Typical Player Behavior, or Bad Roleplaying?

[Numion]

I'm not annoyed at the group as a whole, just at the one guy, since I think he's not playing his pseudo-Lawful-Good-Cleric appropriately.

This is pretty strange. You purposefully have taken alignments from the game, but you still seem quite eager to lash your players for perceived alignment infractions. Kinda catch-22, don't you think? There's no alignment to stick to, but still they should follow some code only you know or else .. angels will drop from the skies to take your stuff

Secondly, I find it pretty strange that you would expect a cleric of Supreme Good God to participate in a prison break scenario.

 

[Numion]

Have the previous PC killed and return as an undead (possibly a Revenant) who cannot rest until he regains all his previous possessions in life. Then leave it up to the PCs if they want to give up their stuff or deal with the Revenant on a daily/weekly basis.

So let me get this straight: Person A gives B his stuff. A dies. A comes back as a revenant to get back the stuff he gave to B. Alrighty then :\

 

[Agback]

The point of this game is to have fun, right? You're gaming with friends, right? Don't try to "teach your players a lesson." I'd approach them, explain that you screwed up by allowing the old PC to transfer items to new PC, and tell them that kind of thing won't fly in the future. The player might be convinced to give the old items back, or he might not. But it's just a couple of magic items and shouldn't cause you this much trouble.

Hammerhead has hit the nail right on the head. Don't let the 'master' bit in 'dungeonmaster' go to your head. You are playing a game with your friends, not bringing them up.

In choosing between those options, keep sight of this: a game is not fun if the PCs are pushed around by powerful NPCs. If you establish that the good guy NPCs have planar allies to send on trivial errands that will suck all the juice out of the good guys sending the PCs on missions. If the NPCs can rescue the cleric so trivially, why did they ask the PCs to do it in the first place? The PCs are already in enough trouble with the government.

I must say that I would not have kept the retired ex-PC and his concerns at the centre of the action. The player retired that charcter because he and his situation were not fun. Don't try to make them stay there. Because they'll stop having fun, and stop playing your game. I think you are pushing too hard, and would be well advised to back off fast.

You do seem to have painted yourself into a corner with the Speak with Dead thing. I suggest that you let teh PCs flee into a neighbouring country as Sinhue the Egyptian did, have a bunch of wild adventures in foreign lands, and come back after a change of government.

 

[S'mon]

I think you need to recall that you defined Ahura-Mazda-ism as Lawful as well as Good, and if the PC wants to be Lawful and not Chaotic Good, that's their choice. If they know a bit about actual Zoroastrianism it's even less surprising. I don't see any bad behaviour here.

 

[S'mon]

Secondly, I find it pretty strange that you would expect a cleric of Supreme Good God to participate in a prison break scenario.

Especially as he's also the Supreme God of Law (or more precisely, in this religion Goodness and Law are the same thing). I think you're misapplying a Neutral/Chaotic view of Good to a LG belief system in which violently opposing the legitimate authorities could well be unthinkable, as well as a bad idea on utilitarian grounds.

On the magic item thing, if a player wants PCs to swap items (which has never happened) I'd get the player to think up a pre-existing connection between the PCs that could justify it, otherwise (and this is how I've always done it) I say the old PC is now an NPC and goes off taking their items with them. Your mistake was letting the player have both PCs as PCs under their control simultaneously.

 

[sword-dancer]

Except that, the rest of the party knows she's been imprisoned. They go to the city a few days later, and see their old former-PC friend chained up in the marketplace, being deprived of food and water until she agrees to give the names of other rebels (i.e. the player characters). (And if she dies of starvation and dehydration, the government will use "Speak with Dead" on her to find out the info anyway.) The party goes to the former-PC's temple to ask them for help, and all the priests are outraged to find out what happened, but they worship a pacifistic god, and the high priestess tells them that they can't directly confront the government; instead they'll just have to try to plead for mercy on the former-PC's part.

We`re speaking of eygypt middle-old realm?
What had telling(like giving a direct order) the Governor of the city for a problem with pacifistic faith,You`ve to give is our Priest,NOW! JUMP!
Or if he is a priest calling the other highpriests and let them say this together, with the probability that the High Priests of Bastet or Horus etc, send a few soldiers to enforce the order.

Now, since there are no alignments, I can't *force* or railroad the players into having their characters act a certain way..

Even If you`d alignment this would be wrong.

But I thought it would be more in-character for the Priestess of the Supreme God of Good to at least *try* to convince the other PCs to rescue the hapless prisoner (Instead, she had this complicated excuse where she said she didn't want to interfere with the complicated political situation and possibly kill innocent guards, and she hoped that maybe the temple of the former-PC's religion would be able to help the former PC, etc.)

1st See above, he is clearly right under my POV of egypt.
2 He is Ahura Mazda, which is IIRC Persian, which means the egypt gods were wrong gods for him.

 

[ptolemy18]

Sorry, but I am joining in with the "stop the railroading* chorus. You are planning on penalizing them for not following your plot hooks, the way you want them followed. Such is the life of a DM....

So, you are made because a lawful good cleric is not going to try and have a jailbreak for a cleric arrested for attacking city guards....?? And there is an entire church trying to help out the 'criminal', but a 5th level priest will be able to save the day?

Um... it's called heroic roleplaying. The **PCs** are supposed to be the ones who save the day, whenever possible. Of course I *could* have the NPCs save the priest, but first the opportunity has to get dangled in the PCs' faces.

About the "attacking city guards" thing -- as I said, the whole government is corrupt. What actually happened was that the PCs got involved in a fight with government-employed hobgoblin mercenaries who were trying to capture a sympathetic anti-government rebel.

Lastly -- I never said that the plot depends upon the PCs rescuing their old friend. Not at all. Actually, in some ways it'd be more convenient if they didn't because I don't have a really clear idea of how to run a "running battle against the evil government" campaign (though I could if it ends up going that way). I just think IT'S BAD ROLEPLAYING FOR THE CLERIC OF THE "SUPREME GOD OF GOOD" NOT TO WANT TO RESCUE THE PERSON WHO GENEROUSLY GAVE HER ALL HER MAGIC ITEMS.

Jason

 

[ptolemy18]

This is pretty strange. You purposefully have taken alignments from the game, but you still seem quite eager to lash your players for perceived alignment infractions. Kinda catch-22, don't you think? There's no alignment to stick to, but still they should follow some code only you know or else .. angels will drop from the skies to take your stuff Secondly, I find it pretty strange that you would expect a cleric of Supreme Good God to participate in a prison break scenario.

Basically, the Cleric of the Supreme God of Good is the only person who has to obey anything like an "alignment." When the player chose to play that character I told him that, as a secret between me & him, his god was the only "true" good god in the pantheon and that he would get certain bonuses if he roleplayed it properly.

This is just my personal campaign-interpretation of Ahura-Mazda, of course. It's true that the situation is not entirely clear from a historical angle.

Jason

 

[billd91]

I just think IT'S BAD ROLEPLAYING FOR THE CLERIC OF THE "SUPREME GOD OF GOOD" NOT TO WANT TO RESCUE THE PERSON WHO GENEROUSLY GAVE HER ALL HER MAGIC ITEMS.

I think there may be a difference between going in and rescuing vs trying to arrange the NPC's release through negotiation. And if the political situation is delicate to begin with, I can understand the PC not wanting to do that either.

The PCs might feel that their hands are relatively tied on this one considering the temple priests have more political weight to bring to bear on the government, the situation is very public, and they are the rebels being sought after in the first place. They either have to go in metaphorical guns blazing (potentially very risky for themselves and anyone else around them, including soldiers who might just be doing their jobs without being the ones involved in the corruption) or they have to back off and hope the peaceful method works.

It might be better for them, from a role-playing perspective, to lay low for a while. After all, that NPC (former PC) did know the risks.

 

[delericho]

In my view, you've made a whole bunch of mistakes. The important things to do are to recognise the mistakes so you don't make them again, and decide on a course of actions going forward.

Firstly, I'm running a game with no alignments, because it's a pseudo-historical game (Ancient Egypt) and I wanted the relations between different countries & factions to be fairly cutthroat.

There's nothing in the alignment system to preclude this. Still, if you want to ditch alignment, that's fair enough.

Anyway.... one of the PCs recently was retired by the player, who introduced a new PC to take their place. The old PC was a basically good cleric; the new PC is a cleric of a different religion, who worships Ahura-Mazda, Supreme God of Good. I've told the player that, although there is no alignment system, I will give him certain abilities (the ability to spontaneously cast spells of either of his cleric domains) as long as he roleplays the character in a suitably pseudo-lawful-good fashion.

Right. First two mistakes.

1) If you're ditching alignment, then ditch alignment. Don't ditch alignment, and then talk the player into behaving according to the LG alignment. (What you should have done is defined a suitable code of conduct for each of the gods, effectively replacing the alignment restrictions for Clerics. In fact, you should do this whether you use alignment or not - none of the alignments are so monolithic as to fully define a religion.)

2) Don't give out game-mechanical bonuses for role-playing 'penalties'. Either the PC will do what he's going to do anyway, and get something for nothing, or at some point you'll have to take away the benefit, and deal with complaints from the player.

The old PC and the new PC meet up for about two hours' time, in-character. The old PC, who is retiring, gives the new PC (who she has never met before) her magic items since she is 'retiring from adventuring'. :/ Since the new PC is taking the old PC's place as the party cleric, this is borderline acceptable, I guess. (Although maybe this is where I made my mistake...)

Yep, mistake 3. As soon as the new PC is on the scene, the old PC is retired, and is therefore an NPC. This prevents the issue even arising.

Later the same night, however, the old PC (still being player intermittently by the player) goes off to talk to some government officials to plead for mercy in the case of an NPC who has been accused of treason. Instead of being friendly, the officials cast "Zone of Truth" on her, find out that she was involved with a fight with some government troops a few sessions ago, and throw her in prison. End of the old PC.

Neat trick. Sadly, creatures affected by Zone of Truth are aware of the effect, and are not compelled to answer questions - only to speak the truth if they speak at all. So, this is unlikely. Still, it does get rid of the PC.

Except that, the rest of the party knows she's been imprisoned. They go to the city a few days later, and see their old former-PC friend chained up in the marketplace, being deprived of food and water until she agrees to give the names of other rebels (i.e. the player characters). (And if she dies of starvation and dehydration, the government will use "Speak with Dead" on her to find out the info anyway.)

Again, Speak with Dead allows a save, and since Will saves are good for Clerics, this is likely to not work.

The party goes to the former-PC's temple to ask them for help, and all the priests are outraged to find out what happened, but they worship a pacifistic god, and the high priestess tells them that they can't directly confront the government; instead they'll just have to try to plead for mercy on the former-PC's part.

Now, at this point, I expected the party to get in a debate: should they try to help/rescue the former PC, or should they not bother? I was really prepared for either way. What surprised & irritated me as DM was that the player who used to play the imprisoned PC, who's now playing the Priestess of the Supreme God of Good, *didn't* want to rescue the old PC. :/

More fool them. At some point, their friend will implicate them, and they get to enjoy the 'justice' of their kingdom.

From a good-play point of view, the PCs should have gone to rescue their friend, and co-conspirator. At the worst, they should have gone to make sure he couldn't inform on them. Either way, they really should have acted. The only one who can be excused, in fact, is the new PC, but even in his case, there are two good reasons he should have acted.

However, and this is the important point, it's the player's choice.

Now, since there are no alignments, I can't *force* or railroad the players into having their characters act a certain way.

This is your most spectacular mistake. Alignments or no, the DM never has the right to "force" a PC to take a particular action (exception: domination-magic). You get to control everything else about the world - the players have free reign over their PCs.

Now, the key question is where you go from here. I recommend the following:

1) Write up proper codes of behaviour for the deities in your setting. These don't have to be long, but they should be sufficient for your task. One of the key benefits of not using alignments is that you should feel freer to build complex moral codes - a deity might institute all manner of codes of justice as they relate to one group, but then advocate that their followers commit all manner of atrocities against outsiders, for example. This is possible using alignments, but it is easier without. This solves your problem with pseudo-alignments.

2) Take the ex-PC out of the campaign as soon as possible. It doesn't really matter how you do it, but get rid of him. Kill him off, have him rescued by others, have the PCs rescue him and then have him ride off into the sunset, whatever. The sooner he's gone, the better for your campaign.

3) Don't do anything to take back the magic items from the PCs. You shouldn't have let them get them, but what's done is done. For a while, cut back on the treasure the PCs get, until they're back at the 'right' level.

And that's about it. Forget about this situation and move on. Your campaign will benefit from it.