Avoiding Party Conflict

The previous articles I've done talking about evil parties and playing evil PCs, is touching on the importance of the group getting along. Evil characters can interfere with that.

By this point, most of us are aware that players play for different reasons. Among them: killing things, getting cool loot, acting out a story, building something, kicking-butt, and gaining power. I assume that for any given player, one or more of those reasons is fun for them.

I also believe that my fun should not come at your dispense, and vice versa. And that if we can't find a set of fun that respects that, we should not be playing together. This means that picking on your PC, stealing your stuff, bullying isn't fun for most people, and therefore isn't acceptable for me to do to your PC.

Another important aspect of the group, is to get everyone involved. In Improvisational Theatre, a blocking action is always frowned on. This is where you do something that prevents the other actor from continuing on in the scene. Gaming has the same thing. What are you doing to hog the spotlight? What are you doing to bring another player into the scene with you and involve them?

A good example of that is the party introduction. I once ran a game with an existing party, and we were adding a player (who was a friend we all knew). Upon meeting up with the party, the new PC was argumentative and hostile, and acted like he didn't want to join the party. The new player was blocking. He could have adopted a stance that would make it easier to join the party. In the end, he joined the party, but had it been a real interaction, the party would have walked off, muttering about the cranky dwarf they met.

So the key point is, determine a way to introduce your character that is believable, yet conducive to joining the party.

The corollary to this, is that a new character is always allowed into the party. What group has refused a new PC? Because of this, the party skips the background check, and other safeguards they might normally make with an NPC. This therefore means the new PC does not have an open invitation to betray the party, for the sake of betraying the party (I've got a friend who does this with every other game we've played with).


A last point is when making PCs, some players pick an topic of controversy, and then push that agenda aggressively, to a point it results in PC deaths. A good example of this are the elf hating dwarf. The dwarf player has a choice, to play up a bias against elves as a distrust, which shows up as roleplay, or to be openly hostile to the elf in the party. What's even more foolish is to choose a hostile attitude when you know the party has elves in it.

It's interesting roleplay to make the dwarf not eat any food prepared by the elf, until he sees others eat it, or to mutter "darn elf" everytime the elf points out something correct. It's another to bring the game to PC vs. PC armed conflict. This almost always results in no fun for somebody, and can destroy a campaign.

Rich Burlew (the Order of the Stick guy) has a great article touching on this as well: http://www.giantitp.com/articles/tll...4H9k6efFP.html


To sum up, here's a list of tips to bring about party unity:

• when joining a party, act in a way that would get you invited
• avoid active hostility and sabotage towards other PCs
• always try to bring another PC into a scene (or the next scene by going to them)
• don't disrupt the game or story for the sake of doing so
• always try to de-escalate a disagreement with another PC

My main argument is, some players create conflict within the party for the sake of conflict. This is bad playing, and kills the fun. Conflict that comes up because the game's story invokes it is a different animal. And even then, coming to blows over it is something to be watchful for. When PCs start killing PCs, the fun usually stops.