I may be remembering this incorrectly, but...in The original Village of Hommlet module, Elmo is described as a fake drunk. Basiclaly, he plays stupid so no one will realize what he actually is. I think the module also says that Elmo - and later, Otis - will leave a party if he determines that it has evil inclinations. That's one of the weird things about TOEE as it is initialy porgrammed. A chaotic evil party can hire Elmo...and presumably he'll do their bidding. Again, I may be wrong, but...I seem to recall trying this out, and Elmo was as happy as anyone else to hack away at the good people of Hommlet. I wonder if this is an issue that can be addressed with a mod. Characters like Elmo and Otis SHOULD have a backbone. Just as evil characters will sometimes turn on good ones, the good guys should be able to standup for their values. I'm not sure how you would incorporate this into the game, but...I think that alignment should matter. Elmo should refuse to sign on with an evil party...and he should leave as soon as possible if he determines his party is bent on evil.
I don't use Elmo anymore, mainly because the fake drunken swagger is so irritating. I think it would take a major re-write to change him and I don't know if anyone is that interested in doing it. Also, there may be some hardcoded stuff that can't be changed. If there was some way for him to detect evil and in the initial dialouge he could say ,Sorry I detect your evil intent and I wont discuss anything with you. I agree tho, he shouldn't hire on with an evil party.
Well, he is there to spy on parties as u say, so he WOULD hire out with them, just not for long. If we could agree on a trigger to make him leave, or make him turn on you - getting the butcher of Hommlet status, for instance, or recruiting Lareth - then there is dialogue already present ('this don't feel right' etc) that could be modified into an appropriate moment.
I too agree wholeheartedly and any opportunity to further explore and solve these issues should be pursued. I've always placed a lot of importance in alignment, particularly when I DM'ed my campaigns, and while it seems at first that this game placed some emphasis on this (with the whole party formation, starting quests, etc.) once you start getting into the game alignment seems to lose its value. You can easily create an evil party and complete all the good homlett quests or create a good party and complete the temple quests. It seems reputation is the only true deciding factor. I even had Elmo kill his brother with my lawful neutral party (consisting mostly of lawful evil characters) because he pissed me off. Of course this somehow turns the whole town of Homlett against you, I assume Elmo ratted me out but somehow decided to stay in my party...Anyways, the whole alignment topic has been discussed before in these forums and I think the general consensus has been to roleplay the PC's yourself. If you play a good party party, don't needlessly slaughter people for XP and don't complete the evil quests. It's your decision really to take your alignment as serious as you want it to be. At least for now it is, unless of course this is somehow fixed.
If you attack Otis, he should call for Elmo to help him. Hmmm... do u remember if Elmo was at a bit of a distance when the combat started?
It was a while ago...but if I'm not mistaken, I had Elmo attack him first to avoid this. Now I'm not sure if I killed him with my first full attack (was wielding both Frag and Scather, plus Elmo was lv 10 and fully equipped with a bunch of magic shit) or maybe if I first attacked with Elmo then he doesn't help. Either way, I know I had Elmo in my party when I killed Otis. I found it to be hilarious but of course I had to reload back to a previous save cuz Homlett didn't find it very funny.
Elmo shouldn't follow that order. Period. He should just quit the group. Neither should Otis, for that matter.
