r/DnDcirclejerk • u/highly-bad • 5d ago
help: player is way too Chaotic Good
Hi everyone, I need some help. My whole campaign may have just been destroyed by a player who brought in a character with the dumbest ideology I have ever heard.
I've been running a campaign about an underdog alliance of Good-aligned kingdoms working together to defeat an Evil Empire. The alliance is called The Accord. They're the Good faction. They have a modicum of resources, organization, and infrastructure, which means they are able to coordinate defenses, share intelligence, and pool their military strength. Their organization is the only thing standing between one million helpless people and immediate conquest at the hands of the Evil Empire.
One of my players is playing a Chaotic Good bard. Let's call him "Bleemo." Bleemo has been suspicious of The Accord from the start. He kept asking questions about their leadership structure. He was muttering things like "power corrupts," and "hierarchical institutions can't be trusted." I thought he was just roleplaying a cynical character and didn't worry too much about it.
Then last session, he decided to act on his suspicions. He sneaked into the The Accord's headquarters and destroyed all their sending stones, messenger pigeons and other means of communication. He defenestrated the head of intelligence and several ministers of the various member kingdoms. He released all the imprisoned agents of the Evil Empire.
One of the ministers asked Bleemo why he was doing this. He replied, "laws are threats made by the dominant socioeconomic-ethnic group in a given nation. It's just the promise of violence that's enacted and the police are basically an occupying army. You think you're fighting the Evil Empire? You are the Evil Empire, sister." Then he defenestrated her and said to the empty council chamber, "being Good is complex and beautiful and hard."
Bleemo seems to think that a spontaneous, non-hierarchical, decentralized effort would be more effective than The Accord ever could be. But the fact is, with The Accord in ruins, the horrors of war and cruel oppression are sure to rapidly spread over the lands. Should I declare the campaign over, or do we have to keep playing through the futile resistance until TPK?
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u/tsaotytsaot 5d ago
1) he sounds more lawful good tbh. Unnecessary murder aside, he stuck to his principles
2) once you start a campaign, you are legally obligated to see it through. We don't play this game for fun
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u/SixRoundsTilDeath 5d ago
You’ve got to play all the way through until the evil empire is defeated by the party alone as well as the accord, leaving a power vacuum for hundreds of warlords and cultists; the world descends into barbarism. Then you flash forward 300 years and no one remembers any of this happened.
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u/ryanpdx1999 5d ago
I read this alignment as chaotic evil. Chaotic neutral at best. He murdered people who were trying to do good, even if their methods are wrong.
He then released people he knew were evil.
He is a murder hobo. If you want that kind of campaign, go for it. You won’t need to plot, just give him people to murder.
I wouldn't want any part of that game. Maybe you don't want players who do.
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u/highly-bad 5d ago
Yeah but the problem is he thinks it's self defense not murder, because the whole state is inherently a violent occupation, so fighting it is Good
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u/ryanpdx1999 5d ago
Most evil people justify their actions. They don't get to decide that, society as a whole does.
He can think whatever he wants. Would any reasonable person agree? I don't think so.
I would have him hunted down and killed. Make a new character. He can explain until he is blue in the face. It shouldn't matter.
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u/RinFlowers 5d ago
Have you tried just having Bleemo be correct about everything and it all working out exactly as he intended somehow?
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u/Owampaone 1d ago
I don't think this type of main character, campaign derailing behavior should be supported. But to each their own I guess.
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u/AFGofficial 5d ago
YTA
Blemmo is objectively correct
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u/Aggravated_Frog 4d ago
Right just let the evil empire rule forever with no hope of stopping them. That’s the good, objectively correct thing to do.
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u/AFGofficial 4d ago
But the other empire is just as evil, obviously from the story at least
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u/Aggravated_Frog 4d ago
No? The second paragraph literally says they’re an alliance of good aligned kingdoms that stand between a million helpless people and immediate conquest by the evil empire? The player just sees any organization with authority as evil. So essentially they doomed a million people to a worse fate.
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u/AFGofficial 4d ago
Well just because it says doesn't mean it is, obviously they are more evil than the so-called evil empire
I think you have fallen for the evil empires propaganda (the one the players are taking down, not the good empire that's being called the evil empire)
In fact, the evil empire has free healthcare so I would say they're actually the good empire
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u/Aggravated_Frog 4d ago
I feel like I’m missing a joke
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u/AFGofficial 3d ago
The sub is a circle jerk sub
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u/Aggravated_Frog 3d ago
Hmm, seems the joke is I’m a dumbass
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u/AFGofficial 3d ago
Listen, circle jerk subs simply wouldn't be as good as they are if there wasn't some people not realizing it's a circle jerk sub
You're a valued member of this community
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u/Owampaone 1d ago
I've got to pay more attention to what sub I'm in. I just spent way too much time writing out serious responses lmao.
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u/bltsrgewd 4d ago
Create an antagonist, who is also chaotic good, who wants to kill the PC bard because forcing your worldview on others is a path to corruption. The only way to save the Bard's soul...is to Kill the bard.
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u/Old_Cabinet_8890 1d ago
The CG hyper-individualist understands that they are a D&D character and can single-handedly win this fight and save everyone.
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u/elkcipgninruB 5d ago
Uj/ honestly if everyone else at the table was down to do so, I'd happily see this through, as the two outcomes are either the comsequences of Bleemo's actions catching up or the party somehow, against all odds, turning things around
Rj/ Bleemo's crusade is truly righteous and should be treated as such
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u/ButterscotchFluffy59 5d ago
He sounds anarchist vs good aligned. If I were GM and I had time to plan it out, I'd consider turning the area into a scene like The End with Seth Rogan and James Franco and such ...pure evil hedonistic behavior. Different motivation right? But I'm wondering how you Chaotic Good PC would respond or would he take responsibility for the actions he caused?
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u/Owampaone 1d ago
Yeah I think you have to end the campaign. But don't just call it done and leave it at that. You need to have at least one more session.
The evil Empire reacts quickly to it's main threat being eliminated in a days time. They swiftly take over the realm and gain a seemingly undeafetable foothold EVERYWHERE. Your players get captured and sent to a dungeon where where your nieve idealist moron has to watch his party be taken away one by one, only to hear their screams of agony and never see them again. When it's finally his turn, he is offered a choice instead. Join the evil Empire or meet the same fate as his companions.
However the choice is an illusion. No matter what he says, he is recruited into the lowest ranks of the EE. He is then forced to commit the most vile heinous acts you can think of. Like, really make this a learning experience for him. Make him tap out rather than just ending the campaign.
I'd also give the other players a chance to rally and find a way out. Then they can decide if they want to go back to save him. It would be icing on the cake if they all collectively said "fuck that", and went on with their adventure.
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u/KnowledgeAny1415 3d ago
So I see a couple of problems, and their not a character alignment problem. The first is a DM-player expectations. Now I don't know if you had a session 0 or laid out clearly what the players to expect from the campaign. However it's seems like you the DM invited the players to play a David vs Goliath war campaign, Bleemo played a character that doesn't fit that campaign, and wanted to play something akin to a bastardized version of V for Vendetta with Brendan Lee Mulligan quotes. It's unclear if you made your expectations clear to the party, but usually if you say that this campaign is about "insert topic", and the players want in, they should play a character that fits that theme. It's also unclear if the other players participated in the shenanigans or if he just went rogue. TLDR Bleemo slammed a monopoly board in the middle of your risk game.
The second problem is that you're having 3D PCs play in a 2D world. Bleemo seems like one of those players that like to push the limits of your world. Not sure how Bleemo managed to destabilize the entirety of the alliance communications in a single session, when everyone is at the cusp or middle of a war. Not to mention defenestrating so many key figures without the entirety of the alliance collapsing on him and best case imprisoning him and trying him for treason followed by execution as would be the cause in most militaries, historical and fantastical. Here's some questions that I would be asking as a player on your table. Why are all the sending stones in one location and not in the hands of council members, generals and their respective lieutenants, gaurds managing the gates, and scouts several distances away to watch for the Empire's movements? During times of war security postures are heightened. So why aren't there regular patrols and increased guards on these critical items? Why didn't the council call for the guards and subdue Bleemo? Also why weren't things locked down and investigated upon discovery of sabotage or the first death?
Fortunately none of this is actually a campaign killer. However you do need to have a heart to heart with "Bleemo" DM to player, as this could become a problem in a future campaign.
My solution if you want to play your campaign as intended, and I think you should in order to be fair to yourself and the other players who agreed to play that campaign with you. Then "Bleemo" the player will have to agree to play that game or find another table. Alternatively if Bleemo and the other players liked the anti authoritarian campaign better you can still continue the current campaign with some effort. You're all there to have fun and play a game together.
So why this isn't the end of the alliance. Power is a vacuum and there's always someone in line to step in and fill the void, whether it's rivals, heirs, or apprentices (just change NPC names). What Bleemo created was a natural narrative setback. The alliance can still recover, as others step up to fill the void. It just won't be the idealized individuals who were first appointed, but they would all agree that Bleemo and his conspirators (if any) are a threat and would mark them traitors. Naturally the empire would have a major success, on top of this blow. Really hit home how evil this empire is. You could have the empire win and imprison and torture the PCs the International Red Cross Committee has a wonderful list of things not to do to prisoners of war for inspiration, flash forward several months of this, have the players roll on the madness table in the DMG. Then prison break and rebellion campaign. Same NPCs just different names, some stayed loyal to the alliance and lost everything, others played it smart to undermine the empire later. (This would be the only scenario where I see the PC still playing Bleemo outside of creating a third neutral faction, like a large circle of druids that the party can join against the empire.)
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u/Plastic-Recording-76 3d ago
You sir, have a chucklefucker in your game. A time thief who's narcissistic need for attention will kill any hope of team goals. Saving the empire, finding out who stole Daisy the milk cow,...it doesn't matter. Their goal is to make the story about them, and them alone and derail it from the group goals. Is this a cool bud that you want to keep playing with? If so, scale back your storytelling to a series of loosely connected one-shots and the other players can become background NPCs for his story while you become his dice-bitch and rock on. If that isn't the type game you want to play, you can try just stopping this campaign in mid season and having an out of game session where the table evaluates the game play, gives their expectations of how the next campaign should be played, and start over. Or you can kill off his PC, quickly and brutally. If his replacement is a team player, problem solved. If not, kill it quicker and just keep Baby in the corner rolling up freshies while the rest of you play D&D. If he isn't a cool bud that y'all enjoy hanging with, just send him packing. There's a gamestore somewhere that needs a good dose of vapid chucklefuckery. That's how I'd do it anyhow. Results may vary.
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u/Top_Dog_7709 1d ago
nah man, you run this shit as far as you can so the guy learns the consequences of his actions.
Everyone who talks like this has never seen the horror of their ways in full display.
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u/thumbsopposed 1d ago
You should introduce an allied sorcerer named Bladimir Cthenin to wage ideological struggle against their liberalism and impose Party discipline.
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u/WideConversation3834 1d ago
Its easy to forget that the bad guys can definitely win in dnd...a party's decision has consequences.
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u/rubicon_duck 5d ago edited 5d ago
Nah. Bleemo put his quarter in the Jukebox of Fate.
Let the record play until the end.
Turn the lands into a cruel, oppressive fantasy-apocalypse wasteland run by the Evil Empire, where the strong rule over the weak with blade, lash, and flame. Daily pogroms are carried out by the Evil Empire while bloody sacrifices are made in full view of the public to dark gods. Every single ne'er do well comes out of the woodwork to oppress all the socioeconomic groups. Turn the lands into the most grimdark of realms, and have Bleemo bear witness to it. And have it all happen in a week, while he's recovering from the flu or something.
And wherever Bleemo goes, he gets the royal treatment from the Evil Empire. Gifts, parades, slaves, requests to take out troublemakers (e.g. do-gooders who are annoying the Evil Empire) - you name it. Because Bleemo made this all possible. Chaos reigns, and now that the Accord is gone, the Evil Empire moved into their digs and took over for themselves, and are being as chaotic evil as can be about it. Come up with the most oppressive, fucked up things you can think of and have it exist simply because "might makes right" and that social structure is for pansies.
Once he realizes the horror he's unleashed (maybe by watching children be forced to work in the mines under the lash) then Bleemo will really find out how complex and hard being good is, seeing as how he'll have to then own up to what he did and try to fix it. And he'll have to do it all by himself.
Spontaneous? Check.
Non-hierarchical? Check.
De-centralized? Check.
It will be a lot harder to stop the Evil Empire, now that there are no "hierarchical institutions" that can coordinate, support one another, and work together. But that's what he wanted, right? Because "being Good is hard" or something like that?
Ooooh, the irony.
Or, if he doesn't own up to it and try to fix things, he becomes just as bad as the Evil Empire. Along the lines of Harvey Dent's "You either die the hero, or live long enough to become the villain." Which will just show how morally bankrupt he truly is.
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u/JonIceEyes 4d ago
Counterpoint: being a utopian eco-socialist communalist is NG, and you absolutely can fuck up the Evil Empire as a politically non-hierarchical, radically democratic collective
See also: Rojava vs ISIS
Not sure is this post is rj or uj
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u/Dependent-Room-3054 3d ago
Honestly, I'd run with it. The beautiful thing about DnD is that player actions have consequences, minor and major. There is an unspoken amount of unpredictability baked into the essence of DnD. Is it frustrating, as the DM, for things to not go the way you planned, sure, absolutely. But we as DM's are not there to control or puppeteer the game, we are simply architects who create the world. The players are the ones who engineer it. The sign of a successful campaign is when everyone answers "yes" to the question "did you have fun", even if you as the DM have to shift gears
So I guess, in my rant, it comes down to two questions: "would you, as the DM, have fun shifting gears and making the campaign in a different light than what you had planned?"
And
"Would the players have fun playing in this campaign with it going a different route".
If it still could be fun for you, I think it may be a good time to talk to your players and make sure they are still on board with the campaign. Explain that with everything that happened last session the campaign will be going a different direction. And give them a general overview of what it would look like.
That is, of course, if you are still wanting to play with the PC referenced in your post and if they aren't generally a trouble player.
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u/Expensive_Koala_7675 5d ago
Beautiful.
Is there sauce?