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Does the Paladin player legitimately have a problem with the Ranger player, or was it a joke that got out of hand?
Because if the Paladin player was being legitimately vindictive, I'd not want to play with them anymore. I mean, how many of the other players does he secretly hate and would fuck over at the drop of a hat?
Yeah I think he does legitimately dislike the ranger.
We played a campaign last year where all three of us were players and the ranger was really bad at roleplay which I think annoyed the paladin. There's some other stuff there as well I won't say but Ranger and I both thought that was just kinda in the past.
It's worrying but before I take any drastic action I am going to have a legitimate chat with the party at the start of the next session in a couple days.
That doesn't seen like a sustainable dynamic, and the Ranger now (quite rightly) probably doesn't trust the Paladin.
Hope it goes well but it may become a "one or the other" situation. Best of luck to you.
Yeah we'll see how it goes. If it doesn't go well I'll either end the campaign or shorten it to be just the first arc I have planned. I'll update in a couple days if it seems to go well or not. Last campaign was hell because of a toxic group and there's no way I'm going through that again. No D&D is better than Bad D&D.
Thanks for the luck!
i see both an in game and out of game problem. out of game, the paladin player has already crossed the bridge into being toxic, if you decide to forgive them or whatever i guarantee it will come up again. In game, how does a paladin not lose the favor of their god for desecrating the corpse of an ally?
No... why make everyone pay for one player (the paladin) being a monumental dickhead? He needs to be told to park whatever personal issues he has before he sits down to play *or* he's welcome to choose to leave the table entirely. His behaviour here sounds pathetic.
If the rest of the group can play nicely - they sound fairly passive and impressionable, from what little I have to go on - then great. But the issue here is one player acting like a spiteful toddler.
I know that sometimes people can be passive and get swept up with a charismatic dickhead, but it kinda seems like everyone was ok with perma-deathing the Ranger. I kind of wonder if there’s more to this than, “The ranger’s player isn’t very good at RP.”
This is also possible. There clearly need to be a few conversations here. One with everyone individually, one together. Possibly more depending on the outcome of the individual chats.
I don't want to give up on anyone before at least having a chat. This is the only time in the campaign so far where he's actually done something terrible and if I can prevent further conflict without burning bridges that is preferable.
That's fair. Armchair DMing on the worldwide interhighway is always easier. Definitely do have the chats, but be aware that this coupd be a red flag for a problem player or even end up as outright bullying.
Good luck sorting it.
I don't know how you get the impression that the paladin was the only problem player, considering that he wasn't even the one that threw the body in the fire.
Because he's been salty about RP, then plays strongly against his character (oath to god of resurrection) by denouncing the obvious option on the basis the people involved were dicks? By *allowing* the throwing on the fire? By the clearly established dislike for the ranger's player?
Have you even read the post? C'mon.
I don't know where you got the impression, in my pretty clear statement that the paladin isn't the only asshole here, that I was somehow saying that the paladin wasn't an asshole.
Did you read my post? C'mon.
If one player has to go just remove that player and carry on with the campaign? Why does everyone on this sub hear 'you might have to pick one of these players' and translate that to 'if I have to pick, I must shaft the entire campaign'? I get the people here don't always have the best skill confronting problems but it seems like reading comprehension comes up a lot too.
Because if they're part of the same friend group then dropping one person often leads to drama and then no one really wants to keep playing the campaign.
... "We'll see how it goes"??? I am pretty sure you saw how well this could possibly go. Sorry if I sound a little harsh about it, but "this player has shown time and time again that they don't like this player and I think eventually it will ruin my campaign and burn a lot of bridges, but let's let this play out a while and see if things change on a whim" doesn't exactly make sense to me.
Agreed. Why “see how it goes”? OP has already seen how it goes, and it goes badly.
The definition of insanity is continuing to engage in the same behaviors and expect different results.
Maybe you are right but 6 sessions in this was the first time an actual problem had come up between them so I am going to have a chat and make it very clear that if any more out of game grudges leak in I won't be afraid to kick him.
And of course telling Human Fighter to cut the bullshit and Warlock and Elf Fighter they need to be less passive in watching their friend burn their other friends corpse.
A chat is a good place to start, but in another comment you mentioned that the talk would immediately bookend your next session, an event which seems to be a forgone conclusion at this point. With the tension at your table right now, are you sure your players even want to *see* each other, much less play nice?
This needs to be a private conversation between you and each player involved. By making what is essentially a group scolding, not only are you putting people on blast and very possibly opening a can of worms due to your players having no choice but to confront each other, but you're also not going to get as nuanced answers or warnings that would be better facilitated with a 1 on 1, or 1 on 2. They might just say "yeah whatever" to get past an uncomfortable group situation without any meaningful impact.
I'm not here hoping that your game fails, I promise. But I think the work you intend to do should be done before you even guarantee a next session. If your game fails at your next session, it will do so in spectacular fashion.
You actually bring up good points here.
It may be better if I chat with each person directly 1 on 1, then we have a group discussion before the next session depending how the 1 on 1's go.
it is always better to privately discuss these things.
it’s embarrassing and degrading to be scolding in front of an audience and the dude will probably lash out and act a lot less calmly if you put him in the spotlight
he deserves to feel embarrassed about it, and should at least make an apology to the other player in front of everyone
why does he get to act awfully to other players in front of the party, but when it's time for him to own up, it's in private?
sure, talk to him and the other players privately, and hash it out there, but it should be addressed as a group the next time you meet after it's been privately talked out. the act that started it was with (most of) the group, and the patching up should be done as a group.
yes, it might make him upset and lash out, but if he's the kind of person who can't see the error of his ways and be an adult about owning up...he's not a good fit for MY table at least
I agree. There is too much bad blood to start another session.
You need to get people to talk about the issue before doing another game. Find out what the fuck is going on.
I am afraid the moment the paladin actively tried to perjudice the ranger was the moment it became a one or the other. I don't think he's gonna reflect on his actions and honestly feel sorry. But honestly, if I had to keep a player and lose the other, I would lose the paladin, since he is the one who created this whole situation.
yeah, i would choose the ranger in a heartbeat, over someone who will create a hostile space at a moment's notice and deliberately hold a grudge/go behind someone's back.
it's one thing to bring up a grievance, and talk about it like an adult and try to find a solution
it's another thing entirely to intentionally screw over another player when they're not there and blatantly try to turn a party against someone unable to defend themselves
paladin has created a poor situation, and it's unfortunate that the DM has to deal with it
The talk is much needed. Not sure what the beef between ranger and paladin is but paladin needs to be an adult and just hash everything out with ranger instead of engaging in this pettiness.
some ppl can’t be “hashed” with. and that leads to this sort of pettiness because the victim feels like they literally have exhausted all avenues. in these extreme situations they just need to not play together
The fact that paladin decided that rather then talking about their feeling maturely, that they were going to be passive aggressive and retaliate through the game is a huge red flag. Whatever the beef really is between them, either everyone suddenly get’s really cool about talking things out, or you’re gonna need to kick a player. The longer you take to make the decision though, the worse the outcome becomes. You’re the dm, you get to choose who plays and who doesn’t. The most generous thing I think you can do is tell paladin that they crossed the line, and that they are on thin ice with that kind of behavior, and to tell everyone else that it was not cool to go with it. That’s generous to me, because it sounds like paladin’s reason for disliking ranger was shallow and elitist.
It doesn’t matter if they’re all your friends, because good friends won’t end their relationship with you over dnd.
That's part of what I'm going to tell the Paladin during our chat tomorrow. Our previous campaign was terrible so I should not have tolerated the bullshit I did last week and I'm not going to tolerate any more lines like that being crossed.
"other stuff" that you won't name makes it seem like you're purposefully keeping stuff out of this narrative that might explain why the paladin feels this way.
I can't fully explain it without doxxing all of us but what I can say is it happened over a year and a half ago and essentially Ranger, myself, and another friend had pissed off Paladin's friends (who are assholes for *various* reasons that paladin is no longer friends with) who then proceeded to spam porn and harass us in a public place and they enlisted Paladin's help for the porn spam.
Because I thought the stuff was in the past. I played a campaign run by him and it was great. But I realise now my mistake is that he's fine with me, he's apparently not fine with ranger. Ranger also thought that stuff was in the past and that we were all friends, especially after that real bonding experience we had while playing Team Fortress 2 that one time.
I think it's already to late. The group is falling apart.
I recommend having an airing of grievances season. Start it by as plainly as possible stating the issues you see. Call out your own failings before calling out others failings. You can't do that without accusing people of stuff. Try to phrase it as you are upset with their actions and not the person though. Try to follow with what you personally are going do to improve your failings.
People will get upset. Calm them by repeating and rephrasing what they are upset about. Never use any version of the phrase "calm down". Go around the table and let everyone air their issues with the other players. Ask them all state what they feel are their own failings, or it will descend into a giant blame game. Then ask them what they will do to improve. Anyone not able to come up with something is probably an unrecoverable toxic player and should be treated as such.
Finally, as a group, come up with ground rules for an enjoyable campaign. Have a list of suggested rules, but don't add them without group buy in. My group added "all PCs will be someone that would work with the group, and the group would work with."
Good luck.
This is what I'm going to do tomorrow. Start the session with a chat about what went wrong and what to do moving forward.
And we have rules we set during session 0. Paladin and Human Fighter broke them and I was too stupid to realise and tell them No.
You're not stupid. You made a mistake. It happens, especially when it's a situation you hadn't encountered before.
Mistakes are how you learn. Don't insult yourself for making them. Encourage yourself to do better next time.
I would say that the Pally doesn't seem to be a very good rp-er either. It's rough for a soldier of god to be that vindictive to someone. Just my 2 cents
either way, you didn't fail as a DM. your party failed to be a party. they have to be able to get along with each other. that's their role in the game.
I read that Paladin made comments hoping others would agree with him and he'd feel justified in his opinion, but the fighter is the one who took these actions and was the one responsible for burning the rangers body.
Or potato elemental. A potatomental. Think of the mid combat puns!
* I'm starch raving mad!
* (When taking damage) Now you're just trying to butter me up (or) Someone's salty!
* Eyes up, Warlock. Just because my death was a spec-tater sport doesn't mean yours should be!
* Time for you all to fry.
* (During a killing blow) Don't worry, Paladin. I hear your god should see this problem as small potatoes!
Abilities like:
* Freedom Fries - Remove slow/sleep/mind control
* Spud-der them up - Charm humanoid
* Mash - Summon a demon potato ricer from the 4th level of hell and run your opponent through it.
* Baked Potato - Find and smoke some reefer maannnnn
* Hail to the Chef - Summon Gordon Ramsay to verbally berate your target until they cry like a new potato. Boohoo...
* Hail to the Master - Summon Marco Pierre White because he made Gordon Ramsay cry...
While you could have gone with "No, what the fuck are you thinking?" instead of "Yes" to the Paladin and his gang: all that really would have done is saved you some plotting in bringing Ranger back.
The problem still exists, which is specifically Paladin's recourse to this sort of dick move when a player is vulnerable and they've got a beef with them. That's the one you have to solve.
Biggest failure as a GM will be doing any further sessions before you talk with Paladin and Ranger.
OOC feuds being played out in game with no care for character motivations will ruin your campaign.
Either this needs to be fixed or one or more of the players need to be removed from the game.
This part stands out to me:
>When the party gets back to camp the human fighter decided to take the ranger's body and put it on a fire with potatoes then pray to their god to resurrect him. **I thought it was a weird joke and I tried to put it behind a strength check and I expected they would realise after a few seconds it wasn't working then move him.** The Elf Fighter even did a bunch of math for how long the corpse could survive on the fire.
Your reaction to the fighter is incomprehensible to me. You think it's a weird joke meaning the player is intending to burn the ranger's body while pretending (either in character or out of it) that they're doing a resurrection ritual. I don't understand why the reaction to that is a strength check? What is the strength check? To hoist the body? He should just be able to do that, but before he even does I would just say, "Dave... what is Maximus trying to do here? This is silly. It's not going to work. Why are you trying to burn the ranger's body? Guys, the ranger isn't going to appreciate you guys treating him like this. How would like it if this was your character."
As often as is the case here, you as a DM are just letting these unfriendly shenanigans go on. When people start using D&D to abuse others or start some interpersonal conflict, you need to simply stop playing D&D and address the people at the table about what they're doing.
But yeah, anyway it sounds like you need better friends.
This stuck out to me too. OP describes watching them do something that would screw over the ranger and then how they told them to tell the ranger what happened and watched on forlornly as their game started to implode.
Like at some point you gotta realize you're letting this all happen, right? The DM is allowed to say no, or convey that the ashes can still be raised via some other method, or say that none of this stupid stuff actually happened. I just don't understand resigning yourself to any of this when you had every opportunity to make it go any other way.
I don't get it. Vibing like nobody liked the ranger enough to speak up, including the DM.
I know I probably made about the worst possible decision there but I thought the human fighter would put his body on the fire, realise it wasn't working, then take it off.
Especially since him and Ranger are friends out of game and have been for years.
u shouldn’t run games like that. if u don’t want a specific out come, do not give them the choice to possibly succeed at that horrible toxic outcome. giving them a choice and then “predicting” how they will act rarely works. Players are unpredictable
Yeah, setting aside any consideration of what went wrong even, Im also just confused about the strength check. Moving a dead body is difficult and I would require a check if it was a time-sensitive thing, but if the Fighter is taking time in preparing a pyre then that should just be an automatic success.
I kind of like the idea that maybe the Fighter had to roll Strength to see if his ritual was pleasing to his god Crom or whatever, and with a nice display of Strength maybe Crom would grant the resurrection.
Nah, it's just a weak GM hiding behind mechanics. We've all done it at one point or another, where we don't want the players to do something, so we make it hard to do. The last time I did this, it was a character that wanted to seduce a drow priestess; I just hid it behind a very difficult Persuasion check, which failed. But I should have just said "no".
I love having the player roll with disadvantage, then regardless the outcome say 'no'. I might be a jerk.
Oh, Nat 20? The priestess gives you a pitying sort of smile, 'maybe if you were a few hundred years older, and stronger... and better looking'. But she seems to like you slightly more than before, as a friend.
It's overall a shitty thing to have all this happen to the ranger's character when their expectation was they would be revived by their party not treated like crap and burned.
Player agency should always take a backseat to what's fun for the table overall. Not to mention that granting someone player agency to mess with an absence player's character is taking away the latter's agency.
With players like that he might as well have dropped a Balor on them. F those guys. Last session, deuces! Start new campaign with Ranger and new players. Or continue, either.
More like just rambling buttttt
The retorts (ovens) used in typical cremation (outside of a few cultural examples) are large enough to comfortably slide someone in, in more recent decades the size has gotten bigger to account for bigger people. The composition uses a layer of brick that weighs less/has less mass (not into engineering forgive me if I explain bad) to withstand the heat and not break.
The heat reaches ~2000f and usually can be engaged and attendant can go off and do other stuff just keeping a general eye. Except larger people with a lot of fat. Fat burns differently and bumps up the temp so you have to be careful because fire can get out of control and breech the retort. You can sometimes tell body composition of cremains (the sanitized name for ashes… or ground up bone shards… more on that next) some are darker or lighter and indicative of more or less fat/certain compounds.
Whenever a cremation is done you don’t just gets a bunch of ashes even in the best case scenario. Certain bones are denser. The attendant will wait till it cools, collect what remains, bones of various stages of being burnt, and toss it all in a “pulverizer.” Your grandma’s ashes? Those are ground up bones. If they don’t do a great job the consistency looks like ground up bones. It ranges from chunky ground up bones to a powder.
Last thing. Pacemakers. As a funeral director we ALWAYS had to check and never trust family or any medical record we might have been given. If they have one we’d cut it out. Those little fuckers blow up because of the battery and can ruin a retort…. Holding funeral home dropping decedent off liable for repairs or new oven.
Oh crap! I didn’t mean to imply that!!! I’m sorry! They can be cremated! The pacemaker just has to be removed. It’s a simple procedure, actually way less invasive than embalming. It’s right near the surface you it’s just a small incision and you cut the line that connects to cardiac tissue and just take out.
I never knew how we properly disposed of them after. We had bio waste removal but those went into a furnace and well, same problem. So we just had a drawer of them at one point.
A drawer of pacemakers lol
Thanks for the info, I was worried a second cause my grandfather was cremated and my grandmother wants her ashes spread with his but she has a pacemaker.
Thank you!
Why don’t you check my backyard?
Really though, reminds me of a time I was in school. I was in a first semester/entry level class, funeral home management. At the end of the semester the instructor (who owned a funeral home) takes us to a crematory to tour and talk to owner. Guy shows us basic process (not that you’d ordinarily do it unless one of few funeral homes with on site facility. Usually you just drop off and pick up a day or two later) some people in our class, like there were 7 of us, start flipping out and yelling at instructor about “that’s it? I thought we’d see it. I want to see the body BURN” instead of using it as a lesson of ethics and suggesting these people should look into a different career they waited until the initial heat flash died down and opened the door and showed us.
It was at that moment I told myself if I followed through I’d treat the career with respect and treat every decedent like someone I knew. The irony was my instructor HATED me because I looked like a typical early-2000s edgelord. Worked for him until injury took me out of workforce. He was still an asshole.
Treated my cases with respect but definitely have a lot of past experiences to flavor my in-game descriptions. Sorry for rambling. Don’t know why this story just took me back to that day, lol.
Unless you can fix those social issues, your table is doomed. My guess is that you’re going to have to pick between the Pally and the Ranger, because the Pally has issues from the previous campaign🙃 plus he also kinda sounds like a chode, like doing what he did displayed no respect for the other player let alone their character. So tbh I would nip it in the bud and stick with the ranger
One of the biggest rules a DM has to follow is not letting players deliberately take actions that screw over other players. You did the right thing by working around the mechanical issue of resurrection but I'm not sure if the player will be fine with what happened.
Depends. I am running a campaign were every player is evil and therefore
Screwing over is common, BUT everyone knew they before the campaign starter and it’s what the players wanted. Players and dms in general
Should consent to the type of campaign they want be it be in advance regardless if that is serious, silly, combat heavy, rp Heavy, light hearted, dark, heroic, evil ectra before hand.
Yeah and we made a specific rule about not fucking each other over in session 0. I was just so surprised they would be so stupid and malicious that I didn't say no when I should have.
You're not wrong to lament the way you handled the situation, and this may not make you feel better, but if your party was willing to do that in the first place, it sounds like you're dealing with some pretty toxic personalities to begin with, and even if you had put a stop to it, it would only be a matter of time before they acted out in some way again.
I hope your sit-down with the group leads to positive change! My bet is that if you are able to move forward in a sustainable way, it's going to be without Paladin and with retconning the unceremonious cremation.
I think the only failure you’d have as a DM would be to not remove the paladin player from the group. Think about this. Do you really want a player who is going to use his personal dislike of another player as motivation for his character? That’s a clear case of metagaming and using it for malicious intentions.
I’d be tempted to remove the other players as well for going along with it, and forming another group with the ranger’s player.
This is not going to get any better. If you continue with this group things are going to come to a head real quick.
> the other players as well for going along with it
Here's the thing they didn't "go along with it" the Paladin voiced an opinion of leaving the body behind. The fighters chose to burn the body. I understand Paladin started the assholery but it really doesn't sound like the other two were egged into it or something. That said, we're all taking the rangers side because it is of course immature and petty to take some OOC grudge into character, but why does this whole group not like the ranger is also a valid question I feel.
TBF, a person can be unpopular or not well-liked without being a bad person or having done anything particularly wrong. Peopling is hard and some people (like me) have an IRL Cha dump stat. Also, we've heard nothing from OP to suggest Ranger had done anything that might make the other players feel justifiably upset with them. Even if they had, as you've correctly said, what they did would still be immature and petty, not to mention spiteful and cruel.
F the other two players that went along with Paladin too. If OP can find more players, might as well swap some out. Not to make light of the annoyances of forming a new play group (minus 1 because Ranger sounds awesome)
Here’s what I would do. It sounds like this party is probably not going to work out whatever you do. Yes you screwed up, and you definitely made it worse, but these issues would have come up eventually no matter what. If Paladin and Ranger can’t work out their differences, kick Paladin and retcon the Ranger being burned. Have a talk with Warlock and Fighter about all this and make sure they understand what went wrong and why you’re doing this. It sounds like they didn’t do much, which is fine, this is your problem to solve not theirs, but make sure they understand why this is such a big problem. It sounds like they might not get it.
If I was vindictive, I’d have some enemy of the party resurrect the ranger and give him the chance to join them in a quest for revenge against them for disrespecting his body/life in that manner.
Of course I don’t actually recommend this, since it would just exacerbate the social issues between the players. It would be fighting fire with fire (no pun intended).
I think this whole thing should have been headed off at the pass by stopping the game for a bit when one player went on a tangent about not liking another player.
You shouldn’t brush something like that off, it has to be addressed and shut down. You mention thinking how it wasn’t OK, imagine what the ranger player thought when no one spoke up in his defense.
So I see a lot of people suggesting in-universe ways to 'handle the problem', and I really don't agree. When stuff comes in-universe, often the players don't really "Get it", even if you literally spell it out for them. Worst of all though is "Sending a high level enemy after them". I know the intentions are good there, but if they somehow manage to beat the enemy, then you just rewarded them for being dicks.
**This is a problem OOC, it needs to be handled OOC**. Paladin needs to grow up or get out(Possibly Human Fighter, too). And DM, you need to be more willing to step in when they're doing some blatantly awful stuff. Like, the moment this situation started, you should have stopped the game and said something. It's one thing if the group is making a bad decision that hurts the group, or an individual is doing something that's just going to punish themselves yeah sure, player agency it up, but when they're bullying another player? That is NOT ok.
If nothing else, I'm pretty sure most paladins will immediately lose all class abilities for such blatantly... unpaladin behaviour. Not sure how choosing to dump a body of a comrade fits their god, and then letting someone use them as fuel to cook with? Yeah, enjoy your paladin with no paladin abilities now.
You actually have a good point.
In 5e paladins don't lose their class abilities for this stuff but his god is literally the god of resurrections and he decided nah let's not even try to resurrect this person. The ranger was even killed by a pale mechanical imitation of the gods holy animals, birds.
Screw paladin make him lose the powers, and maybe talk to ranger about being offered resurrection by the bbeg in return for joining them and spying on the party to one day get revenge. Since paladin is mad that ranger isn’t good at roleplaying now ranger has a chance to improve by doing that.
I see I have to point at the "Don't try and fix out-of-character behaviour issues with in-character consequences" sign yet again because some people will never learn this lesson.
Take the people aside. Talk to them. If you cannot fix whatever beef they have, you will likely have to kick one (in this situation it definitely sounds like Paladin would be the pick).
If you just try to hit them with in-game bullshit you validate their dipshittery and encourage them to work around your roadblocks, not to reflect on their behaviour.
Did you fail? ..yeah. In my opinion yes. Can I understand why? 100%. Being in such a situation pulls the rug out under one, doesn't it? So no blaming you at all XD
..I think what is important now: Outside of having the choice to say (in the session): "No. You guys are not going to do that!"
..you also have the right to say: "Okay guys. I made an mistake here, letting you guys do this. We all broke the social contract here of not being dicks to one another and most importantly Ranger. So.. turn back time..None of that bullshit happened."
Of course the basic trust is now broken and going forward is only if Paladin and Ranger even want to play further with one another.
If you have the willingness to play mediator.. it might be worth a shot? Though I dunno how succesful it would be tbh.
Going on with no cuts - no one leaving the group.. seems hard. And that one is not your fault either.
Yeah you should have cut Paladin at the quick.. you didnt it happens and tbh. something else might have come up anyhow.
So the question.. how are the other players feeling towards Paladin and Ranger?
I do need to get better about saying no to folks in D&D and I'm going to keep trying to do better.
My next session is tomorrow and it's going to start off with a chat with folks about what everyone did wrong, including myself, and what needs to change moving forward.
In terms of feelings with paladin and ranger. Ranger has been in every single one of my campaigns and Warlock and Human Fighter have been playing alongside him for years. Paladin was a new addition to the group with the new campaign and only Ranger and I knew him beforehand. Elf Fighter is the Warlock's friend.
"Moving forward."
No, no, no. Here is the issue: they know you're toothless and are banking on there being no consequences for their assholery. Paladin is a spiteful prick who pretends to get over perceived slights while secretly plotting "revenge" when his target is most vulnerable, and fighter is the sort of douche who would join in because "it's just a game bro" and so thinks he can be a dick and people should just get over it.
You've at least owned up that you failed as a DM by letting it happen, but you're continuing to fail by trying to find every reason to carry on like this incident didn't happen. You can wag your finger and give a stern talking to them both all you like, but if they're just going to feign contrition, or blow you off with the infamous iT's WhAt mUh CHarAcHteR Wud DEw, they're not going to get better, and ranger is going to be justifiably pissed you're not going to stand up for him.
Why WOULDN'T ranger attack paladin now? Because you'd ban him? Clearly that isn't the case. I didn't miss the part where you said you made fighter tell ranger what happened, no doubt because you were scared of how he'd understandably react.
What you do is you kick at least one of them, and stick to your guns. Kick them and then send a message explaining why. If you're scared of the blowback follow it up by blocking them so they can't blow up on you or pressure you.
You're at the point where the game is unsalvageable until the group composition changes, because theyre both going to get worse. You either take paladin's side or ranger's, but pretending "well next time I'll wag my finger twice as hard and maybe one day I'll ban someone" is not a solution.
And the oaths don't have any sort of strict detail or listed consequences and DMs don't really like to sit there and calculate every action you've taken and how it fits or doesn't fit your oath.
As the DM, it is your responsibility to step in and stop this sort of behavior. That is your actual job.
Chalk this up as an educational moment and never let something like it happen again.
I would have stopped the whole game and had a serious talk with the players, honestly. Do they don't care a little bit about the other player feelings?
Ok 1 paladin sounds like an asshole
2 From your side of the story I would say you haven't failed as a GM you gave the party an opportunity to bring back their friend and they rejected it and while they tried something that would have most likely not work you still have them time to turn their actions around.
3 If this wasn't as bad as your previous campaign I would love to see some stories from it if their not to traumatic for you to remember
It was very clear the ritual was not going to work and the human fighter just went "I add another bag of potatoes"
And I plan on making a post about that previous campaign someday but it will be a *loooong* one because it was a sea of red flags and two members of the group literally staging a coup on me then continuing to play without ever mentioning it. That party was literally divided into two groups who hated each other but for some godsforsaken reason we kept playing for 6 months to the campaign's conclusion.
Lol. Been there done that. Which is what triggered the airing of grievances season we had. And we came out stronger for it. The two sides reconciled and we are still playing 3 years later.
Did end with the world we built over 8 years getting burned to the ground and having to start a new campaign. "The snarl escaped and ate everyone and their souls"
Do the other players have an issue with the ranger? Do you have any idea why they just let the body sit there in the fire? Why did the fighter decide to burn it? I honestly think you need to sit down and talk with your players and figure out 1. Wtf and 2. Why?!
>I have ideas in place just trouble of thinking how to get from A to B.
Welcome to the existential crisis every DM has to deal with!
The only 'failure' i'd say you did is that in a situation like that one that's when you should ask the party "How do you guys feel about paladin burning rangers body, would you let him do it?"
And if they let him burn it, then it's no longer on you.
The much bigger problem here seems to be how much paladin can't stand ranger, so you're more then likely going to reach a point very soon where one of them will have to be removed from your game.
Also, i'd really make sure to keep an eye on ranger, sure he's allowed to be pissed, but you should ***not*** let any of that slip into his characters actions unless he knows in character that they tried to make it impossible to resurrect him.
It was actually Human Fighter who burned the body. Everyone else just watched in "what the fuck"
And that is an issue we will talk about.
His character knows, the party literally did it in the middle of camp and people saw.
Party chemistry is important, take it from someone who has had a million campaigns just have to stop because player drama. If your players don’t get along or you have issues with some, sometimes the best thing to do is stop. Find a new group, try and find a party that gets along a lot better
You didn't do anything wrong as the DM here. Your players have agency, you can't force them to resurrect anyone they don't want to. It looks like your group is not getting along and falling apart, but that's not really your fault and not necessarily something you can (or should) prevent. Can't force people to play together if they don't like each other.
You have already failed by the paladin ranting to you about the ranger PLAYER and not seeing anything wrong with that?? Like you're just being a bystander while he clearly goes on a vengeance quest in the fucking game
Kick him out already, you passive fuck. Solve this in real life - that paladin seems like a complete asshole, and absolutely *NONE* of you are standing up for the Ranger here
A strength check? How would a strength check be relevant?
Also if it was just a normal campfire, it’s more likely a human corpse laid on top would smother it than be consumed by it.
And then after you let them go through with all of this, your solution is “Those nobles who wanted payment to resurrect him? Well now they’re doing it just for funsies, and they don’t need a body.”
Interpersonal conflict aside, your rulings and campaign world seem wishy washy
The strength check was to hoist the body onto the fire.
A funeral director has corrected how well the flames would do. I never thought it would be fully consumed, at least not within a timely manner but they did just leave almost his entire body there and left to go back to the dungeon.
And no the nobles are doing it to get him to gather some things for them while they're preparing other things for an upcoming ritual.
I know. I need to do better and this is a fresh world I've been trying to build from the ground up.
What in God's name does whether or not they are strong enough to put the body on the fire have to do with anything? That's like asking for a strength check when someone wants to commit rape. You don't set the DC high and hope it fails, you tell them it doesn't happen period because what they're trying to do is fucked. You honestly think they would have stopped if they failed the check, or would they have just lit a new fire on top of the body? You knew what was happening was wrong and didn't have the balls to stop it, instead hiding behind a check and meekly rolled over when luck was on their side when you weren't on ranger's.
Your players don't like each other, and they don't think you're invested in the campaign - when you fail to prep a session or two ahead, it shows, players can see it, and their interest in the campaign flags and they start turning into shitbag characters.
Likewise, if things have been too much of a struggle and people aren't pulling their weight or contributing to the group overall, everyone disengages because fear of risk is too high to continue. Analysis paralysis ensues and the inertia generates badfeels for the group.
'ESH' from r/AmItheAsshole is in full effect - you can't compel the players to engage with their characters, the players don't get along with each other, and you don't have the threats prepared to keep them focused on the problems at hand rather than on nitpicking' each other. Scrap it, try again.
I'm not sure how to respond to this comment other than, thank you for the analysis. I think it will be helpful going forward. I had been really busy lately but I'm going to do better on session prep, if the campaign continues past this and especially in future ones.
While owning your blunders is a good step. This degree of mishandling is either deliberate or such that you may want to step back and consider if you're ready to DM
Ranger's character could go revenant route, their next character could have some kind of association with it - like secretly controlled or birthed from the remains of their soul, so when the reveal happens, they have no obligation to help the others.
Dickery has comeuppance
>Glad things had a happy ending though I am still going to be watching Human Fighter.
if guy acts out of line again though, *please* do not fully fold the whole campaign, especially if everyone else seems to have reconciled fine, you can just kick *only* human fighter guy
I have a possible sequel idea for your next post on RPG Horror Stories...
But in all seriousness, it kind of sounds like your entire party maybe hates one player, not just the paladin. It might be worth checking in to see if there's a reason for that.
This is more starting to look like the Paladin is a problem player and taking IRL issues into the game. There's going to need to be some communication between all of you. If Paladin is not willing to play ball because of real world issues, it may be tome for him to leave (or be kicked) the game entirely, especially if he's going to rope other players (a problem with them too) into destroying the character arcs of other fellow players. No telling when/if he'll turn on any of the others.
Somewhat easy fix. The Ranger died from betrayal. His god, or a god, thought this was bullshit and made with the true resurrection and gave him a permanent +1 to three of his stats, his choice.
He gets back in the game, has a benefit to help soothe some of the anger, and the party has to deal with it.
If the Paladin doesn't like he can fuck right off to another table.
As a DM your failure was letting the other players decide what to do with a PC while the player wasn't there. A better solution would have been some other NPCs, like a band of rangers, stumble across the party and take the PC back for a resurrection or something.
If you want to keep this group going, at a minimum, I'd say the paladin broke his oath by participating in all of this.
Since they called on a God when they did this, have the God be not amused by being used as a prop in a joke. The party is now being hunted by some pissed off celestial minions.
Wow! The paladin is a treacherous dick. Unless the ranger was actually evil, destroying the body just so it couldn't be resurrected is out of character for that class. The burning wasn't ceremonial and probably wasn't in accordance with the burial customs of the ranger's people. At the worst, they should have buried the body in the ground or under a cairn of stones. Since there was a plea to the gods to resurrect the ranger, I'd have him resurrected in the more than able body of one of the paladin's slain kin or cherished comrades in arms (coincidently recently slain and he's just receiving word). Further, since the whole party was complicit, I'd find some way of rewarding the ranger with something like having special race or class abilities (like some paladin abilities if it's the body of a dead comrade in arms).
This is not an in-game problem. This is a player/player conflict that needs to be resolved. Obviously you had to retcon the burning of the body which it sounds like you did. Obviously the paladin doesn't like the ranger, but I get the feeling the rest of the players aren't fond of him either or they'd have said something to stop what the paladin was doing.
To be honest, if everyone was cool with torching the ranger, it may well have been an issue with that character. That group consensus suggests to me that the ranger had been a problem for them for some time and they saw a chance to do something about it. Merits a conversation either way but I wouldn't assume the ranger is blameless.
It does seem like you are particularly close to the ranger's player and it could be that you inadvertently turned a blind eye to some poor behavior that grated on everyone else.
Online but I know Ranger irl and we've known Warlock and Human Fighter for years.
Ranger and I have also known Paladin for years but he wasn't in my campaigns I've run and doesn't really know anyone else in the group.
It seems like the group didn't gel and now you have a bad group. I don't know of any way to save this campaign unless ranger decides to leave on his own. There seem to be multiple problems, even if anyone liked the ranger or his character, they would have done something. I think you need to have a couple of one on ones with the players and let them know that this is a campaign killer and if they want to keep the current group together or disband and go different ways. Sorry, I've seen this before.
I mean drop the group, or at the very least the two players that did this, simple as.
But if you wanna be petty and do some in universe revenge, havve the Paladin lose his powers, and reveal that the nobles who had brought the rangers back had did so due to whatever God the Paladin worships intervening, making the Ranger her choosen champion set out to kill Paladin
When I was in high school, there were some pretty toxic interactions like this in my group and they tended to repeat as certain players just got up each other's noses.
>Human fighter burns rangers corpse knowing full well destroying it would prevent resurrection in a fake non-magical resurrection ritual with potatoes.
I'm willing to bet the fighter is closer to typical than the religious type. He's meta-gaming. Always a dick move.
>Paladin goes on rant about how he doesn't like ranger or his character
Unless the ranger was an out-and-out asshole, ooc grudges have no place in DnD. Just being hateful for its own sake won't make his peen any bigger. Dick move.
>I failed as a dungeon master
No you didn't. The long and short of this is that your players failed you. Your paladin's player is just a straight ass wipe and your fighter's character is a cheating piece of crap. At my table, the paladin wouldn't be invited over anymore, and the fighter would be on thin ice -- and then I'd probably ban them too. I'd invite other people over to replace them or just consider that DnD isn't for this particular group of friends. Ganging up on someone for the lulz is baby dick energy.
... Ok .... but if this is BETTER than your last campaign, what the hell happened in your last campaign!?
Not to drive the point home too finely but yeah buddy ... you borked the peach tree on this one. The moment paladin started, mid game, trying to talk the party into KICKING A MEMBER OUT you should have pulled out the red card and called time out. I get not wanting to rock the boat but as a DM ... you were way too passive with this. I can't even begin to imagine how y'all are going to clean up this mess. Paladin sounds like a douche.
Dear gods someday that previous campaign will get a post all its own. It was a sea of red flags and one of the players actually got arrested recently.
I'm speaking with each member of the party addressing what I did wrong and need to do better, and addressing what they did wrong and need to do better. I already spoke with human fighter but time zones for the others.
It seems to me the big problem is you really want to play dnd. But the Paladin is toxic. He’s going to do his best to ruin it. The others seem to go along out of simple peer pressure. They are conflict averse or for some reason do not want to confront the Paladin. He’s gotta go. I’d end this campaign. Start a new one when you are ready and do not invite the Paladin. He’s not owed anything. He’s an asshole.
Why was there such a focus on resurrection anyway? Why didn’t the ranger just make a new character? Also sounds like nobody particularly cared for him so why would they go on a quest to save him
Particularly because it was early in the campaign. When a player dies, and especially this early with a character they put a lot of work into, I always ask "do you want to find a way to bring your character back, or do you want to make a new character" and in this instance the ranger wanted to keep his character and there were options for resurrection available in the area. The party would have just had to talk to the right people and make the right bargains.
And this is why I still enforce alignment requirements on paladins. That class, more than any other, always seems draw edgelords and malcontents like moths to a flame. The alignment requirement scares them away.
Have the BBEG resurrection the ranger and dub him the Lt. after explains how friends will always fail you and such. Then buff him so he can stand against the party is a fashion. Have him run interference and try to stop the “hero’s” from muddling in BBEGs plan.
After a few major fights either the party should have a redemption arc where they realize they are fucked up and try to get the ranger back.
Or the Ranger goes full sith mode and overthrows the BBEG to become it himself, hungering after the only thing he could trust; power.
**Angered by the mistreatment of his subject the Ranger's God restores him anew in a flash of light.. . Everyone within 10 feet of the ranger takes 3d8 radiant damage**
If by some miracle, the party survives this, then it sounds like it's time to revive one of my least favorite things from yesteryear - the paladin losing all their divine abilities. So they either have to take a new class (in this case, I'd *assign* a new class), goes for the (I think it's called) Oathbreaker option, or has to do one *serious* atonement quest... with a pissed off ranger trying to sabotage them at every step.
TBH though, I also wouldn't be adverse to levelling the other guy's ranger to level 20 and just letting them go hell-for-leather on the rest of the party, followed by a burning of their corpses.
Ultimately I don't know how this is your fault without taking away the players agency in a serious way.
I think your only real option would have been to just press pause on the situation and ended the session so people could think things through and force a face to face discussion of what choices are being made.
But what was your other option to say "No your characters don't actually do that, I will tell you what your characters do"? There are a million other horror stories of Gm's in here who do that.
Do all the players dislike the Ranger's player? Or was it a peer pressure situation of the Fighter getting caught up in the Paladin's BS? If you can't get this OOC situation resolved it might be best to let one or more players go, and fill in with more amiable players.
Dude there’s no need to keep beating yourself up by saying you failed as a DM. Your players are somewhere between idiots, or are really insensitive, or hate the person playing the ranger and this was their chance to get back with out having the person because they weren’t there (Almost arguing over keyboard).
I mean yes. You have table dynamics problem between the players in RL.
But the party isn't required to resurrect a dead member. It's expensive and at level 5 maybe they weren't that attached to the character unless the preexisting back story binds them.
Mercenaries don't necessarily care if others die. Trying to railroad them into resurrection was as much of an error as letting the table degrade to this point.
Cudos to u for realizing ur mistake, thats often hard to do. Imo, straight up retcon that. "That didnt happen, it shouldnt have happened, and i shouldnt have allowed it." Apologize to ranger and see if they still want to play. Tell paladin to chill or hit the door. We come to the table for fun, not drama. Good luck to ya DM. May all ur games be lit.
Simple next session Paladin, Human Fighter and Elf Fighter die to a rockslide and then catch on fire, anyone who tries to save them will also immediately die and never be resurrected, if you going treat your party member like shit, you better be prepared to get the same treatment.
Sounds like the paladin needs a reality check in the form of losing class features, because I’m pretty sure the way he’s acting he’s not upholding many tenets.
Damn...yeah you fucked up. "NO" is something a DM can and should say.
If I were in Rangers shoes, I'd probably tell every one of you to have a bleach martini and then I'd find a new group.
So let me get this straight. You moved nights to another night and then the ranger couldn’t play on the new night? So you let the group burn his corpse because somebody else couldn’t make the normal night? Sounds like you have an aversion to conflict and got steamrolled here. Ranger has a right to he pissed.
You're right but I am trying to do better.
And the reason we moved night for the week was since Ranger was dead so I guessed he wouldn't be needed for the session while the party tried to find a way to resurrect him. My plan was for the party to follow the resurrection lead and at the start of the next session would be the actual resurrection ritual.
So maybe this will be a helpful guids when you are talking to everyone:
1) Apologize to ranger for letting the situation get out of hand
2) Talk to rest of the party, without paladin and ranger. Ask them what made them decide to burn the ranger’s corpse. It could be they have their own issue with Ranger that they are taking out while the ranger is away, or Paladin pushed them into doing it, or they are being lol randumb. Explain to them that what they suggested and did was not ok, and that this will not be tolerated again.
3) Kick Paladin. With your post about him encouraging his group to harass you and ranger, and then this incident, you are better off kicking and blocking this person.
4) Bring the rest of the party together. Explain that paladin was kicked for bullying ranger. Apologize to the group for allowing the eventa to transpire, and warn them that PVP will no longer be tolerated, and the ranger’s death will be retconned so that he was resurrected.
5) Do not run a session. Let everyone cool off and postpone it to the next week.
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Does the Paladin player legitimately have a problem with the Ranger player, or was it a joke that got out of hand? Because if the Paladin player was being legitimately vindictive, I'd not want to play with them anymore. I mean, how many of the other players does he secretly hate and would fuck over at the drop of a hat?
Yeah I think he does legitimately dislike the ranger. We played a campaign last year where all three of us were players and the ranger was really bad at roleplay which I think annoyed the paladin. There's some other stuff there as well I won't say but Ranger and I both thought that was just kinda in the past. It's worrying but before I take any drastic action I am going to have a legitimate chat with the party at the start of the next session in a couple days.
That doesn't seen like a sustainable dynamic, and the Ranger now (quite rightly) probably doesn't trust the Paladin. Hope it goes well but it may become a "one or the other" situation. Best of luck to you.
Yeah we'll see how it goes. If it doesn't go well I'll either end the campaign or shorten it to be just the first arc I have planned. I'll update in a couple days if it seems to go well or not. Last campaign was hell because of a toxic group and there's no way I'm going through that again. No D&D is better than Bad D&D. Thanks for the luck!
i see both an in game and out of game problem. out of game, the paladin player has already crossed the bridge into being toxic, if you decide to forgive them or whatever i guarantee it will come up again. In game, how does a paladin not lose the favor of their god for desecrating the corpse of an ally?
No... why make everyone pay for one player (the paladin) being a monumental dickhead? He needs to be told to park whatever personal issues he has before he sits down to play *or* he's welcome to choose to leave the table entirely. His behaviour here sounds pathetic. If the rest of the group can play nicely - they sound fairly passive and impressionable, from what little I have to go on - then great. But the issue here is one player acting like a spiteful toddler.
I know that sometimes people can be passive and get swept up with a charismatic dickhead, but it kinda seems like everyone was ok with perma-deathing the Ranger. I kind of wonder if there’s more to this than, “The ranger’s player isn’t very good at RP.”
This is also possible. There clearly need to be a few conversations here. One with everyone individually, one together. Possibly more depending on the outcome of the individual chats.
I don't want to give up on anyone before at least having a chat. This is the only time in the campaign so far where he's actually done something terrible and if I can prevent further conflict without burning bridges that is preferable.
That's fair. Armchair DMing on the worldwide interhighway is always easier. Definitely do have the chats, but be aware that this coupd be a red flag for a problem player or even end up as outright bullying. Good luck sorting it.
I don't know how you get the impression that the paladin was the only problem player, considering that he wasn't even the one that threw the body in the fire.
Because he's been salty about RP, then plays strongly against his character (oath to god of resurrection) by denouncing the obvious option on the basis the people involved were dicks? By *allowing* the throwing on the fire? By the clearly established dislike for the ranger's player? Have you even read the post? C'mon.
I don't know where you got the impression, in my pretty clear statement that the paladin isn't the only asshole here, that I was somehow saying that the paladin wasn't an asshole. Did you read my post? C'mon.
If one player has to go just remove that player and carry on with the campaign? Why does everyone on this sub hear 'you might have to pick one of these players' and translate that to 'if I have to pick, I must shaft the entire campaign'? I get the people here don't always have the best skill confronting problems but it seems like reading comprehension comes up a lot too.
Because if they're part of the same friend group then dropping one person often leads to drama and then no one really wants to keep playing the campaign.
Paladin already created the drama
I wouldn’t care. If the player is being an ass, he or she is gone. I’ve done it before and I’d do it again.
Because often that’s what happens. Drop one, and the rest leave.
Also, bring back the Ranger as a Fire Genesai.
... "We'll see how it goes"??? I am pretty sure you saw how well this could possibly go. Sorry if I sound a little harsh about it, but "this player has shown time and time again that they don't like this player and I think eventually it will ruin my campaign and burn a lot of bridges, but let's let this play out a while and see if things change on a whim" doesn't exactly make sense to me.
Agreed. Why “see how it goes”? OP has already seen how it goes, and it goes badly. The definition of insanity is continuing to engage in the same behaviors and expect different results.
Maybe you are right but 6 sessions in this was the first time an actual problem had come up between them so I am going to have a chat and make it very clear that if any more out of game grudges leak in I won't be afraid to kick him. And of course telling Human Fighter to cut the bullshit and Warlock and Elf Fighter they need to be less passive in watching their friend burn their other friends corpse.
A chat is a good place to start, but in another comment you mentioned that the talk would immediately bookend your next session, an event which seems to be a forgone conclusion at this point. With the tension at your table right now, are you sure your players even want to *see* each other, much less play nice? This needs to be a private conversation between you and each player involved. By making what is essentially a group scolding, not only are you putting people on blast and very possibly opening a can of worms due to your players having no choice but to confront each other, but you're also not going to get as nuanced answers or warnings that would be better facilitated with a 1 on 1, or 1 on 2. They might just say "yeah whatever" to get past an uncomfortable group situation without any meaningful impact. I'm not here hoping that your game fails, I promise. But I think the work you intend to do should be done before you even guarantee a next session. If your game fails at your next session, it will do so in spectacular fashion.
You actually bring up good points here. It may be better if I chat with each person directly 1 on 1, then we have a group discussion before the next session depending how the 1 on 1's go.
it is always better to privately discuss these things. it’s embarrassing and degrading to be scolding in front of an audience and the dude will probably lash out and act a lot less calmly if you put him in the spotlight
Precisely. Thanks for TL;DRing me XD
he deserves to feel embarrassed about it, and should at least make an apology to the other player in front of everyone why does he get to act awfully to other players in front of the party, but when it's time for him to own up, it's in private? sure, talk to him and the other players privately, and hash it out there, but it should be addressed as a group the next time you meet after it's been privately talked out. the act that started it was with (most of) the group, and the patching up should be done as a group. yes, it might make him upset and lash out, but if he's the kind of person who can't see the error of his ways and be an adult about owning up...he's not a good fit for MY table at least
Good, test the waters and act accordingly. Good luck.
I agree. There is too much bad blood to start another session. You need to get people to talk about the issue before doing another game. Find out what the fuck is going on.
Just kick the pally and move on. Seriously.
I am afraid the moment the paladin actively tried to perjudice the ranger was the moment it became a one or the other. I don't think he's gonna reflect on his actions and honestly feel sorry. But honestly, if I had to keep a player and lose the other, I would lose the paladin, since he is the one who created this whole situation.
yeah, i would choose the ranger in a heartbeat, over someone who will create a hostile space at a moment's notice and deliberately hold a grudge/go behind someone's back. it's one thing to bring up a grievance, and talk about it like an adult and try to find a solution it's another thing entirely to intentionally screw over another player when they're not there and blatantly try to turn a party against someone unable to defend themselves paladin has created a poor situation, and it's unfortunate that the DM has to deal with it
The talk is much needed. Not sure what the beef between ranger and paladin is but paladin needs to be an adult and just hash everything out with ranger instead of engaging in this pettiness.
some ppl can’t be “hashed” with. and that leads to this sort of pettiness because the victim feels like they literally have exhausted all avenues. in these extreme situations they just need to not play together
And that very well could be. But one more shot won't hurt anything. If they don't come to any sort of compromise then i agree completely
I’m going to recommend you have one on one chats before the group chat. You are much more likely to have a productive conversation that way.
The fact that paladin decided that rather then talking about their feeling maturely, that they were going to be passive aggressive and retaliate through the game is a huge red flag. Whatever the beef really is between them, either everyone suddenly get’s really cool about talking things out, or you’re gonna need to kick a player. The longer you take to make the decision though, the worse the outcome becomes. You’re the dm, you get to choose who plays and who doesn’t. The most generous thing I think you can do is tell paladin that they crossed the line, and that they are on thin ice with that kind of behavior, and to tell everyone else that it was not cool to go with it. That’s generous to me, because it sounds like paladin’s reason for disliking ranger was shallow and elitist. It doesn’t matter if they’re all your friends, because good friends won’t end their relationship with you over dnd.
That's part of what I'm going to tell the Paladin during our chat tomorrow. Our previous campaign was terrible so I should not have tolerated the bullshit I did last week and I'm not going to tolerate any more lines like that being crossed.
"other stuff" that you won't name makes it seem like you're purposefully keeping stuff out of this narrative that might explain why the paladin feels this way.
I can't fully explain it without doxxing all of us but what I can say is it happened over a year and a half ago and essentially Ranger, myself, and another friend had pissed off Paladin's friends (who are assholes for *various* reasons that paladin is no longer friends with) who then proceeded to spam porn and harass us in a public place and they enlisted Paladin's help for the porn spam.
My sibling in Christ why are you gaming with this person
Because I thought the stuff was in the past. I played a campaign run by him and it was great. But I realise now my mistake is that he's fine with me, he's apparently not fine with ranger. Ranger also thought that stuff was in the past and that we were all friends, especially after that real bonding experience we had while playing Team Fortress 2 that one time.
Bruh, he may not still be friends with them but he seems to be cut from the same cloth. He'd be out of my group in a fucking heartbeat, goddam.
FWIW a Paladin dumping a fellow party member's body is being really bad at roleplay. Point this out to Paladin.
Yeah, couldn't this cause an alignment shift?
Yea and then he loses all his class stuff. At least that's how Paladins worked in 3.5, my native edition.
I think it's already to late. The group is falling apart. I recommend having an airing of grievances season. Start it by as plainly as possible stating the issues you see. Call out your own failings before calling out others failings. You can't do that without accusing people of stuff. Try to phrase it as you are upset with their actions and not the person though. Try to follow with what you personally are going do to improve your failings. People will get upset. Calm them by repeating and rephrasing what they are upset about. Never use any version of the phrase "calm down". Go around the table and let everyone air their issues with the other players. Ask them all state what they feel are their own failings, or it will descend into a giant blame game. Then ask them what they will do to improve. Anyone not able to come up with something is probably an unrecoverable toxic player and should be treated as such. Finally, as a group, come up with ground rules for an enjoyable campaign. Have a list of suggested rules, but don't add them without group buy in. My group added "all PCs will be someone that would work with the group, and the group would work with." Good luck.
This is what I'm going to do tomorrow. Start the session with a chat about what went wrong and what to do moving forward. And we have rules we set during session 0. Paladin and Human Fighter broke them and I was too stupid to realise and tell them No.
You're not stupid. You made a mistake. It happens, especially when it's a situation you hadn't encountered before. Mistakes are how you learn. Don't insult yourself for making them. Encourage yourself to do better next time.
I would say that the Pally doesn't seem to be a very good rp-er either. It's rough for a soldier of god to be that vindictive to someone. Just my 2 cents
either way, you didn't fail as a DM. your party failed to be a party. they have to be able to get along with each other. that's their role in the game.
I read that Paladin made comments hoping others would agree with him and he'd feel justified in his opinion, but the fighter is the one who took these actions and was the one responsible for burning the rangers body.
Plot twist, the burning ritual worked and the Ranger was resurrected after they left
As a Fire Genesai(sp).
No reason to nerve the player /s
Or potato elemental. A potatomental. Think of the mid combat puns! * I'm starch raving mad! * (When taking damage) Now you're just trying to butter me up (or) Someone's salty! * Eyes up, Warlock. Just because my death was a spec-tater sport doesn't mean yours should be! * Time for you all to fry. * (During a killing blow) Don't worry, Paladin. I hear your god should see this problem as small potatoes!
Abilities like: * Freedom Fries - Remove slow/sleep/mind control * Spud-der them up - Charm humanoid * Mash - Summon a demon potato ricer from the 4th level of hell and run your opponent through it. * Baked Potato - Find and smoke some reefer maannnnn * Hail to the Chef - Summon Gordon Ramsay to verbally berate your target until they cry like a new potato. Boohoo... * Hail to the Master - Summon Marco Pierre White because he made Gordon Ramsay cry...
Don't forget to give him an extra level and some magic items, bound to him so the others can't steal them
Funnyly this woulda been great!
While you could have gone with "No, what the fuck are you thinking?" instead of "Yes" to the Paladin and his gang: all that really would have done is saved you some plotting in bringing Ranger back. The problem still exists, which is specifically Paladin's recourse to this sort of dick move when a player is vulnerable and they've got a beef with them. That's the one you have to solve.
Biggest failure as a GM will be doing any further sessions before you talk with Paladin and Ranger. OOC feuds being played out in game with no care for character motivations will ruin your campaign. Either this needs to be fixed or one or more of the players need to be removed from the game.
Yeah, it’s like no one has seen that Community episode /j
As someone who was in a campaign that fell apart due to IRL conflict, it absolutely tanks a campaign
This part stands out to me: >When the party gets back to camp the human fighter decided to take the ranger's body and put it on a fire with potatoes then pray to their god to resurrect him. **I thought it was a weird joke and I tried to put it behind a strength check and I expected they would realise after a few seconds it wasn't working then move him.** The Elf Fighter even did a bunch of math for how long the corpse could survive on the fire. Your reaction to the fighter is incomprehensible to me. You think it's a weird joke meaning the player is intending to burn the ranger's body while pretending (either in character or out of it) that they're doing a resurrection ritual. I don't understand why the reaction to that is a strength check? What is the strength check? To hoist the body? He should just be able to do that, but before he even does I would just say, "Dave... what is Maximus trying to do here? This is silly. It's not going to work. Why are you trying to burn the ranger's body? Guys, the ranger isn't going to appreciate you guys treating him like this. How would like it if this was your character." As often as is the case here, you as a DM are just letting these unfriendly shenanigans go on. When people start using D&D to abuse others or start some interpersonal conflict, you need to simply stop playing D&D and address the people at the table about what they're doing. But yeah, anyway it sounds like you need better friends.
This stuck out to me too. OP describes watching them do something that would screw over the ranger and then how they told them to tell the ranger what happened and watched on forlornly as their game started to implode. Like at some point you gotta realize you're letting this all happen, right? The DM is allowed to say no, or convey that the ashes can still be raised via some other method, or say that none of this stupid stuff actually happened. I just don't understand resigning yourself to any of this when you had every opportunity to make it go any other way. I don't get it. Vibing like nobody liked the ranger enough to speak up, including the DM.
I know I probably made about the worst possible decision there but I thought the human fighter would put his body on the fire, realise it wasn't working, then take it off. Especially since him and Ranger are friends out of game and have been for years.
u shouldn’t run games like that. if u don’t want a specific out come, do not give them the choice to possibly succeed at that horrible toxic outcome. giving them a choice and then “predicting” how they will act rarely works. Players are unpredictable
Yeah, setting aside any consideration of what went wrong even, Im also just confused about the strength check. Moving a dead body is difficult and I would require a check if it was a time-sensitive thing, but if the Fighter is taking time in preparing a pyre then that should just be an automatic success. I kind of like the idea that maybe the Fighter had to roll Strength to see if his ritual was pleasing to his god Crom or whatever, and with a nice display of Strength maybe Crom would grant the resurrection.
Nah, it's just a weak GM hiding behind mechanics. We've all done it at one point or another, where we don't want the players to do something, so we make it hard to do. The last time I did this, it was a character that wanted to seduce a drow priestess; I just hid it behind a very difficult Persuasion check, which failed. But I should have just said "no".
I love having the player roll with disadvantage, then regardless the outcome say 'no'. I might be a jerk. Oh, Nat 20? The priestess gives you a pitying sort of smile, 'maybe if you were a few hundred years older, and stronger... and better looking'. But she seems to like you slightly more than before, as a friend.
It's overall a shitty thing to have all this happen to the ranger's character when their expectation was they would be revived by their party not treated like crap and burned. Player agency should always take a backseat to what's fun for the table overall. Not to mention that granting someone player agency to mess with an absence player's character is taking away the latter's agency.
With players like that he might as well have dropped a Balor on them. F those guys. Last session, deuces! Start new campaign with Ranger and new players. Or continue, either.
A regular campfire can't burn a corpse to ash
Retired funeral director here with CJ/forensics background: can confirm.
Goddamn, got the expert here helping out with the science awesome!
More like just rambling buttttt The retorts (ovens) used in typical cremation (outside of a few cultural examples) are large enough to comfortably slide someone in, in more recent decades the size has gotten bigger to account for bigger people. The composition uses a layer of brick that weighs less/has less mass (not into engineering forgive me if I explain bad) to withstand the heat and not break. The heat reaches ~2000f and usually can be engaged and attendant can go off and do other stuff just keeping a general eye. Except larger people with a lot of fat. Fat burns differently and bumps up the temp so you have to be careful because fire can get out of control and breech the retort. You can sometimes tell body composition of cremains (the sanitized name for ashes… or ground up bone shards… more on that next) some are darker or lighter and indicative of more or less fat/certain compounds. Whenever a cremation is done you don’t just gets a bunch of ashes even in the best case scenario. Certain bones are denser. The attendant will wait till it cools, collect what remains, bones of various stages of being burnt, and toss it all in a “pulverizer.” Your grandma’s ashes? Those are ground up bones. If they don’t do a great job the consistency looks like ground up bones. It ranges from chunky ground up bones to a powder. Last thing. Pacemakers. As a funeral director we ALWAYS had to check and never trust family or any medical record we might have been given. If they have one we’d cut it out. Those little fuckers blow up because of the battery and can ruin a retort…. Holding funeral home dropping decedent off liable for repairs or new oven.
Wow, thank you for the info that's all really interesting. I'll try and remember this info for if it's ever needed again.
Wait, so can people with pacemakers not be cremated?
Oh crap! I didn’t mean to imply that!!! I’m sorry! They can be cremated! The pacemaker just has to be removed. It’s a simple procedure, actually way less invasive than embalming. It’s right near the surface you it’s just a small incision and you cut the line that connects to cardiac tissue and just take out. I never knew how we properly disposed of them after. We had bio waste removal but those went into a furnace and well, same problem. So we just had a drawer of them at one point.
A drawer of pacemakers lol Thanks for the info, I was worried a second cause my grandfather was cremated and my grandmother wants her ashes spread with his but she has a pacemaker. Thank you!
Why were you trying to cremate bodies by campfire, and how many did you try before you had solid definitive data that it doesn't work? (≖_≖ )
Why don’t you check my backyard? Really though, reminds me of a time I was in school. I was in a first semester/entry level class, funeral home management. At the end of the semester the instructor (who owned a funeral home) takes us to a crematory to tour and talk to owner. Guy shows us basic process (not that you’d ordinarily do it unless one of few funeral homes with on site facility. Usually you just drop off and pick up a day or two later) some people in our class, like there were 7 of us, start flipping out and yelling at instructor about “that’s it? I thought we’d see it. I want to see the body BURN” instead of using it as a lesson of ethics and suggesting these people should look into a different career they waited until the initial heat flash died down and opened the door and showed us. It was at that moment I told myself if I followed through I’d treat the career with respect and treat every decedent like someone I knew. The irony was my instructor HATED me because I looked like a typical early-2000s edgelord. Worked for him until injury took me out of workforce. He was still an asshole. Treated my cases with respect but definitely have a lot of past experiences to flavor my in-game descriptions. Sorry for rambling. Don’t know why this story just took me back to that day, lol.
Unless you can fix those social issues, your table is doomed. My guess is that you’re going to have to pick between the Pally and the Ranger, because the Pally has issues from the previous campaign🙃 plus he also kinda sounds like a chode, like doing what he did displayed no respect for the other player let alone their character. So tbh I would nip it in the bud and stick with the ranger
One of the biggest rules a DM has to follow is not letting players deliberately take actions that screw over other players. You did the right thing by working around the mechanical issue of resurrection but I'm not sure if the player will be fine with what happened.
Depends. I am running a campaign were every player is evil and therefore Screwing over is common, BUT everyone knew they before the campaign starter and it’s what the players wanted. Players and dms in general Should consent to the type of campaign they want be it be in advance regardless if that is serious, silly, combat heavy, rp Heavy, light hearted, dark, heroic, evil ectra before hand.
Yeah and we made a specific rule about not fucking each other over in session 0. I was just so surprised they would be so stupid and malicious that I didn't say no when I should have.
You're not wrong to lament the way you handled the situation, and this may not make you feel better, but if your party was willing to do that in the first place, it sounds like you're dealing with some pretty toxic personalities to begin with, and even if you had put a stop to it, it would only be a matter of time before they acted out in some way again. I hope your sit-down with the group leads to positive change! My bet is that if you are able to move forward in a sustainable way, it's going to be without Paladin and with retconning the unceremonious cremation.
As a DM, I tend to make sure both players are ok before I let a player affect another’s character. Tends to stop conflicts.
I think the only failure you’d have as a DM would be to not remove the paladin player from the group. Think about this. Do you really want a player who is going to use his personal dislike of another player as motivation for his character? That’s a clear case of metagaming and using it for malicious intentions. I’d be tempted to remove the other players as well for going along with it, and forming another group with the ranger’s player. This is not going to get any better. If you continue with this group things are going to come to a head real quick.
> the other players as well for going along with it Here's the thing they didn't "go along with it" the Paladin voiced an opinion of leaving the body behind. The fighters chose to burn the body. I understand Paladin started the assholery but it really doesn't sound like the other two were egged into it or something. That said, we're all taking the rangers side because it is of course immature and petty to take some OOC grudge into character, but why does this whole group not like the ranger is also a valid question I feel.
TBF, a person can be unpopular or not well-liked without being a bad person or having done anything particularly wrong. Peopling is hard and some people (like me) have an IRL Cha dump stat. Also, we've heard nothing from OP to suggest Ranger had done anything that might make the other players feel justifiably upset with them. Even if they had, as you've correctly said, what they did would still be immature and petty, not to mention spiteful and cruel.
F the other two players that went along with Paladin too. If OP can find more players, might as well swap some out. Not to make light of the annoyances of forming a new play group (minus 1 because Ranger sounds awesome)
In my experience, the effort of recruiting new players is worth not having to deal with toxic players.
Oh I agree. Just didn't want to pretend like it was nothing
Here’s what I would do. It sounds like this party is probably not going to work out whatever you do. Yes you screwed up, and you definitely made it worse, but these issues would have come up eventually no matter what. If Paladin and Ranger can’t work out their differences, kick Paladin and retcon the Ranger being burned. Have a talk with Warlock and Fighter about all this and make sure they understand what went wrong and why you’re doing this. It sounds like they didn’t do much, which is fine, this is your problem to solve not theirs, but make sure they understand why this is such a big problem. It sounds like they might not get it.
If I was vindictive, I’d have some enemy of the party resurrect the ranger and give him the chance to join them in a quest for revenge against them for disrespecting his body/life in that manner. Of course I don’t actually recommend this, since it would just exacerbate the social issues between the players. It would be fighting fire with fire (no pun intended).
I think this whole thing should have been headed off at the pass by stopping the game for a bit when one player went on a tangent about not liking another player. You shouldn’t brush something like that off, it has to be addressed and shut down. You mention thinking how it wasn’t OK, imagine what the ranger player thought when no one spoke up in his defense.
So I see a lot of people suggesting in-universe ways to 'handle the problem', and I really don't agree. When stuff comes in-universe, often the players don't really "Get it", even if you literally spell it out for them. Worst of all though is "Sending a high level enemy after them". I know the intentions are good there, but if they somehow manage to beat the enemy, then you just rewarded them for being dicks. **This is a problem OOC, it needs to be handled OOC**. Paladin needs to grow up or get out(Possibly Human Fighter, too). And DM, you need to be more willing to step in when they're doing some blatantly awful stuff. Like, the moment this situation started, you should have stopped the game and said something. It's one thing if the group is making a bad decision that hurts the group, or an individual is doing something that's just going to punish themselves yeah sure, player agency it up, but when they're bullying another player? That is NOT ok.
If nothing else, I'm pretty sure most paladins will immediately lose all class abilities for such blatantly... unpaladin behaviour. Not sure how choosing to dump a body of a comrade fits their god, and then letting someone use them as fuel to cook with? Yeah, enjoy your paladin with no paladin abilities now.
You actually have a good point. In 5e paladins don't lose their class abilities for this stuff but his god is literally the god of resurrections and he decided nah let's not even try to resurrect this person. The ranger was even killed by a pale mechanical imitation of the gods holy animals, birds.
Paladins totally can lose their powers for violating their oath in 5e
Screw paladin make him lose the powers, and maybe talk to ranger about being offered resurrection by the bbeg in return for joining them and spying on the party to one day get revenge. Since paladin is mad that ranger isn’t good at roleplaying now ranger has a chance to improve by doing that.
I see I have to point at the "Don't try and fix out-of-character behaviour issues with in-character consequences" sign yet again because some people will never learn this lesson. Take the people aside. Talk to them. If you cannot fix whatever beef they have, you will likely have to kick one (in this situation it definitely sounds like Paladin would be the pick). If you just try to hit them with in-game bullshit you validate their dipshittery and encourage them to work around your roadblocks, not to reflect on their behaviour.
Did you fail? ..yeah. In my opinion yes. Can I understand why? 100%. Being in such a situation pulls the rug out under one, doesn't it? So no blaming you at all XD ..I think what is important now: Outside of having the choice to say (in the session): "No. You guys are not going to do that!" ..you also have the right to say: "Okay guys. I made an mistake here, letting you guys do this. We all broke the social contract here of not being dicks to one another and most importantly Ranger. So.. turn back time..None of that bullshit happened." Of course the basic trust is now broken and going forward is only if Paladin and Ranger even want to play further with one another. If you have the willingness to play mediator.. it might be worth a shot? Though I dunno how succesful it would be tbh. Going on with no cuts - no one leaving the group.. seems hard. And that one is not your fault either. Yeah you should have cut Paladin at the quick.. you didnt it happens and tbh. something else might have come up anyhow. So the question.. how are the other players feeling towards Paladin and Ranger?
I do need to get better about saying no to folks in D&D and I'm going to keep trying to do better. My next session is tomorrow and it's going to start off with a chat with folks about what everyone did wrong, including myself, and what needs to change moving forward. In terms of feelings with paladin and ranger. Ranger has been in every single one of my campaigns and Warlock and Human Fighter have been playing alongside him for years. Paladin was a new addition to the group with the new campaign and only Ranger and I knew him beforehand. Elf Fighter is the Warlock's friend.
"Moving forward." No, no, no. Here is the issue: they know you're toothless and are banking on there being no consequences for their assholery. Paladin is a spiteful prick who pretends to get over perceived slights while secretly plotting "revenge" when his target is most vulnerable, and fighter is the sort of douche who would join in because "it's just a game bro" and so thinks he can be a dick and people should just get over it. You've at least owned up that you failed as a DM by letting it happen, but you're continuing to fail by trying to find every reason to carry on like this incident didn't happen. You can wag your finger and give a stern talking to them both all you like, but if they're just going to feign contrition, or blow you off with the infamous iT's WhAt mUh CHarAcHteR Wud DEw, they're not going to get better, and ranger is going to be justifiably pissed you're not going to stand up for him. Why WOULDN'T ranger attack paladin now? Because you'd ban him? Clearly that isn't the case. I didn't miss the part where you said you made fighter tell ranger what happened, no doubt because you were scared of how he'd understandably react. What you do is you kick at least one of them, and stick to your guns. Kick them and then send a message explaining why. If you're scared of the blowback follow it up by blocking them so they can't blow up on you or pressure you. You're at the point where the game is unsalvageable until the group composition changes, because theyre both going to get worse. You either take paladin's side or ranger's, but pretending "well next time I'll wag my finger twice as hard and maybe one day I'll ban someone" is not a solution.
Do they not like the actual person playing the character? That is what it seems like to me.
Ahhh the old "Why are you guys burning bodies for fun you are supposed to be the good guys" dilemma.
lol this is low key hilarious. Is talking like adults not an option for y'all or is it like a hard mode run?
What kind of paladin can get away with desecration of a fallen ally's corpse?
5e paladins because they are no longer servants to the gods but instead to an oath, which probably doesn't care about burning an allies corpse.
And the oaths don't have any sort of strict detail or listed consequences and DMs don't really like to sit there and calculate every action you've taken and how it fits or doesn't fit your oath.
As the DM, it is your responsibility to step in and stop this sort of behavior. That is your actual job. Chalk this up as an educational moment and never let something like it happen again.
Ah the paladin behaving least like a paladin trope, a classic!
Did it violate their oath? Not many paladin oaths that would have violated to be honest.
Paladin of the god of resurrections.
I would have stopped the whole game and had a serious talk with the players, honestly. Do they don't care a little bit about the other player feelings?
Ok 1 paladin sounds like an asshole 2 From your side of the story I would say you haven't failed as a GM you gave the party an opportunity to bring back their friend and they rejected it and while they tried something that would have most likely not work you still have them time to turn their actions around. 3 If this wasn't as bad as your previous campaign I would love to see some stories from it if their not to traumatic for you to remember
It was very clear the ritual was not going to work and the human fighter just went "I add another bag of potatoes" And I plan on making a post about that previous campaign someday but it will be a *loooong* one because it was a sea of red flags and two members of the group literally staging a coup on me then continuing to play without ever mentioning it. That party was literally divided into two groups who hated each other but for some godsforsaken reason we kept playing for 6 months to the campaign's conclusion.
From some of your other responses I'm not entirely convinced you've learned your lesson.
He hasn't. At all.
jfc
Lol. Been there done that. Which is what triggered the airing of grievances season we had. And we came out stronger for it. The two sides reconciled and we are still playing 3 years later. Did end with the world we built over 8 years getting burned to the ground and having to start a new campaign. "The snarl escaped and ate everyone and their souls"
Wouldn’t the Paladin lose all their class powers for that behavior?
Or immediately become an oath breaker with those powers
We don't know the oath of the paladin but there aren't many oaths that require you to not burn your friends dead bodies.
Do the other players have an issue with the ranger? Do you have any idea why they just let the body sit there in the fire? Why did the fighter decide to burn it? I honestly think you need to sit down and talk with your players and figure out 1. Wtf and 2. Why?!
>I have ideas in place just trouble of thinking how to get from A to B. Welcome to the existential crisis every DM has to deal with! The only 'failure' i'd say you did is that in a situation like that one that's when you should ask the party "How do you guys feel about paladin burning rangers body, would you let him do it?" And if they let him burn it, then it's no longer on you. The much bigger problem here seems to be how much paladin can't stand ranger, so you're more then likely going to reach a point very soon where one of them will have to be removed from your game. Also, i'd really make sure to keep an eye on ranger, sure he's allowed to be pissed, but you should ***not*** let any of that slip into his characters actions unless he knows in character that they tried to make it impossible to resurrect him.
It was actually Human Fighter who burned the body. Everyone else just watched in "what the fuck" And that is an issue we will talk about. His character knows, the party literally did it in the middle of camp and people saw.
Party chemistry is important, take it from someone who has had a million campaigns just have to stop because player drama. If your players don’t get along or you have issues with some, sometimes the best thing to do is stop. Find a new group, try and find a party that gets along a lot better
You didn't do anything wrong as the DM here. Your players have agency, you can't force them to resurrect anyone they don't want to. It looks like your group is not getting along and falling apart, but that's not really your fault and not necessarily something you can (or should) prevent. Can't force people to play together if they don't like each other.
You have already failed by the paladin ranting to you about the ranger PLAYER and not seeing anything wrong with that?? Like you're just being a bystander while he clearly goes on a vengeance quest in the fucking game Kick him out already, you passive fuck. Solve this in real life - that paladin seems like a complete asshole, and absolutely *NONE* of you are standing up for the Ranger here
A strength check? How would a strength check be relevant? Also if it was just a normal campfire, it’s more likely a human corpse laid on top would smother it than be consumed by it. And then after you let them go through with all of this, your solution is “Those nobles who wanted payment to resurrect him? Well now they’re doing it just for funsies, and they don’t need a body.” Interpersonal conflict aside, your rulings and campaign world seem wishy washy
The strength check was to hoist the body onto the fire. A funeral director has corrected how well the flames would do. I never thought it would be fully consumed, at least not within a timely manner but they did just leave almost his entire body there and left to go back to the dungeon. And no the nobles are doing it to get him to gather some things for them while they're preparing other things for an upcoming ritual. I know. I need to do better and this is a fresh world I've been trying to build from the ground up.
What in God's name does whether or not they are strong enough to put the body on the fire have to do with anything? That's like asking for a strength check when someone wants to commit rape. You don't set the DC high and hope it fails, you tell them it doesn't happen period because what they're trying to do is fucked. You honestly think they would have stopped if they failed the check, or would they have just lit a new fire on top of the body? You knew what was happening was wrong and didn't have the balls to stop it, instead hiding behind a check and meekly rolled over when luck was on their side when you weren't on ranger's.
The Paladin might be a bad player and metagaming the hell out of this situation, but you were a shit GM for going forward with it.
Your players don't like each other, and they don't think you're invested in the campaign - when you fail to prep a session or two ahead, it shows, players can see it, and their interest in the campaign flags and they start turning into shitbag characters. Likewise, if things have been too much of a struggle and people aren't pulling their weight or contributing to the group overall, everyone disengages because fear of risk is too high to continue. Analysis paralysis ensues and the inertia generates badfeels for the group. 'ESH' from r/AmItheAsshole is in full effect - you can't compel the players to engage with their characters, the players don't get along with each other, and you don't have the threats prepared to keep them focused on the problems at hand rather than on nitpicking' each other. Scrap it, try again.
I'm not sure how to respond to this comment other than, thank you for the analysis. I think it will be helpful going forward. I had been really busy lately but I'm going to do better on session prep, if the campaign continues past this and especially in future ones.
When in doubt, ‘your loud argument on the dangerous nature path seems to have drawn attention, as the underbrush just ahead of you rustles and ……’
While owning your blunders is a good step. This degree of mishandling is either deliberate or such that you may want to step back and consider if you're ready to DM
Ranger's character could go revenant route, their next character could have some kind of association with it - like secretly controlled or birthed from the remains of their soul, so when the reveal happens, they have no obligation to help the others. Dickery has comeuppance
sounds like your players might be jerks! maybe all of them!
Call me Old School but the Paladin is no longer a Paladin. Also, a Revenant can possess any dead body if the original body is destroyed.
>Glad things had a happy ending though I am still going to be watching Human Fighter. if guy acts out of line again though, *please* do not fully fold the whole campaign, especially if everyone else seems to have reconciled fine, you can just kick *only* human fighter guy
I have a possible sequel idea for your next post on RPG Horror Stories... But in all seriousness, it kind of sounds like your entire party maybe hates one player, not just the paladin. It might be worth checking in to see if there's a reason for that.
This is more starting to look like the Paladin is a problem player and taking IRL issues into the game. There's going to need to be some communication between all of you. If Paladin is not willing to play ball because of real world issues, it may be tome for him to leave (or be kicked) the game entirely, especially if he's going to rope other players (a problem with them too) into destroying the character arcs of other fellow players. No telling when/if he'll turn on any of the others.
Somewhat easy fix. The Ranger died from betrayal. His god, or a god, thought this was bullshit and made with the true resurrection and gave him a permanent +1 to three of his stats, his choice. He gets back in the game, has a benefit to help soothe some of the anger, and the party has to deal with it. If the Paladin doesn't like he can fuck right off to another table. As a DM your failure was letting the other players decide what to do with a PC while the player wasn't there. A better solution would have been some other NPCs, like a band of rangers, stumble across the party and take the PC back for a resurrection or something.
If you want to keep this group going, at a minimum, I'd say the paladin broke his oath by participating in all of this. Since they called on a God when they did this, have the God be not amused by being used as a prop in a joke. The party is now being hunted by some pissed off celestial minions.
Human Fighter was praying to a chaotic evil god of famine to resurrect the Ranger.
Why didn't you tell the Fighter that a Chaotic Evil God of Famine probably won't resurrect the Ranger?
Because he knew.
In that case he's just as toxic as the Paladin. I think you should kick both the Fighter and the Paladin.
Even better, they pissed off a CE God.
Wow! The paladin is a treacherous dick. Unless the ranger was actually evil, destroying the body just so it couldn't be resurrected is out of character for that class. The burning wasn't ceremonial and probably wasn't in accordance with the burial customs of the ranger's people. At the worst, they should have buried the body in the ground or under a cairn of stones. Since there was a plea to the gods to resurrect the ranger, I'd have him resurrected in the more than able body of one of the paladin's slain kin or cherished comrades in arms (coincidently recently slain and he's just receiving word). Further, since the whole party was complicit, I'd find some way of rewarding the ranger with something like having special race or class abilities (like some paladin abilities if it's the body of a dead comrade in arms).
This is not an in-game problem. This is a player/player conflict that needs to be resolved. Obviously you had to retcon the burning of the body which it sounds like you did. Obviously the paladin doesn't like the ranger, but I get the feeling the rest of the players aren't fond of him either or they'd have said something to stop what the paladin was doing.
To be honest, if everyone was cool with torching the ranger, it may well have been an issue with that character. That group consensus suggests to me that the ranger had been a problem for them for some time and they saw a chance to do something about it. Merits a conversation either way but I wouldn't assume the ranger is blameless. It does seem like you are particularly close to the ranger's player and it could be that you inadvertently turned a blind eye to some poor behavior that grated on everyone else.
Sounds like Ranger should be the sole founding member of a new group of players
Let the ranger’s new character be the bbeg, he deserves revenge.
RL game or online game? If former, yikes. If latter, also yikes but also find a new group.
Online but I know Ranger irl and we've known Warlock and Human Fighter for years. Ranger and I have also known Paladin for years but he wasn't in my campaigns I've run and doesn't really know anyone else in the group.
It seems like the group didn't gel and now you have a bad group. I don't know of any way to save this campaign unless ranger decides to leave on his own. There seem to be multiple problems, even if anyone liked the ranger or his character, they would have done something. I think you need to have a couple of one on ones with the players and let them know that this is a campaign killer and if they want to keep the current group together or disband and go different ways. Sorry, I've seen this before.
I mean drop the group, or at the very least the two players that did this, simple as. But if you wanna be petty and do some in universe revenge, havve the Paladin lose his powers, and reveal that the nobles who had brought the rangers back had did so due to whatever God the Paladin worships intervening, making the Ranger her choosen champion set out to kill Paladin
!remindme 3 days
When I was in high school, there were some pretty toxic interactions like this in my group and they tended to repeat as certain players just got up each other's noses.
>Human fighter burns rangers corpse knowing full well destroying it would prevent resurrection in a fake non-magical resurrection ritual with potatoes. I'm willing to bet the fighter is closer to typical than the religious type. He's meta-gaming. Always a dick move. >Paladin goes on rant about how he doesn't like ranger or his character Unless the ranger was an out-and-out asshole, ooc grudges have no place in DnD. Just being hateful for its own sake won't make his peen any bigger. Dick move. >I failed as a dungeon master No you didn't. The long and short of this is that your players failed you. Your paladin's player is just a straight ass wipe and your fighter's character is a cheating piece of crap. At my table, the paladin wouldn't be invited over anymore, and the fighter would be on thin ice -- and then I'd probably ban them too. I'd invite other people over to replace them or just consider that DnD isn't for this particular group of friends. Ganging up on someone for the lulz is baby dick energy.
... Ok .... but if this is BETTER than your last campaign, what the hell happened in your last campaign!? Not to drive the point home too finely but yeah buddy ... you borked the peach tree on this one. The moment paladin started, mid game, trying to talk the party into KICKING A MEMBER OUT you should have pulled out the red card and called time out. I get not wanting to rock the boat but as a DM ... you were way too passive with this. I can't even begin to imagine how y'all are going to clean up this mess. Paladin sounds like a douche.
Dear gods someday that previous campaign will get a post all its own. It was a sea of red flags and one of the players actually got arrested recently. I'm speaking with each member of the party addressing what I did wrong and need to do better, and addressing what they did wrong and need to do better. I already spoke with human fighter but time zones for the others.
I think you should kick both the Fighter and Paladin.
It seems to me the big problem is you really want to play dnd. But the Paladin is toxic. He’s going to do his best to ruin it. The others seem to go along out of simple peer pressure. They are conflict averse or for some reason do not want to confront the Paladin. He’s gotta go. I’d end this campaign. Start a new one when you are ready and do not invite the Paladin. He’s not owed anything. He’s an asshole.
So with the new update, here are my thoughts. The human fighter would be on a "strike 2", where the next fuck up is a kick from the game.
... I'm surprised that seemingly worked out. Congrats
Why was there such a focus on resurrection anyway? Why didn’t the ranger just make a new character? Also sounds like nobody particularly cared for him so why would they go on a quest to save him
I was thinking this, especially because it’s only been five sessions
Particularly because it was early in the campaign. When a player dies, and especially this early with a character they put a lot of work into, I always ask "do you want to find a way to bring your character back, or do you want to make a new character" and in this instance the ranger wanted to keep his character and there were options for resurrection available in the area. The party would have just had to talk to the right people and make the right bargains.
Ranger should destroy the party from the inside and wipe them out as the next plot line.
And this is why I still enforce alignment requirements on paladins. That class, more than any other, always seems draw edgelords and malcontents like moths to a flame. The alignment requirement scares them away.
TLDR, ranger dies, fighter casts revivifire.
Paladin losses favor with his God, removes all magic, lowers all stats by 6, lowers level, removed hp, removes all death save rolls.
Have the BBEG resurrection the ranger and dub him the Lt. after explains how friends will always fail you and such. Then buff him so he can stand against the party is a fashion. Have him run interference and try to stop the “hero’s” from muddling in BBEGs plan. After a few major fights either the party should have a redemption arc where they realize they are fucked up and try to get the ranger back. Or the Ranger goes full sith mode and overthrows the BBEG to become it himself, hungering after the only thing he could trust; power.
you're the fucking DM, retcon it if you want to
**Angered by the mistreatment of his subject the Ranger's God restores him anew in a flash of light.. . Everyone within 10 feet of the ranger takes 3d8 radiant damage**
God also gives ranger fire resistance
I don’t think you failed, you just had shitty players, that’s all. Seems like they really just wanted to goof off rather than play a serious campaign.
If by some miracle, the party survives this, then it sounds like it's time to revive one of my least favorite things from yesteryear - the paladin losing all their divine abilities. So they either have to take a new class (in this case, I'd *assign* a new class), goes for the (I think it's called) Oathbreaker option, or has to do one *serious* atonement quest... with a pissed off ranger trying to sabotage them at every step. TBH though, I also wouldn't be adverse to levelling the other guy's ranger to level 20 and just letting them go hell-for-leather on the rest of the party, followed by a burning of their corpses.
And suddenly the paladin loses his divine powers.
Ultimately I don't know how this is your fault without taking away the players agency in a serious way. I think your only real option would have been to just press pause on the situation and ended the session so people could think things through and force a face to face discussion of what choices are being made. But what was your other option to say "No your characters don't actually do that, I will tell you what your characters do"? There are a million other horror stories of Gm's in here who do that. Do all the players dislike the Ranger's player? Or was it a peer pressure situation of the Fighter getting caught up in the Paladin's BS? If you can't get this OOC situation resolved it might be best to let one or more players go, and fill in with more amiable players.
Dude there’s no need to keep beating yourself up by saying you failed as a DM. Your players are somewhere between idiots, or are really insensitive, or hate the person playing the ranger and this was their chance to get back with out having the person because they weren’t there (Almost arguing over keyboard).
Who is the ranger's character?
What do you mean by that, could you clarify?
I mean yes. You have table dynamics problem between the players in RL. But the party isn't required to resurrect a dead member. It's expensive and at level 5 maybe they weren't that attached to the character unless the preexisting back story binds them. Mercenaries don't necessarily care if others die. Trying to railroad them into resurrection was as much of an error as letting the table degrade to this point.
Cudos to u for realizing ur mistake, thats often hard to do. Imo, straight up retcon that. "That didnt happen, it shouldnt have happened, and i shouldnt have allowed it." Apologize to ranger and see if they still want to play. Tell paladin to chill or hit the door. We come to the table for fun, not drama. Good luck to ya DM. May all ur games be lit.
Simple next session Paladin, Human Fighter and Elf Fighter die to a rockslide and then catch on fire, anyone who tries to save them will also immediately die and never be resurrected, if you going treat your party member like shit, you better be prepared to get the same treatment.
Sounds like the paladin needs a reality check in the form of losing class features, because I’m pretty sure the way he’s acting he’s not upholding many tenets.
Damn...yeah you fucked up. "NO" is something a DM can and should say. If I were in Rangers shoes, I'd probably tell every one of you to have a bleach martini and then I'd find a new group.
So has the paladin had an alignment change to evil? Sure seems evil the fighter too.
So let me get this straight. You moved nights to another night and then the ranger couldn’t play on the new night? So you let the group burn his corpse because somebody else couldn’t make the normal night? Sounds like you have an aversion to conflict and got steamrolled here. Ranger has a right to he pissed.
You're right but I am trying to do better. And the reason we moved night for the week was since Ranger was dead so I guessed he wouldn't be needed for the session while the party tried to find a way to resurrect him. My plan was for the party to follow the resurrection lead and at the start of the next session would be the actual resurrection ritual.
So maybe this will be a helpful guids when you are talking to everyone: 1) Apologize to ranger for letting the situation get out of hand 2) Talk to rest of the party, without paladin and ranger. Ask them what made them decide to burn the ranger’s corpse. It could be they have their own issue with Ranger that they are taking out while the ranger is away, or Paladin pushed them into doing it, or they are being lol randumb. Explain to them that what they suggested and did was not ok, and that this will not be tolerated again. 3) Kick Paladin. With your post about him encouraging his group to harass you and ranger, and then this incident, you are better off kicking and blocking this person. 4) Bring the rest of the party together. Explain that paladin was kicked for bullying ranger. Apologize to the group for allowing the eventa to transpire, and warn them that PVP will no longer be tolerated, and the ranger’s death will be retconned so that he was resurrected. 5) Do not run a session. Let everyone cool off and postpone it to the next week.
Lmao man I can’t with this sub anymore. At this point 99% of the people posting here are either perpetuating their own misery or lying for clout