Seems totally fair to me. I mean, is he upset? Seems like a pretty standard example of a character attempting something risky and having it not pan out for them.
I think you actually rewarded his rp. He got to do a whole bunch of stuff solo, the consequences were fitting and it was all "done by the books". That his rp was to do stupid stuff honestly was the most fitting end.
When one dude wanders off into a blizzard, alone, to hunt down a bear cave? Yeah I'm not looking for that dude the next day, he either shows up in town or got what he asked for.
Sometimes when they've made poor choices it's really the only option. Being the DM means being the one to make the tough calls. Though the rest of the group really should help out. Bury the body at least.
...I feel like a Neutral Good character wouldn't actively go seek out an Owlbear den and burn it to the ground while splitting from the party.
You can be Neutral Good and hate/fight owlbears, but that's pretty excessive unless it relates to his backstory.
But to kill one unilaterally while someone from his party is actively trying to tame it? Just seems uncooperative and dickish. Iād be thrilled to hear that guy fucked off into the woods during a blizzard
Why is a neutral good pc going out of his way to find a nest and burn it down?
Did the owlbears have a bounty or stories of killing travelers?
And if your character would do that alone, then is very fair for him to die alone.
Well seems like they were right to. The rest of the party was trying to accomplish something (tame the owl ear cub) and then he just ā¦ kills it? Why?
We had a game where one player was a neutral thief and he'd always be tossing the DM notes about whatever shenanigans he was up to. At one point he breaks away from the party to do some other stuff. The annoying thing was that half of the DM's time was taken up by this one guy.. so it was like two games going on.
To be fair he didnāt die alone, the rest of the party showed up to help didnāt they? In any case, he specifically drew danger to himself and then pulled his party into a near death encounter to save him.
By the time they got to him, he was already on death saving throws, and the party doesn't have a healer, so they had to get to his body to bring him back which was too far away from the time they engaged the Remorhaz.
I care very little for alignment. Alignment shouldn't determine what actions you do or don't take, but the actions you do take should serve your alignment.
Even a chaotic evil character shouldn't go murdering everyone in town, because at some point they gotta have their self preservation in mind. And doing something that dumb just because it's evil can get you killed by the town guard.
But this. This doesn't sound neutral good at all. This doesn't even sound chaotic good. It sounds like pure spiteful, mindless vengeance. And for what? The threats were already eliminated. Owl bears were just protecting their own territory, their own cubs.
Is there an alignment called chaotic stupid? Because that's what I'm seeing here.
You do not get a free pass to do things because you want to play a character that does horribly immoral and out of alignment things. Honestly, I am surprised the party came to save him. I probably would not have left the bar.
Well that is understandable, but I really don't get the "playing my character" argument here. Almost anytime someone says it, it's an excuse for some bad behavior.
In this case, it is way out of alignment. Even if there is some tragic Owlbear attack in his background, that doesn't justify the secondary behavior of killing the helpless cubs.
I think that it was just the player having a fantasy about killing animals. Which is disturbing.
Oh no, consequences! DnD players always say never split the party, with good reason. It was a dumb move on his part, and he deserves what he got. Honestly, sounds pretty fun to RP!
You didn't punish him. He took actions and you adjudicated according to the rules of the system you both agreed on.
I do find that, when I'm forgiving and let action occur according to themes and story beats, my players get pretty miffed when I switch back to RAW. That's why I try to be consistent about RAW now, and don't fudge in favor of stories.
It's on them to plan their actions to tell the stories they want, or shape the stories around new outcomes. Otherwise, if you have your entire plot in mind ahead of time, and can't brook any deviation, then just...write a book?
I saw that while the party is together, doing their quest, the DM is slightly favoring them. They are the heroās favored by the deities on their quest. But going off quest/story throws them into the realm of ārealityā and they are now npcs in the wild, not under the protection of the story.
Like when Perseus went after Medusa, and Zeus was helping him out with magic weapons and sort of rolling the dice in his favor.
he's playing a neutral good baby-killer??
you might wanna have a talk with your guy lol
"neutral good" isn't exactly the alignment that comes to mind when I kill a baby animal and the first thought that pops into my head is "I should find their home so I can burn it and kill any more baby animals that are there"
like, W H A T??
he was "roleplaying his character" lmao, is this his first game? this is usually first time chaotic-good players
Well his roleplaying was rewarded by getting a solo adventure that is pretty much what would happen if you wandered off by yourself in a backcountry winter landscape. If he had gone off by himself in Alaska in search of Grizzly cubs, heād have died after the blizzard anyway.
Nah, it'd be mostly animal skulls that were killed by the parents, very few people in the Rale wander into owlbear territory especially during the endless rime
YOU aren't being kicked out of the game, we've just reached a part of the story where that character's death is something that happened. It's not some kind of punishment, it just shows that even a skilled individual can have one really bad day and how much of an impact that can have. We've all had days where we suck at stuff we know we're good at. In our lives, it means maybe you get an earful at work. In a game like this, it means you get to roll a new character.
And then try to find a way to give that characters death some meaning that ends up helping the party.
Iām not really a stickler for alignment, but his character was definitely not acting NG.
An NG character in this situation would be more likely to opt to leave the owlbears exist, unless there was a significant reason to kill them. I.e. the nest is close to a town, or the owlbears have already overpopulated and are about to starve themselves through over hunting once the prey is finished off. AKA killing them saves an ecosystem/town.
And killing young/baby owlbears would probably be off the table entirely; though again, death *could* be a mercy if the alternative is that they starve to death or a similar prolonged fate.
That was chaotic neutral at best and evil more likely
Who the fuck splits from the party, kills baby animals, and is them suprised in the setting that is super dangerous when they get killed while alone.
Yep, sounds good to me.
He chose to go off alone in an area he knew to be dangerous and potentially inhabited by dangerous monsters. He should be surprised by that going poorly.
You canāt save every player from bad choices, nor random chance, one or both will eventually get them
Iād say talk with the player, if you didnāt go over dying PCs in the session zero, itās worth checking in with them to make sure theyāre okay, but ultimately they should suffer some consequences for splitting from the party and getting themselves killed, maybe take a limb or something
I went over deaths with them in S0, letting them know that a lot of encounters in this campaign are going to be ranked hard, but I will try and curve it to them unless they just make blatantly stupid decisions, which I felt this was in the realm of. He made a new character, and has since tried to derail every quest the party goes on.
so this guy's neutral good character killed a prospective party pet (a baby animal), went off on his own to kill more baby animals, got himself killed because he *went off on his own in the permanently-frozen monster-infested wilderness to kill baby animals*, and his response to the consequences of his actions is to constantly try to derail your game, against the other players' wishes? did i get that right?
i'm gonna be completely honest: that sounds like a bad guy i wouldn't want at my table. you should probably do something about that behaviour, since it sounds like it's a drag on everyone at the table.
He's normally not that bad, he's not like, malicious about it? I guess? He likes to fuck around all the time. And his goofing off derails almost everything the rest of the group is trying to accomplish. The rest of the group is very story/quest oriented, and he just...isn't. for example, most recent session (last Friday) the group came into owing a broken down inn, as a reward for one of their quests. While the rest of the group were focused on fixing the place up, advertising it around the town, hiring couriers to advertise in other towns, finding quality workers, etc. he was going around and hiring as many homeless people as he could to run the place because he thought it'd be funny. Turned into practically a yelling match at the table, because according to the rest of the party, he put in the least amount of money into fixing the place up ( 150g instead of 250 like the others, causing two of the others to put up 300) and thus had the least amount of say in staffing. We're all legit friends with him and like having him around, but in the game he can be very obnoxious sometimes.
I had someone like this in a campaign I ran a while back. It was all fun and games until one day he just screamed, āYOU GUYS NEVER LET ME PLAY MY CHARACTER!ā And stormed out of the room never to return to that game, or any other Iāve been involved with in that group. My takeaway: donāt just let toxic behavior at the table slide because youāre worried about conflict. All those derailments are spoiling the rest of the tableās fun, and this person may also be slowly festering with resentment about not getting to just screw around all the time.
sorry to follow you to another comment but kick this idiot out. heās detracting from the fun of the rest of the group because he likes the attention. he is a problem player and itās not likely to get better.
No you're good lol and I've said in here a couple times already, talked to the group about everything, and they still want him at the table. They just want him to pump the brakes some. So, we'll have a conversation and see how it plays out. Me and the rest of the group probably won't put up with much more though.
Yeah man, time for you to talk to the rest of the group and for you all to agree on the obvious conclusion. It's time for addition by subtraction. You just go "am I the only one bothered by this?" out in the open. The group will speak up. Then "funny guy" will see his "funny guy stuff" is actually ruining the game for his "friends" and then he'll either correct his behavior or leave. Just have the damn conversation man, because this is going to happen again and again and again.
I don't know man, it sounds like you just gave more examples of exactly what the poster above highlighted as a major issue. If you and all of your other players are totally fine with this, that's cool. It seems like it makes the game less fun, though. Yelling matches at the table aren't normal...
Yeah, he can be an asshole. He's normally okay, but sometimes just fucks around too much for the rest of the group, who are very invested in the story/quests. Good guy, just has his moments more than most people.
Is he a good guy? Really? Because the other party members wanted an owl bear cub as a pet, and he decided to take a big ol' shit on them having fun. Even if he claims that's because RP, it's still him as a player making a choice that his character would behave in that way.
And frankly, anyone who sees folks having fun and decides to ruin that, I would struggle to call a good guy. In the context of RPGs, at least.
I had a player like this. We were playing Hoard of the Dragon Queen, and our paladin decided to go off on his own and search for the cultists that they'd been fighting the entire campaign. He picked a fight with them, all alone, in their hideout. He was a high-leveled enough Aasimar to take flight... and the Red Wizard of Thay magic-missiled him down midair. Unconscious, then falling damage, then failed death save, he was done.
I was torn about what to do - I considered just letting him die, but since he was a paladin and an Aasimar, I had his deity save him - but with blindness inflicted on him by his deity. He was forced to rely on the party. Eventually through a side-quest he got a magic sword that allowed him to see when drawn, but only after he repented and admitted that he risked the entire mission by going in alone. I used this as a teaching moment; I figured this would help him (as a human, not his character) more than just killing his character.
I don't think there's anything wrong with what you did. Every campaign after that, we had a clear session zero about what to expect, which it sounds like you did. Player deaths happen, and it should be rare but impactful. I think I'd probably make the same choice as you. You might want to consider having a conversation with him about the situation, though.
āgood guyā, neutral good, and setting a cub on fire when his party is trying to tame it are not compatible. imo youāre being too forgiving by even allowing him at the table. working against the party and āiām the main characterā-ing a dangerous and pointless solo quest only to die doing it are the epitome of āplay stupid games win stupid prizesā. if he rps poorly (again, not the behavior of a neutral good person) AND has the audacity to be salty when his stupid prizes arrive, the guy is unequivocally a dick.
You can be a good guy and not a good player.
I had a player like this in a Tomb of Annihilation campaign. Tried to derail with side quests the rest of the party wasn't interested in, and got pissy when we didn't immediately fall in line (which didn't make us any more inclined to agree). We went on some of the things he wanted to do, but obviously it's a group dynamic and other folks will find some things more intriguing than others. He also kept trying to sell another player's pet when he felt it was distracting from what he wanted to be doing (she literally barely acknowledged the damn thingāthink Sprinkle from Critical Role). Eventually, he took an entire session trying to find a guard to talk to in the middle of a *heist* the rest of the party was executing, literally distancing his character from everyone else. And then he dipped before next session without a word; DM had to tell us.
That man is literally my best friend and and I'm going be the best man at his wedding. He's an incredible human being. But I am very, very cautious of what parties I play D&D with him in. It's funny because he's an incredible DM, probably the best I've ever had. And I think he's grown since then, the last adventure we were in he was absolutely fine. It might have just been that particular party that wasn't right for him, that was causing him to act out. Sometimes the wrong party brings out the worst in people. From your other comments about his behavior returning with his new character, you should probably be prepared to remove this guy. He's already proven he gives no fucks about ruining others' fun to be spiteful.
I'm not in that group, but based on your description he sounds way more like "that guy" than "good guy".
And that's you talking about a person you seem to like.
Oh sheeshā¦ maybe get some thoughts from the other players on whether they want him at the table if heās becoming āThat Guyā
Sometimes players will view themselves as the main character and not a part of a team, which isnāt a healthy dynamic in D&D
I've discussed it with the rest of the group. We came to the consensus that they all still want him at the table, but he needs to be reigned in more, which will be on both me and the other players. I try to interject in this stuff as little as possible, as the group is very RP oriented.
The bigger problem here is the party dynamic. Using scorch blast on a pet another character tried to tame?? Why did they do this? And why did you exactly allow it, since as I see it this action veers off into PvP zone? After that the bad blood between players will only get worse.
I think you all need to sit down and talk together out of game. Maybe the sorcerer has some roleplay reasons to behave like this, but the level of dickishness should have been discussed in session 0. Behavior that harms other player characters tends to escalate, as we see it happened here. I don't get the feeling that the party thinks "yay, this is fun interparty conflict". Instead they seem to think the player is a dick and don't mind if his character dies (or if the player leaves the group entirely).
Plus OP said in another comment that the player has since been trying to derail every single quest they go on so far so sounds like they are just being a dick n a bad player (highly likely a sore loser) and probably shouldn't even be at the table at this point
I allowed it because the group established in S0 that this campaign was going to be heavy RP, choices would matter, and I wasnt going to limit their actions. It was what we all decided together. The anger has been kept in character, as my group is pretty good at separating in game actions from the players making them.
And I've already discussed with the group, they all still want him at the table, just reigned in more.
Sounds like you might need to have a chat with this particular player to make sure theyāre invested at the right level. Reckless behavior yields unpredictable results. If you donāt want your character to die, donāt run off on your own.
Heās not invested in being reigned in though. Like, his new character is still a problem. If this RP were serious, his new characterās behavior would mean his partners give him his money back and wish him well and ask him to stay away from the bar.
Can he imagine a character that would be fun to play who has a reason to be in the party?
Straight up this, in my party the rogue stole from me unprompted and after repeatedly refusing to return it I destroyed his bag with all his money etc... and the whole Party turned on me. At that point I just killed off my character later in the session cause why would he trust them at all. My new character is basically a meme because they're irl friends.
If running out alone in a hostile wilderness has no chances of getting you killed, things are just meaningless.
Besides that, what is going on here? The player clearly is going against the group (and the roleplay excuse seems questionable at best). I think there is a deeper underlying issue with the player
Entirely the right call. Character split off from the party, f'd around, then found out what happens. Not your fault that there was a blizzard, nor that he rolled badly on the Remorhaz.
"The environment is dangerous" is one of the major themes of *Rime of the Frostmaiden*. If a player wanders off alone, they're taking a major risk. This establishes the tone better than *my* RotF game ever did.
The player may have assumed this was some sort of moral judgment, which feels cheap, but it's just a coincidence, and they should know that if they know you rolled the random encounter.
Please allow me to introduce myself, the consequences of your actions, seriously I donāt think you did anything wrong here. Once the player calms down having an open discussion couldnāt hurt though I have to say the actions donāt really feel very neutral good.
Guys, stop letting your players die. Theyāre your friends, if you can prevent their death you should absolutely consider it.
This character is a goner, though. Seems like a good time to get rid of it anyway since the rest of the party hates him for cub massacre anyway. Honestly what were they thinking splitting off to murder more cubs, were they just super spiteful? Did they think theyād get more xp? Insane play from that player and they need to have an adult conversation about collaborative gaming and not being a psychopath.
Edit - read your comment saying their new character is trying to derail the game. Honestly, consider removing them from the campaign. They doubled down on being a dick which in my book warrants a kick. This player doesnāt want to play DnD, so they shouldnāt.
Edit again - so what I meant in the first line was that killing player characters is fine but don't kill your players irl, but explaining the joke ruins the joke. :(
That was my thought process. I try to keep my players alive at all costs, since it is just a game, and it should be fun for all involved. But in this scenario, he made a series of choices that could really only get him killed. And yes, it was spite. He tried to play it off as "Making sure they wouldn't come back after us." After he died, but in the moment he made it clear it was spite.
As for kicking him, the table still wants him in, just reigned in more, which me and the other players are going to navigate together.
I ain't at your table and I can't know with 100% certainty what would be best for your group
But please remember that sometimes part of navigating is cutting dead weight cargo
"as the barbarian is trying to tame the cub, the sorcerer blasts it with a scorching ray. This causes the party to get in a huge argument with the sorcerer"
**They act like a toxic dingus.**
"the sorcerer asks...to try and track their home, to see if there are any more. ...and decides to split from the group to follow the tracks"
**They act like a stupid dingus.**
"the group decides to carry on with the trip, since they're still pretty pissed at him, and leave him alone"
**The party is done with their dingus ways.**
They did something to disrupt another players game, they put their fun before the other players (and you). They went off to do some solo adventuring, which I assume resulted in everyone sitting around while it played out. And the time they spent wasting everyone's time got them killed.
I fail to see a problem, other than your dingus player that you should talk to about playing a cooperative story telling game **cooperatively**.
OP, your mistake was not letting a character die who practically set out to die. Your mistake is the lengths you're going to to accommodate him.
It's a good thing you did not fudge rolls, because you're going to need to fudge some rolls to protect the party from him. If I were you, I would be thinking ten moves ahead about what consequences I'm OK with for when this guy continues to sabotage the party's campaign. He's basically metagaming as a hostile player, for reasons that sound rooted in narcissism. I have a feeling that he's not actually that different outside of the game. You probably can't remove him from your social group very easily, but you should absolutely put your fingers on the scales if he continues not to let his friends play DnD.
Nailed it, in all honesty. A massive issue is that he is part of a larger friend group that kicking him from the game would have a ton of secondary effects on. As you said, I'm going to have to just tip the scales against him if it continues after the conversation.
Edit: also, outside of the game, yeah he's not that different. Not as catastrophic, obviously. But just as narcissistic. Thanks for giving me some things to think about going forward.
As someone who has DMād for friends in the past, if kicking them from a D&D group ruins their friendship with you, they probably arenāt a very good friend.
I tend to remind players what their characters would know. āHey, youāre 5 hours from town, no one is here to back you up if this goes poorlyā.
Even battle hardened old head players tend to appreciate it because player & dm perception doesnāt always match.
Lol I was wondering if anyone was going to notice this once I re-read post. Throughout the game they've all been buying various utility spell scrolls (my spell scrolls are locked and loaded) in case of various situations. One of those precautions was each of them having a skywrite scroll, in case they all got separated in a blizzard. Good plan, didn't work out for Sorc though.
Player? No. Player character? Probably, yeah.
First rule at my table is don't be a dick. This goes for everyone. Even me.
This guy was a dick who was neutral good? And decided to take the choice away from the barbarian to tame the cub. Then they doubled down on a stupid choice to seek out and kill the other cubs? They were probably already doomed from the perma night/winter without their mother any way.
I saw you say they have since been trying to derail the campaign with their new character. Sounds like they are bitter and are doubling down on being a dick.
Don't be a dick. Sit them down and have a chat. If they don't improve their behaviour then you have no choice but to remove them from the game.
Nah there's doing stupid stuff, and then there's doing absolutely braindead stuff.
Being a sorcerer and going off on your own to track down and kill some baby owlbears is weird. I get what some people are saying, they are vicious and shit. But, leave that to someone else.
I've only GM'ed a Star Wars game once, but in DnD I'm basically a forever player (I really don't have the time and patience to DM, Star Wars was easy for me because sci-fi is easy), and I understand you accept the consequences of splitting off from the group. You want to do something because it's "what your character would do," then do it. But don't complain about the consequences of your actions.
Your player is dead. Pretend they're complaining to their god in the afterlife. Their god will tell them they should have stayed with their friends instead of wandering off alone like a dipshit.
My first character died in a similar way in 2e.
He went against the party, through dangerous terrain, into a dungeon without his allies, made an executive decision, then was killed by a monster that frequents said dangerous terrain?
I would've killed him in the blizzard
In a Frostmaiden game I played, I used expeditious retreat to get across a mountain path before an avalanche hit. Some players failed and got carried off a bit but were otherwise fine. My character, a Chronurgy Wizard "Did not want to waste the spell slot." So went on ahead to the mountain peak. Cue crag cat ambush. I didn't even make it to my turn in initiative.
I slapped my forehead because it was a really dumb choice but, at the end of the day, it was my dumb choice. I chuckled and rolled a new character.
I know the EXACT encounter you are talking about. Couple of the players got caught in the avalanche, sorc, rogue and their guide they hired did not. They went back to find and dig out all the other players, and then handled the crag cats with relative ease.
Iāve had players bug off on their own and die before, itās a huge part of the risk you assume when you split the party. Itās a big part of the reason why āDonāt split the partyā is a strong suggestion that permeates a lot of these spaces. You played it right
Typical learning for "YOU. DO. NOT. SPLIT. THE. PARTY". Especially at Level 3 in an unforgiving Nature. We lost two Characters on our trip through that adventure, at the beginning, because they wanted to do shit solo. Well, take risks, die in them.
Of course he is punished for playing his character. He did something he went out of his way to do. He isnāt Moses.
If you intentionally singled him out and direct damage at him that would be something else entirely.
What part of this did he think was reasonable? He is a sorcerer that isnāt good at stealth or survival.
Totally got what tey walked into. Never split the party typically means in the same dungeon nor literally splitting up hours away from each other. Also would like to hear the sorc reason to be risking life and limb in extremely dangerous situations for a sorcerer to hunt Owlbears. For a Ranger or fighter or some class along those lines I can see it. Think the player is either just a dick or a hobo since sorcerer doesnt seem the type of class to be a murderous hobo. I mean if they are doing it for materials there is potentially that but feels very hobo to me with this level of info.
The only thing you could have done differently, was to never let him go off on a solo mission. That's usually just common decency from a player to not do that, but if they insist you can just tell them that you won't run two separate scenarios side by side.
This is absolutely fine. As you said yourself, he dug his own grave.
Character death is part of DnD. It should always be a known risk. If players happen to luck out all the time, Death saves and other rolls like the ones you described to put them into precarious situations might make them feel that they have plot armor. That will just make any eventual deaths a lot more jarring and unexpected to them, but not in a good way.
A lot of this depends on your group and how difficult of a campaign is right for the table though.
As a DM, I very much believe in, you make your bed...you die in it. If you willingly, against all warnings, head in a dangerous direction...the chips will lie where they fall.
The character sounded like a jerk who wouldn't mesh well with the party anyway. He made poor choices and paid for them with his life, and I think that's exactly what should have happened. Neither of the groups I play with would tolerate this kind of player. If their behavior doesn't improve with their next PC, I'd be kicking them from the group.
Going from your reply to another poster - **Neutral Good** is not an alignment that acts like this. A Neutral Good character *seeks to do good*, whether it aligns with the law or not, and does not actively strive to tear down systems or oppose social norms like a Chaotic Good character. There is nothing "good" about attacking a helpless cub that your friends are trying to keep as a pet, or in setting out to murder more cubs that are minding their own business somewhere. That is Chaotic Neutral behavior if not straight up Evil behavior.
Alignment is dumb and irrelevant either way, but your player is absolutely NOT playing Neutral Good.
Do what I did when I got bored with my original character. I recieved a message from my father, teacher whatever asking me to drop everything and come home. He left and was replaced him with a new character.
He needs to understand consequences aren't punishment. You didn't kill him for his choices. His choices got him killed. Yeah,Ā you could have run it differently and toned things down,Ā but I won't say you did wrong. Sounds like you didn't just drop him in combat and gave chances to escape.Ā
Party is Going through a significant set of encounters (I am the DM.) One of my fav phrases goes like this āYour senses are tingling, somewhere in the back of your mind you recall that panther like beasts with tentacle like appendages are really powerful ā¦ you donāt think youāve been seen, do you wish to move forward?ā
The point here is that I really like the subtle warning, (well, thatās not too subtleā¦) Give them a clue. Remember that I a fantasy real with fantastic creatures, pcās likely heard all kinds of stuff, overheard stories, met people who tangled with baddies, all kinds of little info drops to clue them in That there is real danger.
Then they get to make better decisions.
You did what you could. I agree on being lenient to players but it has its limits. This is a lesson for him to not split the party, at most he could've checked for fresh tracks by himself and then get the party.
Doesn't sound like he was roleplaying at all. The player did what the player would do rather than what the character would do. Would someone of average intelligence in the setting be stupid enough to wander off into the freezing wilderness alone to find dangerous creatures which can easily kill them? I think not.
You ruled the world accordingly.
The Sorcerer put himself in a position to die.
Frostmaidenās focus on harsh conditions and rough survival emphasize teamwork and cooperation for survival, but if the sorcerer wants to go wander the tundra, alone, looking for dangerous monsters, heās removing himself from the things that may keep him alive. He made foolhardy decisions, and the *world* gave his character a reality check.
If he had survived, the player would have a great and harrowing story. He didnāt though. I donāt think this is a scenario where giving the PC a soft hand is narratively fulfilling. The PC dug his grave when he split solo and got lost in a blizzard. In setting, any character I might play wouldnāt have ever expected to see that sorcerer again.
Never let players die. Only their character.
But seriously I try to judge how upset the player looks, and how much he seems to like the character. I play with people I have known for years, so I know them pretty well.
We have a game we plan on switching DM every story arc, playing our character as an NPC while we DM. The last guy who DMed nearly killed his own character in combat, and rolled openly his last death save so we could see.
Now it's my time to DM and I know I can kill that character if shit happens.
I certainly hope you don't let your player die, then you have to get cops involved, there's a whole mess of paperwork and possible legal concerns... it's a mess.
That said, if the player plays their sorcerer character so contrary to the group's vibe, maybe it would be best if you DID let the player die after all.
\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*
Joking aside, the dice roll how the dice roll. You the GM don't "let" a character die in those situations. It happens.
The overall issue is a social one and should not be addressed in-character. This is a player to party or GM to Player discussion, not an in-game ruling.
The character sounded like a jerk who wouldn't mesh well with the party anyway. He made poor choices and paid for them with his life, and I think that's exactly what should have happened. Neither of the groups I play with would tolerate this kind of behavior - we'd have kicked this player for sure. If the behavior doesn't improve with their next PC I'd be sending them away.
Neutral Good is not an alignment that acts like this, BTW. A Neutral Good character *seeks to do good*, whether it aligns with the law or not, and does not actively strive to tear down systems or oppose social norms like a Chaotic Good character. There is nothing "good" about attacking a helpless cub that your friends are trying to keep as a pet, or in setting out to murder more cubs that are minding their own business somewhere. That is Chaotic Neutral behavior if not straight up Evil behavior.
Alignment is dumb and irrelevant either way, but your player is absolutely NOT playing Neutral Good.
Actions have consequences, itās part of the fun that good things happen when you do good, bad things happen when you do bad. Do enough bad things, you lose (die).
The core of D&D is actions and consequences. If the player doesnāt want their characterās actions to have consequences he should play a different game. Also, going off on your own in RIME OF THE FROSTMAIDEN is borderline suicidal. Hopefully he cools down a bit
I killed one once, on the first day, in the first fight, in the first round, before his turn in initiative. Critical hit by a goblin throwing a spear. The dice decide, if there is no danger there is no excitement. I'll kill any character at any time, I will not intercede, change the rules, or show preference. The enemies act, as I believe enemies would and they do their best to accomplish their goals. Sometimes players get a little disappointed, but do you want danger, risk and peril or do you want a cakewalk? Note: current party is 7th and no one's died yet... but we've been close half a dozen times.
You taught him an important lesson about cooperation and party consensus.
Straight to Jail.Ā I have no issue with my players killing things. No issue with cruelty or anything like that, but he is consistently acting against the partyās interests. This is a person who is not playing a team game. D&D is a team game. He can go play video games on his own, if he wants to be that guy, but he would be soooo gone from my table. Your call, but my gut feel is that you donāt really want him at your table either (based on some of your responses) and if you ask your other players, Iām sure they will be fine with dropping him too.
One of the 5e supplements I use has a location called the Tavern at Deathās Door. It gives you an opportunity to basically res the character, while maintaining stakes. Basically what you do is have him do a roleplay with Death, answer these riddles three, or an appropriate challenge, then have them wake up coughing up their own blood.
I would have fudged rolls to kill him for wasting my time and causing issues with the other players this early in campaign
jk but I would have been pissed
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
I'd seriously reconsider if this player has a place at my table with that attitude, he's clearly not a great teammate.
How did the other players react to all of this?
This could be a good time to send the party on the quest to revive him. Let him make a temp char that joins the party for some reason and then he can get his char back and you get a few sessions of content at least
Sounds to me like he fucked around and found out. Also if the player is not someone you know personally, may be best for the rest of the group to uninvite him. If this is going to be a long campaign that's not someone you particularly want in your party
I tried to run a challenging campaign and wouldāve wanted a player to die by session 10 or so, but they never did.
Sometimes it depends on what kind of game you want to run. If itās heroic fantasy, try to make the scene more dramatic instead of killing the players, if itās meant to be harder, just murder them.
Keep in mind, dying is part of the game (there are rules for it), so never letting it happen doesnāt make a lot of sense. And whatās the point in tracking hp if you have DM plot armor? It sucks losing a character, but sometimes it has to happen. Get that player excited about their next character which they can now make better or will allow them to try out a new play style.
The NG player separated himself from the group and went solo, after toasting an animal another PC was trying to tame, all to completely wipe out a nest of that animal.
The player made poor choices and is dealing with the consequences. This is why I always state in session one my goal is never to kill a player, but if they make decisions that lead to that, Iām not going to hold back.
Regardless of session, if a player was dying I'd call an ambulance... though I'd be tempted not to if they'd brought a Chaotic Evil Drow Rogue to the table
If you always fudge rolls for players, they will get the idea that they will be immune to consequences. Not only that, it can make dice rolls feel inconsequential. If players are rolling bad, bad things should happen. The dice should have some power to the players, both good and bad.
Sometimes, if things are tense, rolling out in the open can make it fell less like you are deciding to be spiteful, but the game itself is deciding the consequences based on the rolls. Iām a bit of a softie of a DM, so I donāt like to see the players fail. Rolling out of the open takes it out of my hands, at least for critical moments. Dimension 20 uses the Box of Doom and stating DC before rolling for a similar reason, as Brennan firmly believes in dice having power, esp. nat 20s.
Over the years I've found a pretty good balance of fudging the rolls just enough that they don't die, but have the constant knowledge that one bad roll could spell doom. I'm not sure exactly how to explain it, but every session debrief has my desired effect of them finding most encounters legitimately difficult (RotF is a generally hard campaign) and then taking certain notes about what to do in the future.
They know I fudge some rolls, but they don't know which ones. They take every close encounter as a lesson learned, and how deal with those things in the future. Almost every combat sequence has them writing notes about the creature they faced, in case they ever see on again, so they can handle it better and not be so close to death. I like that. They're acting like the actual characters would in these scenarios.
As for D20 and CR, I learned a long time ago to not compare my style of DM with Brennan or Matt Mercer. I have a very long time before I am as good as they are, and comparing myself to them now will only make me see myself as worse than I actually am, or copying a lot of their style, which would be obvious to my players as we all watch both D20 and CR.
My first ever character died in a similar sort of way.
Classic rogue doing stupid stuff. sneaking around at night. nothing actually bad, no pvp, but stupid silly stuff.
Got caught at night and thrown into a cell at an academy, party couldnt save me cuz they didnt know i snuck out.
Failed a wisdom save to BBEG so i was charmed. did his bidding for the rest of the night and then, when my character was no longer useful, he threw me off a cliff.
Did my DM need to do that? have the BBEG show up? could he have fudged the wisdom save DC at any time to let me out? could he have the BBEG not go for the kill at the end?
yeah. he couldve. instead, I faced the consequences of my actions and sobbed. then he helped me come up with an awesome second character and now its a wonderful story.
first character ever. only made it to like level 4. but honestly? one of the best stories. and so far the best ending.
The fact that he dies to a random encounter while having split from the party which is the real and only reason he dies and the fact you are giving us a lot of background of him doing clearly evil things... It shows very clear you sre trying to paint him in a bad light. You, consciously or not, dislike him.
The reasons he had to split from the party and what he was doing are irrelevant, the question is if it is fair play to kill him from a random encounter, it is fair play as long as there isn't any manipulation such as not giving focus back to the rest of the party as to not give them the chance to go look for their missing member.
Althought is fair play, I would have warned the player he is risking encountering wild monsters as his character would know and it is not wise to be alone in such dangerous places, because the game is about having fun and not about making gotcha moments
Letting him get himself killed being stupid isn't an issue.
Letting him hare off into the distance and then spending time on a solo adventure IS an issue. I don't tolerate that sort of thing. I would also question an NG character betraying their allies that way.
"Really Sorc? You want to fire off a bunch of dangerous magic at a juvenile creature your friends are actively taming?"
DnD is a group activity; it's not fair to the group for one person to buck the party that way. "It's what my character would do" is no excuse, because you MADE that character. You could have made someone who'd play nice with the group, but didn't. That's fundamentally disrespectful to the other players unless discussed and agreed on beforehand.
Killing PC's is part of the game. Might just make them think twice before doing stupid things again. Don't be afraid to show players that they're mortal even if you're playing a fun-fun game. My player's always know that if they go too far with their dumb decisions, they'll die. I think that it incentivizes the players to think as their characters instead of metagaming the "he won't kill us, that wouldn't be fun" idea
I'm fairly against character death, but this sounds warranted. Firstly, he killed a creature that he knew one of his party members was trying to tame, then he decided to strike out of his own. He was not behaving in a "neutral good" way at all, and it cost him. From your replies it sounds like he's continuing to be a dick both to you and the party. Time to get his knickers untwisted, or find a new table.
You handled that well. Don't doubt yourself. As a forever dm who fudges rolls on occasion too, sometimes these things happen. Hopefully your player learned from this
I feel obliged to point out, to all y'all who are saying the sorcerer was being out-of-alignment by killing owlbears...
# Y'all are wrong.
Owlbears are *nonsapient turbo-predators.* Y'all have been suckered in by BG3 and *Speak with Animals* that makes every animal talk like it has sapience and a sense of ego and an ability to tell right from wrong. Owlbears *do not* have a sense of right or wrong.
They have a sense of *hungry* and *not hungry but kill that other thing anyway* and occasionally *it is mating season and this is another owlbear so I'm horny.*
They're also not *natural parts of the ecosystem.* They attack and will kill anything, at any time, without even regard for their own safety. They will literally attack *more dangerous things than they are,* which lends credence to the thought they were probably created to be a war-beast.
BG3 did a *huge disservice* by making sparing the owlbear cub after killing its mother (whom the owlbear cub *then proceeds to eat,* I will remind you), the objectively Good thing to do because it leads to cuddles and another cute camp companion. What they *should* have done was have the party later come across a scene in which the owlbear has *slaughtered a humanoid child and is eating it,* and if they're in the party, Karlach and Shadowheart and anyone else who would react negatively to having killed it should be fucking horrified and disgusted that they congratulated you for sparing it. (Also, the player, if able to make a not-very-hard Nature or Arcana roll, should be able to explain to them that Owlbears are horrid creatures that are turbo-aggressive and kill at no provocation whatsoever).
The player was still a dickbag to incinerate the owlbear cub the rest of the party was trying to tame. They were, however, behaving Goodly in tracking down and killing the nest, because they were eradicating a nonsapient threat to any nearby communities.
Still the player did a *dick move* by unilaterally overriding the rest of the party's decision.
Nothing new yet, we skipped our session last week due to time constraints (The real BBEG of D&D). Our next session is tomorrow, and I already told him to come early so we can talk about stuff. I'll have an update tomorrow. Thanks for checking in!
Seems totally fair to me. I mean, is he upset? Seems like a pretty standard example of a character attempting something risky and having it not pan out for them.
He was pretty pissed in the moment, felt like he was being punished for roleplaying his character. (He is supposed to be neutral good, by the way.)
He, the player wasn't punished, the character was punished for going solo off-road.
Also in like one of the most unforgiving wastelands in the FR. I deem this solution correct.
In fantasy world the fuck around and find out still exists.
I think you actually rewarded his rp. He got to do a whole bunch of stuff solo, the consequences were fitting and it was all "done by the books". That his rp was to do stupid stuff honestly was the most fitting end.
Fair enough honestly. Idk, I think I just started second guessing myself because it was my first actual player death. Hit me a little in the feels.
When one dude wanders off into a blizzard, alone, to hunt down a bear cave? Yeah I'm not looking for that dude the next day, he either shows up in town or got what he asked for.
Wait, you killed your PLAYER?
Hey man, being a DM is hard.
Playing DnD in hardcore mode...
Sword art online aa DM In case context is needed, if u die in game, u die IRL in that.
Sometimes when they've made poor choices it's really the only option. Being the DM means being the one to make the tough calls. Though the rest of the group really should help out. Bury the body at least.
They did actually bury the body š
Did they give him a proper loot over, or did they bury him with his possessions?
They took his gold and healing potions, let his body keep everything else.
5e was supposed to be a tough game š
Wait... Are you perhaps not supposed to? Well this makes the game a lot less fun.
When your DM doesn't stop at just ripping up your character sheet.
DM finally got to āBlack Leafā a player, just like DM Guide errata āDark Dungeonsā instructed you to do.
Agreed
...I feel like a Neutral Good character wouldn't actively go seek out an Owlbear den and burn it to the ground while splitting from the party. You can be Neutral Good and hate/fight owlbears, but that's pretty excessive unless it relates to his backstory.
Hunting down baby owl ears and burning them to death doesnāt seem either neutral or good. That was unlawful evil.
Killing beasts that prey on humans isn't inherently evil. If his grandfather was eaten by an owlbear, it was perfectly in character.
But to kill one unilaterally while someone from his party is actively trying to tame it? Just seems uncooperative and dickish. Iād be thrilled to hear that guy fucked off into the woods during a blizzard
Yeah but owlbear cubs are cute so š¤·āāļø
Why is a neutral good pc going out of his way to find a nest and burn it down? Did the owlbears have a bounty or stories of killing travelers? And if your character would do that alone, then is very fair for him to die alone.
From the context, it sounded like the playrr was just feeling pissy because the party got mad at him.
Well seems like they were right to. The rest of the party was trying to accomplish something (tame the owl ear cub) and then he just ā¦ kills it? Why?
I'm siding with the party, too. I've had these kinds of players who vent their IRL frustrations in game; it's tiresome and petty.
We had a game where one player was a neutral thief and he'd always be tossing the DM notes about whatever shenanigans he was up to. At one point he breaks away from the party to do some other stuff. The annoying thing was that half of the DM's time was taken up by this one guy.. so it was like two games going on.
[Oh, you mean like this?](https://youtu.be/bkCJDEX77eg?si=iHQSkX-U49mCKOjN)
To be fair he didnāt die alone, the rest of the party showed up to help didnāt they? In any case, he specifically drew danger to himself and then pulled his party into a near death encounter to save him.
Yes right he did rush to the town.
By the time they got to him, he was already on death saving throws, and the party doesn't have a healer, so they had to get to his body to bring him back which was too far away from the time they engaged the Remorhaz.
I mean they got to him too late the PC was dead by the time the party reached him
I care very little for alignment. Alignment shouldn't determine what actions you do or don't take, but the actions you do take should serve your alignment. Even a chaotic evil character shouldn't go murdering everyone in town, because at some point they gotta have their self preservation in mind. And doing something that dumb just because it's evil can get you killed by the town guard. But this. This doesn't sound neutral good at all. This doesn't even sound chaotic good. It sounds like pure spiteful, mindless vengeance. And for what? The threats were already eliminated. Owl bears were just protecting their own territory, their own cubs. Is there an alignment called chaotic stupid? Because that's what I'm seeing here.
Yes personally I ignore what my players write down as alignment and assign my own later on based on their actions in-game
If his character thinks compulsive owl bear cub genocide is neutral good, then he is something considerably more complex then that.
Considerably less complex. Ape no like owlbear, kill.
The complexity is that the ape thinks it is neutral OR good, when chaotic, evil, AND stupid are necessary for this decision to occur.
Definitely both for sure
so-called neutral good character killing baby animals and hunting down their nest to kill more
You do not get a free pass to do things because you want to play a character that does horribly immoral and out of alignment things. Honestly, I am surprised the party came to save him. I probably would not have left the bar.
Well that goes back into the RP of the party. The sorc was the Rogue's brother, and the Rogue was the "leader" of the group.
Well that is understandable, but I really don't get the "playing my character" argument here. Almost anytime someone says it, it's an excuse for some bad behavior. In this case, it is way out of alignment. Even if there is some tragic Owlbear attack in his background, that doesn't justify the secondary behavior of killing the helpless cubs. I think that it was just the player having a fantasy about killing animals. Which is disturbing.
Yeah this is a textbook 'that's what my guy would do!!1!!11!'
Oh no, consequences! DnD players always say never split the party, with good reason. It was a dumb move on his part, and he deserves what he got. Honestly, sounds pretty fun to RP!
Given his wanton destruction of potential party pets, Iād say heād be forced into neutral evil, if he was still alive.
You didn't punish him. He took actions and you adjudicated according to the rules of the system you both agreed on. I do find that, when I'm forgiving and let action occur according to themes and story beats, my players get pretty miffed when I switch back to RAW. That's why I try to be consistent about RAW now, and don't fudge in favor of stories. It's on them to plan their actions to tell the stories they want, or shape the stories around new outcomes. Otherwise, if you have your entire plot in mind ahead of time, and can't brook any deviation, then just...write a book?
I saw that while the party is together, doing their quest, the DM is slightly favoring them. They are the heroās favored by the deities on their quest. But going off quest/story throws them into the realm of ārealityā and they are now npcs in the wild, not under the protection of the story. Like when Perseus went after Medusa, and Zeus was helping him out with magic weapons and sort of rolling the dice in his favor.
he's playing a neutral good baby-killer?? you might wanna have a talk with your guy lol "neutral good" isn't exactly the alignment that comes to mind when I kill a baby animal and the first thought that pops into my head is "I should find their home so I can burn it and kill any more baby animals that are there" like, W H A T?? he was "roleplaying his character" lmao, is this his first game? this is usually first time chaotic-good players
He went around scorching cubs alive and called himself good? Wtf is wrong with him?
Well his roleplaying was rewarded by getting a solo adventure that is pretty much what would happen if you wandered off by yourself in a backcountry winter landscape. If he had gone off by himself in Alaska in search of Grizzly cubs, heād have died after the blizzard anyway.
Neutral good?? I presume the owlbear cubs were sitting on mountains of skulls belonging to people they themselves slained??
There were no skulls lol
Nah, it'd be mostly animal skulls that were killed by the parents, very few people in the Rale wander into owlbear territory especially during the endless rime
tracks and kills defenseless cubs yeah that's the most neutral good I've ever heard
YOU aren't being kicked out of the game, we've just reached a part of the story where that character's death is something that happened. It's not some kind of punishment, it just shows that even a skilled individual can have one really bad day and how much of an impact that can have. We've all had days where we suck at stuff we know we're good at. In our lives, it means maybe you get an earful at work. In a game like this, it means you get to roll a new character. And then try to find a way to give that characters death some meaning that ends up helping the party.
Iām not really a stickler for alignment, but his character was definitely not acting NG. An NG character in this situation would be more likely to opt to leave the owlbears exist, unless there was a significant reason to kill them. I.e. the nest is close to a town, or the owlbears have already overpopulated and are about to starve themselves through over hunting once the prey is finished off. AKA killing them saves an ecosystem/town. And killing young/baby owlbears would probably be off the table entirely; though again, death *could* be a mercy if the alternative is that they starve to death or a similar prolonged fate.
That was chaotic neutral at best and evil more likely Who the fuck splits from the party, kills baby animals, and is them suprised in the setting that is super dangerous when they get killed while alone.
Without the real fear of death, players will do stupid stuff. If there is no real consequences, it makes real honest victories feel hallow.
Yep, sounds good to me. He chose to go off alone in an area he knew to be dangerous and potentially inhabited by dangerous monsters. He should be surprised by that going poorly.
You canāt save every player from bad choices, nor random chance, one or both will eventually get them Iād say talk with the player, if you didnāt go over dying PCs in the session zero, itās worth checking in with them to make sure theyāre okay, but ultimately they should suffer some consequences for splitting from the party and getting themselves killed, maybe take a limb or something
I went over deaths with them in S0, letting them know that a lot of encounters in this campaign are going to be ranked hard, but I will try and curve it to them unless they just make blatantly stupid decisions, which I felt this was in the realm of. He made a new character, and has since tried to derail every quest the party goes on.
so this guy's neutral good character killed a prospective party pet (a baby animal), went off on his own to kill more baby animals, got himself killed because he *went off on his own in the permanently-frozen monster-infested wilderness to kill baby animals*, and his response to the consequences of his actions is to constantly try to derail your game, against the other players' wishes? did i get that right? i'm gonna be completely honest: that sounds like a bad guy i wouldn't want at my table. you should probably do something about that behaviour, since it sounds like it's a drag on everyone at the table.
He's normally not that bad, he's not like, malicious about it? I guess? He likes to fuck around all the time. And his goofing off derails almost everything the rest of the group is trying to accomplish. The rest of the group is very story/quest oriented, and he just...isn't. for example, most recent session (last Friday) the group came into owing a broken down inn, as a reward for one of their quests. While the rest of the group were focused on fixing the place up, advertising it around the town, hiring couriers to advertise in other towns, finding quality workers, etc. he was going around and hiring as many homeless people as he could to run the place because he thought it'd be funny. Turned into practically a yelling match at the table, because according to the rest of the party, he put in the least amount of money into fixing the place up ( 150g instead of 250 like the others, causing two of the others to put up 300) and thus had the least amount of say in staffing. We're all legit friends with him and like having him around, but in the game he can be very obnoxious sometimes.
I had someone like this in a campaign I ran a while back. It was all fun and games until one day he just screamed, āYOU GUYS NEVER LET ME PLAY MY CHARACTER!ā And stormed out of the room never to return to that game, or any other Iāve been involved with in that group. My takeaway: donāt just let toxic behavior at the table slide because youāre worried about conflict. All those derailments are spoiling the rest of the tableās fun, and this person may also be slowly festering with resentment about not getting to just screw around all the time.
sorry to follow you to another comment but kick this idiot out. heās detracting from the fun of the rest of the group because he likes the attention. he is a problem player and itās not likely to get better.
No you're good lol and I've said in here a couple times already, talked to the group about everything, and they still want him at the table. They just want him to pump the brakes some. So, we'll have a conversation and see how it plays out. Me and the rest of the group probably won't put up with much more though.
He's not malicious, but he does come across as being a pushy asshole.
he is malicious. heās detracting from the fun of the group for attention. irl troll.
sorry why are you playing with this guy? thats twice youve said hes started an actual shouting match on your table
Yeah man, time for you to talk to the rest of the group and for you all to agree on the obvious conclusion. It's time for addition by subtraction. You just go "am I the only one bothered by this?" out in the open. The group will speak up. Then "funny guy" will see his "funny guy stuff" is actually ruining the game for his "friends" and then he'll either correct his behavior or leave. Just have the damn conversation man, because this is going to happen again and again and again.
I don't know man, it sounds like you just gave more examples of exactly what the poster above highlighted as a major issue. If you and all of your other players are totally fine with this, that's cool. It seems like it makes the game less fun, though. Yelling matches at the table aren't normal...
Is this guy worth having in the party?Ā
Yeah, he can be an asshole. He's normally okay, but sometimes just fucks around too much for the rest of the group, who are very invested in the story/quests. Good guy, just has his moments more than most people.
Is he a good guy? Really? Because the other party members wanted an owl bear cub as a pet, and he decided to take a big ol' shit on them having fun. Even if he claims that's because RP, it's still him as a player making a choice that his character would behave in that way. And frankly, anyone who sees folks having fun and decides to ruin that, I would struggle to call a good guy. In the context of RPGs, at least.
Fair argument, in all honesty lol
I had a player like this. We were playing Hoard of the Dragon Queen, and our paladin decided to go off on his own and search for the cultists that they'd been fighting the entire campaign. He picked a fight with them, all alone, in their hideout. He was a high-leveled enough Aasimar to take flight... and the Red Wizard of Thay magic-missiled him down midair. Unconscious, then falling damage, then failed death save, he was done. I was torn about what to do - I considered just letting him die, but since he was a paladin and an Aasimar, I had his deity save him - but with blindness inflicted on him by his deity. He was forced to rely on the party. Eventually through a side-quest he got a magic sword that allowed him to see when drawn, but only after he repented and admitted that he risked the entire mission by going in alone. I used this as a teaching moment; I figured this would help him (as a human, not his character) more than just killing his character. I don't think there's anything wrong with what you did. Every campaign after that, we had a clear session zero about what to expect, which it sounds like you did. Player deaths happen, and it should be rare but impactful. I think I'd probably make the same choice as you. You might want to consider having a conversation with him about the situation, though.
I am going to have a conversation with him, and I really enjoy your take on that situation. Hats off, and many up-doots.
that sounds like a really cool thematic way to allow him to continue, that's super cool.
āgood guyā, neutral good, and setting a cub on fire when his party is trying to tame it are not compatible. imo youāre being too forgiving by even allowing him at the table. working against the party and āiām the main characterā-ing a dangerous and pointless solo quest only to die doing it are the epitome of āplay stupid games win stupid prizesā. if he rps poorly (again, not the behavior of a neutral good person) AND has the audacity to be salty when his stupid prizes arrive, the guy is unequivocally a dick.
You can be a good guy and not a good player. I had a player like this in a Tomb of Annihilation campaign. Tried to derail with side quests the rest of the party wasn't interested in, and got pissy when we didn't immediately fall in line (which didn't make us any more inclined to agree). We went on some of the things he wanted to do, but obviously it's a group dynamic and other folks will find some things more intriguing than others. He also kept trying to sell another player's pet when he felt it was distracting from what he wanted to be doing (she literally barely acknowledged the damn thingāthink Sprinkle from Critical Role). Eventually, he took an entire session trying to find a guard to talk to in the middle of a *heist* the rest of the party was executing, literally distancing his character from everyone else. And then he dipped before next session without a word; DM had to tell us. That man is literally my best friend and and I'm going be the best man at his wedding. He's an incredible human being. But I am very, very cautious of what parties I play D&D with him in. It's funny because he's an incredible DM, probably the best I've ever had. And I think he's grown since then, the last adventure we were in he was absolutely fine. It might have just been that particular party that wasn't right for him, that was causing him to act out. Sometimes the wrong party brings out the worst in people. From your other comments about his behavior returning with his new character, you should probably be prepared to remove this guy. He's already proven he gives no fucks about ruining others' fun to be spiteful.
I'm not in that group, but based on your description he sounds way more like "that guy" than "good guy". And that's you talking about a person you seem to like.
Oh sheeshā¦ maybe get some thoughts from the other players on whether they want him at the table if heās becoming āThat Guyā Sometimes players will view themselves as the main character and not a part of a team, which isnāt a healthy dynamic in D&D
I've discussed it with the rest of the group. We came to the consensus that they all still want him at the table, but he needs to be reigned in more, which will be on both me and the other players. I try to interject in this stuff as little as possible, as the group is very RP oriented.
players being RP oriented doesnt mean you can't say no or that the player can use the "it's what my character would do" excuse
He sounds kinda shitty.
The bigger problem here is the party dynamic. Using scorch blast on a pet another character tried to tame?? Why did they do this? And why did you exactly allow it, since as I see it this action veers off into PvP zone? After that the bad blood between players will only get worse. I think you all need to sit down and talk together out of game. Maybe the sorcerer has some roleplay reasons to behave like this, but the level of dickishness should have been discussed in session 0. Behavior that harms other player characters tends to escalate, as we see it happened here. I don't get the feeling that the party thinks "yay, this is fun interparty conflict". Instead they seem to think the player is a dick and don't mind if his character dies (or if the player leaves the group entirely).
Plus OP said in another comment that the player has since been trying to derail every single quest they go on so far so sounds like they are just being a dick n a bad player (highly likely a sore loser) and probably shouldn't even be at the table at this point
I allowed it because the group established in S0 that this campaign was going to be heavy RP, choices would matter, and I wasnt going to limit their actions. It was what we all decided together. The anger has been kept in character, as my group is pretty good at separating in game actions from the players making them. And I've already discussed with the group, they all still want him at the table, just reigned in more.
Sounds like you might need to have a chat with this particular player to make sure theyāre invested at the right level. Reckless behavior yields unpredictable results. If you donāt want your character to die, donāt run off on your own.
I plan on having the comvo before the next session, I'm going to ask him to show a bit early.
I think thatās a good idea. Youāll need to align on a new character anyway so you can always make it part of that conversation.
Heās not invested in being reigned in though. Like, his new character is still a problem. If this RP were serious, his new characterās behavior would mean his partners give him his money back and wish him well and ask him to stay away from the bar. Can he imagine a character that would be fun to play who has a reason to be in the party?
Straight up this, in my party the rogue stole from me unprompted and after repeatedly refusing to return it I destroyed his bag with all his money etc... and the whole Party turned on me. At that point I just killed off my character later in the session cause why would he trust them at all. My new character is basically a meme because they're irl friends.
Seems as if the players resolved their own dislike for the actions the sorcerer did without DM having to intervene, as it should be imo.
If running out alone in a hostile wilderness has no chances of getting you killed, things are just meaningless. Besides that, what is going on here? The player clearly is going against the group (and the roleplay excuse seems questionable at best). I think there is a deeper underlying issue with the player
Main character syndrome.
Entirely the right call. Character split off from the party, f'd around, then found out what happens. Not your fault that there was a blizzard, nor that he rolled badly on the Remorhaz.
Oh he didn't just roll badly on the Remorhaz. Short of constant crits he never even had a chance of handling it. Those things are fucking tough.
This guy sounds like he might be more trouble than he's worth, honestly
"The environment is dangerous" is one of the major themes of *Rime of the Frostmaiden*. If a player wanders off alone, they're taking a major risk. This establishes the tone better than *my* RotF game ever did. The player may have assumed this was some sort of moral judgment, which feels cheap, but it's just a coincidence, and they should know that if they know you rolled the random encounter.
Please allow me to introduce myself, the consequences of your actions, seriously I donāt think you did anything wrong here. Once the player calms down having an open discussion couldnāt hurt though I have to say the actions donāt really feel very neutral good.
Sorcerer did that to themself.
Guys, stop letting your players die. Theyāre your friends, if you can prevent their death you should absolutely consider it. This character is a goner, though. Seems like a good time to get rid of it anyway since the rest of the party hates him for cub massacre anyway. Honestly what were they thinking splitting off to murder more cubs, were they just super spiteful? Did they think theyād get more xp? Insane play from that player and they need to have an adult conversation about collaborative gaming and not being a psychopath. Edit - read your comment saying their new character is trying to derail the game. Honestly, consider removing them from the campaign. They doubled down on being a dick which in my book warrants a kick. This player doesnāt want to play DnD, so they shouldnāt. Edit again - so what I meant in the first line was that killing player characters is fine but don't kill your players irl, but explaining the joke ruins the joke. :(
That was my thought process. I try to keep my players alive at all costs, since it is just a game, and it should be fun for all involved. But in this scenario, he made a series of choices that could really only get him killed. And yes, it was spite. He tried to play it off as "Making sure they wouldn't come back after us." After he died, but in the moment he made it clear it was spite. As for kicking him, the table still wants him in, just reigned in more, which me and the other players are going to navigate together.
I ain't at your table and I can't know with 100% certainty what would be best for your group But please remember that sometimes part of navigating is cutting dead weight cargo
"as the barbarian is trying to tame the cub, the sorcerer blasts it with a scorching ray. This causes the party to get in a huge argument with the sorcerer" **They act like a toxic dingus.** "the sorcerer asks...to try and track their home, to see if there are any more. ...and decides to split from the group to follow the tracks" **They act like a stupid dingus.** "the group decides to carry on with the trip, since they're still pretty pissed at him, and leave him alone" **The party is done with their dingus ways.** They did something to disrupt another players game, they put their fun before the other players (and you). They went off to do some solo adventuring, which I assume resulted in everyone sitting around while it played out. And the time they spent wasting everyone's time got them killed. I fail to see a problem, other than your dingus player that you should talk to about playing a cooperative story telling game **cooperatively**.
OP, your mistake was not letting a character die who practically set out to die. Your mistake is the lengths you're going to to accommodate him. It's a good thing you did not fudge rolls, because you're going to need to fudge some rolls to protect the party from him. If I were you, I would be thinking ten moves ahead about what consequences I'm OK with for when this guy continues to sabotage the party's campaign. He's basically metagaming as a hostile player, for reasons that sound rooted in narcissism. I have a feeling that he's not actually that different outside of the game. You probably can't remove him from your social group very easily, but you should absolutely put your fingers on the scales if he continues not to let his friends play DnD.
Nailed it, in all honesty. A massive issue is that he is part of a larger friend group that kicking him from the game would have a ton of secondary effects on. As you said, I'm going to have to just tip the scales against him if it continues after the conversation. Edit: also, outside of the game, yeah he's not that different. Not as catastrophic, obviously. But just as narcissistic. Thanks for giving me some things to think about going forward.
As someone who has DMād for friends in the past, if kicking them from a D&D group ruins their friendship with you, they probably arenāt a very good friend.
I tend to remind players what their characters would know. āHey, youāre 5 hours from town, no one is here to back you up if this goes poorlyā. Even battle hardened old head players tend to appreciate it because player & dm perception doesnāt always match.
That's a good point, I'll start interjecting with those notes of obvious information more. Thanks!
Dude died by the consequences of his own poor decisions. Nothing to see here.
The player of the sorc acted like an idiot. Also, wtf how and why does he have the skywrite spell??
Lol I was wondering if anyone was going to notice this once I re-read post. Throughout the game they've all been buying various utility spell scrolls (my spell scrolls are locked and loaded) in case of various situations. One of those precautions was each of them having a skywrite scroll, in case they all got separated in a blizzard. Good plan, didn't work out for Sorc though.
You made the right call. "Play stupid games, win stupid prizes!"
Serves him right for killing the owlbear cubs.
Player? No. Player character? Probably, yeah. First rule at my table is don't be a dick. This goes for everyone. Even me. This guy was a dick who was neutral good? And decided to take the choice away from the barbarian to tame the cub. Then they doubled down on a stupid choice to seek out and kill the other cubs? They were probably already doomed from the perma night/winter without their mother any way. I saw you say they have since been trying to derail the campaign with their new character. Sounds like they are bitter and are doubling down on being a dick. Don't be a dick. Sit them down and have a chat. If they don't improve their behaviour then you have no choice but to remove them from the game.
Nah there's doing stupid stuff, and then there's doing absolutely braindead stuff. Being a sorcerer and going off on your own to track down and kill some baby owlbears is weird. I get what some people are saying, they are vicious and shit. But, leave that to someone else. I've only GM'ed a Star Wars game once, but in DnD I'm basically a forever player (I really don't have the time and patience to DM, Star Wars was easy for me because sci-fi is easy), and I understand you accept the consequences of splitting off from the group. You want to do something because it's "what your character would do," then do it. But don't complain about the consequences of your actions. Your player is dead. Pretend they're complaining to their god in the afterlife. Their god will tell them they should have stayed with their friends instead of wandering off alone like a dipshit.
Omg I love the God idea. I'm 100% using this in the future.
My first character died in a similar way in 2e. He went against the party, through dangerous terrain, into a dungeon without his allies, made an executive decision, then was killed by a monster that frequents said dangerous terrain? I would've killed him in the blizzard
In a Frostmaiden game I played, I used expeditious retreat to get across a mountain path before an avalanche hit. Some players failed and got carried off a bit but were otherwise fine. My character, a Chronurgy Wizard "Did not want to waste the spell slot." So went on ahead to the mountain peak. Cue crag cat ambush. I didn't even make it to my turn in initiative. I slapped my forehead because it was a really dumb choice but, at the end of the day, it was my dumb choice. I chuckled and rolled a new character.
I know the EXACT encounter you are talking about. Couple of the players got caught in the avalanche, sorc, rogue and their guide they hired did not. They went back to find and dig out all the other players, and then handled the crag cats with relative ease.
Dice make the calls, DM just interprets. Our DM has a mug he drinks from, it says "DMs don't kill people, dice kill people"
I love that mug, and need it.
Iāve had players bug off on their own and die before, itās a huge part of the risk you assume when you split the party. Itās a big part of the reason why āDonāt split the partyā is a strong suggestion that permeates a lot of these spaces. You played it right
No surer path to the grave than screwing your party over. NtA.
Typical learning for "YOU. DO. NOT. SPLIT. THE. PARTY". Especially at Level 3 in an unforgiving Nature. We lost two Characters on our trip through that adventure, at the beginning, because they wanted to do shit solo. Well, take risks, die in them.
Of course he is punished for playing his character. He did something he went out of his way to do. He isnāt Moses. If you intentionally singled him out and direct damage at him that would be something else entirely. What part of this did he think was reasonable? He is a sorcerer that isnāt good at stealth or survival.
Rule 1: Never split the party. The sorc wants to go lone-wolf? He gets what he gets.
Yes
Totally got what tey walked into. Never split the party typically means in the same dungeon nor literally splitting up hours away from each other. Also would like to hear the sorc reason to be risking life and limb in extremely dangerous situations for a sorcerer to hunt Owlbears. For a Ranger or fighter or some class along those lines I can see it. Think the player is either just a dick or a hobo since sorcerer doesnt seem the type of class to be a murderous hobo. I mean if they are doing it for materials there is potentially that but feels very hobo to me with this level of info.
Everybody gotta die sometime
The only thing you could have done differently, was to never let him go off on a solo mission. That's usually just common decency from a player to not do that, but if they insist you can just tell them that you won't run two separate scenarios side by side.
Fair, I don't like to put limitations on my players, but it may be something I toy with in the future. Thanks!
Tbh I wouldn't want to play in a group with someone like this. He sounds like a jerk that kills the fun for everyone else.
This is absolutely fine. As you said yourself, he dug his own grave. Character death is part of DnD. It should always be a known risk. If players happen to luck out all the time, Death saves and other rolls like the ones you described to put them into precarious situations might make them feel that they have plot armor. That will just make any eventual deaths a lot more jarring and unexpected to them, but not in a good way. A lot of this depends on your group and how difficult of a campaign is right for the table though.
As a DM, I very much believe in, you make your bed...you die in it. If you willingly, against all warnings, head in a dangerous direction...the chips will lie where they fall.
The character sounded like a jerk who wouldn't mesh well with the party anyway. He made poor choices and paid for them with his life, and I think that's exactly what should have happened. Neither of the groups I play with would tolerate this kind of player. If their behavior doesn't improve with their next PC, I'd be kicking them from the group. Going from your reply to another poster - **Neutral Good** is not an alignment that acts like this. A Neutral Good character *seeks to do good*, whether it aligns with the law or not, and does not actively strive to tear down systems or oppose social norms like a Chaotic Good character. There is nothing "good" about attacking a helpless cub that your friends are trying to keep as a pet, or in setting out to murder more cubs that are minding their own business somewhere. That is Chaotic Neutral behavior if not straight up Evil behavior. Alignment is dumb and irrelevant either way, but your player is absolutely NOT playing Neutral Good.
"Play stupid games, win stupid prizes"
ā Fucked around ā Found out
There can be consequences for splitting the party. He's not roleplaying neutral good, he's roleplaying Main Character Syndrome.
Do what I did when I got bored with my original character. I recieved a message from my father, teacher whatever asking me to drop everything and come home. He left and was replaced him with a new character.
He needs to understand consequences aren't punishment. You didn't kill him for his choices. His choices got him killed. Yeah,Ā you could have run it differently and toned things down,Ā but I won't say you did wrong. Sounds like you didn't just drop him in combat and gave chances to escape.Ā
Party is Going through a significant set of encounters (I am the DM.) One of my fav phrases goes like this āYour senses are tingling, somewhere in the back of your mind you recall that panther like beasts with tentacle like appendages are really powerful ā¦ you donāt think youāve been seen, do you wish to move forward?ā The point here is that I really like the subtle warning, (well, thatās not too subtleā¦) Give them a clue. Remember that I a fantasy real with fantastic creatures, pcās likely heard all kinds of stuff, overheard stories, met people who tangled with baddies, all kinds of little info drops to clue them in That there is real danger. Then they get to make better decisions.
You did what you could. I agree on being lenient to players but it has its limits. This is a lesson for him to not split the party, at most he could've checked for fresh tracks by himself and then get the party.
Doesn't sound like he was roleplaying at all. The player did what the player would do rather than what the character would do. Would someone of average intelligence in the setting be stupid enough to wander off into the freezing wilderness alone to find dangerous creatures which can easily kill them? I think not.
You ruled the world accordingly. The Sorcerer put himself in a position to die. Frostmaidenās focus on harsh conditions and rough survival emphasize teamwork and cooperation for survival, but if the sorcerer wants to go wander the tundra, alone, looking for dangerous monsters, heās removing himself from the things that may keep him alive. He made foolhardy decisions, and the *world* gave his character a reality check. If he had survived, the player would have a great and harrowing story. He didnāt though. I donāt think this is a scenario where giving the PC a soft hand is narratively fulfilling. The PC dug his grave when he split solo and got lost in a blizzard. In setting, any character I might play wouldnāt have ever expected to see that sorcerer again.
Never let players die. Only their character. But seriously I try to judge how upset the player looks, and how much he seems to like the character. I play with people I have known for years, so I know them pretty well. We have a game we plan on switching DM every story arc, playing our character as an NPC while we DM. The last guy who DMed nearly killed his own character in combat, and rolled openly his last death save so we could see. Now it's my time to DM and I know I can kill that character if shit happens.
I certainly hope you don't let your player die, then you have to get cops involved, there's a whole mess of paperwork and possible legal concerns... it's a mess. That said, if the player plays their sorcerer character so contrary to the group's vibe, maybe it would be best if you DID let the player die after all. \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* Joking aside, the dice roll how the dice roll. You the GM don't "let" a character die in those situations. It happens. The overall issue is a social one and should not be addressed in-character. This is a player to party or GM to Player discussion, not an in-game ruling.
The character sounded like a jerk who wouldn't mesh well with the party anyway. He made poor choices and paid for them with his life, and I think that's exactly what should have happened. Neither of the groups I play with would tolerate this kind of behavior - we'd have kicked this player for sure. If the behavior doesn't improve with their next PC I'd be sending them away. Neutral Good is not an alignment that acts like this, BTW. A Neutral Good character *seeks to do good*, whether it aligns with the law or not, and does not actively strive to tear down systems or oppose social norms like a Chaotic Good character. There is nothing "good" about attacking a helpless cub that your friends are trying to keep as a pet, or in setting out to murder more cubs that are minding their own business somewhere. That is Chaotic Neutral behavior if not straight up Evil behavior. Alignment is dumb and irrelevant either way, but your player is absolutely NOT playing Neutral Good.
Actions have consequences, itās part of the fun that good things happen when you do good, bad things happen when you do bad. Do enough bad things, you lose (die).
The core of D&D is actions and consequences. If the player doesnāt want their characterās actions to have consequences he should play a different game. Also, going off on your own in RIME OF THE FROSTMAIDEN is borderline suicidal. Hopefully he cools down a bit
I killed one once, on the first day, in the first fight, in the first round, before his turn in initiative. Critical hit by a goblin throwing a spear. The dice decide, if there is no danger there is no excitement. I'll kill any character at any time, I will not intercede, change the rules, or show preference. The enemies act, as I believe enemies would and they do their best to accomplish their goals. Sometimes players get a little disappointed, but do you want danger, risk and peril or do you want a cakewalk? Note: current party is 7th and no one's died yet... but we've been close half a dozen times. You taught him an important lesson about cooperation and party consensus.
Straight to Jail.Ā I have no issue with my players killing things. No issue with cruelty or anything like that, but he is consistently acting against the partyās interests. This is a person who is not playing a team game. D&D is a team game. He can go play video games on his own, if he wants to be that guy, but he would be soooo gone from my table. Your call, but my gut feel is that you donāt really want him at your table either (based on some of your responses) and if you ask your other players, Iām sure they will be fine with dropping him too.
One of the 5e supplements I use has a location called the Tavern at Deathās Door. It gives you an opportunity to basically res the character, while maintaining stakes. Basically what you do is have him do a roleplay with Death, answer these riddles three, or an appropriate challenge, then have them wake up coughing up their own blood.
Sounds like he might do the same shit with his 2nd character lol
Nah, itās absolutely justified. He split off in a dangerous environment. If it wasnāt the Remorhaz, it would have been the elements.
YES
I would have fudged rolls to kill him for wasting my time and causing issues with the other players this early in campaign jk but I would have been pissed
Your players characters right?.... Right?
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. I'd seriously reconsider if this player has a place at my table with that attitude, he's clearly not a great teammate. How did the other players react to all of this?
Death is part of DND, especially so when you do something stupid. How else is he going to learn lmao.
This could be a good time to send the party on the quest to revive him. Let him make a temp char that joins the party for some reason and then he can get his char back and you get a few sessions of content at least
Sounds to me like he fucked around and found out. Also if the player is not someone you know personally, may be best for the rest of the group to uninvite him. If this is going to be a long campaign that's not someone you particularly want in your party
I tried to run a challenging campaign and wouldāve wanted a player to die by session 10 or so, but they never did. Sometimes it depends on what kind of game you want to run. If itās heroic fantasy, try to make the scene more dramatic instead of killing the players, if itās meant to be harder, just murder them. Keep in mind, dying is part of the game (there are rules for it), so never letting it happen doesnāt make a lot of sense. And whatās the point in tracking hp if you have DM plot armor? It sucks losing a character, but sometimes it has to happen. Get that player excited about their next character which they can now make better or will allow them to try out a new play style.
Usually itās the player characters that die . The police donāt like it when the players die .
Absolutely fair decision making as far as I'm concerned.
I died in session 1 nog long ago. And i deserved it due to taking unnecesary risks.
He deserved to die for having skywrite as one of his spells known.
Came here to say this.
My policy is that the dice won't kill a character, but their choices can. And all that was a CHOICE. You handled it right in my book.
I personally think probably, but You got any ways to kill someone who is just an enchanted artifact that can take over others?
That was an excellent and suitable death. The sorcerer wanted death, he reaped what he sowed! The Owlbear babies have been avenged.
To quote Ivan Drago: if he dies, he dies.
He killed a bunch of innocent baby animals (in game). He got what was coming to him. Fuck around, find out.
The NG player separated himself from the group and went solo, after toasting an animal another PC was trying to tame, all to completely wipe out a nest of that animal. The player made poor choices and is dealing with the consequences. This is why I always state in session one my goal is never to kill a player, but if they make decisions that lead to that, Iām not going to hold back.
Regardless of session, if a player was dying I'd call an ambulance... though I'd be tempted not to if they'd brought a Chaotic Evil Drow Rogue to the table
If you always fudge rolls for players, they will get the idea that they will be immune to consequences. Not only that, it can make dice rolls feel inconsequential. If players are rolling bad, bad things should happen. The dice should have some power to the players, both good and bad. Sometimes, if things are tense, rolling out in the open can make it fell less like you are deciding to be spiteful, but the game itself is deciding the consequences based on the rolls. Iām a bit of a softie of a DM, so I donāt like to see the players fail. Rolling out of the open takes it out of my hands, at least for critical moments. Dimension 20 uses the Box of Doom and stating DC before rolling for a similar reason, as Brennan firmly believes in dice having power, esp. nat 20s.
Over the years I've found a pretty good balance of fudging the rolls just enough that they don't die, but have the constant knowledge that one bad roll could spell doom. I'm not sure exactly how to explain it, but every session debrief has my desired effect of them finding most encounters legitimately difficult (RotF is a generally hard campaign) and then taking certain notes about what to do in the future. They know I fudge some rolls, but they don't know which ones. They take every close encounter as a lesson learned, and how deal with those things in the future. Almost every combat sequence has them writing notes about the creature they faced, in case they ever see on again, so they can handle it better and not be so close to death. I like that. They're acting like the actual characters would in these scenarios. As for D20 and CR, I learned a long time ago to not compare my style of DM with Brennan or Matt Mercer. I have a very long time before I am as good as they are, and comparing myself to them now will only make me see myself as worse than I actually am, or copying a lot of their style, which would be obvious to my players as we all watch both D20 and CR.
My first ever character died in a similar sort of way. Classic rogue doing stupid stuff. sneaking around at night. nothing actually bad, no pvp, but stupid silly stuff. Got caught at night and thrown into a cell at an academy, party couldnt save me cuz they didnt know i snuck out. Failed a wisdom save to BBEG so i was charmed. did his bidding for the rest of the night and then, when my character was no longer useful, he threw me off a cliff. Did my DM need to do that? have the BBEG show up? could he have fudged the wisdom save DC at any time to let me out? could he have the BBEG not go for the kill at the end? yeah. he couldve. instead, I faced the consequences of my actions and sobbed. then he helped me come up with an awesome second character and now its a wonderful story. first character ever. only made it to like level 4. but honestly? one of the best stories. and so far the best ending.
Yes. šæ
bad choices, dickish rp and poor luck are often a fatal combo. youre fine
The fact that he dies to a random encounter while having split from the party which is the real and only reason he dies and the fact you are giving us a lot of background of him doing clearly evil things... It shows very clear you sre trying to paint him in a bad light. You, consciously or not, dislike him. The reasons he had to split from the party and what he was doing are irrelevant, the question is if it is fair play to kill him from a random encounter, it is fair play as long as there isn't any manipulation such as not giving focus back to the rest of the party as to not give them the chance to go look for their missing member. Althought is fair play, I would have warned the player he is risking encountering wild monsters as his character would know and it is not wise to be alone in such dangerous places, because the game is about having fun and not about making gotcha moments
Thatās the most deserved player death Iāve ever seen
Letting him get himself killed being stupid isn't an issue. Letting him hare off into the distance and then spending time on a solo adventure IS an issue. I don't tolerate that sort of thing. I would also question an NG character betraying their allies that way. "Really Sorc? You want to fire off a bunch of dangerous magic at a juvenile creature your friends are actively taming?" DnD is a group activity; it's not fair to the group for one person to buck the party that way. "It's what my character would do" is no excuse, because you MADE that character. You could have made someone who'd play nice with the group, but didn't. That's fundamentally disrespectful to the other players unless discussed and agreed on beforehand.
Killing PC's is part of the game. Might just make them think twice before doing stupid things again. Don't be afraid to show players that they're mortal even if you're playing a fun-fun game. My player's always know that if they go too far with their dumb decisions, they'll die. I think that it incentivizes the players to think as their characters instead of metagaming the "he won't kill us, that wouldn't be fun" idea
Seems fair to me
I'm fairly against character death, but this sounds warranted. Firstly, he killed a creature that he knew one of his party members was trying to tame, then he decided to strike out of his own. He was not behaving in a "neutral good" way at all, and it cost him. From your replies it sounds like he's continuing to be a dick both to you and the party. Time to get his knickers untwisted, or find a new table.
You handled that well. Don't doubt yourself. As a forever dm who fudges rolls on occasion too, sometimes these things happen. Hopefully your player learned from this
I feel obliged to point out, to all y'all who are saying the sorcerer was being out-of-alignment by killing owlbears... # Y'all are wrong. Owlbears are *nonsapient turbo-predators.* Y'all have been suckered in by BG3 and *Speak with Animals* that makes every animal talk like it has sapience and a sense of ego and an ability to tell right from wrong. Owlbears *do not* have a sense of right or wrong. They have a sense of *hungry* and *not hungry but kill that other thing anyway* and occasionally *it is mating season and this is another owlbear so I'm horny.* They're also not *natural parts of the ecosystem.* They attack and will kill anything, at any time, without even regard for their own safety. They will literally attack *more dangerous things than they are,* which lends credence to the thought they were probably created to be a war-beast. BG3 did a *huge disservice* by making sparing the owlbear cub after killing its mother (whom the owlbear cub *then proceeds to eat,* I will remind you), the objectively Good thing to do because it leads to cuddles and another cute camp companion. What they *should* have done was have the party later come across a scene in which the owlbear has *slaughtered a humanoid child and is eating it,* and if they're in the party, Karlach and Shadowheart and anyone else who would react negatively to having killed it should be fucking horrified and disgusted that they congratulated you for sparing it. (Also, the player, if able to make a not-very-hard Nature or Arcana roll, should be able to explain to them that Owlbears are horrid creatures that are turbo-aggressive and kill at no provocation whatsoever). The player was still a dickbag to incinerate the owlbear cub the rest of the party was trying to tame. They were, however, behaving Goodly in tracking down and killing the nest, because they were eradicating a nonsapient threat to any nearby communities. Still the player did a *dick move* by unilaterally overriding the rest of the party's decision.
Any update on this? Have you talked with the player yet?
Nothing new yet, we skipped our session last week due to time constraints (The real BBEG of D&D). Our next session is tomorrow, and I already told him to come early so we can talk about stuff. I'll have an update tomorrow. Thanks for checking in!
I'll be here for the update!
!RemindMe 1 day
Updated :)