Do you allow murder within the party?

[Black_Swan]

Much more so than the previously posted shotgun incident...

Lol..I'm almost afraid to ask but what's the shotgun incident?

Though, maybe the DM needs to make some exceptions to get the other characters into the game. Either that, or you guys as the players will need to start working harder to include them. It seems that left to their own devices they'll get a little crazy.

 

[takasi]

Lol..I'm almost afraid to ask but what's the shotgun incident?

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=186576

 

[shilsen]

That's the one thing as DM that I will deny a player from attempting with his character. Your character can sell slaves, smoke dope, curse, engage in evil acts with NPC's, steal, lie, cheat, and commit suicide -- but you're not trying to kill another PC (unless the player wants to play along). I'll give them all the NPCs they want to try and screw over, but the other players are there for their own fun.

I'm all for Player free will on their PCs, but their free will ends where it impinges on another player's fun. You can trigger every alarm in the evil guy's lair, and leave the whole party to deal with consequences, but you aren't using my and others' entertainment time to screw with us.

The King is wise. Listen to the King!

 

[drothgery]

I don't know; no one's ever tried in the games I've played in or DM'd (outside of mind control by a hostile NPC/monster, or dreamscapes controlled by a hostile NPC/monster, where what we thought was a PC was merely an illusion).

There's a scenario developing in a PBP game I'm part of where my PC could end up trying to kill another one, but she doesn't know about the events that are likely to cause intraparty conflict yet (one PC has come under the influence of an evil outsider), and would certainly try to 'save' said PC before taking up arms against him when she learns of it (and given her nature, keeping her in the dark indefinitely is unlikely).

 

[Baron Opal]

Rarely.

The first time it happened the aggrevied player took out another PC because he was upset over how I ran my game. After talking with the other player, over the next week, I kicked him out. The game slowly unraveled after that. There was a sense of trust that was lost among the players (not characters, but players) that terminally disrupted the game.

The second time, years later / different people, the two players went off to the side and had a discussion. In a nutshell, the conversation was "Your character is really irritating me. Should I make a new character or try to off yours?" "Go for it, I'm cool with however it goes down." There was a fight, the irritating character died, and the group moved on. The new character fit in better with the new group. (This was a paladin / sorceror conflict, by the way.)

The third time, which happened a couple of months ago, again years later / different people, had one character getting ready to kill another who was seriously antagonizing a beholder. I had the beholder exit stage left, albeit contemptuously. I'm pretty sure that there wouldn't be any hard feelings between the players, but I'm not 100% about that.

 

[Jolly Giant]

As a DM, I don't decide what the players' characters do; the players do that. Not that anyone in my regular group has ever had a PC try to kill another PC, but if it ever happens it happens. It won't be a problem.

As a player, I've never tried to kill another PC. I wouldn't hesitate to do so though, if I felt my character had a good reason to do so.

I have had my character killed by another PC, however. I had it coming though, since I'd recently stolen a huge sack of coins from him. No big deal, I rolled up a new character and the campaign continued just fine. It was a very light-hearted campaign though, with a lot of silly humour and evil characters only.

 

[Aus_Snow]

If a player killed another player, I imagine they would be facing a jail sentence.

But taken in spirit rather than in word, I'll just answer that I do not allow or disallow the murder of PCs by other PCs. Nor the murder of NPCs by PCs, or vice versa.

What happens to the murderer, and the player of such, is not necessarily up to me either. . .

 

[DonTadow]

Whoever posted this must have been reading my mind.

In the second to last adventure of my campaign (that took place two weeks ago), I ran into a rare incident.

In my primer, I state that I do not allow players to make rolls against other players. This is because i feel d and d is a collaborative game. If you allow it too much, you risk the game turning into a player vs player game. In hack and slashes this is ok, but in a role playing game where players care about characters, you can really harbor bad feelings around the game table.

In any case, I picked rare because of the rare incident that happened two weeks ago. The cleric of the party is a priestess of Bahamut, which is a good aligned deity in my game. Another player was playing an executioner turned sorcerer whom has an evil aligned item, and was neutral evil (she did not begin as neutral evil but she began to bond with the weapon thus changing her alignment). In any case, neutral evil wasn't that bad and i didnt feel that (with the chaotic nature of the party) it would hamper the next two adventures (all that remained in the campaign.)

So anyway, the cleric of bahamut is arguing with one of her subordinate after the cleric left the church for six months. They are in one of the main rooms in the temple. They are having a religious scholarly argument. Then, I get a note from the sorcerers player. The note said she wanted to make an attack on the subordinate cleric. I say ok and she kills the low level subordinate for no reason other than the sorcerers said that she was getting on her nerves.

At this point everyone at the gaming table is kinda surprised because there was no upside to that. This happened towards the beginning of the game. The sorceror disappears for the rest of the game. (this is pretty typical of the player). At the end of the game, the cleric, in a polymorphed dragon form seeks out the sorcror whom is hiding in the forest. I didnt have any doubt that I would have to allow pc vs. pc combat. It wasn't pretty. The cleric sliced up the sorceror pretty bad and then transferred into human form and cut her head off.

The cleric really didnt havea choice, she had to present the murderer to the church. It would take another rare occasion like this for me to let this get this far.

Just about every rule I have is attached to the disclaimer "unless it is in the spirit of roleplaying.

 

[Kidarcane]

I concur

I voted 'Rarely' which, coincidentally, is how often I run Paranoia. In D&D there are certain expectations I have for all the players and one of the prime ones is that they will all find a way to work together. A subexpectation of that is that all players will find a way not to kill each other. Intraparty conflict is far too easy to descend into hurt feelings and other problems which are no fun and I just plain don't want to deal with it. This kind of problem will be headed off and the players will be told to figure out another resolution out of character.

When I ran Paranoia it was all I could do to get the players to conspire against, stab or laser each other in the back. The most malicious thing to ever happen was one player finally ejected another out Vulture launch tube.

If I run a game, I will not rule out fratricide among players, I strongly encourage them keep the conflict clever, or non-lethal. I really would like them to think of another option other than filling each other full of lead or sharp steel.
I agree with Henry, that if I as the GM put some effort into the senario, that I do not wish to scrap it due to over testosterized macho characters need to snuff out his allies.

I am part of this game in question, I, the player, witnessed the heinous murder unfold. My response; I hung my head in exasperation. My main objection to the pc death would be in my estimation that punishment for the theft of $10 did not warrant multiple stabbings. A savage beating, perhaps, but since the character got a –4 to strike with fists and he couldn’t administer the beat down…he chose to go with the knife he was proficient in, and thus we have a dead lil’ person.

Perhaps I’m not sociopathic enough to game anymore. Is it all right for me to think when faced with a conflict, that there are other solutions to dealing with it other than try to kill or destroy it? I guess I’m railing about D&D dungeon crawl mentality. “Kick in door, kill all, take their stuff” that is leaking into our other forms of game play makes me disappointed in the player/PC reaction to adversity.

While I did not enjoy this portion of the game, the other players seemed to be all right with it. Besides, now I have to figure out how to deal with a Preacher that carries about a shotgun under his trench coat (same player that brought his sawed-off to church for a friendly meeting)…only this time I can’t really complain as whether it’s proper for him to bring the gun to church. However I do have issue with the priestly player’s insistence to leave the group we nearly had gathered so he could go back to his rooms to recover his boom stick. Up to this point other than some strangeness, which he only heard about, there was nothing hinting or warranting or asking to get a stomach full of hot lead. Well maybe the tiny carny.

 

[Missywelden]

I would only let it happen if one PC was being stupid and acting very evil and actually killing innocents...because generally evil peopl get punished. And it would usually be only one player who would do such a thing. The other PCs would murder the evil one in his sleep likely...or some other way to be smart about it. Everyone knows better then to try to be evil like that carelessly now though.