Last night in my Steampunk Pathfinder game, the party was investigating a missing priest.

A priest, known for performing exorcisms in London went missing after attempting to perform one on a teenage girl. The investigation uncovered that he had spent most of the day, every day, for over a month working on it. The party got the guys journal which revealed he was becoming discouraged and fatigued, noting that the spirit was immune to fasting and prayer.

Well, they figured out that after the priest vanished the girl was taken to Bedlam, same institution where the crazy organist with his steam powered organ of destruction was taken. Party gets there and discovers that the girl is no longer possessed, however she is terrified of the staff and being kept in terrible conditions.

The party, mostly one player, believing that his authority as a member of the church gave him a free pass to do anything he wanted decided to take the girl and leave. Of course, the chaotic evil alienist that runs Bedlam jogs up and tells them that he isn't releasing her and if they press him he will summon the guard. The argument goes on for about two minutes, where at the end of it the guy playing the cleric stands up and says, "your game is just stupid, I quit. I should have the authority to do this because I can heal people."

Anyway, the other players sided with me. Its been a pretty heavy handed party of each game - tech vs. church vs. magic / order of reason verses the old world and were surprised he hadn't picked up on it.

Normally in my games, I do afford PC clerics Jesus levels of authority sense magic healers are few and far between, but I thought I was pretty clear that this wasn't the case in 19th century London. Guess I was wrong.

Anyway, he calmed down and the game continued.

I'd like to think the player was immersed in what was happening and just really emotionally invested in helping the girl.

Well, it really sounds like you fucked up somewhere in terms of telling the cleric PC what his actual political powers as a cleric really were.

RPGPundit

Oh, I agree.

In my defense, we had been playing in this world for quite a while with no sign of the church controlling anything. His character was introduced as a no-body, a priest on a cargo ship, essentially a vagabond. On two occasions, the party was directly taking orders from politicians. His sudden belief that he had some kind of political authority took me by surprise.

Well, usually in that kind of situation I will, as GM, say to the PC before the argument starts "you realize it's not actually within in your rights to do that, right?"

However, I get the sense that the player may have been frustrated from the get-go that his status didn't come with that authority and that just at that point did it finally come to a head. I'm not sure there's really that much you can do about that if they player won't say anything, except try to work it out personally in the wake of the session.