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CHALLENGE!

- At egscomics 

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"How dare you call my sorceress lazy."

"YOU said she was lazy!"

My understanding is that, in most game sessions like this one, the party would just be tossed together in the middle of an adventure.

Now, when I say "game sessions like this", I'm not talking about the RPG itself. I'm talking about a quick game of it that may or may not continue with the same group of players in the future.

An example of this would be when weekly games are hosted at stores with volunteer / paid game masters, and one's character is actually kept track of by the company that makes the game.

If you just show up to play one week, they're not going to work out some epic backstory as to how you're joining the party. You're just going to be tossed into the party, and told what you're up to that week.

My point is mostly that I think Ellen could be justified saying "you just are together in a party, and this is the adventure we're doing." We're just not doing that because I have a more interesting (hopefully) idea in mind.

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Comments

PhaineOfCatz

Ellen has big "you activated my trap card" energy in that last panel

Narzain

Never trust a smiling GM.

Randall Wald

In general, players who are constantly looking for excuses for their PCs to bail on the party are the worst: as George says, it's your character, you figure out why they're adventuring with this group, and if you can't come up with a reason, retire that character and build a new one which *does* have a reason.

MiqoRems

Never have I been so loudly, rudely, and accurately called out.

Thisguy

Establishing the party is one of the most troublesome issue for early games. Many times “I’m an adventurer, I need money, I need friends/allies/meat shields/distractions to get the money works, at least as an early reason, but many players these days have more complicated reasons who why their characters are adventuring. Generally speaking, it’s the DM’s responsibility to create reasons why your character would be with the party and go on this quest, and it’s the players responsibility to create a character which is open to doing that.

Some Ed

I *always* trust a smiling GM... when I'm sitting in the audience, rather than as a member of the party. So far, this has served me well.

KC

Very, "I'm SO glad you asked!"

Some Ed

I've GMed for a party with a Paladin, a thief, an assassin, and a necromancer. This was 2nd ed. I didn't suggest anything about the party composition. I was interested to see how it played out. I'm not sure when Oathbreaker Paladins became a thing, but I feel like this may have been before it. I think this game occurred in something like 1992 or so. I think I was aware of Unholy Paladins at the time, but that was a choice made at character creation and was basically "who exactly do you worship?" Unholy Paladins still came with the posture stick as a class feature, they just had a different moral code they had to be complete dicks about. Seeing the rest of the party's classes and alignment (note the lack of plural), I questioned the Paladin's choice, but they insisted that it was legit. I don't recall having a clearer case for taking away a Paladin's higher level cleric spells (they got level 1 and level 2 spells from the strength of their own beliefs at that time, so they'd get to keep them.) But additionally, I really decided I didn't like those players, so when they attacked the quest giver, having "completed" the mission in the worst possible way, I had their quest giver turn out to be the Paladin's ostensible god, so that was a total party wipe. To be clear, by worst possible way, I mean they were supposed to be rescuing somebody's daughter, and they brought her back as a zombie. I suppose there might be worse ways you could go about it, but I don't care to imagine what they might be. I mean, OK, there were a couple of obvious ones, except that I'm just not mentioning those details.

KC

Ellen is about to have SO much fun!

James C

So, the Magician, Bard, and Rogue are there to protect everyone else from the obnoxious/pretentious, hypocritical/"holier-than-thou" jerk of a Paladin?

M.

I've been in games with players like that, and they're definitely the worst. It's really hard for me *not* to loathe Rich right now, as he's trying so very hard to be the worst.

Daryl Sawyer

Ironically enough, I think not "letting her win" is going to work out for him. She's up to the challenge, and is perhaps every bit as capable of enjoying punching with words as her twin.

Daryl Sawyer

At least they didn't kidnap the children of villagers to herd ahead of them as trap springers.

Stephen Gilberg

"You all meet at a video store...."

John Trauger

Maybe your paladin would NOT associate with these lowlifes. Feel free to choose a different character that will fit with the rest of the party

John Trauger

"A magaician, a bard and a rogue all walk into a video store. The Papadin at the register asks, "why the long face?..."

Anonymous

Every group needs at least one player like George. This would be the player that knows the rules, is there to play in the GM's game, and knows how to get the rest of party on task. This player is there to have fun with everyone else and wants the game to succeed, so they'll nudge, and occasionally push, other players; particularly if a player is about to be a problem. An example is one of the players requiring someone else to come up with a reason why their is present.

Dragon Quest 3 or 4 in 2024

I always tell my players "Whatever your PCs backstory is, end it with [BLANK]." "You end up a gladiator slave." "You in the last car on the Lightning Rail to Sharn." "You are looking for work in Talonburg." "You got accepted into Swinedimples School for Adventuring Heroes." Put the PCs together in the same place or situation and they have a good reason to be together at the start. Good players will find reasons for their PCs to stay with that group. In this case, Pally is babysitting a collection of chaos engines thinly disguised as adventuring "heroes."

Some Ed

If I listed all of the evil things they'd done to deserve a divine smiting, I'd be worried that Patreon would say the post was too long. I mean, assuming I could remember them all. Not only did they "borrow" some of the town's children for that purpose, but they used the quest target in that fashion as well, which is how she had become eligible to be turned into a zombie. Most of the kids didn't make it back, because they could only survive so many traps even with the help of necromancy. To be clear, no healing for the kids, though they didn't really have enough hp for that to have helped much. I actually determined the Paladin had lost his divinely bestowed abilities fairly early in the game, only for it to not come out for a long time because they just simply didn't risk needing those abilities as much as possible. Yes, once they'd freed the quest objective, they *could* have returned victorious with only one missing town child (and the rest as zombies). But they "had" to scour the entire cave complex for treasure. No, they didn't complete that goal, they instead nearly ran out of zombie children. I can't remember if they just had the required one left at the end, or if there was another.

Some Ed

This sounds like a limited version of the advice kayessbee[1], one of the system administrators at my college, used to give. "Shill the audience." I feel it's good advice more or less any time it can feasibly be applied. In any activity in which you're in charge, it's really helpful to have somebody there who is on your side and you know it. It's best if that person also knows what's what in that situation, but just having someone friendly there is better than nobody. To be clear, it's not always feasible. If you're proctoring an exam, it might not be permitted, and even if it is, it's probably going to be boring enough it would be an unreasonable social cost for the value returned. There's quite a few other situations where it wouldn't work. I couldn't possibly determine what they all are. But when you're GMing an RPG, it's certainly possible, and if you have appropriately minded friends, frequently feasible.

M.

That's a good point, but I hope he eventually realizes what a horrible person he's being.

Dan Merget

I haven't seen any reason yet for a paladin not to associate with them. The only questionable class here is "rogue", but rogues have moved far beyond their "thief" roots, to encompass anyone who relies mostly on dexterity and cunning. In the comics world, Spider-Man fits the rogue archetype, but he's also the living embodiment of "with great power comes great responsibility" (if you ignore early Ditko influences) and gets along with Captain America (a paladin-esque character). And that's not even counting the various 5e Paladin subclasses, only one of which is a classic "Sir Lancelot" style paladin. In my last campaign, I played a neutral-good Oath of the Ancients paladin, which is more of a "Green Knight / Tom Bombadil" archetype. She was good in the sense that she would try to get enemies to surrender rather than kill them (if reasonably possible) and prioritize "rescue the prisoners" over "kill the monster", but she had no reservations about using lies and trickery to achieve those goals. An OOTA paladin would get along great with a good-aligned bard.

Foradain

In the later years (CE 1635+ or so) of Eric Flint's Ring of Fire series, Jeff Higgins was known to his troops as "the dungeon master". Those who'd served with him a while knew the truth of the saying: "When the DM smiles, it's already too late." Rich may already know the saying. Now he learns the truth behind it...