The tale of the Cabbage-dwarf
(Because clearly I should continue using this space to tell stories about my D&D game.)
In the style of my gaming advice posts, although this is an anecdote rather than a request for advice, let me introduce you to the characters:
We take turns running the game (Rino's player is our current GM), and we try to play with subjective morality as much as possible -- so Detect Evil really turns out more like Detect Smitability (this does mean that the GM needs to have a fairly good idea of what everybody's gods think about stuff, so as to return the correct opinions). So when Chou's player joined the game and said she wanted to play an evil character, we said, "Sure, but be aware that the paladin has to try to reform you once he finds out, and we probably need to talk outside of game to keep things in balance."
So, Chou. We met him at the home of one of Rino's friends, and he started traveling with us once his spiritual mentor abandoned him to finish his pilgrimage alone, with only a highly inaccurate map for guidance. He seemed a fairly standard grumpy and taciturn dwarf at first, except that he wore a cabbage on his head as a sign of his devotion to the Cabbage Lord (a god none of the rest of us had previously heard of). He was the chosen Migrator, which meant that he needed to go to the Cabbage Temple at the Elvish Ends of the Earth and plant cabbage seeds. We didn't really know where that was, and neither did he (beyond the inaccurate map from his spiritual mentor), but Rino thought his father would know, so Chou tagged along when we went to see Rino's father.
Of course, there were warning signs. Out of character I'd decided to try to avoid hitting Chou with Detect Evil (because who detects evil at random people they meet unless they're expecting to be attacked or something?) for as long as possible, hopefully until there was some sort of party bond* to inform my reaction to the information. But there were non-magically-assisted signs. In a conversation about a recent civil war, Chou said it was "good business," and rephrased as "bloody business" when questioned. But we could pass that off as a translation error -- it wasn't his first language, or Ath's, and you don't go around assuming people like civil wars. Then there was the time he attacked a sphinx Perk was trying to talk to "because it was ugly". That got him a yelling lecture from Ath, because who does that?, but he seemed willing to mend his ways.
And then we got to Rino's father's village, and Emgeri and Rino and Rino's father (= Emgeri's grandfather) had some awkward family conflict time, and the rest of us tried to figure out what was going on with the main plot, and then that night we were attacked by mummies. (This was perhaps a bit a result of an out of character discussion of ways to try to get Chou to be more a part of the group. Things we came up with involved putting him in a position where he needed our help, or in a position where we would all be working to the same goal, e.g. winning the fight.)
It seemed like this had the desired result -- we defeated the mummies, but Chou acquired some kind of mummy disease/curse and we all banded together to try to do something to fix it. Ath even detected evil to try to figure out what was up with the curse, and assumed the result was the curse. And we were all going to race off to the Cabbage temple in the morning, because Chou said his reward for completing the Migration would cure him.
Well. That didn't happen. Because when Chou went to ask Rino's father for directions, he decided the man was untrustworthy -- so clearly violence was the only way of getting the truth. And the relatives clearly weren't going to be okay with this, whatever their personal feelings about the man. And Ath is severely not okay with torture because of consequences of past adventures.
So after a lot of awesome in character conflict and arguments, we've headed our separate ways. Chou's been abandoned to Eeelvish justice, and/or the mummy curse. Ath and Emgeri and presumably Perk (she wasn't here last week) are heading off to follow the main plot, if only because Ath said he was doing so and Emgeri wouldn't leave him (despite calling him an idiot). We look forward to meeting the replacement/temporary character, "calm, rational, nice mercenary".
And we'll see what happens with the cabbage seeds.
*This might have worked better if we hadn't introduced Chou right before a long bit of mostly elided traveling, where presumably everyone was getting to know him in-character, but we didn't actually see it.
In the style of my gaming advice posts, although this is an anecdote rather than a request for advice, let me introduce you to the characters:
- Ath, human paladin/rogue.
- Chou, dwarf fighter.
- Emgeri, human ranger/fighter.
- Perk, gnome/halfling cleric/bard.
- Rino, half-elf scout (and Emgeri's uncle).
We take turns running the game (Rino's player is our current GM), and we try to play with subjective morality as much as possible -- so Detect Evil really turns out more like Detect Smitability (this does mean that the GM needs to have a fairly good idea of what everybody's gods think about stuff, so as to return the correct opinions). So when Chou's player joined the game and said she wanted to play an evil character, we said, "Sure, but be aware that the paladin has to try to reform you once he finds out, and we probably need to talk outside of game to keep things in balance."
So, Chou. We met him at the home of one of Rino's friends, and he started traveling with us once his spiritual mentor abandoned him to finish his pilgrimage alone, with only a highly inaccurate map for guidance. He seemed a fairly standard grumpy and taciturn dwarf at first, except that he wore a cabbage on his head as a sign of his devotion to the Cabbage Lord (a god none of the rest of us had previously heard of). He was the chosen Migrator, which meant that he needed to go to the Cabbage Temple at the Elvish Ends of the Earth and plant cabbage seeds. We didn't really know where that was, and neither did he (beyond the inaccurate map from his spiritual mentor), but Rino thought his father would know, so Chou tagged along when we went to see Rino's father.
Of course, there were warning signs. Out of character I'd decided to try to avoid hitting Chou with Detect Evil (because who detects evil at random people they meet unless they're expecting to be attacked or something?) for as long as possible, hopefully until there was some sort of party bond* to inform my reaction to the information. But there were non-magically-assisted signs. In a conversation about a recent civil war, Chou said it was "good business," and rephrased as "bloody business" when questioned. But we could pass that off as a translation error -- it wasn't his first language, or Ath's, and you don't go around assuming people like civil wars. Then there was the time he attacked a sphinx Perk was trying to talk to "because it was ugly". That got him a yelling lecture from Ath, because who does that?, but he seemed willing to mend his ways.
And then we got to Rino's father's village, and Emgeri and Rino and Rino's father (= Emgeri's grandfather) had some awkward family conflict time, and the rest of us tried to figure out what was going on with the main plot, and then that night we were attacked by mummies. (This was perhaps a bit a result of an out of character discussion of ways to try to get Chou to be more a part of the group. Things we came up with involved putting him in a position where he needed our help, or in a position where we would all be working to the same goal, e.g. winning the fight.)
It seemed like this had the desired result -- we defeated the mummies, but Chou acquired some kind of mummy disease/curse and we all banded together to try to do something to fix it. Ath even detected evil to try to figure out what was up with the curse, and assumed the result was the curse. And we were all going to race off to the Cabbage temple in the morning, because Chou said his reward for completing the Migration would cure him.
Well. That didn't happen. Because when Chou went to ask Rino's father for directions, he decided the man was untrustworthy -- so clearly violence was the only way of getting the truth. And the relatives clearly weren't going to be okay with this, whatever their personal feelings about the man. And Ath is severely not okay with torture because of consequences of past adventures.
So after a lot of awesome in character conflict and arguments, we've headed our separate ways. Chou's been abandoned to Eeelvish justice, and/or the mummy curse. Ath and Emgeri and presumably Perk (she wasn't here last week) are heading off to follow the main plot, if only because Ath said he was doing so and Emgeri wouldn't leave him (despite calling him an idiot). We look forward to meeting the replacement/temporary character, "calm, rational, nice mercenary".
And we'll see what happens with the cabbage seeds.
*This might have worked better if we hadn't introduced Chou right before a long bit of mostly elided traveling, where presumably everyone was getting to know him in-character, but we didn't actually see it.