Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 08, 2024, 02:03:27 AM

Quote from: jhkim on February 07, 2024, 11:14:05 PM
Thanks for the added info, Cipher.

What's not clear to me is that you said you had no way to know that the DM was portraying these vampire spawn as possibly (though not necessarily) innocent victims under an evil curse. However, somehow all the other players were on the same page as the DM. If there was no way for you to know, how did all the other players understand this?

I take it that you were faced with what appeared to be the merchant whose house this was. It seems implied that he wasn't offering any violence towards you, and instead was trying to talk with you. Is that right? What was he trying to say? How did your group know what he was?

Basically, I don't get how the other players came to an understanding with the DM. This reminds me how last month I revisited a time back in 2006, where the GM of a Harn game I was playing in posted on HarnForums about how his players were out of line in their violence (i.e. me and the other players). i.e. He posted complaining that we were "murderhobos". However, I and another player joined in on the thread, and we eventually talked through the clash.

https://www.facebook.com/john.h.kim1/posts/pfbid0ca4cb6Qc2bxcXbCAAHrcXDPLSQre9qkGC1ZdWH1id1iKFas19aB1KveDzdnPrH5Fl

---

To be clear - I have nothing against a game where all vampires should be killed on sight and never talked to. I also have nothing against a game where a vampire might be an innocent victim or even a heroic protagonist, and it's premature to instantly kill one that's trying to talk. Either way, it's just a game.

Because the only new player was Cipher.

Pretty much... yeah. If the DM had expressed before that in his games no creature is always Evil or that alignment is more of a guideline and that whatever RAW says about it is fluff, then I was never informed. I could only go on with what I know of the setting (Forgotten Realms) and my own experience with D&D in general, since this was my first time actually playing 5e.

However, after reading the Monster's Manual, the entry on vampires fully agrees with my take that vampires are always evil and that their own undead existence corrupts their "once pure feelings" and twists them, even if they recall their past memories. Seems to me the game agrees undead are monsters or at least vampires are always monsters.

Monster's Manual page 295:

PLAYER CHARACTERS AS VAMPIRES

The game statistics of a player character
transformed into a vampire spawn and then a
vampire don't change, except that the character's Strength,
Dexterity, and Constitution scores become 18 if they aren't
higher. In addition, the character gains the vampire's damage
resistances, darkvision, traits, and actions. Attack and
damage rolls for the vampire's attacks are based on Strength.
The save DC for Charm is 8 + the vampire's proficiency
bonus+ the vampire's Charisma modifier. The character's
alignment becomes lawful evil, and the DM might take
control of the character until the vampirism is reversed with
a wish spell or the character is killed and brought back to life.


Also, just before that blurb, there's this gem describing vampires:

Dark Desires. Whether or not a vampire retains
any memories from its former life, its emotional
attachments wither as once-pure feelings become
twisted by undeath. Love turns into hungry
obsession, while friendship becomes bitter
jealousy. In place of emotion, vampires pursue
physical symbols of what they crave, so that a
vampire seeking love might fixate on a young beauty.
A child might become an object of fascination for a
vampire obsessed with youth and potential. Others
surround themselves with art, books, or sinister items
such as torture devices or trophies from creatures
they have killed.

As per RAW, even if a Player Character becomes a vampire they are now "lawful evil" and their memories and feelings from their past life are corrupted and twisted by their undead existence. Basically, no gray area here.

I understand not everyone plays RAW, but in my day, making such a big change to the way a monster is RAW required the DM to communicate this with the Players.

After reading the longer version of event, I still hold firm in my original assessment.

When they started attacking you personally, that's when they crossed the line.

They really have a warped sense of morality when it comes to labeling things as bigotry.

I can only imagine what they consider racist or sexists (they'd probably consider the title of Oriental Adventures "racist").

I hope this sort of behavior isn't considered "normal" among gaming groups today.

First off Cipher let me say you are a better man than I would have been, given your description of the situation.

For what it's worth (considering I'm just some random guy on the internet and a FNG to the boards), I think you handled the whole affair with maturity and patience.

Now it's probably the better part of the bottle of Jameson's (on ice, the only way to drink good whiskey) I've been sipping this afternoon but I still having problems as to the why?  You were called a bigot, to your person.  How in the f**k does an in character statement in a fantasy game translate into a personal attack?  Is this what the hobby has become in the 15-17 years I've been away from it?  For Fox Lake.

It makes me mad.

Quote from: blackstone on February 08, 2024, 08:16:51 AM
After reading the longer version of event, I still hold firm in my original assessment.

When they started attacking you personally, that's when they crossed the line.

Wait -- as a question to Cipher - were they saying that you were a bigot in real life? From your descriptions, I thought this was about your character and fantasy bigotry, not about you as a player.

In general, my stance has been that it's fine to have different fantasy worlds -- including ones where those infected with vampirism could be innocent or even heroic. That's not a political stance, it's a fucking fantasy world. It's also fine to have bigotry in the game. There's nothing inherently wrong with, say, a dwarf PC who says "Never trust an elf" or a heroic vampire PC who has to struggle with those who hate her for her condition. But it's also fine for group to have a rule "We don't want to have fantasy bigotry in our game." If that's the agreed-on rule for the fantasy game, then a player should have stick with that rule.

But that's all about fantasy. If they were accusing you of real-life bigotry, Cipher, then that would be out of bounds (and ridiculous).

  Why is it not OK to be racist and a bigot towards Vampires?   Filthy blood sucking monsters who kill intelligent prey for pleasure and to live.  I think some things are just fine to be racist/bigoted about...alien monsters killing your friends and people around you?   Be as racist as you want.  Really dumb take to be called bigoted for attacking a literal monster from hell.

Quote from: oggsmash on February 09, 2024, 12:10:21 PM
  Why is it not OK to be racist and a bigot towards Vampires?   Filthy blood sucking monsters who kill intelligent prey for pleasure and to live.  I think some things are just fine to be racist/bigoted about...alien monsters killing your friends and people around you?   Be as racist as you want.  Really dumb take to be called bigoted for attacking a literal monster from hell.

If you want to run a game where all vampires are by definition from hell, I'm fine with that. Your game, your rules.

Conversely, someone else can run a game where there are innocent or even good people struggling with the curse of vampirism, like SHARK's example of Genieveve Du Monte (in Warhammer) or my examples of Regis (in The Witcher) or Pwent (in Forgotten Realms). If it's their game, it's their rules.

Different things can be true in different fantasy worlds.

This isn't a fucking real-world political difference. And these examples of heroic vampires aren't from recent SJW fiction either. It's a concept that's been around for decades. Even in the original Dracula, they had sign after sign of Lucy being a vampire, but kept investigating until she attacked them before staking her corpse.

Count me among the "Unwanted, insidious and maybe even mailicious: Will not play at a table that enforces them."  People who need these need to have their heads examined. 

Quote from: jhkim on February 09, 2024, 12:58:42 PM

Quote from: oggsmash on February 09, 2024, 12:10:21 PM
  Why is it not OK to be racist and a bigot towards Vampires?   Filthy blood sucking monsters who kill intelligent prey for pleasure and to live.  I think some things are just fine to be racist/bigoted about...alien monsters killing your friends and people around you?   Be as racist as you want.  Really dumb take to be called bigoted for attacking a literal monster from hell.

If you want to run a game where all vampires are by definition from hell, I'm fine with that. Your game, your rules.

Conversely, someone else can run a game where there are innocent or even good people struggling with the curse of vampirism, like SHARK's example of Genieveve Du Monte (in Warhammer) or my examples of Regis (in The Witcher) or Pwent (in Forgotten Realms). If it's their game, it's their rules.

Different things can be true in different fantasy worlds.

This isn't a fucking real-world political difference. And these examples of heroic vampires aren't from recent SJW fiction either. It's a concept that's been around for decades. Even in the original Dracula, they had sign after sign of Lucy being a vampire, but kept investigating until she attacked them before staking her corpse.

  What does your weird tirade here have to do with me talking about the people Cipher was playing with calling him a bigot for having his character draw a sword and attack a vampire?  One that according the what his party had found up to that point was not some hero struggling with a curse at that.

Ok, can we clarify that there's two separate and basically unrelated arguments going on here: One has to do with the behavior of the this particular GM and his party. The other is about the nature of Vampires and Paladins.

On the first question, I think every post has agreed the behavior is out of line. The best possible faith interpretation is Cipher and the rest of the group interpreting the described situation differently. If that was the case, then it's incumbent on the GM and the other players to discuss it like adults. At bare minimum, Cipher should have been given the opportunity to retcon his behavior, based on the fact that this game's version of Faerun is not what an outsider would expect. Frankly, I suspect that the entire incident was a pretense. I suspect this group didn't want Cipher to keep playing, and were too conflict averse come out and say it, so they waited for an excuse to gang up on him without it (in their minds) looking personal.

On the question of "What is a Vampire?". I mean, the obvious answer is "it depends who you ask". JHKim is right that the Vampire as tragic or heroic figure has been around since at least the 70s, and the Vampire Spawn as a victim who could potentially be rescued has been around since Dracula. At the same time, the idea that vampires are wicked abominations and must be destroyed has been around since at least the 17th century. I don't know my Forgotten Realms lore well enough to say what's right in that environment, and anyway, a DM always has the prerogative of saying "in my game Vampires are X, Y or Z"

What I feel a bit more strongly about is the moral question. AFAIC "smite first and ask questions later" is categorically an attitude unworthy of a Paladin. If D&D is frontier justice, then the Paladin is the whitest of white-hat cowboys. Lawful Good means you try to do the right thing in every situation, and that means taking the extra effort to find out what the right thing to do is. That's what makes Paladins interesting to play, being the man of honor in a lawless world. You don't get to take the lazy solutions. Paladin should be the hardest class to play, because being a legitimately good person is hard work.

Having said all that, it sounds like Cipher did his due diligence. If I read the explanatory post right, he had sufficient evidence to conclude that the vampire spawn presented a clear and present danger to innocent lives. Could you argue there was time to interrogate him? Sure, but what if he doesn't surrender? D&D doesn't have great mechanics for subduing an enemy and Vampires are notoriously difficult to imprison. What if he takes the opportunity to turn into mist and escape? I don't know if vampire spawn can do that, but neither does Cipher's character. Frankly, this shows why I dislike game mechanics that expect a DM to directly act out the will of the gods. Maybe it was the wrong action, maybe not. But it sounds like the the intent was right. Does that justify the divine retribution of losing his Paladin levels? Does Lathander want you to investigate, or does he want you to destroy undead wherever you find them? With a real world religion, the PC can have their own interpretation of their god's doctrine, and can grapple with the consequences of possibly having gotten it wrong. Plus the DM gets to keep their neutrality on the question. Having the DM step in and say "your god says you did wrong" is not only less interesting, but it's also always going to come over as the DM themselves saying they don't like the way you play.

Quote from: ForgottenF on February 09, 2024, 09:02:25 PM
Frankly, I suspect that the entire incident was a pretense. I suspect this group didn't want Cipher to keep playing, and were too conflict averse come out and say it, so they waited for an excuse to gang up on him without it (in their minds) looking personal.

My thoughts as well. They sensed he was not part of their tribe, and they waited for the smallest excuse to exile him.

Quote from: jhkim on February 09, 2024, 12:03:49 PM

Quote from: blackstone on February 08, 2024, 08:16:51 AM
After reading the longer version of event, I still hold firm in my original assessment.

When they started attacking you personally, that's when they crossed the line.

Wait -- as a question to Cipher - were they saying that you were a bigot in real life? From your descriptions, I thought this was about your character and fantasy bigotry, not about you as a player.

In general, my stance has been that it's fine to have different fantasy worlds -- including ones where those infected with vampirism could be innocent or even heroic. That's not a political stance, it's a fucking fantasy world. It's also fine to have bigotry in the game. There's nothing inherently wrong with, say, a dwarf PC who says "Never trust an elf" or a heroic vampire PC who has to struggle with those who hate her for her condition. But it's also fine for group to have a rule "We don't want to have fantasy bigotry in our game." If that's the agreed-on rule for the fantasy game, then a player should have stick with that rule.

But that's all about fantasy. If they were accusing you of real-life bigotry, Cipher, then that would be out of bounds (and ridiculous).

I was the one being a bigot since I decided to use the term "filthy bloodsucker" which turns out to be hateful speech or something like that, at this point its been a week and I don't remember the exact wording. But the word "hate" was thrown around and the word "bigotry" was used to specifically refer to how I broke the trigger warning agreement of "no racism, no bigotry and no bullying".

So, it was most definitely levied at me as I said many many times at this point, there was no in-character discussion of the matter at all. As soon as I announced that action, the game stopped and we, the Players, had a lengthy almost 2 hour discussion which ended with the DM finally ruling that I would lose my powers if I went ahead with attacking the vampire. Once again, I entertained the discussion for as long as I did because, since I am not a racist nor a bigot, I was sure this was just a miscommunication/misunderstanding and if I only I explained my train of thought, we could sort it out and keep the game going.

When it became apparent that the only way moving forward was accepting that a Paladin of Lathander cannot strike down a vampire on sight, I decided the game was no longer for me.

I've said many many times in this thread, that if there was a discussion in-character about the value of interrogating the vampire, if the DM had told me that in his world vampires count as people even though they are undead and so striking them down without being threatened with violence first counts as an act of unprovoked violence, if at any point during the game I was told that in this version of the Realms, Lathander is not anti-undead like the way its represented in the canon version of Forgotten Realms, then I would have acted differently.

For me, after having that lengthy discussion, it was not an acceptable outcome to have to accept that I was being a bigot for calling the vampire a filthy bloodsucker and that striking the vampire while we got the surprise round advantage amounted to murder.

And thus, I decided that if that was the way stuff like this was going to be handled, then the game was not for me.

As I said in the opening post, I expect this stuff to be discussed as adults not to halt the game and then having to explain why I am not a murderhobo or a bigot. Also, if we are going to use stuff that has an established canon, I expect the deviations to that established lore to be communicated before hand.

To me, the situation left me know that at any future point during the game, I could be found breaking the trigger warnings in a way that I don't agree means breaking and that the lore of both D&D as per RAW and the Forgotten Realms could be deviated without prior knowledge. I just don't like that kind of game.

As I said, it would have been different if the DM quickly had said "oh yeah, you are new so I forgot to tell you, I don't really play RAW with the monster's alignment and in my version of Forgotten Realms the gods behave and this and that way, which makes it so you would be breaking your Oath by acting in this manner". That would have been completely different.

But, we had to have the discussion. I was expected to accept I used hateful speech/bigoted words, that I broke the trigger warning agreement, that I was in the wrong and then correct my actions. For me, at that point, this wasn't an acceptable outcome, given the circumstances.

D&D has black and white morality. Alignments are not just words. I've shown how the very Monster's Manual describes vampires. Not as morally gray tragic figures, but as foul monsters, who's very essence is twisted and corrupted by their undead existence. If this is not going to be the case, then I expect someone to let me know before hand.

Also, no such qualms about killing giant spiders, actual living creatures, on sight without even entertaining the idea of using non-lethal attacks. Additionally, I only said that I drawn my sword and smite the vampire. That doesn't mean he would have perished. Yes, my intention was to destroy the vampire, but that doesn't mean that situations in-character, y'know, actual roleplay couldn't have persuaded my character to only take him out without finishing the job.

There were other factors that I did not like about the way the game was run but it wasn't anything too egregious and I was so desperate to play again that I overlooked them. But to me, this was the straw that broke the camel. I just cannot justify to myself separating 5 to 6 hours of my leisure time to play a game when everything can grind to halt due to stuff like this. Either we play as adults and discuss as adults or we actually roleplay out actions and their consequences or to me the game is just not worth it.

Just one of them, in-character, saying something like "wait, Sir Paladin! he is but a cog in this vicious machine. He is not the villain we are looking for. We need to get to the root. We need to find his Master. Stay your hand so we can get the information we need and end this nightmare once and for all!"

Or anything that amounts to that, and I would have been 100% fine with that approach.


However, even on this very thread I can see people saying that "well, vampires can be good so yeah, that's murder!" then, we'll just have to agree to disagree. If we cannot count on RAW, on the established lore for the setting we are playing, on the DM to communicate deviations to both RAW and the established setting, if the Player is to defend himself from accusations instead of having actual roleplay in a ROLEPLAYING GAME, if the game can be ground to a halt with an X-Card.

Then, that game is just not for me.

Quote from: aganauton on February 08, 2024, 11:10:49 PM
First off Cipher let me say you are a better man than I would have been, given your description of the situation.

For what it's worth (considering I'm just some random guy on the internet and a FNG to the boards), I think you handled the whole affair with maturity and patience.

Now it's probably the better part of the bottle of Jameson's (on ice, the only way to drink good whiskey) I've been sipping this afternoon but I still having problems as to the why?  You were called a bigot, to your person.  How in the f**k does an in character statement in a fantasy game translate into a personal attack?  Is this what the hobby has become in the 15-17 years I've been away from it?  For Fox Lake.

It makes me mad.

Thank you for your kind words of encouragement, Aganauton.

I don't really see myself as a "better man" than anyone else. I do strive to be kind, truthful and earnest towards others and follow the golden rule: "treat others as I would like to be treated".

And I did my best to adhere to that rule in this situation. I never actually felt attacked, since I know I am not a bigot. I treated it as a miscommunication/misunderstanding. I was unable to convey that to the rest of the group. It's fine. They can have fun with their trigger warnings in games. I will, and have, moved on to greener pastures.

Quote from: Aglondir on February 09, 2024, 09:25:53 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on February 09, 2024, 09:02:25 PM
Frankly, I suspect that the entire incident was a pretense. I suspect this group didn't want Cipher to keep playing, and were too conflict averse come out and say it, so they waited for an excuse to gang up on him without it (in their minds) looking personal.

My thoughts as well. They sensed he was not part of their tribe, and they waited for the smallest excuse to exile him.

If that was the case I would be surprised, since I though things were going great in terms of Player and party dynamics. Yeah, I don't even like D&D 5e and there was some stuff that I would have handled differently in terms of running the game, but such is life when you've been a forever GM for over a decade so, as a Player, I try to have fun and not judge others too harshly on the way they run things.

However, I do agree it was extremely jarring the way the game ground to halt and that all the arguments were levied against me and not my character. On the other hand, reading some comments in this thread has opened my eyes that some people do actually agree with that approach. So, perhaps it was just a matter of different mindsets that ended up incompatible for enjoying the hobby.

If this was their way to kick me out, then I say "good riddance". I wouldn't be having much fun with that kind of crowd anyways, sooner or later.

As I said in my opening post, back in the day, there was no "trigger warning/safety tools/X-Cards" stuff. We just talked things out as a adults outside of the game, either before, after or during a break and that was it.

I've come out of this experience with my eyes opened and I now know that a game with trigger warnings is actually a red flag for me, and thankfully now I know to steer clear from such gaming groups.

Quote from: ForgottenF on February 09, 2024, 09:02:25 PM

What I feel a bit more strongly about is the moral question. AFAIC "smite first and ask questions later" is categorically an attitude unworthy of a Paladin. If D&D is frontier justice, then the Paladin is the whitest of white-hat cowboys. Lawful Good means you try to do the right thing in every situation, and that means taking the extra effort to find out what the right thing to do is. That's what makes Paladins interesting to play, being the man of honor in a lawless world. You don't get to take the lazy solutions. Paladin should be the hardest class to play, because being a legitimately good person is hard work.

I 100% agree with this take, and that is the reason why I like playing Paladins in D&D and D&D-like games. The difference is that Lathander, the Morninglord, an established deity in the Forgotten Realms setting is anti-undead. As a paladin of Lathander, I share this view.

From the Forgotten Realms wiki, this part is talking about Lathander's personality, taken from the Faiths and Pantheons book published in 2002 by Wizards:

"Exuberant and friendly, his interests laid in vibrant life (regarding both birth and nature), and conversely urged the destruction of the corrupted mockeries of life that he saw the undead as."

Also, we have this past talking about Lathander's worshipers, taken also form the Faiths and Pantheons book:

"All of Lathander's clergy respected art, liberty, nature, and culture; promoted betterment of oneself; and strove to bring hope to their followers and others. Many of these followers worked in various creative arts.They were intolerant of evil, especially undead and inaction that caused evil to prosper."

As such, I would argue that as a level 3 character I am actually making the hard decision here. Instead of offering the vampire parley and a way to bribe his way out of this situation, I am laying down Lathander's judgement and mercy by releasing this poor soul from the torment of undeath.


To summarize, if a Player Character becomes a vampire in 5e by RAW, their alignment is changed to "lawful evil", the same alignment full vampires have in the Monster's Manual description. Why would that be if it isn't to let the DM and the Players know that vampires are always evil, even if they weren't before being turned?

Additionally, one more time, here is what the 5e Monster's Manual says about vampires:

"Dark Desires: Whether or not a vampire retains
any memories from its former life, its emotional
attachments wither as once-pure feelings become
twisted by undeath. Love turns into hungry
obsession, while friendship becomes bitter
jealousy. In place of emotion, vampires pursue
physical symbols of what they crave, so that a
vampire seeking love might fixate on a young beauty.
A child might become an object of fascination for a
vampire obsessed with youth and potential. Others
surround themselves with art, books, or sinister items
such as torture devices or trophies from creatures
they have killed."


So, by all accounts, both 5e and Lathander from Forgotten Realms view undead and, by extension, vampires as evil that is to be destroyed, not reasoned with.

Quote from: ForgottenF on February 09, 2024, 09:02:25 PM

Having said all that, it sounds like Cipher did his due diligence. If I read the explanatory post right, he had sufficient evidence to conclude that the vampire spawn presented a clear and present danger to innocent lives.

Indeed. At the very least, he was guilty of kidnapping and imprisoning innocents. Leaving them to waste away without food, to me, also counts as a form of torture. That's three serious crimes right there. And that's the stuff that we can prove beyond the shadow of the doubt. Then, there's the situation of what happened to the other people that was in the cells that were recently used but were empty when we arrived at the scene. Feasted upon? Trafficked to the Master or some slave trader? Who knows.

Quote from: ForgottenF on February 09, 2024, 09:02:25 PM
Could you argue there was time to interrogate him? Sure, but what if he doesn't surrender? D&D doesn't have great mechanics for subduing an enemy and Vampires are notoriously difficult to imprison. What if he takes the opportunity to turn into mist and escape? I don't know if vampire spawn can do that, but neither does Cipher's character.

This was my approach and when the Player's called me a murderhobo. I explained that, since the vampire was looking at the window and turned our way when we busted through the door, we had the drop on him. There is no way to assess if the vampire has magics, ancient artifacts, minions in the vicinity, or a way to escape like just jumping through the window. He is a vampire, after all. Relinquishing the drop we got on him was ill-advised and to our detriment, not to our advantage. And that's just being pragmatic, never mind the stuff I already presented clearly detailing the way vampires are viewed by both 5e RAW and by Lathander in Forgotten Realms.

I agreed plenty of times in this thread that there could have been value in interrogating him and if such an argument was made in-character from the other characters towards my character, I would have been perfectly fine with that development and 100% open to stay my hand. However, no such argument was made.

And, I also have said that I understand not everyone plays RAW, which is completely fine. However, if we are deviating from both 5e RAW and Forgotten Realms established lore in terms of Lathander's view towards undeads in general, then without this being communicated to me I can only go on with the information I have at hand and that my character should know.

As a paladin of Lathander and his worshiper, I know the views of the Morninglord towards the mockery of life that are undead creatures.

I don't really like to have the established image of my character based on his background, life experiences and in this case, his faith, to be suddenly retconned midgame but I would have been OK with that if the DM had said something right after I announced my intentions towards the vampire, instead of the discussion being around how I broke the trigger warnings agreement made on Session 0.

Quote from: Cipher on February 10, 2024, 01:13:43 AM

Quote from: jhkim on February 09, 2024, 12:03:49 PM
Wait -- as a question to Cipher - were they saying that you were a bigot in real life? From your descriptions, I thought this was about your character and fantasy bigotry, not about you as a player.

In general, my stance has been that it's fine to have different fantasy worlds -- including ones where those infected with vampirism could be innocent or even heroic. That's not a political stance, it's a fucking fantasy world. It's also fine to have bigotry in the game. There's nothing inherently wrong with, say, a dwarf PC who says "Never trust an elf" or a heroic vampire PC who has to struggle with those who hate her for her condition. But it's also fine for group to have a rule "We don't want to have fantasy bigotry in our game." If that's the agreed-on rule for the fantasy game, then a player should have stick with that rule.

But that's all about fantasy. If they were accusing you of real-life bigotry, Cipher, then that would be out of bounds (and ridiculous).

I was the one being a bigot since I decided to use the term "filthy bloodsucker" which turns out to be hateful speech or something like that, at this point its been a week and I don't remember the exact wording. But the word "hate" was thrown around and the word "bigotry" was used to specifically refer to how I broke the trigger warning agreement of "no racism, no bigotry and no bullying".

So, it was most definitely levied at me as I said many many times at this point, there was no in-character discussion of the matter at all.

This leaves it ambiguous what they're talking about. There's a difference between out-of-character discussion about a character and out-of-character discussion about the player. For example, if in my old HarnMaster game, if someone were to say "Baraud is bigoted", then I'd respond "Hell yes he is." That isn't a judgement against me as a player, because my character isn't myself, and I would agree that Baraud the character was bigoted. Does that makes sense? i.e.

In-character: "Baraud, you are a bigoted villain. I, Tornhaus, will not stand for it."

Out-of-character about the character: "Hey, jhkim, your character Baraud seems bigoted." "Yes, he is."

Out-of-character about the player: "Hey, jhkim, you're being a bigot by how you play your character Baraud."

Quote from: Cipher on February 10, 2024, 01:13:43 AM
However, even on this very thread I can see people saying that "well, vampires can be good so yeah, that's murder!" then, we'll just have to agree to disagree. If we cannot count on RAW, on the established lore for the setting we are playing, on the DM to communicate deviations to both RAW and the established setting, if the Player is to defend himself from accusations instead of having actual roleplay in a ROLEPLAYING GAME, if the game can be ground to a halt with an X-Card.

Here I disagree. As DM, I am not required to pre-announce to players if there are monsters different than the description in the Monster Manual. I will freely introduce new monsters, variant monsters, new monsters that look like old monsters, or old monsters that look different than their canonical description. I'll only tell the player as much about a monster type as their character would reasonably know. I might give a skill roll for their character to know some details, based on their background.

That said, from your description, it sounds like the characters were supposed to know something about vampires - though some of this was possibly metagaming. The biggest mess sounds like the DM sitting largely silent when he could have cut short the long argument among the players. I would think that the other players or you would demand a ruling to settle the issue.