Episode 30

[codered]

    I liked episode 30 about  Broken players and balance. I'm a balanced player that likes to role play and fight.
I'm playing a 3.5 game right now with people I just met in college, my problem is that one of the players makes characters just for role play. Were not all technically evil but our group leans that way except Mr. RP, well since he plays a chaotic good character he likes to through wrenches in our plans not that he ruins them he just makes us work harder to get them finished (because we just cant kill the bum in the street any more that would be bad). Needless to say i had an opportunity to kill Mr. RP's character and did so while he was sleeping( he wanted to try another character how convenient).

So what does is  he create a bard, not a useful bard but a heroic beefed up bard with feats in endurance and diehard and other feats like those. specifically made for role-play and totally useless for fighting. O and he's good  (so we have to pull the Gamers 2 stuff like what they did with the paladin)

what do we do with RP heavy characters like this one that is overly made for RP and were stuck trying to keep him alive in the game??

[Maze]

I see nothing wrong with a RP character as long as he's in sync with the group and accept the fact he'll have nothing much to do during the fights.

The only problem I see with his character his that he's at odd with the group in terms of objectives, and the social contract isn't there. Unless you guys are the basic D&D combat heavy, there should be no problem for a non-combatant character. The GM can always give him something to do during the fight... or a crossbow. If he's being suicidal on top of trying to go against the group, talk to him and if it fails, he shouldn't even be playing if its ruining the fun for all.

If all else fails, try the good old "jamming-a-fork-in-the-eye" trick. It's a real eye-opener.

[clockworkjoe]

Yeah, the problem sounds like everyone wants to do A while the bard player wants to do B. You should try to handle this outside of the game by figuring out if there's a way to mesh A and B so that everyone can have fun.

[Maze]

I might even got so far as calling that "C". Where everyone is having fun.

A > B

AB = C

A + B < C

[Setherick]

Yeah, the problem sounds like everyone wants to do A while the bard player wants to do B. You should try to handle this outside of the game by figuring out if there's a way to mesh A and B so that everyone can have fun.

We had a great role player playing with us once that had absolutely no combat ability, which actually was the players whole M.O. from the beginning. (In fact, at one point Jason had to figure the guy's gained stats from leveling and XP.) What Ross did that made the game so worthwhile was give us a number of scenarios that could be resolved either through brute force or through some form of social interaction.

Two moments stand out the most about that game and the RP heavy character. The first is when he bought a no-armed orc from a group of slave traders, which was great amusement for all of us. The bad puns were toppled by Ross mistakenly saying, "Cassius takes an attack of opportunity because he is unarmed." In another moment, the RP heavy character befriended an orphan who attempted to kill him on the street and made the orphan his protoge. He and the orphan then tricked a rich man into giving up a lot of money to him by pretending to be a high priest of a made up church. The RP character's high social skills allowed him then to more than successfully interact with people in ways the combat junkies couldn't.

Of course, my character who was designed for both RP and combat hated the RP heavy character. But it was more because my character and the RP character had different ethical stances. It was a game that didn't feature alignments, but he played his character mostly on the side of evil, while mine was played mostly on the side of good. At one point, my character actually gave up his soul in order to advance our party through a quest, which made for an interesting scenario:

Ross: What do you do?

(All the other PCs huddle talking)

Me: I'll give up my soul.

(All the other PCs ignore this.)

Ross: Really?

Me: Yes.

Spokesman for the other PCs: OK, here's the plan...

Ross: It doesn't matter anymore, the soulless wander accepts your gift and tells you the secret on how to move through the dungeon.

[wrotenbe]

The first time I run a system I have an 'anything goes' policy, because I like seeing the broken shit in person and how it works on the table rather than just reading on the interwebz. I let the players bend, break and fuck the game as much as they want, and most often it does end up going down in flames. That's why I always make these one or two shot games, just to get it out of their system, let them feel the rush for that fleeting moment. The next game though, out comes the rack and cat 'o nine tails at chargen, and if they try to make something broken again I can just remind them about the last game and usually I can get the support of the mob to back me up.

[codered]

 I guess I can just give him a break  and if all else fails i can just kill this character also. muhahahahah

P.S Kenders should be killed with rocks

[Maze]

I guess I can just give him a break  and if all else fails i can just kill this character also. muhahahahah

P.S Kenders should be killed with rocks

Have I mentioned my Sailor Moon RPG campaign? ... It's got rules for pre-marital butt sex.

(Think I've got any shame, Ross?)

[codered]

Just figured out how to do that... thanks


Hey you messed with my post lol funny guy


Kenders should kill you with rocks 

[clockworkjoe]

Hey, editing posts is fun!

[Maze]

I just stepped it up a notch. 

[Boyos]

well I  must say all you guys at RPPR have helped keep me up at night, im the overnight guard at the local springfield mall. Anyways great episode guys, I have only had a few problems with people realy ever happen in my groups. the one that allways sticks out is the time we had our dm's brother playing a druid in 3.0. we were going up aginst an evil cleric that was turned into a vampire (who was a previous pc of mine so my new pally was realy wanting to fight it). he was about 150 feet away from us on the other side of a castle wall between us was 2 hydras across from each other on opiset sides of the outer wall. the only way to the cleric was to walk on one side of the wall kill the hydra while still in range of the other hydra across from us. earlyer in the campain the ranger who had terrible con was lucky enough to get a flying carpet. the druid in the group remembering this decided to ask the ranger if he could jump on and fly over to the cleric. a few turns later they make it to the cleric the druid uses heal on him and bam the cleric is down to 1 health (due to being undead), the ranger then laughs and shoots the cleric. winning the battle with the cleric befor the rest of the team made it to the first hydra. the dm just sighed and banned heal from the rest of the game seeing meny of the mobs were undead. luckly we got 3.5 a few sessions later and it had a revised heal/harm in it.

realy it wasent the players fault, but more of the op abilitys. none the less you guys do a great job, and if you guys can have chris farmer send me an e-mail im an old high school buddie of his. keep up the good work!

[clockworkjoe]

well I  must say all you guys at RPPR have helped keep me up at night, im the overnight guard at the local springfield mall

Are...are you a mall ninja?

I just drove by there to pick up some late night McDonald's.

What's it like guarding a mall at night? I actually have an idea for a mall cop horror scenario.

[Boyos]

Haha, Well listing to george noory (560 AM Coast to Coast), CoC podcast, and various other spooky podcast it gets kinda creepy at night, and of course the claims that the mall is haunted. I have never seen anything, but there are some good storys. If you saw the truck out there with the flashing lights on that was me, your more then welcome to swing by and say hi, im usuly not busy. if you do make a horror based mall scenario put in cats, there is allways stray cats out here. It is pretty creepy in the mall late at night with the music off and the lights off, but it never goes full dark other then down by macys. wich I dont usuly walk down there once the lights are off.