An OOC (Out of Character) report:
There was a new player tonight. I found out at the end of the session that he was playing an overpowered NPC with ability scores all pretty much over 20 and a level higher than anyone in our group. WTF?
After a character death last week, one of our existing players had to rebuild a character for the session at the table. This was the goblin. I helped him do a good build -- a rogue that fit with the high dex of a goblin.
It turned out the old character wasn't really dead, but was being pieced back together at the local temple.
There was weird plot line that the new bard dragonrider tried to introduce about a beautiful woman asking about the goblin. There was no info to let it influence anything or even for it to make any sense. WTF?
The bard dragonrider told us that Kooper was mauled by a bear. We found the bear dead (how can a town that can't defend against golbins end up killing a bear?)
Crayla went and saw Kooper at the temple. Unfortunately the rest of the party didn't seem to add anything to the knowledge about Kooper acting weird. The end result is Crayla believing that Kooper got drunk and stupidly got himself killed. Had she gotten more of a 'not right in his head' vibe, she would have blamed the goblins and their master, but that didn't happen. I was disappointed.
The goblin got out and started running around town. he eventually ended up in a group watching the party break into the glass factory. The other two spotted him while Crayla was breaking in. This time they were following a note which indicated Ameiko was at the glass factory (and she hadn't returned). They didn't mention seeing the goblin until we were headed inside.
So Crayla, in the one move of the night I felt almost good about, shouts to the crowd, "There's a goblin the crowd." The goblin gets trampled, spotted, fascinated, captured, questioned, and then dropped off a cliff. He took minor damage, got out of the manacles, and followed us.
Once inside the glass factory, we get to the hallway beyond the room and the goblin is peeking at us. Crayla, now enraged at this goblin whom they can't seem to get rid of, charges after him and goes into melee combat to kill the goblin.
The bard and Pleon are trying to work through some reason to not kill the goblin who is pleading for his life, but there is no reason. The goblin has nothing we need, is an evil killer, and is just another goblin out of the hordes of goblin we expect to have to kill.
Crayla as the character and I as the player have to be the bad guy and kill the other player's new character. There is nothing fun about it. The GM just hung the new player out to dry.
So now, after the goblin is dead, Kooper comes back. Kooper still isn't Kooper, but rather this Sargeant Henson that now has a vendetta towards the rest of the group for sending him to see the bear. I see where this is going, I don't think I want any part of it anymore.
I am really disappointed, because I saw a number of things I didn't like about the scenario that played out:
There was a new player tonight. I found out at the end of the session that he was playing an overpowered NPC with ability scores all pretty much over 20 and a level higher than anyone in our group. WTF?
After a character death last week, one of our existing players had to rebuild a character for the session at the table. This was the goblin. I helped him do a good build -- a rogue that fit with the high dex of a goblin.
It turned out the old character wasn't really dead, but was being pieced back together at the local temple.
There was weird plot line that the new bard dragonrider tried to introduce about a beautiful woman asking about the goblin. There was no info to let it influence anything or even for it to make any sense. WTF?
The bard dragonrider told us that Kooper was mauled by a bear. We found the bear dead (how can a town that can't defend against golbins end up killing a bear?)
Crayla went and saw Kooper at the temple. Unfortunately the rest of the party didn't seem to add anything to the knowledge about Kooper acting weird. The end result is Crayla believing that Kooper got drunk and stupidly got himself killed. Had she gotten more of a 'not right in his head' vibe, she would have blamed the goblins and their master, but that didn't happen. I was disappointed.
The goblin got out and started running around town. he eventually ended up in a group watching the party break into the glass factory. The other two spotted him while Crayla was breaking in. This time they were following a note which indicated Ameiko was at the glass factory (and she hadn't returned). They didn't mention seeing the goblin until we were headed inside.
So Crayla, in the one move of the night I felt almost good about, shouts to the crowd, "There's a goblin the crowd." The goblin gets trampled, spotted, fascinated, captured, questioned, and then dropped off a cliff. He took minor damage, got out of the manacles, and followed us.
Once inside the glass factory, we get to the hallway beyond the room and the goblin is peeking at us. Crayla, now enraged at this goblin whom they can't seem to get rid of, charges after him and goes into melee combat to kill the goblin.
The bard and Pleon are trying to work through some reason to not kill the goblin who is pleading for his life, but there is no reason. The goblin has nothing we need, is an evil killer, and is just another goblin out of the hordes of goblin we expect to have to kill.
Crayla as the character and I as the player have to be the bad guy and kill the other player's new character. There is nothing fun about it. The GM just hung the new player out to dry.
So now, after the goblin is dead, Kooper comes back. Kooper still isn't Kooper, but rather this Sargeant Henson that now has a vendetta towards the rest of the group for sending him to see the bear. I see where this is going, I don't think I want any part of it anymore.
I am really disappointed, because I saw a number of things I didn't like about the scenario that played out:
- Two players needed characters -- one got an overpowered NPC in the middle of the story, and one got a character that wasn't fit into the story at all and was pretty much destined to die.
- The GM didn't tell us the new player was playing an overpowered NPC.
- The GM didn't seem concerned that it wasn't a fun session.
- The new goblin character was only fit to overlap in areas that I was filling in with Crayla. Half way through the session I realized Crayla had nothing left to offer the group, between the goblin and the overpowered bard dragonrider both outrolling her on all her skills. What's the point to have a character that never gets to shine.
- When it came time to kill the goblin, the other players did almost nothing despite the fact that there was no in game reason not to kill him.
I don't think I am going to play in this game anymore. I was stressed out the whole game and felt so bad when we got to the end. This isn't why I roleplay.
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UPDATE
Thinking more about this episode brought me back to this video from Emergent Play. For me, forcing one PC into a position where they have to kill another PC was an abuse of comfort zones. I knew killing the other player's character was going to be a bad situation and could lead to animosity between players. I told the GM in advance that I thought this was a bad idea. I let the other player involved know I thought this was a bad idea and that the GM would have to insert something into the scenario to make it feasible. For me, it was out of my comfort zone and I certainly was expecting a 'nobody gets hurt' scenario. Instead, the GM pushed comfort zones and let people get hurt. I don't know if this was intentional or not, but certainly a reaction to the players stating they weren't having fun, shouldn't have been "this is just character growth". It shows a complete disregard for the GM's responsibilities to the players. To some degree, this situation forced me to quit the game to ensure PC vs PC fights didn't continue and didn't ruin any friendships between the players involved. Sad, but true.
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UPDATE
Thinking more about this episode brought me back to this video from Emergent Play. For me, forcing one PC into a position where they have to kill another PC was an abuse of comfort zones. I knew killing the other player's character was going to be a bad situation and could lead to animosity between players. I told the GM in advance that I thought this was a bad idea. I let the other player involved know I thought this was a bad idea and that the GM would have to insert something into the scenario to make it feasible. For me, it was out of my comfort zone and I certainly was expecting a 'nobody gets hurt' scenario. Instead, the GM pushed comfort zones and let people get hurt. I don't know if this was intentional or not, but certainly a reaction to the players stating they weren't having fun, shouldn't have been "this is just character growth". It shows a complete disregard for the GM's responsibilities to the players. To some degree, this situation forced me to quit the game to ensure PC vs PC fights didn't continue and didn't ruin any friendships between the players involved. Sad, but true.
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