RollPlay -- D&D Campaign Show - Page 136

On January 08 2014 00:56 Zaqwe wrote:
Something during this episode bothered me way more than the abrupt cancellation and ensuing drama.

What bothered me the most is that Gen wouldn't use a healing spell on JP's character. A party member has a wounded leg with reduced movement speed, is at half health or less, is bleeding to death, and she--the healer of the party--refused to use a healing spell. Why? How could that possibly be a good idea? She was just going to leave him to rest and heal naturally when they need to make a hasty exit from town in a dangerous situation where all party members need to be at full capacity?

The way her previous character stole loot from the party and was not a team player also bothered me. I always felt the rest of the party when they became aware of her extravagant spending and hoarding should have confronted her and cut her throat just like they cut Banon's throat. But at least in character a dishonest thief who contributes nothing to the party could be justified.

But why would a healer not heal their party? I don't get it. It is bad roleplaying and I really think it detracts from the show.

On January 08 2014 02:19 Simberto wrote:

Note that i haven't actually watched that specific situation, so what i am talking about is now based on just what you said.

The answer here is a difference in interpretation of a roleplaying game. It can either be interpreted as a cooperative tabletop wargame, or as an actual roleplaying game.

If you view it as a cooperative game in which you attempt to achieve some goal as a group, it makes no sense. The general difference is how much the characters are actually trying to achieve the players goals when compared to their own character goals. Those are often vastly different.

You are going at this more from a gamey perspective. The parties healer obviously has to keep the party healed, while the tank tanks etc...., basically the tabletop version of an MMOG where the characters in game are basically not existent at all, and more or less only the expansion of the players desires.

If you look at it from a different perspective, then she is not the parties healer, but the cleric of some god. Healing someone actually involves personally asking your god for help for that person. This is not something you necessarily do for anyone, after all you are basically leveraging your position and the goodwill of your god for this. So if that person is someone that is fundamentally not aligned with the values of your god, and your god is not of the "help everyone no matter who he is" type, then it becomes incredibly hard to justify to your god why he should help that person that obviously acts against his own interests. This is usually something you should try to avoid either by creating characters that at least roughly work together and have some aligned interests, or give some outside reason as to why those people have to work together.

On January 08 2014 02:19 Simberto wrote:

Note that i haven't actually watched that specific situation, so what i am talking about is now based on just what you said.

The answer here is a difference in interpretation of a roleplaying game. It can either be interpreted as a cooperative tabletop wargame, or as an actual roleplaying game.

If you view it as a cooperative game in which you attempt to achieve some goal as a group, it makes no sense. The general difference is how much the characters are actually trying to achieve the players goals when compared to their own character goals. Those are often vastly different.

You are going at this more from a gamey perspective. The parties healer obviously has to keep the party healed, while the tank tanks etc...., basically the tabletop version of an MMOG where the characters in game are basically not existent at all, and more or less only the expansion of the players desires.

If you look at it from a different perspective, then she is not the parties healer, but the cleric of some god. Healing someone actually involves personally asking your god for help for that person. This is not something you necessarily do for anyone, after all you are basically leveraging your position and the goodwill of your god for this. So if that person is someone that is fundamentally not aligned with the values of your god, and your god is not of the "help everyone no matter who he is" type, then it becomes incredibly hard to justify to your god why he should help that person that obviously acts against his own interests. This is usually something you should try to avoid either by creating characters that at least roughly work together and have some aligned interests, or give some outside reason as to why those people have to work together.

On January 08 2014 02:33 chaos021 wrote:


So healing others to keep the party (and her character's self) alive is not in her character's self-interest? It would really suck if I'm walking around with this group when an ogre jumps out of the bushes, and the tank is off trying to catch butterflies in the wilderness.

On January 08 2014 03:06 Jormundr wrote:

What party?

On January 08 2014 00:56 Zaqwe wrote:
Something during this episode bothered me way more than the abrupt cancellation and ensuing drama.

What bothered me the most is that Gen wouldn't use a healing spell on JP's character. A party member has a wounded leg with reduced movement speed, is at half health or less, is bleeding to death, and she--the healer of the party--refused to use a healing spell. Why? How could that possibly be a good idea? She was just going to leave him to rest and heal naturally when they need to make a hasty exit from town in a dangerous situation where all party members need to be at full capacity?

The way her previous character stole loot from the party and was not a team player also bothered me. I always felt the rest of the party when they became aware of her extravagant spending and hoarding should have confronted her and cut her throat just like they cut Banon's throat. But at least in character a dishonest thief who contributes nothing to the party could be justified.

But why would a healer not heal their party? I don't get it. It is bad roleplaying and I really think it detracts from the show.

On January 08 2014 03:55 Zaqwe wrote:
She definitely had at least one healing spell as she was considering using it on the orcs.

Bleeding to death wasn't a major concern but surely preserving the strength of the people she is working together with to protect the newborn child should have been a priority. Letting JP's character bleed at all was needlessly sapping his (her) strength. Getting into a situation where 24 hours was needed for the cleric's comrade to be at full capacity when the situation seemed to call for an urgent departure was bizarre. Also maybe I am misunderstanding how critical hit leg injuries work but I don't think simply stopping the bleeding restored his movement speed. Leaving his leg injury to heal naturally when they seemed to be in a situation that called for haste doesn't make sense to me.

I just don't think it was good roleplaying for a cleric. Maybe that's just my opinion or whatever but if she wants to play an offensive character who is more concerned about capturing and torturing enemies than helping injured comrades it doesn't seem to suit a cleric, nor did it seem to suit the back story given.

On January 08 2014 03:55 Zaqwe wrote:
She definitely had at least one healing spell as she was considering using it on the orcs.

Bleeding to death wasn't a major concern but surely preserving the strength of the people she is working together with to protect the newborn child should have been a priority. Letting JP's character bleed at all was needlessly sapping his (her) strength. Getting into a situation where 24 hours was needed for the cleric's comrade to be at full capacity when the situation seemed to call for an urgent departure was bizarre. Also maybe I am misunderstanding how critical hit leg injuries work but I don't think simply stopping the bleeding restored his movement speed. Leaving his leg injury to heal naturally when they seemed to be in a situation that called for haste doesn't make sense to me.

I just don't think it was good roleplaying for a cleric. Maybe that's just my opinion or whatever but if she wants to play an offensive character who is more concerned about capturing and torturing enemies than helping injured comrades it doesn't seem to suit a cleric, nor did it seem to suit the back story given.

On January 08 2014 04:04 Zaqwe wrote:
The instant heal, given their situation.

Preserving her utility as a healer did not seem to be the concern as she was considering wasting a heal on an orc.

On January 08 2014 04:16 jcarlsoniv wrote:


If I'm understanding correctly that she was intending to heal an orc in order to question him, I believe that would absolutely fall under the purview of "healer utility"

On January 08 2014 04:18 Zaqwe wrote:
Advocating capturing an orc was great. Good idea.

Then the orcs died and a comrade was left critically injured.

Refusing to magically heal a critically injured party member in the midst of an urgent situation that called for them to make a hasty departure at as close to full strength as they could muster was really strange and seemed out of character for a cleric, especially given the back story. It seemed more like Abigael's selfish unhelpfulness than the new cleric character.

On January 08 2014 04:21 Zaqwe wrote:

Well if you watch the episode you will see they didn't have time to laze about. A baby was just born the orcs had come for and surely more would follow.

On January 08 2014 04:18 Zaqwe wrote:
Advocating capturing an orc was great. Good idea.

Then the orcs died and a comrade was left critically injured.

Refusing to magically heal a critically injured party member in the midst of an urgent situation that called for them to make a hasty departure at as close to full strength as they could muster was really strange and seemed out of character for a cleric, especially given the back story. It seemed more like Abigael's selfish unhelpfulness than the new cleric character.