A GM I know is claiming to be running A Home-made RPG that's part 1st edition Dungeons and Dragons and part Legends and she and her players want advise on something. Basically The Thief only survived the massacre of her party cos she was lucky enough to be off answering a call of nature and The GM and the other players want advise on how the other 4 players should roleplay their characters at best distrust of The Surviving Thief when the players themselves know that it was simply due to being lucky enough to be elsewhere at the time but the characters don't know that?
How to roleplay it
- Thread starter JMISBEST
- Start date
Bifford
Banded Mongoose
Your friend has a lot of questions! First Traveller and now Legend combined with D&D!
Anyway. The GOLDEN RULE applies here. Player knowledge should not come into this. If everyone except the thief died, and there were absolutely NO other people around to witness the fact, then as long as the thief doesn't accidentally give anything away no other person will ever know what happened. If "other parties" know this thief was part of that group and the thief says "I was off scouting ahead to see where we should go next, then returned and found them all dead" who is to know the real truth is he had his todger out taking a pi** up a tree a short distance away??
It does beg the question, however, just how far did he travel to take a leak that he didn't hear the ambush, subsequent fight and murders?? Or *did* he hear it but was too much of a coward to go back and help his friends.
One thing though - as GM I would take the player aside and ask them "How would your character feel now, knowing he survived and his friends didn't? Would guilt, survivors doubt and conflicting emotions plague him? Would he now go through life thinking 'I should have died instead of them?' and therefore maybe the thief starts to take unnecessary risks and doing things he normally wouldn't because he thinks that if he dies it is only right and fair." I would place some sort of mental import on this. Give them PTSD, make them flinch at sudden sounds or the noise of swords clashing - something to make him remember the event and shy away from similar events.
Basically there has to be some sort of echo in the thief that makes others around him suspicious/curious enough to question it (whether out loud or not). But at the heart of it the new characters should not meta-game any knowledge of previous character's situations unless the thief slips up and mentions something.
Anyway. The GOLDEN RULE applies here. Player knowledge should not come into this. If everyone except the thief died, and there were absolutely NO other people around to witness the fact, then as long as the thief doesn't accidentally give anything away no other person will ever know what happened. If "other parties" know this thief was part of that group and the thief says "I was off scouting ahead to see where we should go next, then returned and found them all dead" who is to know the real truth is he had his todger out taking a pi** up a tree a short distance away??
It does beg the question, however, just how far did he travel to take a leak that he didn't hear the ambush, subsequent fight and murders?? Or *did* he hear it but was too much of a coward to go back and help his friends.
One thing though - as GM I would take the player aside and ask them "How would your character feel now, knowing he survived and his friends didn't? Would guilt, survivors doubt and conflicting emotions plague him? Would he now go through life thinking 'I should have died instead of them?' and therefore maybe the thief starts to take unnecessary risks and doing things he normally wouldn't because he thinks that if he dies it is only right and fair." I would place some sort of mental import on this. Give them PTSD, make them flinch at sudden sounds or the noise of swords clashing - something to make him remember the event and shy away from similar events.
Basically there has to be some sort of echo in the thief that makes others around him suspicious/curious enough to question it (whether out loud or not). But at the heart of it the new characters should not meta-game any knowledge of previous character's situations unless the thief slips up and mentions something.
Bifford said:
Just checked with The GM. Apparently it was A 1st level party and she rolled A 85 to 100 on 1D100's 5 times in A row on her custom made table. That meant that 5 1st level Pcs ended up facing A 6th level or equivalent foe that ended up A 1 to 5 on the 6th 1D100 resulted in them facing A 2nd level Ch 19 and Int 15 Vampire Sorcerer
Worse still The Magic User had used his offensive Spell earlier, The Clerics 1st level Spell Slot was sadly not offensive as both the player and the group as a whole didn't think she/The Character, would need 1 and they had no other magic, so they couldn't harm it and didn't have a chance
The Thief returned in time but chickened out, survived by literally playing chicken until it fled before the very soon to rise sun. She returned to find them where dead and had the decency to use most of the others loot to pay to have their bodies taken to a nearby city and have them given very good funerals
Bifford said:
True but that's what she told me. But 1 of her players mentioned that The Vampire was so cleverly disguised that by the time they realized what they where facing The 2 Fighters where Dead, The Magic User useless due to being busy trying and failing to fight off the combo of Charm Person and The Vampires hypnotic gaze and The Cleric fighting defensively even though it was suicide but her player felt she had to cos the laws of The Clerics Church demands fight and win or die trying VS all Greater Undead and The Thief was just over half a mile away and still running as fast as she could
TyphoonSSN
Mongoose
It truly depends on the character of the thief. They came back from the expedition alone, and could tell anything to the new party members, they couldn't check anything.
Will the Surviving Thief tell them the truth? Or be dishonest, and tell them that they fought a powerful foe and that only he/she survived, or that the party members tried to rob him/her and the Thief then left them to their fate? The word of the thief will be the only thing the party members do know; then, they may well have their own ideas about the truth, no matter what the Thief says...
If the players playing the other party characters have issues finding stories and deciding about how their character will see the Thief, buy a castle in Italy like these, (come on, that stuff exists? I looked it half seriously on Google and it turns out it's an actual thing, I thought these were all public property), invite the Thief there for a week of jumpscares, spooky sounds at night and mind games, send him/her back to the other players after handing him/her 10000€, and ask the other players how they feel. :mrgreen:
Will the Surviving Thief tell them the truth? Or be dishonest, and tell them that they fought a powerful foe and that only he/she survived, or that the party members tried to rob him/her and the Thief then left them to their fate? The word of the thief will be the only thing the party members do know; then, they may well have their own ideas about the truth, no matter what the Thief says...
If the players playing the other party characters have issues finding stories and deciding about how their character will see the Thief, buy a castle in Italy like these, (come on, that stuff exists? I looked it half seriously on Google and it turns out it's an actual thing, I thought these were all public property), invite the Thief there for a week of jumpscares, spooky sounds at night and mind games, send him/her back to the other players after handing him/her 10000€, and ask the other players how they feel. :mrgreen:
So have the thief simple claim they were caught unawares whilst he was fetching firewood by the time he heard the start of the fighting whatever it was killed the others and possessed an aura of such overwhelming supernatural fear he was left incapacitated but unseen by whatever it was.
Only the dawning sun drove it off freeing him from its paralysing influence but unable to recall anything about the monster itself.
Remember if the other 4 didn't stand a.chance what could be have done had he been able to.
And yes vampires ARE that scary.
Only the dawning sun drove it off freeing him from its paralysing influence but unable to recall anything about the monster itself.
Remember if the other 4 didn't stand a.chance what could be have done had he been able to.
And yes vampires ARE that scary.
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