Roleplaying games, the kind that started before personal computers, are more open ended; they are as limitless as the imagination of the player and the referee. As such, they are better from a role-playing stand point, but new players often don't get that, especially if they have been raised on a steady diet of computer game style role-playing. This is my group. I think they are ready for a change. The Bard has been greedy and self serving, the Paladin has been venial, the Fighter has been letting things go down the road and not questioning their actions. The Druid's player has been distracted, the Cleric has been absent, the Ranger… the Ranger's player has been a pleasant surprise. The Fighter's player is a Watcher type player, they like to watch the story unfold, but they are not part of the story; I need to pull the characters in. They have been adventuring for almost a year, every other week, maybe 20 sessions. Enough of the world has become aware of them that it will start interacting with them. This is what I love.
The characters have done a few things and they have started to impact the nation that they are in, primarily by paying their taxes and thus heaping fuel into a war machine advancing a timeline the characters have not been previously been aware of. They have gotten an audience with the Duke, but it was a hasty affair, they have had an audience with the Dukes represenative, but it was a small thing, longer than e audience with the Duke, but still. They are far from the movers of the world, but they are getting there. Perhaps they will be awarded deeds of land for their service, a house in the town, an income, tenants. A title. Perhaps later as they level they will get a following. But first roleplaying.
I plan to start an arguement with the first follower and her leader, about the paladin and how he is treating her. The players are adults, it will be an adult conversation. The bard had a wild time in the Inn the first time he was there, he seduced the barkeeps youngest daughter and deflowered her. Time for her to mention that she is late, and thinks she is pregnant. The fighter has a magical intelligent speaking sword and it has a righteous personality and expects a righteous weilder, hilarity shall ensue. The ranger saved a member of a mortal enemy because it was unarmed. It is coming back to repay the kindness, the Orc is now a Ranger who hunts Humans as its primary enemy, but worships the same deity as the player, long discussions shall start. The Paladin knows that the Duke's Man in town is a Paladin of the same god as he is, and the Duke himself also worships that god, the difference is that the duke and his man at both lawful evil and it will become clear that this is so and the Player will have to make a decision as whether they will continue his slide from good.
In general the characters are now the source of information for the people in the world and they need to figure out how they want to be seen in the world, and more importantly, which side they are on and who are their friends. For good roleplaying there must be a little growth and expansion of the player as well as the character, sometimes this will involve pain. Sometimes it is important to understand the player more than the character. My role and referee includes playing the players as well as the world.
We will see how the game went.
It was a disaster.
First of all two of the players unexpectently did not show up, one of whom was a co-host! They were there, but they were asleep and did not join the game the other person had a splitting migraine. And since I was counting on those two being in the game, it basically all fell apart. It did get the sleeping characters for about an hour but that was all. Then I got the surprise character back in the game, the person who had left for school. I got to have prep game with that player a few days before the game so he was up to speed, but when he showed up, he was an agent of chaos, disruptive and goading the other players into bad behavior. Which since the game was about showcasing an example of Evil, so that they could see who the bad guys were and understand which side of the line they were supposed to stand on, they decided that they were going to straddle that line and possibly stand more firmly on the side of the evil lords. The session devolved into a discussion of what alignment really means.
The little roleplaying that the characters had involved the repucussions of abandoning prisoners in the temple. Recap, they found a large locked cell with 20 civilians and relocked the door and came back a couple hours later finding a blood splatter and eighteen prisoners. They then freed the prisoners and told them that they were tired and they were going to go to sleep next to the remains of eaten prisoner. The remaining prisoners wanted to go, so they let them and some of them got lost and died. Some made it out and died and a few made it out and lived to tell the tale. Then they encountered more prison cells and tried to pass by them without freeing them, three times. The next set of prisoners they freed, but one party member wanted to mutilate two of the prisoners was overrulled and he tried to incapacitate his party members with a spell to get his own way. So I tried to show them that the local Duke was Evil, and his right hand man was definitely evil.
Two towns, intermarriages happen, because cousins don't make the best option for breeding with. While Nulb is where the dead villagers were from, it is reasonable that merchants from the town could have spread in the intervening three days out to the next town, where there are relatives of the deceased and because it is a small town new news is more exciting than the story about how uncle Fespar accidentally neutered his cousin when his axe head came loose while splitting wood— admittedly, there was a reason why THAT story had staying power!
Once the characters started to be recognized as the villains of the current gossip, their money became worthless, the townsfolk being honest would not take their money after asking them to leave, because they did not want any trouble and these characters looked rough and anyone who is capible of abandoning defenseless people in a dangerous situation are capible of doing anything. Kicking them out was a prelude to getting independent conversations with people. But the conversation people were away.
When the people were present, the conversation went as follows: 14 year old girl rescued from the hands of magically deranged cleric who had abused her and was small, asked her mentor if she should fuck the Paladin, who was also small, so that he would like her and treat like he treats the rest of them group. Predictably, her mentor swore at the fucked up situation that this person was telling her, but beyond that, she did nothing. Which is not fair, I will have to wait to see what she does when the party continues later.
The party got a treasure count and split. Three of the party members paid up their taxes in full, one character thought that the Duke deserved more than what he was due in taxes and paid more, one decided that he did not want to pay taxes in full, but it worked out to be almost a full accounting of what was owing. The Fighter's new sword spoke up at this point and asked if the druid had a slave. The Druid was taken aback at that and said, "NO!" The sword retorted by saying that it looked that way, the party split the treasure five ways and her follower got nothing. The Druid not caring about magical items meant that her follower had none either and to the Sword, that appeared to be slavery. So her follower got half of her money and the party gave her some magic items. To her, the abused cleric, who is an object of desire and contempt by the Paladin, she is getting some serious cash and magic because the sword spoke out on her behalf and for no other reason.
The paladin eventually went to stay with the Duke's main man. The Paladins of Scoria stayed up all night drinking and talking about the poor treatment that the characters had recieved at the hand of the bumpkins of Nulb, ungrateful sots! The magistrate told the Gnomish paladin about his troubles, townsfolk that have been using barter to avoid the taxes. He said that he would love to help the paladin more, but he had his his hands full with this investigation and he was getting nowhere. He told the Paladin that he could clear some of the bureaucracy in his inquiries if he would help him. Tax avoidance. This went too far. I mean the character went too far, obviously the magistrate went too far, but the party went along with it. He found one person that was looking to barter, after the paladin had pressed him too, but then to acquire the goods to bar term he tried to barter the next guy and then barter the next. He was trying to implicate the entire town in the attempt. He encountered a road block when one of the people refused to barter. But otherwise the implicated two townsfolk and they were arrested. The next day the party was brought together and the magistrate proclaimed the Party as Elders of the land, because they had collectively paid 25000 gold in taxes and as such they were welcome to land in the form of a few farms, the income of those farms or a house in the town of Greysteel. The Paladin asked then if his parcel of land could include the farm of the man that had been arrested. The Lord assented. Then the Lord Paladin and Magistrate of the land said that the celebration was marred by insidents of treachery. The two prisoners are bought out, the blacksmith who accepted payment for armour repair for the price of a cow and the farmer that accepted a years supply of firewood for a cow. The magistrate, using a spell that compelled truth, got confessions for the tax evasion, and then pronounced that the usual sentence of a fine was too leiniant and chose an older punishment of ten lashes. Both criminals passed unconscious during the lashes, and the Magistrate lay on hands and healed them.
Then the Lord announced that since the land was at war with the foul Orc Nation, that tax evasion was essentially treason, and in two fluid motions struck off their heads using a Divine Smite, causing a flash of radiant damage in addition to the cut that relieved them of their lives. It was a move designed to ask the players if they were on this guys side, because this guy is evil and if he is agreeing with the way that they were treated was an injustice, maybe it wasn't after all, maybe they were in the wrong.
The paladin saw the evil, wiped his mouth and said, wait, hold my beer. He strode onto the stage where the farmers was rapidly cooling and his blood had sprayed across the crowd, and called for the crowd's attention. "There is now an opening at my farm, if anyone feels that they are qualified please come to me at this time, thank you."
I think I left my jaw there.
We are taking a break. I think I am quitting. I don't really want to be their GM anymore.
To be fair. The Player is being Lawful. Completely Lawful without any tie to good or evil, amoral in the extreme that following the letter of the law in an evil nation can bring. It is my fault. I have made him a monster. Time to quit.
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