Fighter vs. Paladin
In theory, Paladin could just step on the grass and cast an atonement spell afterwards. Of course, committing such an unlawful act means he would have to fight without any of of his class features. Truly, Fighter is a diabolical genius.
For me, this comic is about more than the clash of alignments. Standing on opposite sides of the garden path, one held at bay by some arbitrary, self-imposed rule and the other dancing gleefully on the petunias, Fighter and Paladin represent fundamentally different ways to play the game, both of which suck. One has a crystal clear vision of the “the right way to game.” The other is a raging murderhobo. Both kinds of player can suck the fun straight out of the tabletop, but neither one is self-aware enough to see it.
Paladin, you see, is exactly the kind of guy that would throw your rogue in jail “because it’s what my character would do.” He’ll turn down the party’s hard-won bounty because “justice is its own reward.” Then he’ll spend half an hour in-game lecturing you about why “lying is wrong” when you only suggested using the Disguise skill to get past a couple of guards. He is the Lawful Stupid alignment, and you do not want him in the party.
Fighter, by contrast, is the Chaotic Stupid alignment. I don’t think we need to explain why.
So here’s the question of the day. Which type of player annoys you more? And if you’ve got any good stories of chaotic/lawful stupidity, let’s hear ’em in the comments.
EARN BONUS LOOT! Check out the The Handbook of Heroes Patreon. We’ve got a sketch feed full of Laurel’s original concept art. We’ve got early access to comics. There’s physical schwag, personalized art, and a monthly vote to see which class gets featured in the comic next. And perhaps my personal favorite, we’ve been hard at work bringing a bimonthly NSFW Handbook of Erotic Fantasy comic to the world! So come one come all. Hurry while supplies of hot elf chicks lasts!
I have seen more players cheese weasel the beejebus out of Paladin… I’M LOOKING AT YOU, STEVEN! than fighter, so that tends to aggravate me more. But then again, Fighter is an easier starting point for newbies, so I’ve seen some remarkably dumb stuff there too. For me, it comes down to not knowing YET is more forgivable than That Guy that power cheese mongers
How did your paladin player become the “cheese weasel?” Was it powergaming, or trying to enforce his alignment on everybody else?
Could have also been a hungry transmuter.
ಠ_ಠ
For me it’s more about the individual and their unfathomable levels of oafishness than it is about one brand of unbridled fun ruination or the other.
I’ve certainly encountered both types. And seen both types ruin games. And seen both types have their character die a stupid and hilarious more or less self-inflicted death and not been allowed to roll up another character.
Sadly I wouldn’t say any of these stories are really good enough to share, nor do I even really remember the details. Just a blur of UGH in my memories I’m happy to allow to fade away.
Sorry to bring up painful UGH memories. But you know how misery loves company. For I too have felt this pain.
If you’ll forgive my long-windedness, I will regale you with a story from the days of myth and legend, when beer flowed like wine in the halls of Dorm, and the mighty bellows of THAT GUY were heard throughout the quad. His thighs were as miracle whip, his belly like the gods’ own cream cheese, his hair like the bowl cut of the transcendent page boy. He was such a man who would boast of his deeds to the cute RA, bragging of the “many hours per day” he would practice with his ninja weapons. Such a man who would shout from open windows at the dirty haxxors online, cowing them with the might of his immoderate yop.
He lived on my floor. He saw us playing in the common room. We were obliged to let him join.
Said he, “I always play a ranger. He always has a wolf companion. His name is always Drangor.” And we lesser mortals cast about for signs of irony, but found only the light of certitude burning in his small pink eyes.
And with a voice made timorous by THAT GUY’s presence, our DM did say, “The sewer stretches before you, foul water knee deep receding into the gloom. As you take the first few steps forward, you feel something at your ankles. Make a Reflex save.”
And Drangor did fail his Reflex save, and lo did he face plant into filth. For there were many trip wires within the sewers, and the trip wires did enrage THAT GUY to such excess that he ran shouting throughout the waterways, falling and tripping all the while, his faithful wolf falling and tripping at his side. The thieves’ guild (for such slimy places are ever their haunts) soon heard our blunderings. And we did give battle, and for a time it was good. But soon the party came through the murk and blood to our place of meeting, there to find an holy agent of the gods beneath the palace of the King. For that evening was a gathering of nobles, and a royal ball was our destination.
“Quick,” said he, “Change into this fine raiment which I’ve brought for you. For I suspect a fiend of darkest Hell has come amongst the guests, and even now dances with our fair Princess.”
We did as the priest bid us, and soon stood in darkness decked out in finery.
“Next,” said the holy man, “You must give up such weapons as you cannot conceal, for the guards are suspicious, and will not let sharp steel near to His Majesty.”
And as we lesser folk unburdened ourselves of bow and blade, a look of fury came to Drangor’s countenance. For he would not part with the legendary sword Special Snowflake. A great battle then shook the dorms as THAT GUY gave vent to his frustrations, cries of IT’S WHAT MY CHARACTER WOULD DO and DRANGOR WILL NOT GO UNARMED buffeting our cowering DM.
And the game did end without a ball, without a fiend, and without a princess saved. For THAT GUY held fast to Drangor’s beliefs, and thus lay waste to the campaign forever.
-Book of Drangor, chapters 5 and 6
Did you just try to TURN me sir!? I am not undead last I checked. UGH!
(But seriously, I loved your epic telling of THAT TALE of THAT GUY. Excellent descriptive language and I now really wish to name a magical item Special Snowflake just to see how players would react to it. That said… maaaaaaan do I ever loathe those people who only play one character over and over.)
Special Snowflake has fire powers, because giving it cold powers would be too obvious. It’s far too special for that.
My kender ranger (mostly NG, with strong leanings toward CG) once almost cost a paladin his paladin-hood. Early on in the campaign, the paladin was frustrated by the kender’s impulsive activities. The final straw, I think, was when the party deliberately left her outside a town she was geased not to enter. All she did was accidentally wander into and mostly-destroy a temple dedicated to Void. You’d think he’d have appreciated that! (Or maybe it was all the incidents leading up to that final straw…) So he said he’d train the kender to become a paladin if she followed a long list of things designed to mostly make her not be in the paladin’s way and to make sure anything she took (borrowed!) from him was returned immediately.
Finally, she demanded he either train her or tell her what she was doing wrong so she could fix it, and he admitted that he’d never intended to train her. The ONLY reason that didn’t cost him his class abilities is because we were about two in-game weeks from a literal world-ending apocalypse and the god didn’t really want the world to end over it.
In stopping the apocalypse, the kender became the goddess of fire for that setting, and the paladin the god of water. He’s still not quite accepted that she wouldn’t just randomly set the world on fire, and she’s annoyed that he keeps giving his priests spells that directly counteract hers for no reason. Their mutual distrust of the insane god of air is pretty much all that keeps them from feuding.
Which is probably good for the world because I imagine a kender trying to feud would be like a never-ending, ever-escalating prank war…
Actually, I believe the reason that didn’t cost him his class abilities is because it’s not evil if it’s a kender. 😛
For cereal though, that sounds like a great piece of intra-party conflict. That’s exactly the sort of PVP that makes the game better rather than ripping it apart. Good show!
*snicker* Someday I’ll wedge a kender into another campaign. Someday…
I’ve got a resource for you!
http://theindiedragon.com/how-to-play-dungeons-and-dragons-by-yourself
There. Now you get what you want, and no one else has to get hurt in the process. 😛
But you need at least one friend to play Kender Toss, and it’s better with two – one to do the tossing and one to be tossed at.
And that, kids, is why you never make a character without a ranged attack of some kind. Rookie mistake, Paladin. Rookie mistake.
I feel like the dude could just lean a bit too. SMH
I realize this is super late, but I only recently found your comic and have been doing an archive dive, and would like to point out that while those traits are pretty frustrating in a party or long-term, they can be deliberately culled to become the villains that your players talk about for the next decade or two. (Yes I’m old).
Imagine the Lawful Stupid amanuensis to the BEG-vizier!
Persnickety, condescending, with an irritating *sniff* of disdain preceding every few utterances (and this type of character never just speaks. Oh, my, no! They make pronouncements. Statements they believe inarguable, perhaps interspersed with a sprinkling of saccharine-sweet, dripping-with-patronization ‘helpful hints’ marked by a humorless brief stretch of the lips they pretend to call a ‘smile’, if they’re feeling generous. Mostly though they are marked by that pinched-lip look of disapproval), sure of their own superiority in every particular.
And it’s always very particular and precise.
Forget their boss, the BEG-Vizier. The number two henchman (henchwoman? Henchperson?) right there is who your party is going to remember, and hate, and spend HOURS dreaming up convoluted methods of humiliation for. They often aren’t even actually evil at all!
“Your remittance for that last bounty? Naturally, it’s been waiting for you and accumulating interest at the precisely calculated rate dictated by the most recent bylaws. You still can’t have it until you finish filling out all the proper forms, however, and bring the properly stamped and witnessed receipt. *sniff* Really, any dwarf calling herself a ‘Bounty Hunter’ ought know these basics! I cannot possibly release you these funds at this juncture.”
A judicious pause, then in a grit-your-teeth-irritatingly-gracious-tone, “If you appoint a court-approved agent, however, I can arrange for them to receive weekly updates on the funds accumulating for you or your legal heirs once all paperwork has been received.” As though they’d just offered you the greatest of favors.
Watch them go beserk without even being a barbarian.
Welcome to the comic, you wonderful diabolical bastard. 🙂
I’ve got a true neutral town councilman is my megadungeon game. After years foiling the PCs, he just finally died. He was a popular local politician, and he kept trying to impose anti-adventuring taxes on the party. Having a non-evil, non-violent enemy was some of the most fun I’ve ever had behind the screen. Next time around though, I’ll have to make sure and pair that type of NPC with your vizier’s mannerisms. I can practically feel the hate wafting off of my future PCs!
Ha, I’m glad to help fuel the fury! 😀
Star Wars theory of villainy. Make ’em sneer, make ’em British, and watch the audience hate ’em!
IMO chaotic-stupid is more annoying, at least in part because I seem to see more of it. The “code of conduct” and excess of rules seem to warn a lot of people away from lawful, and at worst they can still be dealt with. You just have to dedicate yourself to being a better rules-lawyer or learn how to make logic twist like a corkscrew.
Chaotic-stupid seems to ruin anything and everything on a whim, with absolutely no consideration for the consequences 5 minutes from now (both in and out of game). Also, you can usually see a moral dilemma coming, but chaotic-stupid characters will take the princess you just spent 5 sessions rescuing and beat her to death with a haddock because it’s what Freakazoid would have done.
I wonder if one-page RPGs would be a good solution to chaotic stupid? Something like Honey Heist allows for cartoon shenanigans. Maybe that can get it out of their system in time for a “more serious” RPG?
It’s something I think you really need to address with the player though. We could get into pages and pages of alignment-debate, but there are some people out there who just think that’s the way Chaotic-Neutral is meant to be played. They might be able to play other alignments just fine, but they seem to believe that when you agree to let them play a CN character, what you’re tacitly saying is that you get bored every time 5 minutes goes by without “zany shenanigans” occurring.
If the whole group agrees to that, then fine, but it’s the kind of EVERYONE needs to be on bored with IMO, GM included. Otherwise you end with with anyone who’s taking the game even the slightest bit seriously is going to get upset when the “wacky fun times” player repeatedly rolls over the plot with his rhinestone-covered monster truck.
100% agree. I was just suggesting one-page one-shots as a good way for that type of player to get it out of their system. Ask them to be zany there, then dial back in the long-form game.
I’ve had far more trouble with Chaotic Stupid than Lawful Stupid. Lawful Stupid can sometimes be reasoned with, and often circumvented. Lawful Stupid has a defined code of conduct that, while probably asinine and often hypocritical, means that their actions and reactions can be reasonably predicted.
I’ve met far too many players who think that writing the word “Chaotic” on their character sheet is the alignment equivalent of a blank check, carte blanche to do whatever they want and get away with it. I’ve had a player who no matter what alignment he wrote on his character sheet always played something roughly in the neighborhood of CE. He actually ended up derailing several campaigns due to his ceaseless infighting, frequently over some minor magical item he could have bought if he really wanted it or some imagined slight (like my PC being a commander assigned to be in charge of his unit in a country’s army). It was tiresome to play with him because every session was like sitting on a time bomb waiting for him to just randomly decide to end the campaign with a poorly-timed backstab. It got so bad we eventually instituted a “no PVP ever” rule.
By contrast, the player who enjoys playing Lawful Stupid kick-the-door-in Paladins is far easier to get along with in-game.
Well you can’t stop there! You’ve got me interested in the particulars of Chaotic Stupid’s transgressions. What was the worst of his arbitrary backstabbings?
My wife, playing a half-orc Paladin called Buttercup, never did the pontificating lawfull good life rules thing. She was more of the “I will give the right example and then people will follow my god willingly” kind. Still on level 1, and after a fight, we stop and heal, as good as possible, and she asks who is wounded. Our thief, having lost only 2 of his HPs speaks up, and is healed by her leying on hands (3.0 or 3.5 forgot which). The rest of the party then get their healing done, and afterwards, one of us asks her how many damage she has. Turns out she only has 2 HPs left… Why didn’t you heal yourself? Well, my wounds are not life threatening, and it is for the good of the party that everybody is as healthy as possible….
Props to the Mrs for knowing where she stands on the RP vs. strategy question. I struggle with that kind of call personally:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/frickin-laser-beams
I frequently appoint myself Party Cat-Herder, but since nobody’s complained about it too much, I think I’ve kept it more Lawful Beleaguered than Lawful Stupid.