The bane of my existence is intra-party drama. Our Manaseared: The Classic Fantasy Adventure Roleplaying Game campaign had started with great success after a summer of RPG drought. The original group was back together now that we were all in college, and we played every Monday night without fail during the Fall semester.
Then Siouxsie and Nathan broke up. Sam took the former’s side while Lily took the latter’s, which meant our group was as perfectly bisected as the Level 1 PC who walks into one of my Karwenian razor traps. I knew this would happen eventually. Siouxsie had a habit of hooking up with the guys she played games with, usually not for very long, and it always brought the drama hammer down on our group.
It didn’t help that Eris had gone particularly off the rails these last few sessions. But I digress.
Basically, come winter break, I had two groups who wanted to keep playing their extant Manaseared characters, but neither would play with each other. So I proposed to both of them, individually, that we split the party, and go on separate adventures in a shared world. Rook and Astera, AKA Nathan and Lily, would play on Mondays, while Eris and Sam, AKA Siouxsie and whoever Sam’s next PC would be, would play on Sundays.
More work for me, but my Spring schedule was pretty light anyway. Mercifully, all agreed.
It was convenient, actually, because I had a few new players interested in joining, but I hated having more than five people at a given table at once. The vocal players, usually meaning Siouxsie and Nathan, end up running the show, while everyone else is left out.
I’ve been BFFs with Nathan since we were in second grade. I was happy to run an adventure for Rook. But secretly I was much more excited to see what fate awaited Eris. I was terrified I would accidentally kill her.
Sam was our resident Canadian who took PC death as casually as most people take vitamins. His new PC would be Kauom, our first dwarf, who spent every single one of his character origin resource points on a Karwenian arbalest. That was very much like Sam. The relief was that, seeing Eris' course, he opted for Neutral Evil alignment. My hope was that we could have smooth sailing between our players going forward, with Rook’s party being Good and Eris’ being Evil. Mixing the two, in my experience, rarely went well.
As for Eris, she was now level three. Her falling out with Rook had not prompted her to turn away from Chaotic Evil alignment. On level up she spent her second specialization talent on Overcast Resistance--a safe choice (for a change).
Our two new players for this group would be Karl and Ian. Karl was a Swedish student who came, for some reason, to study computer programming in America. We’d played Manaseared together as PCs the last semester, and while it eventually fell apart when our GM flaked on us, I had a lot of fun roleplaying with him—so I was thrilled to have him joining my group. He made a magician named Robur; then, despite my advice, made him Neutral Good.
I already dreaded what Siouxsie would do to him. There would be tears. Perhaps physical violence. I saw it clearly in my imagination. But I said nothing.
I sat next to Ian in English 101. When I mentioned that I was a gamemaster, he asked if he could join if there was ever an opening. Now there was. I didn’t like him all that much, but we were always in need of fresh meat, so I let him in. He rolled up a cleric named Vlodmir, also despite my advice, and made him Lawful Good.
“Listen,” I told him. “The Manaseared campaign can get pretty intense. It’s a game where you get XP for acting in character, and we take that seriously at my table. You’ll get huge rewards if you embody your alignment each session, and some of our players are all-in on Evil this time around. Are you sure you can handle it?”
“That sounds awesome,” he said. “That’s like, exactly the kind of thing I’ve wanted to play in.”
“Just because—there might be some conflict with the other characters, if you play to Lawful Good.”
“Doesn’t bother me. We can always talk things out, right?”
I restrained myself from chastising him. “Just don’t expect your first PC to make it very long. No one’s ever does. You won’t be bothered if Vlodmir dies, right?”
“Of course not. It’s just a game.”
If only he knew.
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Only Siouxsie knew the secrets of the Vault. I’d emailed the contents of the Magister’s Tome to her the previous night and could not imagine what she would get up to (except, perhaps, in my nightmares). We’d been playing RPGs together since we were fourteen. Back then she had just been “Susan;” she was a pretty blonde tomboy and I was an awkward nerd. I was still an awkward nerd, but Susan was unrecognizable. Her hair had gone from blonde to black. Her eyes gathered eyeliner like a summer sky gathers stormclouds. Her clothes darkened. She was no longer Susan, but now “Siouxsie” (as in, and the Banshees). The influence showed.
Her range as a player had always been wide, though, and that hadn’t changed. She had been the starlet of high school theatre; over the years I had seen her play male and female characters, nerds and saviors, heroes and villains. She almost always checked herself at the door—and she always went all-in.
Eris was her latest creation, and almost certainly her most devious. I expected the worst from her.
We were deep in the Magister’s Vault. Despite its linearity, I thought it was the best dungeon I’d designed at the time (and remains one of my favorites). The party had bypassed the first obstacles, and now they found themselves with the vault itself in sight. I dumped some fluff text:
“The rows of manalights end where the true cavern begins. It’s an enormous pocket of empty air within the mountain: a thousand feet above you is nothing but darkness; a thousand feet below, the same. The only thing within the whole of the cavern’s circumference is a solitary island jutting forth from the darkness on a thin monopod of rock, like a plate balanced on a stalagmite. A bridge extends outward from the path underfoot, held in place by no supports, connecting where you stand to the island.”
Ian spoke up first, “Does it look safe? I want to walk to the edge and examine it. But—not too close.”
“Vlodmir walks to the bridge. From your safe distance off, it looks something like a collection of large black tiles, thin and placed together edge-to-edge. It’s very long and there’s no railing. You feel confident in concluding that no mundane bridge of this construction could ever support human weight. But—is anything here mundane?”
Now Siouxsie struck. I saw from the look in her eyes that she had evil on her mind. Despite her goth façade, she was still a tremendously caring and empathetic person—but RPGs were her outlet. That was another reason why our campaigns tended to end in drama.
“The other enchantments have withstood the test of time,” she with Eris’ voice, which was really just her voice with a bad English edge. “I see no reason why this one would not as well. Of course, ‘tis always possible some other unforeseen trial awaits us, unmentioned by the tome.”
“It could be a test of faith,” Sam said. He looked unfazed as ever. “Like in Indiana Jones. It’s an invisible bridge, except you can see it.”
Siouxsie nodded. “That makes sense. Sounds just like something Joseph would pull.”
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She glared at me. In that moment I knew her intentions. I almost wanted to stop her, just because it was so unnecessarily cruel, but I kept my mouth shut. I had to fight back my smile. You have to be proud of a player who revels in her character’s abject evil.
“Maybe I should check in that book he sent you. The Tome,” Ian said. “Do you have it?”
“There wasn’t anything about this bridge in the tome,” Siouxsie said. “Trust me. It’s safe.”
“You might have missed something—”
“I said it’s safe! Come on, guys. I can read an email.”
Karl had been quiet mostly all session—that’s how he was—but now he chirped in. He spoke flawless English with just a slight accent: “Robur knows Supernal Vision. Maybe I should check.”
“Do you say that?” I asked.
“Yes. Robur says, ‘Perhaps I should examine the bridge for enchantments first, to be safe’.”
“We know what enchantments it holds!” Eris snapped. “You would be wasting your time. And your valuable spell points. Do we intend to dawdle forever in this cave, until we are so old we may pass through that mirror without need for magic? The writing is clear.” Back to herself again, Siouxsie said, “You have the highest AC, Vlodmir. You should go first.”
Sam sensed that Siouxsie was up to something, and added on, with Kauom’s gruff voice, “Yeah. Yeah, she’s right. You should go first. You’ve got the highest AC. It’s only fair. I’ll keep you safe, boy.”
“Robur can go first—” Karl started.
“No!” Ian said. “No, I can go. They’re right. And you can lift me with levitation if anything happens, right?”
“Of course,” Eris said. “I would never let you fall.”
Ian nodded. “Okay. Vlodmir steps out onto the bridge and makes his way across. Does it fall?”
I shook my head. “No, it doesn’t fall. Vlodmir, can you make me a saving throw?”
“A saving throw? That’s a 20, right?”
“d20. What’s your save against Lightning?”
“Lightning? It’s 16. What’s this for? What’s happening?”
“I’ll tell you after you roll.”
Ian had a look of puppy-like nervousness, but he nodded again and tossed his die. It came up as a four. “Damn. What happens?”
I gathered up 6d6. “Now I roll for damage.” The six dice came up with a total of 25. “How much HP do you have, Vlodmir?”
“Uh—two.”
Killing PCs always gives me a sort of high. I can’t explain it. It’s far in the back of my head, like a strong release of endorphins just to know that my dice have another notch in them. This was the first time I’d killed someone other than Sam in years.
It felt good. Especially because Vlodmir was so fucking boring. I would’ve been sad if it had been Eris. If your GM ever says he doesn’t prefer some PCs over others, take it from me—he’s lying. Although: was I the one who killed Vlodmir, or was Siouxsie?
“Okay, Vlodmir," I said. "Here’s what happens. You step a few feet down onto the bridge, when your hair begins to stand on edge. You inhale and smell something sweet, like rain in the air, until—suddenly comes a flash of light. You try to duck out of the way, but you aren’t fast enough. A field of lightning materializes around you. You try to scream, but by the time the air leaves your lungs, they’ve already begun to disintegrate. We see the resulting nothingness from the other players’ PoV, as when you look again—Vlodmir is gone.”
“What?” Ian almost shouted. He sounded angry. “Just like that? I don’t even get to do anything?”
“Manaseared is a brutal game,” Sam said.
“You got to make a saving throw,” Siouxsie said. “That’s something. Eris wants to get across the bridge as fast as possible now.”
“Okay, Eris. You sprint across the bridge. Nothing happens.”
“What?” Sam yelled as Kauom, “Get back here, witch! I’m chasing after her!”
“You chase after her and arrive unscathed on the island. Robur? Do you follow?”
Karl shrugged, then nodded.
“Okay. You all reach the island. You see—”
“What the fuck!” Ian yelled. “What the fuck is this?”
“Simple business,” Siouxsie said.
“You knew it was trapped?”
“Does anyone ever really know anything?”
“You fucking bitch!” He stood up, throwing his pencil, and he crumpled his character sheet in one hand. “I haven’t even done anything yet! There hasn’t been any combat!”
“You did exactly what we needed you to,” Siouxsie said. There was no English to her accent, but I wondered if she meant it as Eris.
“Is that—is that why—you fucking—fuck you! Fuck all of you, I don’t need this fucking shit.”
We were in the school library, as always, and he tossed his character sheet at me and stormed out. The door to the study room slammed shut behind him.
“Shit,” Sam said. “What’s his problem? It’s not like he had good stats anyway.”
“Did you know?” Karl asked cautiously.
“Of course not,” Siouxsie said. “Although there was some reason to suspect.”
“I could’ve checked…”
“If you had checked, we wouldn’t have gotten through.”
“She’s right,” Sam said. “Honestly it’s a good thing she taught him the lesson before he got too attached. You’re ice cold, Siouxsie.”
“By the way,” I said, “that’s one hundred XP for acting out your alignment of Chaotic Evil, tripled for embodying it against another PC.”
“Thank you,” she said. She noted this down on her character sheet.
“Do you always play this way?” Karl said.
“Pretty much,” Sam said.
“Nothing so cutthroat, usually,” I said, “but pretty much. By the way, Siouxsie, you could’ve hired a torchbearer to walk into the Wall of Light instead.”
“I could’ve, but then I would’ve been out 200 XP,” she said. “Don’t blame me for playing to win.”
“Ah, the Nuremberg defense of gaming,” Sam said. “But you can’t hold it against her for racking up the levels. It’s the name of the game.”
“The name of the game is Manaseared,” Siouxsie said. “Which is probably why you’re playing a dwarf.”
“We can’t all play Harry Potter. Someone has to be Hagrid.”
Karl spoke up, “Robur doesn’t quite know how to feel about this…”
Siouxsie rolled her eyes performatively. “Eris turns to Robur and says, ‘Of course I had no notion the bridge was trapped. The book made no mention of it’.”
“Sure didn’t,” Kauom said. Sam laughed.
“We will mourn Ian—I mean Vlodmir—when we find a moment of peace. For now, let us proceed?”
“Eris,” I said, “can you roll Manipulation against Robur?”
“I would be delighted to,” Siouxsie said.
“Obstacle is equal to his Wisdom. What’s Robur’s Wisdom?”
“Uhm—eleven.”
Siouxsie rolled her d20. The result was 15, enough to pass, but raised to 22 from her +7 to Manipulate (+4 from Charisma and training, +3 for the Black Widow special perk that activated whenever she lied to advance her alignment goals. Eris was quite literally twice as good at lying as she was at using magic, which reflected less on her magical talents and more on her disinterest in building her skills wide).
“Robur,” I said, “I know Eris seems agitated, but you believe every word she says. You might still be suspicious, but I’ll give you fifty XP at session end if you can hold to the results of that roll.”
He nodded. “Robur is very naïve, so—this makes sense.”
Sam leaned back in his chair. “So. You think Ian will be back?”
“Not anytime soon,” I said.
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Ian was not back. But three was plenty for Manaseared, and we played well into the following summer with this same group. Kauom proved Sam’s longest lived character, after Zyd made it only ten sessions and Guinevere made it hardly five. It wasn’t until session 20 that I killed Kauom while mind controlling Eris. Sam wasn’t deterred, he never was, but he did decide to drop out of the game until the start of next semester.
That summer was when Siouxsie and Nathan got back together. Again. And just like that, the drama disappeared, and we could all be friends once more. The parties rejoined. Siouxsie and Karl got to experience what they were missing out on in Darom, and I enlisted Sam and a few of his friends to come with us on our confrontation of Lord Arqa.
You’ll be surprised to hear none of them survived. Not even Sam’s new PC Absalom, who was honestly kind of cool—I think even he was bummed out about that one. When it was all over he came to me and said, “I’m thinking about joining back up full time.”
“Awesome! We’re up to level six now, and I think we’ve finally graduated from dungeon delving, so I’d like to bring you in near that level. Do you know who you want to play?”
“Yes. I have an amazing idea.”
“Is it another halfling?”
“No.”
“Is it another dwarf?”
“No! I’m gonna play Pyraz.”
That was how I relinquished control of my favorite dog, and soon found our party with yet another magician. Meanwhile Karl returned to Sweden, and with Astera’s sacrifice at the end of the Darom arc, Aletheia was back under my control. That was good enough for me—she was always my favorite NPC (and don’t tell my players, but no one except Eris ever was half so interesting as she was)—but even better was that Astera had died in the process.
Good fucking riddance. I couldn’t stand that goddamn elf. I’ve never seen anyone roll so many 20s and kill so many of my cool NPCs, and she didn’t make up for it in personality. Her only trait was being an asshole. She redeemed herself in the end, but I lost all confidence in her player, Lily, when she abandoned Aletheia to Lord Arqa like a bloodwurst. It was too far even for me. Even for Siouxsie!
Lily left the group after that. By the time Fall of our sophomore year came around, it was down to just Siouxsie, Nathan, and Sam.
Thankfully Siouxsie and Nathan stayed together for good this time. We got into more of the advanced rules of Manaseared and the campaign got fucking crazy. But I’ll have to tell those stories some other time. The moral of this story is that if you ever have two players who decide to start dating, tell them to go fuck themselves. Even if it works out for you in the end, you’ll have to spend ten extra hours planning each session, and if you want to invite some friends over to play Risk or Halo 3 together, you’ll need to consult your flow chart of “who’s still talking to whom.” I hate that shit. Keep your drama out of my RPGs.
But running two groups in the same world at once? That was pretty cool. I recommend doing that.