Assassinating your own character

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seawied
Posts: 112
Joined: Mon Sep 21, 2015 6:22 am

Assassinating your own character

Unread post by seawied »

Let's say you have 2 characters on your account: Character A, and Character B. Are there any restrictions on Character A hiring Bob the Assassin for 50k to assassinate Character B?

Please note: Character A and Character B are role played by the same person.
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DM Golem
Posts: 8842
Joined: Mon Apr 07, 2014 6:00 pm

Re: Assassinating your own character

Unread post by DM Golem »

The rules prevent metagaming, in general terms. I've quoted the relevant section of the rules, and its drafted so as not to be an exhaustive list.
Hidden: show
– No Metagaming!
  • "Metagaming" is the use of knowledge not lawfully gained by a character in game.
    -> Such as but not limited to the following examples:
    • 1. Using the name over someones head as a name tag, until you meet that person in character, you do not know their name.
      2. Sending a tell to a friend who was not with you at the time of your death, to come to your location and raise you from the dead.
      3. Using information that you learned on character 1, and playing character 2 and using said information not lawfully gained on character 2.
      4. Do not use the NWN2 game mechanics to assume things your character would not otherwise know by their skills alone (i.e. saves on an aura, or seeing a spell cast).
There is a reason for this, as the rules on metagaming are intention/fair play driven. The same individual action can be a perfectly innocent attempt to promote RP or part of an orchestrated attempt to distort IC RP, depending on context. With regards to the use of alts, we have had both during my time here.

The actual act you describe in your post is one of those actions. On the face of it, you are not passing information between Character A and B, so its not part of the example given in the spoiler (Number 3)

However, what motivation does Character A have? Why would he have any reason to assassinate Character B? It suggests there has been interaction between the two character to a point of requiring murder. The potential for Metagaming influence there is significant. It is similar to cases where a player tries to have their PCs interact indirectly through proxies and thus spread information gained on one character, to another. This would still be metagaming (or, it can happen accidentally) and I would say the course of action would be to run the RP past DMs, and understand if the answer was a no.
NeOmega
Posts: 769
Joined: Fri Feb 17, 2012 12:13 pm
Location: Seattle

Re: Assassinating your own character

Unread post by NeOmega »

As far as I see it, if all parties involved are doing it to have fun, no-one reports it to DM's, and it is legal.

The rules are here to foster fun and stop bad feelings. IF you can find ways to generate fun amongst people you trust, play it out and accept with grace whichever the consequences, and with people who will play it out and accept with grace whatever the consequences, then no harm, no foul.
DM Ioulaum
Posts: 1607
Joined: Fri Aug 22, 2014 11:12 am

Re: Assassinating your own character

Unread post by DM Ioulaum »

NeOmega wrote:As far as I see it, if all parties involved are doing it to have fun, no-one reports it to DM's, and it is legal.

The rules are here to foster fun and stop bad feelings. IF you can find ways to generate fun amongst people you trust, play it out and accept with grace whichever the consequences, and with people who will play it out and accept with grace whatever the consequences, then no harm, no foul.
This is true. But metagaming can affect other players roleplay when they come into contact with yours. It is then that its determined whether there was metagaming, and if it was disruptive to the point where a sanction is necessary because rule breaking caused an incident.

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