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Many years ago, I was in a table-top 3.5 game. We were in a custom world, and I was playing a CE Drow Ranger (Enemy: Elves). This is the tale of how I talked an Elf into sacrificing herself for Lloth. Some explanation here. There was the DM, and three regular players. Orion (yes, his parents named him that. I've seen the birth certificate) was our solid core. He played dependable classes and characters. He was playing a Human Cleric. Next was a man whose name escapes me, it's been so long, but he liked playing the 'wild/crazy' types. Think Pinky(Pie) before the latter ever came into being. He rolled a Human Fighter/Fencer who was channeling Hugh Laurie's character from Blackadder, a total fop. I was the groups 'experiment' guy, who would do builds and concepts just to see how they performed, and at the time had pretty much every book the group had memorized. Of course, my characters tended to die every 2-4 sessions, so it was all well and good. Anyway, I was doing the Drow Ranger thing after some douchebag proclaimed you-know-who as the greatest most powerful character concept ever (end result: No it ain't.)And we pick up a fourth player, a guy who never played tabletop before. Good with numbers, not so much anything else. So we take half a session to help him build a character, myself taking the lead with optimization and general suggestions. He decides he wants to play an Elven Druid based on the picture in the sourcebook. Fair enough, we agree. It's a decent build, but probably a little too advanced for a beginner. We try to get him to roll a Sorc or a Fighter, but nope, he's dead set on Elvish Druid. We're on point-builds, so we agree to give him a few extra points to play with, make up for his inexperience with a bit more brute power. Smart man, he ends up with 18 wisdom. This will be important later. Oh, and yes, part of the reason why we didn't want him to roll that character was my guy, and I made it clear that my character would hate his forever and ever, amen. After a quick discussion with the GM, we come up with a reasonable explanation for why my guy would tolerate the Elf in the party. See, my guy was on a quest to get into the Seleigh/Unseligh (sp) Court, and air his greivance with someone before Oberon and Titania themselves, asking for their aid. GM and I figure that in order to get in, to maintian the balance of the court, I could only enter with an Elf. Cool enough, let's me play the "I'll tolerate you just long enough to get what I want out of you, then you're dead" card. Moving on, the party enters the Underdark, where my character takes the lead. We encounter a Priestess of Lloth from my character's city who 'agrees' to help us, provided we do her a favour. You see, she needs to make a sacrifice to her (and my) goddess to allow her back into our city. Now, only I had UnderCommon as a language, so this conversation was 'private' between me and her. I could have done something different, but I wanted to challenge/exercise the roleplaying muscles of our new guy. So I told the Priestess that it just so happens I brought this Elf down from the surface world, would she suffice? GM and the Core Crew immediately see what i'm planning. Priestess agrees, but how best to perform the sacrifice in such a manner that the other members of the party don't go homicidal on her? In a moment of pure inspiration, I tell the party that we need to get sanctified before entering the city, for our protection of course, from all the evil stuff around. And I volunteer to go first, just to prove its safe. So the Priestess and I go into a side cavern, where I explain my deception, and ask her to perform some minor rite to make it look good. We'll go through it one person at a time, and the elf will go last. I get 'annointed' due to my time on the surface, then I bring in the Cleric, and the Priestess beats his Knowledge Check to make it look like a standard 'they have permission to be here' spell she's casting. Cleric goes back, reports it's a legit thing, and then the Fighter goes in, and gets annointed. In comes the elf, and the Crew is worried. GM requires that the Elf roll Sense Motive to see if anything is amiss, and the player waves off the roll saying that he trusts the cleric. Now, the rest of us know this guy. He's not in character when he said that. That's the player talking. So my character binds the Elf tightly, explaining that this is to symbolize the binding of hands against raising arms in the city, part of the ritual. Another Sense Motive check, and the guy rolls. Oh, he has no skill in it, depending on the +4 from Wisdom. Well, he passes, and he knows I'm lying, so I explain that due to the animosity between Elves and Drow, an elf that is bound is less likely to be attacked and killed. The player buys that without a second thought. At this point, I'm panicking on the indside. I'm committed to this course of action for my character, and the new guy just can't pick up on how bad of an idea this is. Now it's time for the real sacrifice, and the priestess pulls out a kriss knife, one that's oozing with evil. GM tells the newguy to make another Sense Motive check, DC5. He's making this as easy as possible for the new guy, and I want him to pass. New Guy rolls a natural 1. He doesn't beat the DC, so without a beat, the GM orders another skill roll. The new guy refuses, letting his die stand as is. some of you may be thinking this is excellent roleplay on his part, but the truth of the matter is, it ain't. The guy just didn't quite understand what was going on, even when we told it to his face. Well, the Elf stays still and the Priestess kills her for the glory of Lloth. The GM and the Crew take a break to sort out just how to respond to this, and the player is confused as to why he's dead when he had so many HP, and the knife only did d4+Str+Magic. I'm in shock because I never expected this outcome. I expected an outbreak of common sense, and I explain (with crocodile tears) that Lloth rejected the Elvish Druid, and killed her during the ritual. The Crew understands, and the characters are quite suspiscious, but can't find a hole in my argument. We end up giving the Priestess to the new guy, but he drops after another month. He couldn't wrap his head around this whole "Role Play" thing. And that's my most notible gaming experience, where I unwittingly took advantage of a player/character, who refused to make logical connections and accept flatly stated facts and willingly sacrificed themselves to their enemy goddess for no benefit whatso ever. On one hand, it was an awesome (in a frightening sense) session, but on the other side, I still feel guilty over it. Oh, and my character? Well, we got into the court through the Drow city, and Oberon decided that the best response to my grievance was single combat with my foe. I lost, and my character was bount to serve as a grunt in the Wild Hunt for the next 999 years or so. Made a new character.
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| # ¿ Mar 22, 2012 18:35 |
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| # ¿ May 23, 2013 10:45 |
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