Cowardly ranger?

[Glorelendil]

Then we have this ranger, who picked a reward at character creation of a famous sword with a huge backstory of protecting the weak and innocent at all costs.
(...)

Out of curiosity, which reward?

I wondered the same thing. All I can think is that it's an Heirloom of Lost Arnor, in which case maybe it's not actually a usable sword.

[Deadmanwalking]

It could've just been a sword with Fell or Grievous or something and a good backstory.

[Rich H]

I agree with what others have said here about not knowing enough about the situation within the game to decide whether the Ranger was being cowardly or not. At the moment I'm thinking he was just being sensible - sounds like there were three PCs hunting a huge troll and two were in close combat. Personally if it was my campaign I'd expect one to make ranged attacks and go with prepared shots as those pesky trolls are difficult to take down.

I'd like to know:

- The traits the ranger has
- Just how many PCs were in the party
- What the Rangers combat related stats were at the time
- Whether they'd faced a troll before

I think those to me would all be variables as to whether the Ranger was being cowardly or just plain cautious/sensible. These kind of questions about decisions/rulings made in a game that we've not been present in are always fraught with pitfalls.

[killianred]

His reward was an heirloom of lost Arnor, but we figured it would be usable. He made up a long backstory of the sword being used by rangers in the past to persevere against long odds and certain death, and the legacy dictated that the sword's owners would live up to those ideals. His character was much more leaning toward using the sword if at all possible against using ranged weapons, and he has greater skill in the sword. It was supposed to be something of a focus for him, a central part of who the character is. The guy who got killed was an elf who travelled with him from Rivendell to woodland town, so they were friends who had known each other for a while. What it came down was that when danger reared its ugly head, instead of going into melee he played it safe. I'm thinking that even though he can probably justify himself to other people, in his heart he knows that he let his friend down, and that is going to weigh on him from now on, hence the SP's now and if he gets more SP's in the future they may tie back to the guilt and remorse from this incident

[Valarian]

Was the elf also his fellowship focus, because that's worth extra shadow points.

[doctheweasel]

I would never give out Shadow Points for misdeeds unless I warned the player first and allowed them to choose to follow through anyway. Handing them out after the fact goes against the spirit (and actual rules) of the system.

Personally, I think only a full retreat would be an act of cowardice. Ruling that fighting in ranged instead close combat is cowardly enough to count as a misdeed sounds more like punishing the player for not acting the way the GM wanted him to.

That said, you could call for a Corruption check for Anguish.

[Rich H]

Good points made by Doc and certainly would support such a way of dealing with what's happened. Like he says, within the rules, where a Misdeed would result in Shadow point gains for the character, the LM should always point that out to their player so that he has the option of changing his mind.

That said, you could call for a Corruption check for Anguish.

Indeed. That would fit perfectly for this particular example.

[Trotter]

I think it would be interesting if the sword shattered, maybe the next time he drew it. If not that, the benefits should leave it. Perhaps this is a little too much like the latest Dresden Files novel Skin Game, but it worked there.

[saltmarsh]

Having read the posts about what happened and how the character is more geared up for using the sword he should have stepped up gone in to Melee and let one of the others stand back a use a bow probably the elf .
So yes I think a few shadow points are called for as he acted less than heroically in the fight

[killianred]

I honestly didn't think about SP's while it was happening. It didn't hit me until after the group had ended for the night and everyone had gone home. Maybe not any SP's this time, but I think bringing it back up later (dwelling in it for the character) would be a good basis for SP's he might get later on while doing other things. PC's get SP's while they do things, and for him an easy way for explaining them would be his memories of this event, and how those memories keep haunting him