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Legato Endless
2016-12-12, 08:20 PM
Okay people, I need some feedback about how to react to a situation.

In my monthly Space Opera Game, we just finished the season finale of the campaign. The DM had put a lot of time and effort into making everything just right, and ended it with aplomb.

Except for one detail...

When the ship was temporarily invaded by a hostile force, several minor supporting characters gave their lives on the altar of dramatic tension. The way the game works is the DM has NPCs (per usual) and players have a main PC. However due to the nature of the campaign, players are also allowed minor supporting characters beyond their main PC. It doesn't always make organic sense for the PC department heads of the ship to be in every scene or go on every mission, but this way every Player gets to participate in a session.

So a few Players' minor characters didn't make their rolls and lost their lives. As did one of the main PCs, in a dramatic self sacrifice. So it goes in any tabletop with lethal stakes. Except...one character didn't. The DM, John, rolled a critical, and declared that the character Sparks had lost his life, his player Peter didn't stoically accept this like everyone did. Instead Peter simply retorted to the DM that no, he didn't die. John frowned, and restated yes, he did. Peter...said no. Again. And then introduced/invented a backstory to justify this. This went back and forth several times until the DM, frustrated and busy running the rest of the game, conceded all of this and ended the scene. We continued as usual and finished up the session.

After the game, the group had a brief discussion about setting things up going forward. John, flabbergasted and having never encountered such a incident before (he lives a graced role-play life), asked for clarification on what the heck had happened. I was less sympathetic, and emphatically asked the group that this behavior never happen again, as it's a severe breach of gaming etiquette. The group (including the troublemaker) agreed, and promised this wouldn't happen again. This was striking because...we've never had any player trouble before in this group. On it's own, this would be troubling but possibly a momentary unpleasantness. Unfortunately, it's left a legacy with us going forward.

Peter's minor character, Sparks, was originally a panic striken mousy lovable coward. The character's new backstory:


The character is immune to weapons fire.
The character is a genetically modified human of a strain that was previously thought extinct.
This is because the character is the secret descendent of one of the galaxy's greatest tyrants, and has been in hiding for...centuries.
This was especially surprising because the Tyrant in question was not known to have any children.
In Warhammer 40K terms, think you're all playing marines in a Terran Campaign, and then suddenly one of your players reveals that their character is the son of the God Emperor, the 21st Primarch.
The character has maxed stats. Because obviously, look at his pedigree.

When I take over as DM (we switch the DM every story arc)...

Would it be wrong to kill this character with fire?

Is it just me, or does this concept look like something conjured from bad fan fiction?

More seriously, I'm apprehensive going forward into this game, that we're all going to be stuck with this abomination. Am I being too judgmental? No one else seemed quite as perturbed about this as I, though I haven't talked to the other group members individually yet. Any advice would be welcome.

Koo Rehtorb
2016-12-12, 08:29 PM
While this all sounds bad (it usually does coming from one point of view), don't arbitrarily kill this character off by GM fiat. This is an OOC problem that needs to be resolved through OOC channels.

Baelon
2016-12-12, 08:50 PM
I've never encountered anything quite like that, all my players have largely followed the unspoken "no, you're not secretly a god" rule. The problems I've run into where a player thinks a character should be more competent than they are for some backstory reason have largely been solved by arguing, "the numbers/your level don't support that" or "you're having a bad day" or "you were having a really good day when that backstory event happened." Which is always met negatively because players like getting away with things, but they usually accept it.

It really kinda sounds like he's trying to set up Sparks as a main character, not necessarily of this story, but almost certainly of a story. And that gives you a couple of ways to handle it that don't involve killing his character and probably hacking him off.

One option is to let him have his way. Give him a story arc written specifically to respond to Sparks' backstory and this big reveal. He gets to have Sparks do cool stuff, gets to godmode a little, and then Sparks leaves at the culmination of the story to go lead a rebellion, live a peaceful life on a simple world, do whatever. Basically, give him a story arc designed to wrap up the character and get that character out the door.

Another option is to give Sparks a spin-off. Sneakily do a pilot episode for a Sparks-based campaign. Do a session or something that encourages Sparks to leave the crew and go find his place in the universe. Possibly with wacky new characters to be his friends. You never have to play that campaign, but you can assure the player that it's happening somewhere, that his addition to the game's lore isn't just being swept under the rug and ignored. Maybe encourage him to bring Sparks and friends back for a story arc of his own someday. Where they're NPCs and not ruining the fun for you normal people.

I'd generally discourage killing Sparks outright. That's just gonna make the player upset (even if only momentarily) and hurt that player's fun. And as a DM, the job is to facilitate fun. Even fun for the player who's making things un-fun for the other players. It's a delicate balance.

JNAProductions
2016-12-12, 08:57 PM
OOC problem, OOC solution. Talk to Sparks's player.

Green Elf
2016-12-12, 09:43 PM
Your job is to make the game fun. Is Peter ruining the fun? If he is, talk to him in advance and say "No. You need a different character." Stop the threat before it starts. Or, you could make a campaign where an evil cleric or a god take away his god powers. Don't let him do that to the game.

RazorChain
2016-12-12, 11:28 PM
This is hilarious. The other players should have vetoed this.

Now what happens is that Admiral Evil shows up with his armada and demands that the PCs surrender Sparky. This is because Admiral Evil wants to reestablish the Evil Galactic Empire.

Now the PC's can choose what to do. Maybe they'll decide to jettison Sparky into space and make a run for it? Who knows, maybe Sparky wants to become the new galactic Tyrant?

Cozzer
2016-12-13, 04:08 AM
My advice: when it's your turn to GM, just let this abomination of a character fade into irrilevancy in the background, and let the next GM handle it. He'll probably do the same thing. So will the GM after that. And so nobody will ever see Sparks again (maybe mention now and then how he's single-handedly defeating galactic empires off-screen), and everybody lived happily ever after. :smalltongue:

About the thing that happned... honestly, I can understand players not wanting to lose characters they grew attached to and that are in the middle of a character arc that they don't want to abort. I can understand DMs conceding to their requests, especially if they're in the middle of a difficult scene and have a lot of other things on their mind.

But... that load of crap? Seriously? Couldn't it just be a case of "Hey look, Sparks seemed dead but he was just very seriously injured! He'll bear the scars of this forever (or "insert any appropriate permanent consequence here"), but it the survivors bring him to safety in time he'll live!".

Incorrect
2016-12-13, 06:11 AM
In the Warhammer 40.000 systems (Dark Heresy ect.) there is a mechanic to specifically avoid this situation.
Fate points allow you to reroll a check, or even save your character from death.
If you have no more fate points, then youre out of luck, so to speak.

That said.
You need to handle it OOC. No, a player cant be a primarch, unless all players are primarchs. This should be easy for anyone to understand.
Though, I fully support anyone in attempting a primarch-only campaign

Stealth Marmot
2016-12-13, 07:39 AM
"Character is immune to weapons fire"

How is this not an automatic veto?

For crying out loud...

http://interrobangstudios.com/images/comics/4c60cef80b389.jpg

Grod_The_Giant
2016-12-13, 08:19 AM
Did Peter say why he did that, during your discussion? Was he planning to use the character in the near future, either as a new PC or when he takes his turn as DM?

Whyrocknodie
2016-12-13, 10:57 AM
Instead Peter simply retorted to the DM that no, he didn't die...

This is so starkly different to every RPG I've ever played... is this a thing? It sounds like an absolute horror story of negotiated outcomes and ret-conning would be the result of tolerating that kind of behaviour in gaming.

As for ridding yourself of that character, you can easily say that he's just plain dead. The 'super-being' stuff was actually just a false memory implanted by a psychic brain parasite. Which died. Move along.
It's a ridiculous thing to do, but pales compared to the character itself!

hymer
2016-12-13, 11:08 AM
I'm apprehensive going forward into this game, that we're all going to be stuck with this abomination. Am I being too judgmental? No one else seemed quite as perturbed about this as I, though I haven't talked to the other group members individually yet. Any advice would be welcome.

Well, it's hard to judge having only heard your version of the story. But from what you've told, the situation sounds completely surreal and impractical to me. I'd suggest talking to the GM and players and see what their perspective is, and also to find out if there's something they know that you don't.
Once done, you can decide what to do about this. My immediate though is talk; and a retcon: That is no way to behave at a RPG (it's the equivalent of the kid who consequently goes 'missed me' in response to 'bang, you're dead'); and Sparks died heroically. Move on from there.

Stryyke
2016-12-13, 01:05 PM
I don't know the whole story, so take this for a grain of salt.

I think this was handled badly on both sides. I've had my fair share of situations where I was desperate to save a beloved character, but I just used what I had on my person. The fact that this mysterious backstory just came out of nowhere is ridiculous. And the power that this surprise turn of events gave the character is game breaking. I don't know why any player would think that those actions are acceptable.

But the GM set a really bad precedent. If anyone can make up anything to get out of trouble, the games won't be fun anymore. He has a responsibility as a GM, especially since you trade GM duties, to ensure that things like that don't happen. Otherwise, it's just telling stories.

I would have said, "We'll discuss this after the conclusion. For now, your character is out of commission." Then I would have just proceeded.

I think you have the less than enviable job of being the GM that has to put his foot down . . . firmly. If you push this off, it could really disrupt things long term.

The Fury
2016-12-13, 01:53 PM
I've never encountered anything quite like that, all my players have largely followed the unspoken "no, you're not secretly a god" rule.

Generically speaking, it's a good rule. There's usually an unspoken rule against a player character being the destined "chosen one" for similar reasons. That being that it's usually going to put the other players out. For my own part, I don't mind either one-- the main caveat being as long as the rest of the group isn't reduced to this one character's cheerleaders.



It really kinda sounds like he's trying to set up Sparks as a main character, not necessarily of this story, but almost certainly of a story.

Not really a problem on its own. Everyone's the main character of their own story and all that. It only becomes a problem when he tries to hijack the campaign.

Anyway, as for advice I'd say give Peter a chance and hope that he doesn't pull something like that again. I'm not sure how robust the rules system is for things like that, but if Peter does declare things like "Nope! Sparks is immune to weapon damage!" it's perfectly acceptable for a DM to ask, "OK, how are you doing that?" and of course if there's no support for it in the actual game rules it's a no-go.

SirBellias
2016-12-13, 01:58 PM
A: that isn't something that would happen I'm one of my games, that's for sure. Things happen, people die.

B: this is, in theory, able to be recovered from without immediate confrontation. It is the less desirable choice from my perspective, but if you have a brief time skip where everyone else ends up with near god-like power as well, I dont see the issue.

C: That being said, I'd much prefer to talk to the player about it, and come to an agreement that does involve killing it with fire.

kyoryu
2016-12-13, 03:33 PM
Yeah, handle it OOC, but... no, you don't just get to declare yourself a living god.

I'd be a bit concerned simply because one of two things is true:

A) The player really thinks that's okay
B) The player knows it's not okay, but will try anything they can get away with to get their way

Both of these seem problematic for the future. Especially since this was over a minor/secondary character.

The GM should also make to set a rule about that type of sustained argumentative behavior. It's not acceptable. Go with the ruling at the table, and bring it up after the fact. Badgering the GM into doing what you want is not conducive to long-term game health.

Kelb_Panthera
2016-12-13, 04:31 PM
This is utterly unacceptable. Your DM has failed, critically, here. Why didn't the rest of the group tell sparks' player to shut his hole when he said "no, sparks doesn't die?"

Now that everyone's calmed down and agreed that such an occurence -is- unacceptable, retcon sparks back into the grave where he belongs. Not even "something unavoidable and lethal happens and sparks dies," just straight up, "sparks died in that battle back there. We're not changing anything that happened since but spark is just plain dead."

dps
2016-12-13, 08:37 PM
This is utterly unacceptable. Your DM has failed, critically, here. Why didn't the rest of the group tell sparks' player to shut his hole when he said "no, sparks doesn't die?"

Now that everyone's calmed down and agreed that such an occurence -is- unacceptable, retcon sparks back into the grave where he belongs. Not even "something unavoidable and lethal happens and sparks dies," just straight up, "sparks died in that battle back there. We're not changing anything that happened since but spark is just plain dead."

I concur. This was totally unacceptable, both for the player to pull and for the DM to concede to.

Stealth Marmot
2016-12-14, 08:07 AM
Unless you specifically have a written game rule to retort with you do NOT I repeat, DO NOT get to tell the DM "No."

If this player had all of that approved by the DM BEFOREHAND then maybe I would let it slide, but there is no way in hell that the DM intentionally approved any character immune to weapons fire, and if they did they need to be slapped. Hard.

If the events played out as you described, then that player would not be welcome at any game I was at.

I hate it when players bully DMs.

Friv
2016-12-14, 12:19 PM
Okay, so I'm going to be a bit of a dissenting voice. Not on the broad strokes - obviously what just happened was a disaster.

But from the tone of the OP, and the details given, it strongly sounds like this hasn't happened before with Peter. It caught everyone off-guard, no one knew how to respond, and the results were weird and absurd. So we don't have a player with a pattern of gradually-escalating attempts to avoid responsibility, we have a sudden and extreme outburst in a particular moment.

This suggests that something was going on. I can see a few possibilities:
(a) Peter has just never actually lost a character that he cares about before, and panicked and wildly over-reacted
(b) Since this is a rotating GM game, Peter had been planning to make this NPC the focus of his GM time, and had put a bunch of time into prep for it, so when he saw that vanishing he panicked
(c) Peter has a really strong emotional connection to this one NPC for some reason, and he's not good at thinking on his feet so he kept escalating why that NPC couldn't die
(d) Peter is dealing with something big out of game, and responded with a panic reaction for reasons unrelated to the game itself.

Regardless of which of the four options (or something I haven't thought of) is the issue, you need to talk to Peter. Not aggressively, but a friendly "what happened last week", from an emotional point of view, not just "what was that". Try to find out why Peter did what he did, and how you can fix it. I can pretty much guarantee that almost any of the above options are going to lead to trouble if you just declare Sparks dead when you're in control.

aberratio ictus
2016-12-14, 01:16 PM
Okay, so I'm going to be a bit of a dissenting voice. Not on the broad strokes - obviously what just happened was a disaster.

But from the tone of the OP, and the details given, it strongly sounds like this hasn't happened before with Peter. It caught everyone off-guard, no one knew how to respond, and the results were weird and absurd. So we don't have a player with a pattern of gradually-escalating attempts to avoid responsibility, we have a sudden and extreme outburst in a particular moment.

This suggests that something was going on. I can see a few possibilities:
(a) Peter has just never actually lost a character that he cares about before, and panicked and wildly over-reacted
(b) Since this is a rotating GM game, Peter had been planning to make this NPC the focus of his GM time, and had put a bunch of time into prep for it, so when he saw that vanishing he panicked
(c) Peter has a really strong emotional connection to this one NPC for some reason, and he's not good at thinking on his feet so he kept escalating why that NPC couldn't die
(d) Peter is dealing with something big out of game, and responded with a panic reaction for reasons unrelated to the game itself.

Regardless of which of the four options (or something I haven't thought of) is the issue, you need to talk to Peter. Not aggressively, but a friendly "what happened last week", from an emotional point of view, not just "what was that". Try to find out why Peter did what he did, and how you can fix it. I can pretty much guarantee that almost any of the above options are going to lead to trouble if you just declare Sparks dead when you're in control.

Best advice given all thread, yet.

However, if you can`t work something out with Peter, you`re going to have to put your foot down. Don`t try a subtle, ingame solution, this will only end in chaos. As some person further up already said - this is a ooc problem, it needs an ooc solution. Preferably with support of the rest of the group, so hearing their opinions first is a good idea.

kyoryu
2016-12-14, 03:51 PM
Regardless of which of the four options (or something I haven't thought of) is the issue, you need to talk to Peter. Not aggressively, but a friendly "what happened last week", from an emotional point of view, not just "what was that". Try to find out why Peter did what he did, and how you can fix it.

This is generally good advice for *any* kind of OOC intervention, even in cases where the person is *obviously* and *blatantly* wrong.

Ruslan
2016-12-14, 03:56 PM
Retcon time. Clearly, mistakes were made. Both by Peter, making stuff up and repeatedly badgering the DM to let his character live, and by the DM, in giving in to to this. This needs to be corrected before the campaign is left in shambles. Roll back to the time of that crit, the character is dead, and continue from there.

CharonsHelper
2016-12-14, 04:43 PM
I'd agree that this is an OOC character which needs and OOC solution.

However, after that if you don't want to retconn - I'd suggest having Sparky become the new BBEG. Using his latent abilities caused him to go pycho or whatnot.

SethoMarkus
2016-12-14, 05:10 PM
I agree with Friv. It needs to be made clear that the sort of behavior displayed is not acceptable, but from the OP's account of things it doesn't seem like a problem player just yet.

I would even go a step further. Give it to him. Sparks is alive and is a god-like being. Great. That's too much power for any one PC to wield, so now Sparky is permanently an NPC.

Further, by displaying his powers as such, he has attracted the attention of other powerful beings. It was mentioned that there was a faction that was after him, forcing him into hiding; this both implies that they have a way to harm or control him, and that they are a credible threat large enough in power and influence to force him to such great lengths. Now they know where he is.

Or maybe some great cosmic entity like Nyarlathotep has its eyes on the god-king's child. There are endless possibilities.

In any case, since it was a one time thing, let the player have his fun. Firmly establish that this sort of thing can never happen again. Remove Sparks from play (at least as a PC or support character, NPC under the control of the DM only). Possibly put Sparks out of commission even as an NPC (in some non-lethal manner). This way everyone wins, at least as best as then can barring real-life time travel preventing the event in the first place...

Mr Beer
2016-12-15, 08:34 AM
DM failure. I wouldn't argue with the player, which is what I'd be telling him about 15 seconds into the 'discussion'. I'd simply treat his character as dead, he no longer has the power to interact with the game world. End of story.

Also, if it's my place, he's going to get told to leave if he continues to disrupt the game.

Stealth Marmot
2016-12-15, 08:55 AM
DM failure. I wouldn't argue with the player, which is what I'd be telling him about 15 seconds into the 'discussion'. I'd simply treat his character as dead, he no longer has the power to interact with the game world. End of story.

Marcie, get out of here! You're dead! You don't exist anymore!