My best idea so far has been to pass them through a settlement of what appear to be orcs. I'd try to nudge them to head to the tavern where the leader will turn out to be much less alcohol tolerant than you'd expect from a big ol' orc. He'd eventually drunkenly spill the beans that the town is mostly populated by doppelgangers, and that they stay in contact via marks like hobo code scratched on walls and fences across the continent. He slowly gathered them here to form a false orc settlement to attract real orcs. Once the town is full the fakies will be paid fairly and wander off, leaving the leader in power over a powerful civilization.
My hopes are for the players to use this info against him to force him to teach them the doppel code. Then they can find their meetup places and hire some to take their place, fooling the zealous paladin. His positive energy junk wouldn't hurt them either since they're LN.

Seeing that in print is making me realize how fragile and convoluted that plan is. Surely there's a better way.

>>45857261
Just tell him the parties gone evil whilst he's been gone so a Pally just ain't gonna gel with the group in it's current composition. You'll help him reroll and set him up so he can keep up.

Honestly if he isn't showing up you don't have to cater to him getting to keep his character.

>>45857261
Would he be open to becoming a blackguard?

Alternatively, you could gloss over the alignment of the party so long as he never catches them in their knavery.

Although how exactly you're managing to accomplish any kind of quest with an evil party other than the usual conquer the world and gain power thing is beyond me. You might be able to use that to glue the paladin into the party unless the party is really committed to the stereotypical forces of darkness shit where they're thirsting to torture orphans to death and drink the blood of innocents while raping and pillaging across the land.

Teaming up with a paladin could be a good way to gain wealth, power, etc.

Also, they could if absolutely needed, use items to mask their alignment.

I agree. If he wasn't there to stop his companions on their journey to become evil you shouldn't care that much about his character.
Now, if the other players care about their friend, make up a wand or a potion of disguise tendencies or something like that.

>>45857261
>>45857311
So let me sum up the situation as I understand it:
Your players all started out neutral/good, with one being a paladin.
Paladin doesn’t play very often for some reason.
The other players have gone evil to reach some goals (whether this was successful or still pending is unclear)
Paladin player plans to play again next session.
You see a problem because there is no way a paladin could ever adventure with and evil group.
You are afraid this problem will piss off your group and they’ll quit playing for months.
Have I got all that right?

I wrote something up in case I'm right…

>>45857837
Assuming that’s correct, let’s look at your approach:
>retcon anything
Retconning the players turning evil would be a dick move, undoing player agency, and risk pissing off players to avoid the risk of pissing off the same players.
> force him to change characters
Asking a player to change from and established character should be reserved for after a problem has arisen and other attempts to resolve it have failed.
It might be an eventual possibility, depending on your situation.
>he'll have no choice but to smite his evil friends or fall
(Okay, this is so bad I considered that it might all be bait, but the hook is already set, so here goes.)
Stop right there.
Unless the others have taken on the demonic mantles of the evil horde that opposes the paladin’s deity, are actively eating babies in front of him as he wakes, or similarly an obviously evil threat that must be immediately slain, there is *no* reason for this.
That paladins have to smite all evil all the time or immediately fall is literally a joke.
This is largely dependent on how the others went “evil”. But if they broke the law and killed a few innocents in the name of a greater goal, then they could still be redeemed.
You know who might be able to help redeem them? A paladin.
A paladin does not have to be a mindless smiting machine and can even allow evil beings to exist if it serves the greater will of his deity.
Falling should also not happen at the drop of a hat, either. It should come from a willful decision from the paladin to turn away from the path of their deity.
If your other players have gone baby eating evil, then you do have a bit of a problem.
The player might have to make a more compatible character.
But if they were so evil, why didn’t they slit the paladin’s throat while he was knocked out, hmm?

Continued…

>>45857849
>>45857311
>My best idea so far has been…
Wut
So your (unnecessarily convoluted) railroad plan is to replace your other PCs with doppelgangers just because then the paladin won’t be able to hurt them as much?
Assuming that they perfectly mimic the PCs, wouldn’t the paladin wonder why his party is suddenly all pinging as LN?
Much more importantly, you are assuming that railroading your players into replacing their PCs with copies won’t piss them off.

Here is your solution:
Don’t force them to fight it out or assume they have to.
Work together to come up with a plausible reason why the paladin might still work with them, any reason is better than >lol_smite_or_fall.jpg
Camaraderie, friendship, redemption, or even the paladin being fooled by some clever lies would work.
And if they do eventually fight it out or part ways?
So be it.
Paladin player should have a backup character ready to use in case, unless he won’t mind rerolling while rest of you play.

Damn.
Missing obvious ways to avoid ruining your own game , yet you come up with underground doppelganger hobo code?
You have potential anon, but damn.

>>45857857
Additional Points:
>every time he misses a game his character is knocked out by something.
This is a bad mechanism for missing a player, it makes him weak, vulnerable, useless, and a joke.
A player missing sessions is one reason I always end the session at a safe point like camp, or town or something.
If a player misses a session, then their PC got caught up in doing something else, like maybe involving their church.
It’s better than the party doing Weekend at Bernie’s in the middle of a dungeon.
If you do end a session in the middle of a dungeon, the missing PC hang back to guard their escape or something.
Which is, again, better than “lol he’s knocked out *again* that wacky pally!”
There is also the regrettable old standby of “The DM plays your character as an NPC and tries not to have anything stupid happen to him.”

>When my group gets pissed they quit playing for months.
This is extremely childish.
Have you considered not playing with twelve year olds?

>>45857462
Worst case scenario this will have to do. Maybe he can move over to a cleric or something, I dunno.

>>45857520
Glossing over for now will probably be our best bet.

>>45857837
Pretty much. Also so far they've been moderately successful. They formed a guild out of fascination for the sea and exotic sea creatures, and the face worships a neutral sea god. He hopes to please her by sinking the continent several hundred feet, adding to her domain. The others just follow the smart thinky guy.

>>45857857
I forgot a huge point about that railroad doppelganger plan: the other players would work on their downtime activities at the coast in safety while the doppels distracted the paladin.
... yeah it sounded better in my head.

I mostly worry because all I hear about paladins is that their powers are basically held hostage and if they even happen to fart on a neutral ladybug they lose them basically for good. For some bizarre reason I never considered that a maleable trope. I don't see why he can't just be zealous and naiive enough to trust his friends til they officially turn evil. I'll hold back on the falling until he does something needlessly stupid.

>>45857861
>“lol he’s knocked out *again* that wacky pally!”
In my defense that started as a joke and just got out of hand. That seems to be a recurring problem with my DMing.

>Have you considered not playing with twelve year olds?
I don't have a lot of experience DMing. Might as well play with people who don't take it seriously until I learn to think on my feet faster.

Anyway thanks for the pointers. I think I know what I should do now.

>>45857962
Yeesh, I know what you mean.

I've spent so much time reading about 'That Guys' that I honestly can't determine if a fellow player is showing signs of it or not in his character creation. I've forgotten normality.

>>45857883
>>45857962
Sounds like you have a good handle on it.
Kudos to your players taking on an ambitious, if evil, goal and to you for going along with it.

When you described the plan and used the words "hopes to please her" I imagined the party face succeeding only to find out that the goddess had no interest in more land being beneath the sea and is less than pleased.
Cartoony, but it made me laugh.


>>45858087
>I've spent so much time reading about 'That Guys' that I honestly can't determine if a fellow player is showing signs of it or not in his character creation. I've forgotten normality.
This could be the start of another thread if I weren't so exhausted.

>You might be on /tg/ too much if....
>Foxworthy.jpg

>>45857261

If you were playing dark heresy and the PCs had gone totally radical, you wouldn't just reinsert a Sororitas into their mix.

The same thing applies here. This paladin has 0 reason to be travelling with these people anymore. In the background, he's fallen out with them and they've gone separate ways.

How many sessions did he miss? If it was like TWO, then... well, god paladins are fucking stupid if they can fall. I hate that bullshit.

But if it was 10, well, too bad, roll a new character.

>>45857261
seems to me that your other characters will solve this problem for you very quickly and he can reroll.

>>45857261
>Meet Paladin once a week (and potentially a few good-aligned friends as well)
>meet evil party later and let them know that tales of a long comatose paladin bringing justice to the kingdom are spreading rapidly
>rinse and repeat
>eventually they either kill paladin and he rerolls as evil or paladin becomes powerful enough to take them head on

I don't see the problem.