Hey, if you are making a world that supports characters acting evil? Then that's you, as the DM, enabling the character to act like a murder hobo. From the sounds of it, the player seems to be getting mixed messages here.
I know I am.
You said you don't want evil characters. So, you should enforce that ICly and OOCly.
While this is more of an out-of-character issue, and the player won't learn through in-game consequences, in-game consequences wouldn't hurt. For attacking a Good individual representing the law, I would drop the rogue a word from a friendly constable, telling them to get out of town before they're executed for the assault and framed for the murder. They should consider themselves banished from towns and civilizations in the country, period. If they don't comply, it's jail or execution. That at least gives them a chance to continue, when they reasonably shouldn't have one.
One more vote for an out of character discussion. The player is basically making the, “but that’s what my character would do” defense, which is a load of crap. The character didn’t reach a conclusion about how the world works, the player decided that the character came to that conclusion. The player can just as easily make a different decision, and allow the character to come to a different conclusion. One which doesn’t involve violence being the first solution to a problem.
The paladin player is a 14 year old kid playing with a bunch of 40+ crowd (including me); so I give him kudos for not simply jumping on the murder hobo bandwagon. And additional bonus, his character admitted to wrong-doing and vowed to make ammends. Plenty of grown men and women I've played with over the years would burn the world in flames before admiting they were on the wrong side of a fight.
Congrats to your paladin's player. It sounds like they did very well. It is also important for all of us in the community to remember that in 5E a paladin may not be lawful good as required in previous editions. Now, it depends on they Oath that the player chose for their character. If they are following the tenets of that oath, then they are playing their character well.
To the OP - I recommend this video from Matt Coleville on the "Wangrod" defense -- the "it's what my character would do" claim when a player is wrecking the game for everyone. It's not long and it explains how to deal with it quite well.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
The paladin player is a 14 year old kid playing with a bunch of 40+ crowd (including me); so I give him kudos for not simply jumping on the murder hobo bandwagon. And additional bonus, his character admitted to wrong-doing and vowed to make ammends. Plenty of grown men and women I've played with over the years would burn the world in flames before admiting they were on the wrong side of a fight.
Congrats to your paladin's player. It sounds like they did very well. It is also important for all of us in the community to remember that in 5E a paladin may not be lawful good as required in previous editions. Now, it depends on they Oath that the player chose for their character. If they are following the tenets of that oath, then they are playing their character well.
I still hate that. I don’t allow Paladins to be anything but LG. When people see a Paladin, they should know they are safe and protected, that's always been the point of the class (to me).
I also make them tithe, but through charity, not the church. The pally and Cleric is my 5e campaign have taken to building schools, wells, and hospitals in poor towns across the globe. They also spend time feeding and healing the sick when they have down time. If you give them a benefit to tithing, not just taking away gold, then you'll often see other good characters join it, like my parties half orc barbarian. He has no need to do so, he just enjoys it. Now, anywhere they go that they have helped people, they are invited to meals at peoples homes, offered free rooms at the inn, and these things can open up side quests, or give them new information, etc. After curing a plague (which turned out to be poisoned water), and stopping the source, the local smith, along with a Wizard, created a +1 lonsword for the Paladin, who is human, that creates light for 30' when out of the scabbard.
A bit off topic, but Paladins not being LG really irks me.
The paladin player is a 14 year old kid playing with a bunch of 40+ crowd (including me); so I give him kudos for not simply jumping on the murder hobo bandwagon. And additional bonus, his character admitted to wrong-doing and vowed to make ammends. Plenty of grown men and women I've played with over the years would burn the world in flames before admiting they were on the wrong side of a fight.
Congrats to your paladin's player. It sounds like they did very well. It is also important for all of us in the community to remember that in 5E a paladin may not be lawful good as required in previous editions. Now, it depends on they Oath that the player chose for their character. If they are following the tenets of that oath, then they are playing their character well.
I still hate that. I don’t allow Paladins to be anything but LG. When people see a Paladin, they should know they are safe and protected, that's always been the point of the class (to me).
But what is safe?
There are people who won't feel safe with a goody two shoes "it's all for the community" sort of Lawful good Player. Seeing someone who is willing to be selfish, but within the bounds of their oaths, is exactly the kind of thing that makes them feel safe. Yes, this paladin is evil but she's the kind of evil I can respect. She's the kind of evil I can look up to. She's the kind of evil I can "trust".
A glance at history shows a lot of "evil paladins" who were incredibly popular with some people despite their evil alignments (at least evil as we generally define it in DND).
Turning to combat as the "go to solution" sounds like it's not the way you and the other players want the campaign to go. That's fine; not every group has the same goals and plans. But this is really a good time to have that table talk, either as the DM with the player or as a full Dungeons and Dragons Group. The former might be better so the player doesn't feel ganged up on but the important thing is that no one is telling him who he can play. What they're doing is taking some of the fun away from the other players and that's not cool. The advantage of the full group talk is that it reminds the player that no one player is any more important than any other player at the table. Maybe there's room to work out a compromise.
"Okay, so your go to is to be the 'bad cop'. We can work with this as long as you know it's going to be balanced by us being the 'good cops' and at the end of the day we don't need to kill anyone." Then you as the DM also have to play into that narrative and have things like threats and intimidation work. If the party learns that the only way to get success is through murder then it's less on them and more on you.
5e also has a lot of oaths that don’t necessarily conform to LG alignments. Vengeance, Conquest, and of course the Oathbreaker certainly can fit a Neutral or Evil character (and an Oathbreaker could easily be CE)
5e also has a lot of oaths that don’t necessarily conform to LG alignments. Vengeance, Conquest, and of course the Oathbreaker certainly can fit a Neutral or Evil character (and an Oathbreaker could easily be CE)
This is true but the OP also said that the table agreed to be a non-evil party... so whatever the paladin might be, we know that by agreement it isn't an evil paladin.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
This is an OOC, not an IC, issue. Explain to the player that he is not allowed to RP an evil character. Play a different character, or RP the character differently, or leave the game.
Not an easy convo to have but it needs to be had.
DO NOT solve it IC with jail time, etc. Yes that is a logical IC consequence, but this is a player issue, not a character issue. The player was told not to play an evil character and is doing it anyway. It's like cheating at the table. You can't solve it IC.
Right on. If you don't discuss this with the player, the behavior is going to continue. If this is someone you want to keep being friends with, they should understand. If not, you'll have to bite the bullet and boot them, for your fun and everyone else's.
That's not to say you shouldn't execute the character too though. That's what I'd do. And that Paladin is at the least going on a big holy quest. After all, any chance of proving themselves innocent of the murder they DIDN'T commit is now gone, since they refused to testify about it and acted like bloodthirsty psychopaths. Heck, their best shot at getting out alive is to pin it on the rogue. What incredible idiots.
Also, the rogue character could multiclass into a oath of redemption palidin.
5e also has a lot of oaths that don’t necessarily conform to LG alignments. Vengeance, Conquest, and of course the Oathbreaker certainly can fit a Neutral or Evil character (and an Oathbreaker could easily be CE)
This is true but the OP also said that the table agreed to be a non-evil party... so whatever the paladin might be, we know that by agreement it isn't an evil paladin.
Oh I know...my comment was more directed at the "paladins must by LG" crowd in the above comments. Regarding our OPs paladin, based on the age discrepancies I can imagine the player probably felt their characters involvement in the altercation was ok based on how the older (and presumably more experienced) players were acting with their characters, and their admission of the wrongness of their characters actions and attempted reconciliation shows a lot of maturity in play.
The rogue's player seems like a problem, though, and OoC solutions (up to and including kicking them out of the group) should be considered. IC solutions often backfire unless they equate to OoC solutions as well (as in, the PC dies, is imprisoned, or left behind, and the player has to make a new character). But that won't ultimately solve the problem if the player insists that all of their characters are semi-evil a-holes.
Talk to the player out of game and tell them that they are running an evil character in a campaign that was designed, and specified for, non-evil characters.
You can try to "punish" bad behaviour in-game with things like making that priest level 15 when the PCs are level 3, which they can't possibly know, and just have them outright kill the problematic PC. But if they continue playing, they'll just roll up a new character who does the same thing.
I had a player who simply didn't like combat, and didn't want to do it. I tried to pander to it a bit, but they were essentially at odds with what the rest of the group wanted from the game, including me (the DM). I doubt that you'll manage to change their intentions. People generally don't, and they're playing the way they play because that's how they want to feel in the game.
That Paladin should definitely not be playing one. Thats just me though, I don't allow Pally's to be anything but LG (and LG Clerics and Paladins have to tithe 10% to the poor, but not the church)
But why? That goes completely against the whole thing.
The paladin player is a 14 year old kid playing with a bunch of 40+ crowd (including me); so I give him kudos for not simply jumping on the murder hobo bandwagon. And additional bonus, his character admitted to wrong-doing and vowed to make ammends.
Nice!. As a GM, I feel that trying to get some character growth is like pulling teeth, and here you are with a player (and a young player at that) doing it on their own. Well done.
Doing good things doesn't make you a goody two shoes. You're welcome to play however you want, but Paladins in my game are LG.
When a town sees a Paladin come with a new party, they know they aren't going to be robbed, or killed in their sleep. If the town has a problem, the paladin is going to help if its within his power. Thats not goody two shoes, it's classic D&D Paladin. That doesn't mean they can't fight, drink, and carouse, but they won't stay with a party who kills innocents, or help their party kill innocents.
5e also has a lot of oaths that don’t necessarily conform to LG alignments. Vengeance, Conquest, and of course the Oathbreaker certainly can fit a Neutral or Evil character (and an Oathbreaker could easily be CE)
This is true but the OP also said that the table agreed to be a non-evil party... so whatever the paladin might be, we know that by agreement it isn't an evil paladin.
Oh I know...my comment was more directed at the "paladins must by LG" crowd in the above comments. Regarding our OPs paladin, based on the age discrepancies I can imagine the player probably felt their characters involvement in the altercation was ok based on how the older (and presumably more experienced) players were acting with their characters, and their admission of the wrongness of their characters actions and attempted reconciliation shows a lot of maturity in play.
The rogue's player seems like a problem, though, and OoC solutions (up to and including kicking them out of the group) should be considered. IC solutions often backfire unless they equate to OoC solutions as well (as in, the PC dies, is imprisoned, or left behind, and the player has to make a new character). But that won't ultimately solve the problem if the player insists that all of their characters are semi-evil a-holes.
I never said all paladin's must be LG, I said mine must, and I will never change that.
Hey, if you are making a world that supports characters acting evil? Then that's you, as the DM, enabling the character to act like a murder hobo. From the sounds of it, the player seems to be getting mixed messages here.
I know I am.
You said you don't want evil characters. So, you should enforce that ICly and OOCly.
While this is more of an out-of-character issue, and the player won't learn through in-game consequences, in-game consequences wouldn't hurt. For attacking a Good individual representing the law, I would drop the rogue a word from a friendly constable, telling them to get out of town before they're executed for the assault and framed for the murder. They should consider themselves banished from towns and civilizations in the country, period. If they don't comply, it's jail or execution. That at least gives them a chance to continue, when they reasonably shouldn't have one.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
One more vote for an out of character discussion. The player is basically making the, “but that’s what my character would do” defense, which is a load of crap.
The character didn’t reach a conclusion about how the world works, the player decided that the character came to that conclusion. The player can just as easily make a different decision, and allow the character to come to a different conclusion. One which doesn’t involve violence being the first solution to a problem.
I'm a fan of the lighting bolt method for these situations. A lighting bolt just happens to hit his character when he acts evil.
Congrats to your paladin's player. It sounds like they did very well.
It is also important for all of us in the community to remember that in 5E a paladin may not be lawful good as required in previous editions. Now, it depends on they Oath that the player chose for their character. If they are following the tenets of that oath, then they are playing their character well.
To the OP - I recommend this video from Matt Coleville on the "Wangrod" defense -- the "it's what my character would do" claim when a player is wrecking the game for everyone. It's not long and it explains how to deal with it quite well.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I still hate that. I don’t allow Paladins to be anything but LG. When people see a Paladin, they should know they are safe and protected, that's always been the point of the class (to me).
I also make them tithe, but through charity, not the church. The pally and Cleric is my 5e campaign have taken to building schools, wells, and hospitals in poor towns across the globe. They also spend time feeding and healing the sick when they have down time. If you give them a benefit to tithing, not just taking away gold, then you'll often see other good characters join it, like my parties half orc barbarian. He has no need to do so, he just enjoys it. Now, anywhere they go that they have helped people, they are invited to meals at peoples homes, offered free rooms at the inn, and these things can open up side quests, or give them new information, etc. After curing a plague (which turned out to be poisoned water), and stopping the source, the local smith, along with a Wizard, created a +1 lonsword for the Paladin, who is human, that creates light for 30' when out of the scabbard.
A bit off topic, but Paladins not being LG really irks me.
But what is safe?
There are people who won't feel safe with a goody two shoes "it's all for the community" sort of Lawful good Player. Seeing someone who is willing to be selfish, but within the bounds of their oaths, is exactly the kind of thing that makes them feel safe. Yes, this paladin is evil but she's the kind of evil I can respect. She's the kind of evil I can look up to. She's the kind of evil I can "trust".
A glance at history shows a lot of "evil paladins" who were incredibly popular with some people despite their evil alignments (at least evil as we generally define it in DND).
"Teller of tales, dreamer of dreams"
Tips, Tricks, Maps: Lantern Noir Presents
**Streams hosted at at twitch.tv/LaternNoir
To the OP:
Turning to combat as the "go to solution" sounds like it's not the way you and the other players want the campaign to go. That's fine; not every group has the same goals and plans. But this is really a good time to have that table talk, either as the DM with the player or as a full Dungeons and Dragons Group. The former might be better so the player doesn't feel ganged up on but the important thing is that no one is telling him who he can play. What they're doing is taking some of the fun away from the other players and that's not cool. The advantage of the full group talk is that it reminds the player that no one player is any more important than any other player at the table. Maybe there's room to work out a compromise.
"Okay, so your go to is to be the 'bad cop'. We can work with this as long as you know it's going to be balanced by us being the 'good cops' and at the end of the day we don't need to kill anyone." Then you as the DM also have to play into that narrative and have things like threats and intimidation work. If the party learns that the only way to get success is through murder then it's less on them and more on you.
"Teller of tales, dreamer of dreams"
Tips, Tricks, Maps: Lantern Noir Presents
**Streams hosted at at twitch.tv/LaternNoir
haaaa. I haven't seen the BLUE BOLT FROM GAWD in decades. But it is a in game action to correct a out of game action.
No Gaming is Better than Bad Gaming.
5e also has a lot of oaths that don’t necessarily conform to LG alignments. Vengeance, Conquest, and of course the Oathbreaker certainly can fit a Neutral or Evil character (and an Oathbreaker could easily be CE)
Definitely. Seems like out of game talking has failed though, according to OP. Lighting Bolt time!
This is true but the OP also said that the table agreed to be a non-evil party... so whatever the paladin might be, we know that by agreement it isn't an evil paladin.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Also, the rogue character could multiclass into a oath of redemption palidin.
Supreme Cat-lover Of The First Grade
I AM A CAT PERSON. /\_____/\
She/her pronouns please. (=^.^=)
Oh I know...my comment was more directed at the "paladins must by LG" crowd in the above comments. Regarding our OPs paladin, based on the age discrepancies I can imagine the player probably felt their characters involvement in the altercation was ok based on how the older (and presumably more experienced) players were acting with their characters, and their admission of the wrongness of their characters actions and attempted reconciliation shows a lot of maturity in play.
The rogue's player seems like a problem, though, and OoC solutions (up to and including kicking them out of the group) should be considered. IC solutions often backfire unless they equate to OoC solutions as well (as in, the PC dies, is imprisoned, or left behind, and the player has to make a new character). But that won't ultimately solve the problem if the player insists that all of their characters are semi-evil a-holes.
Talk to the player out of game and tell them that they are running an evil character in a campaign that was designed, and specified for, non-evil characters.
You can try to "punish" bad behaviour in-game with things like making that priest level 15 when the PCs are level 3, which they can't possibly know, and just have them outright kill the problematic PC. But if they continue playing, they'll just roll up a new character who does the same thing.
I had a player who simply didn't like combat, and didn't want to do it. I tried to pander to it a bit, but they were essentially at odds with what the rest of the group wanted from the game, including me (the DM). I doubt that you'll manage to change their intentions. People generally don't, and they're playing the way they play because that's how they want to feel in the game.
But why? That goes completely against the whole thing.
Nice!. As a GM, I feel that trying to get some character growth is like pulling teeth, and here you are with a player (and a young player at that) doing it on their own. Well done.
Doing good things doesn't make you a goody two shoes. You're welcome to play however you want, but Paladins in my game are LG.
When a town sees a Paladin come with a new party, they know they aren't going to be robbed, or killed in their sleep. If the town has a problem, the paladin is going to help if its within his power. Thats not goody two shoes, it's classic D&D Paladin. That doesn't mean they can't fight, drink, and carouse, but they won't stay with a party who kills innocents, or help their party kill innocents.
I never said all paladin's must be LG, I said mine must, and I will never change that.