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I'm playing a 56-year-old humorless level 9 human druid who believes that anything humanity does will turn out wrong and that nearly all humans are potential enemies of nature.

I've built a very powerful (probably too powerful) character, but for some adventures he still needs the party to help him complete quests. He joined the group to solve a particular situation, but eventually--very late in the game--he wants to become a deity.

The character is capable of defeating the party in combat by himself, but doing so is obviously bad. I don't want to play alone.

What should I do if another player insults my character and how he operates?

The casus belli came last session when the cleric insisted the party save some people from the Underdark, diverting the party from the main quest (and my character from his target).

I role-played my character as reluctant to help those people but finally did help, yet once the people were rescued one of the other party members, while talking to an NPC, said that I was an idiot.

My character turned into a giant eagle, grabbed her by the hair, and flew into the air. When we landed, my character told her, "Next time, I'll drop you."

I fear that I've gone little too far.

How can I role-play my character in these situations without killing the party yet still keep the character's no-nonsense attitude and disdain for humanity in place?

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  • \$\begingroup\$ What is the interaction between the players at your table like? \$\endgroup\$
    – wax eagle
    Aug 17, 2014 at 2:11
  • \$\begingroup\$ What you mean exactly? Players (not characters) are almost peaceful. Quite all characters are suspicious and kinda aggressive expecially with new entries, like my druid. \$\endgroup\$
    – IssamTP
    Aug 17, 2014 at 2:14
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    \$\begingroup\$ I'm trying to figure out if you're playing out personal conflicts via your characters or are communicating out of character to try to better formulate in character solutions. \$\endgroup\$
    – wax eagle
    Aug 17, 2014 at 11:46
  • \$\begingroup\$ Are you playing an evil druid? \$\endgroup\$
    – dphil
    Aug 18, 2014 at 14:46
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    \$\begingroup\$ You are a high-level True Neutral character. When someone insults you, you do not kill them, you turn their milk sour, or their beer bitter, or you tie their shoes together, or give them a wart. Or just make them look like the fool. \$\endgroup\$ Aug 18, 2014 at 21:34

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Be the wiser character. If you think that all humans are an inferior threat to nature but you need their help, your character shouldn't be surprised when they verify your assumptions. You "knew" they were problems going in and you still chose to work with them, so seeing evidence of it shouldn't change your approach.

Someone calls you an idiot? You're almost 60, you've seen people like them get killed by their own foolishness, and you're going to become a god. Say something dismissive and move on. Young, rash adventurers get offended by casual insults. Old, wise sages know not to listen.

Unless everyone at the table wants to play a PvP campaign, just play the grumpy, dismissive old dude who puts up with the others because they're necessary to his plans. It's fun for the other players to bicker with a curmudgeon; it's probably not fun for them to get into a drawn-out PvP combat with someone you admit is too powerful.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ The wiser answer. \$\endgroup\$
    – IssamTP
    Aug 17, 2014 at 14:58
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    \$\begingroup\$ As side note: in the last two sessions I've played the character as a 56 wise but humorless druid saving the party from wipe without a spell, saying "I'm sorry mylady" to my comrade and getting the DM characters angry everytime they started a verbal dogfight. Maybe I had lost my Wisdom in previous sessions for holding too much power, where can I give you more upvote? \$\endgroup\$
    – IssamTP
    Aug 26, 2014 at 15:51
  • \$\begingroup\$ Of course, if you have a good relationship with the others at the table and a DM who doesn't mind, a campaign that ends with your character making that last sprint for godhood, killing anyone who gets in his way, and intent on wiping out the entire human race to prevent further crimes against nature could be a lot of fun. Discuss it with your DM and be sure to leave opportunities for the other players to figure out what's going on. It can be quite interesting to have a "bad guy" where even the DM doesn't really know what he's going to do next. It can complicate play a bit though. \$\endgroup\$
    – Perkins
    Aug 29, 2014 at 20:16
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It's pretty simple: don't be a murderous angry jerk.

If you reach the point where you're going to threaten people, or kill them, or kill the entire party, the simple way to handle that is... not do it. If you feel you must do it, you're probably falling victim to My Guy Syndrome, where you think "well, my guy would do it" as if it remotely limits your choices about what he can do. You always have a choice in how your character acts, and you can choose to have them act differently for the fun of the table.

You should probably go through a read of Making Tough Decisions, which among other things talks at length about how to have your character get along with the party, how to give them a reason to adventure with the party when it might be surprising they're even there, and generally how to not be disruptive and make things un-fun for everyone including yourself. All of that is especially relevant to you and your character. As a choice quote:

When you think about a situation, ask yourself, "Is this the only way my character can react to this?" Chances are, the answer is, "No." Try to refine your character so that you can deal with situations that conflict with your alignment/ethos without resorting to ultimatums, threats, etc. This will often mean thinking in terms of compromise and concession to your fellow players, or at the very least an agreement to disagree.

As that suggests, this might require transitioning your druid character into someone who doesn't have a hair trigger before becoming a murderous jerk.

So, bottom line: read Making Tough Decisions and take its lessons to heart, and don't fall victim to My Guy Syndrome.

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    \$\begingroup\$ This, and thousand times this. You have control over your character and what they do. You can decide how they react to the other PCs and NPCs. \$\endgroup\$
    – Wibbs
    Aug 17, 2014 at 9:27
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    \$\begingroup\$ Also don't design characters that can't get along with the party. \$\endgroup\$
    – C. Ross
    Aug 17, 2014 at 12:08
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You built a murderous anti-social character. Yes, demonstrating your ability and willingness to kill someone for saying something you didn't like is murderous and anti-social behavior.

And your question seems to be, "How can I continue being anti-social and disdain humanity?"

My answer is: Transition your PC into a recurring NPC villian. He is interesting. His personality is known and connected to the party. But the party members are not his partners, they are merely stepping stones. As a matter of fact, you could play a very interesting new character to help with this transition. Perhaps a less powerful druid that warns the party that the more powerful one is murderous and unstable.

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    \$\begingroup\$ I think this is the real issue: the character as described simply won't work with a normal party and a normal game. \$\endgroup\$
    – C. Ross
    Aug 17, 2014 at 12:07
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In my book that kind of behaviour is more neutral evil than true neutral. You wouldn't kick a dog when its yapping aimlessly, so mockery and insults from a human would neither bother you that much. When something directly harmful is oriented towards you, you might take the nature-induced kill-or-be-killed method into consideration, but otherwise?

Also when you want to embrace the nature, the time it takes to do a couple of sidequests on your journeys would kindly represent the gentler ways of the nurturing what you planted.

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Every game operates in a context. In this context, you're playing a game of heroic fantasy where a team of heroes change the world, right?

Your character sees humans as fundamentally flawed, evil and destructive. Your character has no connections of loyalty, ideals, or relationships to the party.

Consider how these things do not go together. Your character sounds like an awesome anime villain, rather than a heroic character that fits with the context of the game.

Option 1:

"Wow, I didn't really think out the concept for my character very well, and I think he'd be a better NPC than a PC. Is it ok if I make another character and just have him stomp off?"

Option 2:

"Wow, I didn't really think out the concept for my character very well, and I think he's going to have to change his attitude and become less angry-hermit-druid and see some redeeming values in humanity. Can you guys help by working some character development into scenes?"

It's important to remember just because a character might fit into the setting or genre you have, not every character will fit into the role of a party based HERO. (if you're playing a game of fantasy villains, or PVP stuff, that's different context, but by the description you've given so far, my guess is not.)

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  • \$\begingroup\$ I like the idea of the player asking other players for help with their character. You are not your character (the message of the "My Guy" syndrome linked elsewhere in this question). \$\endgroup\$ Aug 18, 2014 at 3:29
  • \$\begingroup\$ PF & the D&D lineage of games doesn't really have a lot of support for scene framing around character (personality) development, which means there has to be a lot more mindful action on the part of the players to make it work. Asking is important especially if everyone is thinking it's just a terrible character who they honestly want dead. \$\endgroup\$
    – user9935
    Aug 18, 2014 at 7:02
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Attempting to grab someone by their hair and lift them up would probably rip their hair out.

I guess I should note here that if you were to grab someone by their hair and attempt to lift them that their hair would be ripped out of their scalp and they would fall to the ground and die. But that's beside the point.

You probably took a step too far..

It's a bit much that at a sleight of tongue belittling your character, you essentially stepped into the realm of an evil character by threatening someones life and nearly killing them, but I feel like more information might be required to answer your question.

The way you're playing your character makes it seem like you are either a Chaotic Neutral or a True Neutral Druid. Has your character ever taken this kind of action towards someone else belittling your intelligence?

The action that you took towards that player character was a Chaotic evil action, and even worse than that, you essentially took control of a players character out of that characters hands, and no one enjoys when this happens. Did your DM make you roll grapple checks to lift the character you attempted to grab? Did the DM consider an alignment change upon seeing you take such drastic action for such small discourse?

Would an apology fix the problem?

Another thing to consider, do you respect the person playing the character who said this to you? If you don't that was probably the sole reason you did what you did to that persons character, lack of respect at a gaming table can lead to belligerence, belittling, outright rage, and hurt feelings in general.

At most, you could apologize for your actions, state that you don't have any hatred towards the player and their character and hopefully in time mend the trust. Just state that you consider yourself a smart person and find it rude to offend someones intelligence just because they didn't want to take the same course of action as you.

I totally get where you're coming from.

Almost the same thing once happened to me while I was roleplaying. I was playing a Chaotic Neutral Psion and was brought into the presence of a king for many great deeds me and my party had assisted with across the land of his dominion, however, I would not kneel to the king because he was still only a man, and I would kneel to no man, and considered all my equal. Needless to say the DM thought I was being a jackass for not kneeling to his king, despite all the powerful level 20 characters the Dungeon master had crowded around him. It led to the DM stating that "My ego was too big for my head."

Later on during the same adventure I outright refused to enter a plane where magic and psionic powers did not function at all ( via Antimagic ) to recover a Ring of Boccob and despite it being a perfectly logical reason to not enter said plane ( Because it was obviously a trap, and a glass cannon that doesn't work doesn't live. ) essentially people in the group started insulting my intelligence for not trusting the DM and walking into an obvious trap, which eventually led to me leaving the group in the end of it.

Essentially, they belittled me, it made me feel like I was playing with a bunch of people that didn't respect or value my opinion, and It led to me eventually parting ways with the group.

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