When a great session goes awry.

[Greg K]

Yeah, the players always have a way of doing the unexpected which is why I love to GM.

Thankfully, I have never had a problem with "lone wolf" characters in our group and neither have the other two GMs. The key for us is that we, as GMs, find a character based reasons for the group to work together based upon the campaign background and the character's background. Granted, at some point a character's goals or beliefs might come into conflict with the rest of the party and result in the character leaving the party. As GMs we try to
a) switch between the group and the single player bringing the interest of the single player back where he needs to reunite with the group; or
b) have the player retire the character and create a new one. If the player cannot find a reason for the new character to work with the party give him or her a reason based on the character and game world.

Thankfully, only once in fifteen years of our group being together and five campaigns has a GM had to forcibly retire two characters (two of the characters murdered an NPC while two others tried to protect the NPC and one character stood by not sure which side to take. There was no way that the group was ever going to work together so the GM retired the two attacking PCs and turned them into NPC adversaries).
Despite this one occassion, it has usually been the case in our group of a player deciding that his character's goals no longer meshed with the current desire of the party and voluntarily decided to retire the character. In such a case the GM, has let the player create a new character at the same level as the retired character
For example, one character's goal was to learn, who had murdered his father and get revenge. Since, the party had saved his life, the character had decided to aid the rest of the party survive their journey in the desert and find who was responsible for the giants attacking the parties homeland. Once the character and party learned that the same person was behind both the murder and the attack of the giants they learned that they had a common goal-- remove the vizier. After several adventures, the vizier was killed and evidence was produced regarding both the vizier's activities and his role in the character's murder. The party wanted to return north with information regarding a plot by the dark elves to create chaos and war in the realms before invading with their own forces. Now, there was a dilemma! Would the character join with the party and continue adventuring? The player decided no it did not fit with the character's goals and background and, therefore, suggested that the character be retired. Since the one player volunarily retired the character he was allowed to create a new character at the same experience level.

 

[RangerWickett]

I do often make assumptions on what the party will do; I know the players well, and it helps me assure that there'll be cool stuff wherever the group goes. This time, I had guessed they would end up going after the gnome, and would face one of the three warriors in a nice, chaotic battle inside a steel factory.

Instead, they didn't, and we dealt with it in a rather fun way. I don't feel bad about beating down the party; in fact, I think the group was getting a little too confident in their prowess, and it makes sense that there'd be people out there would could kick their butts. It is very impressive what the concentrated firepower of even just two PCs can do to one villain, and I was surprised that they managed to take down one of the warriors.

It was fun. I think next session it isn't that important that the PCs be held captive for long. I don't want to kill any of the PCs, which is what would happen logically if the villains got a chance to interrogate them and discovered the PCs didn't have any information. So if I can use the capture as a chance to actually give the PCs information, that's groovy, but otherwise I'll concoct a way to have the PCs get free early next session.

Hmm. Planning planning, they all fall down.

Reminder to self, it's Sid Minos and Alais Primos. And Kasvarina.

 

[Chimera]

I'll never understand why players create characters that aren't designed to work with other PCs. It just makes no sense to me. I had a player once whose PC submission I sent back three times in a row with instructions to "find a reason to adventure with the rest of the group." At the fourth Lone Wolf submission, I uninvited him to the game.

I know the loner PC is only a small part of your frustration, but the syndrome resonates with me. Call it one of my many -- many -- pet peeves.

I'm with you. My Homebrew Player's Handbook spells out that these types of characters are not allowed. Period. I say very clearly that if you can't think of a reason why your character is adventuring with the group, scrap the character concept and start over.

And if someone couldn't get that message, to the point of submitting his fourth non-compliant PC, I too would disinvite him from my game. That kind of person would prove to be nothing but trouble.

 

[Chimera]

I guess the only thing that upsets me is that the party's been divided, and one of the PCs who got away is the guy who really doesn't want to be with the rest of the group. It will be hard to plan next session.

My question for that player would be;

"So what is your new character going to look like?"

Hey, he can rejoin the group, come up with a new character who WILL join the group, or leave the game. You aren't obligated to run a split campaign just for him.

 

[barsoomcore]

"No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy."

Heh.

 

[RangerWickett]

Oh, two other things. The 'rules of DMing' are guidelines we both agree are good to follow if you don't want to piss of the players. Players get incredibly frustrated with losing -- D&D is a power fantasy for a lot of people, and getting beaten is not fun. It's only good if the players then get a chance to take revenge.

If you capture the PCs more than once in a given game, they'll hate you. If you have a villain beat them but leave them alive more than once, they'll not trust your threats.

Thankfully, one of the PCs has something in his head that makes it so the villains can't kill the party. They don't know which PC it is, so they need to capture them. Ah, I now have my hook for how the villains will inadvertently reveal for whom it is they are working.

Anyway, the problem is that the PC who wants to get away from the group has a good reason to want to get away. He's the one with the voice in his head - the mind of a person the villains want to capture. It's all a little complicated, but basically the PC has no good reason to stick around and stay where the villains can capture and lobotomize him. If his character leaves, I suppose I could ask if the player wants a new character, and then make a key part of the plot trying to find the old character before the villains do. But I probably ought to have the DMing chops to give his character a reason to want to stay.