- Joined
- Oct 10, 2014
I usually try to subtly warn them either with some NPC telling them what they're doing is retarded or giving an obscure knowledge check with a small piece of lore that has a warning attached. I like to make a ton of different NPCs to throw in the world and the party likes to goad them along on their adventures so there's usually some way out of his league person tagging along to voice a concern. That one can be kind of fun because the players might turn around and get mad at said NPC then go be defiant little assholes.
I've done both of these a few times in the current game and it has interesting results. A warning about how this massive magical apparatus being extremely unstable resulted in half of a major city becoming the site of multiple planar rifts and a big explosion (by the party's design). An NPC warning of a mutiny on their escape ship because they were doing creepy rituals on the captain (another low level hanger-on) resulted in a tantrum and them teleporting away, making life long enemies. Lots of things for me to work with though.
The only time I remember giving an actual, "Are you sure you want to do this" thing is when we had this weirdo in the group years ago.
---a story---
This particular player was returning after ending his game and taking a "gaming hiatus". Guy was a brony at the height of the MLP craze and would constantly hint that somewhere out there, some day, we were going to go to pony island. I'm 99% sure the reason for his hiatus was that he had finally had someone in game tell the party about the island which resulted a couple party members bringing up the logistics of canned horse meat and glue. I, mind you, was neutral on the matter because I am NOT an evil Kiwi Farms bully.
After he leaves I took over DMing and started up a game I haven't ran for a while but had all the players for. The main story arc from the last time I ran was already done so it was just me dragging out old unused adventures and letting them mess around in the world. This lasted for a good 10 sessions and culminated in them performing a cursed play as part of some evil ritual to help overthrow the king or something. It was at this time our brony friend wanted to return and join the game, which I was cool with because I like weird people.
The first thing I made sure to let him know was that the party were a group of assholes. I warned him that they would do mean things, worked for mean conniving noble houses. One of the party members was a lesser noble of those mean conniving noble houses, was a druid and also mean and conniving. The wizard had a strange obsession with local politics so he could get on board with that. The alchemist purposely had no agency and was easily goaded into doing horrible things and then there was Bane. Bane was just a parody of Bane from DKR, started off sort of serious and slowly devolved into a fat jerk. He was also a hobgoblin which solidified that they all talk like that in my mind. I still remember the first session when the player handed my a piece of notebook paper with his backstory, which I gave him shit for at the time. When he couldn't come up with a name I told him to just call himself Bane and be done with it. He did.
Bane's player was also the architect of the canned horse meat and glue factory plan.
Knowing all of this our brony friend shows up with his character, Tristin. Tristin was a member of the Druid's noble house which gave him an in to the party. Duel wielding knife rogue. Back story was that he was a good person with a strong sense of justice and was visiting his beloved cousin to help him out. Made sure to stress several times that Tristin liked to dress like a woman for disguises, sometimes for no reason at all "haha". No big, maybe we're going to have a story about getting corrupted or maybe he's going to try to quietly try to reform the party. Could even have a little side game where he quietly works against them. Breath of fresh air if you ask me.
The first session he shows up in, big night of the cursed play. To this day I have no idea what it was supposed to accomplish. Party has no qualms with just telling the new party member what's going on, partially because they wanted to get a new player caught up but mostly out of negligence. The first thing, the very first thing Tristian does is immediately bolts off to the arcane branch of the city guard and rats the entire party out resulting in a fairly dangerous wizard and a group of elite enforcers with lovingly crafted lore and cool red armor chasing them down. The group had sewer people watching the streets so the find out that the cops are coming just in time to drop everything and bolt toward their sewer lair, which they had taken from some wererats at 3rd level and obsessed over ever since.
We have a fun dynamic chase through the town at night. Carriages get lit on fire, fog clouds get cast and dispelled, commoners get indiscriminately murdered and good times were had by all. Tristian was tracking the party separately using fat stealth and at the end of whole thing the party ends up in the entrance to their sewer lair, Tristian hiding in the shadows with a arcane enforcers meeting the party in the entrance.
That particular room as something the party had constructed in case they needed to goad people into a trap and had been for a while. Big circular chamber with a narrow 10x10 bridge over a pit they had been filling with all sorts of dangerous stuff. Trisian had managed to do some neat climb stuff and hide under said bridge. The alchemist and the druid were flying with Bane right in the middle. His build was a mish mash of classes, couple barbarian levels, some martial artist monk, some weird obscure prestige class. Built to have the alchemist buff him his much as possible, which he was due to good rolls on their chase scene.
Fight begins and the authorities do not do well at all. They get disabled with magic and area effects, their wizard gets counterspelled by the party's wizard, the lovingly crafted enforcers in cool red armor getting picked off by a druid flaying around as a pterodactyl, getting punched to death by a hobgoblin and thrown unceremoniously into a shit pit. Just being absolutely felted left and right. Story of my life.
I was impressed with Tristin though, got a group of very important city guardians to fall into a deadly trap. Hung out and observed the action with out getting in the way. Probably in a position to take some credit for the whole affair. It was when I finished that thought when he finally spoke up and declared that he, climbing from the shadows was performing a full attack on Bane. I don't have a hard policy on PVP, usually comes down to as long as both parties are fine with it then I don't care. Of course they both agree.
I know for a fact that Bane has uncanny dodge, which makes attacking from stealth useless. I try my first warning technique "make a knowledge check, yeah you see that he's trained in Hextorian shadow fighting, you think he has uncanny dodge, you have that too so you know sneak attack isn't going to work". My dear brony decides to proceed. "you all notice he's really not that injured and you think he's moving a little faster than normal, probably has magic spells on him." says that it's fine. Finally I decide to do it, "Are you absolutely sure you want to do this." There is a chipper YUP and he just starts rolling dice.
Out if his 5 attacks he lands two, dealing something menial like 10 points of damage, asks for a couple of fort saves which Bane, who has stacked at least 3 classes with primary fort saves, makes with ease. What followed was the the longest and greatest banepost I have ever seen.
"Ah you think darkness is your ally?" grappled
"You merely adopted the dark. I was born in it, molded by it." Pinned
"I didn't see the light until I was already a man, by then it was nothing to me but blinding!" Dirty trick to blind
This went on for another couple of rounds, paraphrased out of order bane quotes accompanying non-lethal damage and combat maneuvers until Tristian was unconscious and broken. I did bring up that we could probably come up with a weird reason for why he would still work with the party, dude said he wanted to try another character. Way later on in the game they used the imprisoned Tristin make alchemical simulacrums but that's another story all together.
Guy did show up with new characters, each one trying to undermine the party one way or another. One was evil and hated nobility in his backstory, his sole purpose was to murder their party's patron. Decided the best time to do this was while defending a siege where he had gotten close to his mark, a high level cleric, by fighting mooks and taking a lot of damage in the process. Meanwhile, this evil cleric was letting his men die to sit and cast buff after buff after buff on himself. My boy decides to attack him right after the righteous might got cast, didn't end well for him.
The ponies remain unavenged.
