This is about 10 years back but I just randomly remembered. In my very first DnD game I played a humsn fighter (I know, basic) who witnessed his whole family getting slaughtered by Orc and became an alcoholic. He was on a revenge agsinst the orcs. But in session 4 or so I decided to let him get sober, but my DM said I shoukd stick with the drunkard image. When I told him, I want the character to be more serious than the drunk comic relief guy he told me to piss off and killed my character off.
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Man i have to thank my last DM for letting me change my build 4 times (once including the class) through 6 levels to match the character arc
Were they big enough changes that you couldn't effectively multiclass (granted, multiclassing is fraught with balance peril in a way that rerolling is not), or did that not just fit the character changes? (here I'm thinking of something like the FFIV Dark Knight -> Paladin change, where reclassing entirely is symbolic of shedding one's old life entire)
D&D 5e is not flexible in that regard, campaigns often don't go long enough for multiclassing to come to fruition and there aren't even prestige classes anymore.
The character started as a well-schooled young noble (Fighter - eldritch knight), decided to stop bothering with the arcane to not be embarassed in front of the wizard so he focused on his martial training (changed to battle master) then for story reasons his ambitions got the better of him and swore an oath to Bane (changed to Paladin Oath of Conquest).
I did an additional adjustment at some point but i can't remeber, it was not story related, i probably changed the starting feat.
Glad I’m not the only one. I had to switch my characters subclasses twice just cause I found a way more fitting option for him.
Boy that escalated quickly
That DM already sounds like a dick. Because seriously - the player wants their character to grow both in terms of power and as a person. That's the whole point of character arcs. But instead of allowing this to happen he just....killed that character via bullshit because he's a petty asshole with an ego made out of glass.
I know it's 10 years too late but i hope you didn't remain at that game after this incident
....right?
That game was only during vocational school when I was staying in another city, where the school was. Now I have my own group (I am the DM) and we have so much fun playing. I swore to myself to never do something like this to my players. I am pretty "Rule of Cool" but my old DM was a real rules lawyer.
What, a redemption-type story ark? Ridiculous!
(Really wondering if the storytelling in that DM's games was a terrible as I'd suspect.)
His 'plottwists' were so boring and I knew exactly where the story would go. Also he railroaded us much
Your mistake here appears to have been failing to tell him to Foxtrot Oscar first ;)
More seriously why it's a bad idea to ignore red flags. A DM telling a player how to roleplay their PC is always a red flag.
"Nevermind, I think I'll find another game"
You Had A Stupid DM, He missed out on the ways to make an alcoholic that is trying to rehab suffer... Like make a wis save every time there was ale or any form of alcohol, to stop your character from giving in and then there's the suffering of not having anything wgike the others drink
Had your character any reason to become sober? As it is not easy to get sober - which is of corse nothing that just happens from now to yet without any reasons
Yes, the reason was "the player decides the character wants to become sober". Just as the player had previously decided that the character would be a borderline alcoholic. What is your damn problem? You are seriously pissing me off.
Also, yes, IRL people can and do decide "from one day to the next" to stop smoking or drinking. In the same way that a traumatic experience can change a person's entire outlook on life from one moment to the next. Can we stop with that nonsense "every minute change in a fictional character has to be some tediously long drawn-out story arc"? This misconception has seriously poisoned how people think about Heel-Face turns and Face-Heel turns in fiction (esp Superhero stories where it happens all the time).
In D&D, there's probably even a spell for curing alcoholism. There definitely were a lot of "QOL spells" back in AD&D 2nd Ed. If you can shapeshift, regrow limbs, bring dead people back to life or change their alignment via magic, and by the rules as written can cure alcohol poisoning and a hangover with Neutralize Poison and/or Lesser Restoration (to remove any lingering condition like sickened or tired), where's the damn problem.
A good DM wpuld still make it work, even with that reasoning. Just come up with an event next session that justifies the character becoming sober, if you care that much about the story.
Just refusing and killing the character is a dick move.
Absolutly agree with you. I also think it is a great opertunity for character development. But my understanding of the story was, that OP just realized that having a alcoolic character has negative aspects and just wanted to cut that part off with no explanation
I agree also that just killing the chara off was a dick move of the DM and he should instead had worked with OP how to make that work for his character. There are many options for that in DnD and depending on them many ways how it can bite the chara in the ass at some point (like a curse of a fay that would turn him into something if he drinks another drop of alcohol so he has to stop)
The player controls the character
If the player decides that their character atleast TRIES to stay sober - they stay sober
Easy as that
Plus this is a freaking fantasy. If liches, dragons and storm giants are a normal thing there then i say stayting away from drinking is allowed too.
A few sessions of adventuring could be a good reason to sober up, plus the player getting fed up being the 'drunken comic relief ' would be enough to start it. DND isn't a game where you get starting bonuses for taking flaws (as far I can recall), so OP wasn't really getting bonuses for their penalty, which makes character development to remove it completely acceptable. Much more so then if it had gotten them perks.