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Player vs. Player

Christian Walker

First Post
One PC killed another PC in our session tonight. It really sucked. When that happens, it's as if the person perpetrating the violence says, "I have no respect for the character you have made, or how you play it, so now I will embarass you."

It was a campaign killing moment for me. I will not be carrying on with that game.
 

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I take it this was not an accidental(miscounted a fireball radius) type thing? I've seen accidental and intentional PC-PC deaths and while it sucks, it may be something to talk to you DM about before you leave the game, or to talk to the offending player about.


ETH
 


Christian Walker

First Post
EtherHulkRending said:
I take it this was not an accidental(miscounted a fireball radius) type thing? I've seen accidental and intentional PC-PC deaths and while it sucks, it may be something to talk to you DM about before you leave the game, or to talk to the offending player about.


ETH


I feel responsible, because I'm the GM. I should have stepped in, but I didn't. It was a sign to me that I lost control over a game that was swirling the drain to begin with.
 

Epametheus

First Post
PvP's effect on the group depends a lot on the players doing it. With one group I've been in, one PC attacked another PC (the characters were almost enemies, and the players didn't like each other either); we wound up taking the fight back when the player that initiated the fight lost and freaked out.

In a different group, the fact that the first critical hit with a mercurial greatsword was inflicted upon a PC by another PC was found to be pretty dang funny by everyone involved. That was a group could play an evil party without any personal problems; that group's last game was a super-villians campaign and it worked fantastically, PvP and all.

PvP is usually utterly disruptive, but playing in a group that could take it in stride was rather interesting.
 

Telperion

First Post
Christian Walker said:
One PC killed another PC in our session tonight. It really sucked. When that happens, it's as if the person perpetrating the violence says, "I have no respect for the character you have made, or how you play it, so now I will embarass you."

It was a campaign killing moment for me. I will not be carrying on with that game.

While I agree that PvP is disruptive to a game it isn't without merit. Especially if the disagreements, figthing or competitive nature of the two players doesn't reach lethal levels. Have you ever run an Evil campaign? You should try it out, because it's a real refreshing feel =). Besides you, as the GM, get to play with the "NPC Good Guys" for once! There's nothing quite like creating a party of Better-Than-Thou composed of a Cleric, Paladin, Fighter and Wizard and then throwing their zealot attitudes at the party :D .
 

MerakSpielman

First Post
As long as people role-play their characters within the established context of their history, personality, and motivations, we all could care less what the others do.

(what follows is a tale of vendetta and death, player versus player. Read if you like, skip if you want. This is an evil-heavy party.)

My second character with my current group was Bilune, a CN bard. He was in the adventure business for personal profit, plain and simple. He also was something of a womanizer, because he was just so good looking (according to him) that any and all women should be honored by his attention.

He rubbed one character wrong from the very beginning: Crimson, the prostitute-turned-Assassin (who, incidentally, is played by the wife of the DM). My character was crude and derogatory, making frequent remarks about her appearance (comely) and what they could do together that night, etc... Slowly, Crimson went from dislike of Bilune to outright, open hatred. She tried to kill him on multiple occasions, but he always slipped the noose, laughing. He considered himself invincible, and didn't give a damn what other people thought. He pretended her attempts were akin to mild flirtations, which enraged her. Otherwise, Bilune's min-maxed Perform and Diplomacy served us well in the city-based campaign, as did his Wand of Invisibity Sphere. He was, unquestionably, an asset to the group, if you could put up with him. But she couldn't.

Finally, Crimson snapped. There was a dispute about what to do with some powerful items we'd found on another plane - each of which would strengthen the power of an individual god if returned to our home plane. Everybody else wanted to pick and choose which item (and therefore which god) they wanted to support. Bilune wanted to take all the items and sell them off to the highest bidder, be that the clergy in question or an opposing clergy, and he outright stated that he didn't care one bit which gods became more powerful as long as he got his money.

Crimson death-attacked him, but he made his save and lived. Unfortunately, the poison on the blade dropped him to ONE point of Con. Despite his sudden lack of hp, he managed to take down Crimson with his own ace-up-his-sleeve - an Arrow of Slaying (Humanoid). The rest of the party, not having witnessed the Death Attack, turned and killed Bilune, enraged that he should so senselessly slay a member of the party.

The cleric did a few Speak With Deads and determined what had really happened, and we were both raised with the requirement that we both be nice to each other now. We both agreed out loud, but of course neither of us had any intention of letting this vendetta die. Crimson, though, was more on-the-ball than was my poor bard.

Later that same session, Bilune was performing for the Royal Court a complex dance/castanet gig. Unbeknownst to him, Crimson was lurking behind the curtain, inches away. The subsequent Death Attack killed him outright, in plain view of the Royal Family, with hundreds of witnesses. Yet Crimson, still hidden behind the curtain, managed to get away unseen. It remains, to this date, one of her crowning achievements as an Assassin, a feat not easily matched. Bilune elected not to be raised, since that was the way he would have chosen to die - performing the best performace of his life before royalty.

I should note that I found this session to be incredibly fun. It's the only time my character has died twice in the same session - and the DM didn't even have to plan any encounters. The player of Crimson and I get along just fine, as we always have. (also, my new character gets along with Crimson just fine (he's a min-maxed NE archer, with a Shadow Sniper PrC from the 'net). He's homicidally insane and cares for nothing but mastering his ability to kill with his bow from hiding.)

I'd just like to say that, with the right group of people, role-playing intra-party conflict is almost the best part of the game. People don't get along perfectly in RL, and neither should well-thought-out characters in an RPG. I should mention, though, that our level of role-playing often almost reaches the level of improvisational acting, where we try as hard as we can to put ourselves in the shoes of a character who is fundamentally unlike our actual selves, trying to give their personality and actions true depth and meaning. This might not be the way most of you play D&D, but it's what we like, and at the end of the night, there are no hard feelings. What's said and done in-character stays in the game, and has no out-of-game consequences.

It's really just a game, after all.
 

Hypersmurf

Moderatarrrrh...
My last experience with an evil campaign ended badly; one of the other PCs cut my throat.

I was playing a selfish, not-overly-concerned-with-the-welfare-of-others kind of evil; every single other player had a sadistic, psychotic, cross-the-street-to-kick-a-puppy cartoony kind of evil.

My character was aiming for a custom PrC that essentially gave doppelganger-style abilities. He was also slightly insane - he had several roles that he played frequently, but they'd all developed their own personalities. For a particular task in town, the primary personality decided one of the "others" would be better suited. So he rejoined the party after "heading off to talk to some contacts"... but dressed differently, with different mannerisms, etc. He turned up just in time for a battle, fought on the side of the group, and afterwards introduced himself by a different name, claiming to have been "sent by" the person they'd already met.

At which point they grabbed him, held him down, put a knife to his throat, and demanded he tell the truth, or they'd kill him.

Unfortunately, as far as he was concerned, he was telling the truth. He sincerely believed he was not the same person as the primary personality, and he sincerely believed he had been sent.

I dropped the DM an email, saying "What do you think? Stay in character, or change the concept around to try and salvage the situation?"

She told me I had to decide for myself.

So the poor sub-personality told the rest of the group that he didn't know what they were talking about, and they cut his throat.

Which would have upset me more, I think, if I'd enjoyed being in that particular group. The DM was fantastic - still one of my favourites - but the other players, and especially their characters, weren't much fun. If I'm playing in an evil game, I'd prefer it's not one where everyone's competing to show that they're the most evil by drinking the blood of dead enemies, or fantasising aloud about the things they'd like to do with the barmaid, a bedroom, and some sharp knives...

-Hyp.
 

Painfully

First Post
I take it this wasn't meant to be an evil campaign?

I know of two players who are more interested in PvP and general backstabbing behavior, rather than any potential plot hooks the DM might have developed. They are always looking for somebody else to game with them. Go figure.

If you think you have a problem player, just dump him. Nobody deserves the kind of headaches a disruptive player brings to the game. People want to play to have fun, and if one person takes that away from everybody else, it breaks the game IMO.

You'll know you're in a broken game when you'd rather watch clothes tumble dry than be sitting at the game table.
 

Zappo

Explorer
I've killed another PC in a Star Wars d20 campaign. The character was a disaster waiting to happen; a dark jedi wannabe in a group featuring a light-side jedi. My PC - a wookie warrior with some instinctual Force ability - never quite liked him. After I growled threateningly at him for the Nth time, he used on me a dark side power which put me in a state of horrible fear (horrible as in -8 to all checks), permanent until I take a dark side point to end it. Now, a wookie doesn't really like being afraid. And, a dark side point is a real PITA; you can't get rid of it easily.

Still, now I knew for sure that the PC was dark side, so I acted for half the session to try and convince the light sider that his buddy had betrayed - I had the PC tell him that the other jedi placed a 'curse' on him, that he felt very afraid of him and wanted protection, and he sulked for half the adventure. When we got attacked by a rancor, instead of fighting I had the PC cower in a corner, hoping that this unexplainable behaviour would prompt the light-sider to do some checking. Not so.

Frustrated, I waited for everyone to be involved in the battle, and then got my DS point and hacked the darksider to bits (not before taking yet another application of that bloody power, bringing the DS total to two). There were no hard feelings as everyone in the group thought that playing a darksider there was a bad idea. :)
 

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