasted two sessions in my games. He was known only by one other player, who introduced him into the game.

The first session was my short Vampire: The Requiem "campaign" (more like testing the waters, seeing how I'd handle the WoD system). He kept complaining (read: serial whining) about how the old Vampire was so much cooler and better. Even though the new Vampire has the struggle against one's own beast hard-wired into the system (as opposed to being one choice - the one we always used in our games back then, even when it wasn't mandatory), he insisted on playing a criminal.

My idea of Vampire was a mix of "cool abilities" (a good ingredient in all RPGs), but also "walking the thin line", "keeping the beast in check", "cling to the last shreds of humanity", "getting to terms with the new situation". His idea was apparently "being a big bad invincible undead gangster who runs wild".


I already vaguely disliked him, but thought that it would go away, teething problems, readjusting to a different gamestyle. So the week after we were to play my main campaign (high-level D&D in the Realms).

It turns out that he didn't seem to know the rules (especially the revision - or those parts of the revision that took care of some serious problems) too well. And they played with some houserules, and he seemed to assume we would use them, too (or again, it was just that he didn't know the rules better, those two were hard to separate). And he didn't like my house rules.

And while you and me, when confronted with a ruling we thought would be different, would probably answer with "oh, didn't know that. What's the ruling exactly, then?", his usual answer was something like "WHAT?" or "SINCE WHEN?". The caps are intentional, as he didn't ask in a nice, or even surprised manner. It was more the tone you would adopt if your son told you that he impregnated his sister.

The best part was about gloves of storing.

"I get my weapon out as a free action and hit him"
"Do you have quick draw?"
"No, I got gloves of storing - they're cool, every character has them, first thing I get, they only coast 2000 gp"
"Uh, no, they cost 10.000 apiece"
"SINCE WHEN?"
"Since it's written in the book."
"No, they only cost 2000, I'd put my hands into the fire for that"
"And you'd get burned.... here, see? The DMG says 10.000"
"THAT SUCKS!"


He also complained - before starting to play - that the game was too much fighting (something his buddy told him), but nonetheless played a stupid, ugly half-orc barbarian. No, wait, make that barbarian/fighter (just enough levels of fighter to get weapon specialisation, of course...). And even though that thing was stupid, and not very wise, it seemed to have a decent grasp on tactics.

The character ended up blasted into catatonia by a wilder's ego whip (which, to my defense, was written up before the character was made. Before that character, I only had characters with above-average cha in the game, and two of those made nymps green with envy and were right up there with succubi, if not better). I disinvited him after that - after several players meant that they weren't confortable with him at the table, either.)