ptolemy18 said:
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...)
Mechanically, there's absolutely nothing wrong with this. The new PC is going to need to be suitably equipped for his level anyway, so whether the equipment comes form the former PC or from off-camera adventures is beside the point. The old PC was suitably equipped, now the new PC is suitably equipped. There's no issue here, certainly not one that needs to be corrected.
Now, if the old PC was
over-equipped, and you're disgruntled because now the new PC is over-equipped as well, then that's an entirely different issue that can be dealt with quite cleanly in-game.
Or is the entire problem here the fact that you don't think it's reasonable for one person to give their most valuable belongings to another person after having only met them for a few hours? It's a justifiable opinion, but a good DM knows that it isn't his job to determine (outside of [Compulsion] and [Charm] magic,) what actions are reasonable for the PCs. Players determine what actions are reasonable for PCs. The DM determines what actions are reasonable for
NPCs because of or in spite of the PCs.
In the case of your campaign, I suggest that you completely set aside your feelings about the appropriateness of what the old PC did, and instead fairly and unbiasedly continue to adjudicate your NPCs' actions. Most likely, that won't involve unwarranted retributive strikes against the PCs for actions NPCs couldn't have known about and wouldn't care about, but only you would know for sure.
Now, since there are no alignments, I can't *force* or railroad the players into having their characters act a certain way. 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.)
As a DM, your job is to judge the PCs' actions based on the general guidelines you've given them. In this case, I think you are instead judging the PC based on what
you would have done. Remember that just because a PC doesn't do what you would have done, or follow the reasoning you would have followed, doesn't mean the PC has failed to live up to the ideals they are supposed to be following.
In the case of your campaign, the PC has explained her actions. She didn't think the Supreme God of Good would want her to kill innocent guardsmen (only doing their jobs to feed their families...and often the only way to
do that under a corrupt government is to work for the government,) in order to free the former PC. She still held out hope that the former PC's Temple, a powerful political force in the city, could enact the former PC's release.
Now, you may find this reasoning less heroic than you might have liked, but it certainly still fits in with the criteria you gave the player to work with. Punishing the PC for not behaving exactly as you would have done accomplishes nothing, since it's unlikely the player will
ever be able to perfectly anticipate how you would handle every situation. So long as she's thought things through and has [Good] reasons for acting the way she does, that should be enough.
If, on the whole, the game becomes or has become less heroic than you'd like, that's something to discuss with the players out of the game, not something to wordlessly punish the PCs for in-game.
Out of character, I think the player of the former PC is just tired of having to deal with the old PC and wants to put the situation behind him. But since THE FORMER PC GAVE ALL HER MAGIC ITEMS TO THE GUY'S NEW PC I THINK THAT THE NEW PC WOULD BE SLIGHTLY MORE WILLING TO GO OUT ON A LIMB TO HELP HER!!!
Again, perhaps if you were playing the PCs in question, this may be true. In the case of the actual player of these PCs, apparently not. You might build on this. Perhaps the PCs encounter the former PC's brother. They need his help and ask him to trust them, and he snorts derisively. "I've heard about how you treat your friends." The situation is something that can add to the background of the campaign, but is, again, not something to punish the players for, outside of reasonable consequences to their actions.
It just kind of pisses me off that the player of the "Supreme God of Good" PC would come up with, IMHO, lame & un-heroic justifications for not getting involved. I've set myself up for it by playing a game without alignments, of course. :/
The lack of alignments doesn't really play into it. Just because you haven't given behaviors simple labels doesn't mean there are no longer good and evil actions or beings in the world. They're merely no longer easily, undeniably identified as such. I think some players/DMs make the mistake of thinking that without alignment, there no longer
are such things as good and evil. Everything is just "kinda friendly" or "not so nice" and nothing can be judged. This simply isn't true. In a world without alignment, defining what is morally acceptable and unacceptable becomes even more prominent.
*ahem* So as I said, the issue isn't with the fact that you've done away with alignments. The issue here is that you don't think the PC's reasons are good enough. Indeed, you don't think they're valid reasons at all, but merely "justifications" for improper behavior. If this is true, then you need to ask yourself if the player/PC feels the same. i.e. does the player feel his PC is just "making excuses" or does the player truly believe that such reasons are a valid reason not to act? If the latter, then you need to sit down with your player and work out what kinds of actions the Supreme Good of God endorses. What kinds of behavior the god looks for in his followers. Clearly, there's been a miscommunication somewhere. Let this incident slide, and take care to ensure that the player understands in the future what kinds of actions please the god, (heroic, bold, saving those who have been unjustly incarcerated even at the possible expense of lives, etc.) and what actions displease him. Things should run more smoothly in the future. And if the PC still behaves inapprpriately, then have his powers reflect that. But by that point the
player should be very conscious of what is happening, and why.
