Yup. Yaofhil basically kept it up until I was in a situation where not smacking him around a little would have looked silly on my part. I tossed him into a room where nothing dangerous was.... but there was a lot of danger around him, and word/teleport wasn't an option.

The intent was for him to have to gather a rescue party to save his surly butt. Yaofhil being Yaofhil, he charged out and got himself killed eventually.

At the end of the event, I was of two minds:

1) Yaofhil was a well-played character, and challenging me was something that was not wholly incompatible with his role.

2) Challenging an evil god directly as a mortal is not a good plan.

The dividing line, and why I got a negative impression that day (which later changed as I saw him handle other situations very well), was that the character didn't demonstrate any element of fear or awe. He just talked to me the same way he'd talk to some level 3 duergar. It was like watching The Exorcist, except when the devil manifests itself, people just flip it the bird and go back to eating their Froot Loops.

This is a tricky call. You could just say "Yaofhil is like this guy I know, who will talk crap to -anyone- no matter how tough or important." However, I believe that analogy fails when you're in a world where you can be face to face with gods. Judging by historical examples where (otherwise brave/tough) cultures encountered other cultures with vastly superior technology, no one saw a cannon demonstrated and said 'Sissies. That cannon couldn't harm me. I don't take nothin' from noone!' to my knowledge- they either ran in terror, stared slack-jawed in awe, or did everything possible to convince Mighty Cannon-Owning Guy not to harm them.

It's like why we have IC morale. It's very easy to decide that your character is cheery, even though he's starving, diseased, beat half to death, and exhausted. But that's only because you're not wearing his shoes, and, IMHO, not deep enough inside the character's head. Ditto making threats at divine beings.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com