It is rare that I ask of anything from /tg/, but I must request your assistance in this situation.
The last session of a D&D game my character killed another character under dubious circumstances and is now on the run from the law.
The two characters had a previous fracas in the tavern. My character was a human barbarian of such short stature that one would be forgiven for mistaking him for a dwarf. The character that he killed was a dark elf woman who was given to poor behavior in the form of rudeness, lewdness, sexual assault, and gambling.
What must be mentioned before the story of the drow woman's death is the life history of the barbarian. He was a poor man from a poor land, who without any decent profession or trade, gravitated to where most able-bodied men without a trade are want to – the military.
He was not very receptive to the training in the king's army – he was relegated to the role of serving food to prisoners of war and invalids. Each day he spent in that position, he longed for combat. In those camps he worked in, he interacted with both the proud and pretentious elves who were the enemy and the men who were injured due to the actions of those same elves.
It was through these interactions he gained a hatred for those of elven kind, preferring the title of knife-ears to refer to them. He heard stories of elven barbarity; the sharpened bamboo shoots covered in excrement, the killing fields, the forest ambushes, the trained tarsiers (pic related) who would gouge a man's eyes out.
Eventually, he retired from the army and made his way towards the setting of the game as a full fledged level one character.
The setting of the game is a colony on an unexplored continent, ruled by a colonial viceroy (think New England). He was quite successful in the new profession of adventurer, being the only one who could lead a party into the ruins of an ancient city without mass death.
>>46501227
While he managed to get along quite well with most of the inhabitants of this colony, his old prejudice from his army days still lingered. He would unleash a litany of horrible insults upon any elf or half-breed elf he would come across. He eventually gained a respect for some of the elves, though the rest he still considered filthy knife-ears.
Enter forth now, the drow woman, who the barbarian gave the title “chocolate knife-ears”. A woman of poor temperament, want to cause fights in the ranks, sexually assault poor human boys, and throw chairs. Conflicts between the two were naturally very common.
The anger between the two stewed and fermented over many weeks until the fateful outing. The party for that particular expedition consisted of: A Human Dandy (some sort of bard), The Drow Woman (once again a sort of bard), A Man With Skin of Flame (a druid), The Scarred Elfen Man (a rogue), A Dwarf Who Wears a Kilt (A fellow Barbarian), A Devil-Man (a monk), and Your Protagonist.
In that outing, the party opted to go for as far as a week of travel could take them, due to the events described below, they only made it five days before returning to the colony's capital city.
The first couple of days were completely uneventful, they traveled along the river that ran east and crossed into the tributary of that river that went further east after it forked. Then came the first eventful moment in that outing.
A cave of many magical spiders was found. The dandy in the party wished to collect the fine silks and the drow was interested due to the spiders, but everyone else was rather uninterested.
As they went deeper and deeper into the cave, giant spiders appeared. One of them was able to grab a hold of the scarred elf and phase him into another dimension with it.
>>46501254
Fortunately, due to good luck, the party was able to defeat the spiders, with only the unfortunate casualty of the dandy's suit, which was covered with green ichor, already soiled due to the sprinklings of dirt that the flame-skinned man insisted upon.
There was argument as to what to do next, but the party eventually agreed to burn the many webs of the cavern, with no gain to anyone.
After the dandy changed his pantaloons, the party continued eastward until the scarred elf began to speak of a desire to return to the caves. The rest of the party could detect something wrong with his demeanor and determined that he was under a spell. Your dear protagonist could not detect a problem with his speech and volunteered his own mule for the elf to ride back to the cave with.
Naturally, the elf was detained until he came to his senses, very angry at the barbarian when he did. He began speaking with the drow in elven, though he did not count upon a certain ability of the bigoted barbarian, his ability to speak elf.
The drow suggested to kill yours truly, right in the middle of the caravan, notably, which caused a pause. The barbarian elf-foe came forth upon the two elves in an anger, shouting litanies of anger towards the knife-ears, to which the kilt-wearing dwarf joined in, with even worse curses (most of them lifted from the video Ravandil's Quest).
In the verbal melee that was ensuing, not a single man, nor elf, nor dwarve, or devil-man could detect the dandy who went behind the drow woman's back and ran her through with his sword-cane. At the sight of the blade bursting through her bosom, the elf-foe barbarian went forth and struck the dark elf with his fist, killing her instantly.
>>46501311
In the verbal melee that was ensuing, not a single man, nor elf, nor dwarve, or devil-man could detect the dandy who went behind the drow woman's back and ran her through with his sword-cane. At the sight of the blade bursting through her bosom, the elf-foe barbarian went forth and struck the dark elf with his fist, killing her instantly.
The majority of the party was shocked at this event, the devil-man and the man of burning skin buried her. In regret of killing in such an ignoble way, the elf-foe removed all of the trophies he had accumulated in his travels and thrown them into her grave. The scarred elf-man tried to argue for the elf-foe to be arrested, but he set off along with the dandy back to the colonial capital.
Upon reaching the city, the elf-hater had his hair cut, bought new clothing, replaced his wooden shoes with leather boots, discarded his axe, shield, and javelins for a two-handed sword and in a final act of madness began to refer to himself as “Bregolas, The Lord High Executioner of Titipu”.
tl; dr So now I come to you, in this moment of confusion to ask you.
ded elf, wat do?
I'm going to conclude that you're that guy, just because of how long this story is.
>self righteous justification intensifies
>>46501227
Are all of the other players okay with your actions?
>>46501470
Out of character, yes.
>>46501484
Then you're not That Guy.
>>46501678
I agree with this.
>>46501342
Except for this.
Dear lord, anon.
I don't have time right now to even read your novella, but later I will come back and write up a Thog Edit for you.
>>46501470
This.
Without that context, I guess I appreciate that your character was predisposed to that sort of thing, but didn't make an actual genocidal crusade out of it. I also can appreciate that it was a decision made after what I assume is several sessions, and wouldn't be entirely out of the blue.
Probably the best part is the decision to have the murder affect your character the way it did after the fact, since killing someone you're close to for that long, even in moments of high tension and conflict like that, would definitely affect the average person.
But whether or not you're That Guy is always, one hundred percent of the time, reliant on what the gaming norms are in your group. We've got a That Guy in our group, but there are certain things he does very very well that, when taken out of context, make him look like the best player at the table by far. Sure, he's had seven characters so far, while the rest of the party has had one or two apiece over about a year, but he's played them all very well and does a great job being in character. He just also plays as though he's playing Dragon Age, not seeming to understand that the DM is not a computer that has to choose the same result every time he does the same action. Also he's a bit of a limelight hog, but we've tapered that back considerably.
