PVP combat issue

[theairgod]

Was wanting to see If anyone has run into this before and the best way to handle the issue. The game I play in is a rather large group (at least the largest I've ever been in). We have 9 players plus the DM. With the exception of the DM and myself all are either new to D&D (6 months on this game) or haven't played since 2nd ed. I help the DM, with looking up spell effects, character creations, and little things, so he can focus on keeping the game flowing. One of the players started out as a bard that played a "bad bard" not as in evil just bad. This player is also bad about saying "that's what my character would do". This player recently gave up on her bard and created a Grave Cleric. In our last game our rogue went to "collect" a trophy (and by trophy I mean a finger, too strange to go into that whole story) from some creatures the group killed. The grave cleric freaked out and went to stop him saying she couldn't allow it. The rogue goes watch me. This results in the cleric attacking the rogue. Being the tank of the group and since they were right beside me, I proceeded to step in-between them. Until our other problem player makes it known that they are actually 30' away from me (as that is where the bodies fell). They moved and proceeded to keep going at it. Maybe we should have stopped it, but it played out and the cleric got a lucky roll and knocked the rogue down. Fast-forward to the end of game clean up and I find a couple other players had a problem with what happened. Now it seems the rogue (with assassin background) and 2 other players are planning on assassinating the cleric. How did this go off the rails so fast and is there a good way to resolve this?

 

[Sunseeker]

No, but it sounds like you might have a table troll on your hands. The problem with PVP tends to be you're either all in, or you're all out. Stopping half-way can look like you're playing favorites with that guy who always seems to stab first.

A person who purposefully plays their character badly and then when that doesn't pan out (read: doesn't get them they attention they want), they make a character who without warning, rhyme or reason starts demanding others bow to their whims or they're gonna kill him?

Personally, I'd let the players assassinate the guy, and then have an outside talk with him before he rolls up a new character about what he wants to achieve in this game.

 

[billd91]

With some relative newbs in the game, it might be worth starting the next session with a discussion about what's going on. Everyone should be made aware that PvP is an issue of serious concern. Not every group is able to handle it, and for that reason, it's often banned. For some groups, it adds an element of fun but for others it just breeds resentment that can break up a gaming group in short order.

 

[Morrus]

Yeah, sounds like you need to all agree on the basic social expectations of this group activity. PvP has the potential to ruin the game for everybody, so unless everybody is on board with that type of game, it’s generally easier to just all agree not to do that.

 

[Celebrim]

PvP is always touchy issue.

One of the basic rules of playing RPGs is that you should never try to deal with out of game problems with in game solutions, and never try to deal with in game problems with out of game solutions.

So one of the first things I'd try to do here is figure out what are the in game problems and what are the out of game problems.

The problem you usually see in PvP is that a player is frustrated with another player, and he decides to deal with that problem by having his character take out his frustration on that other player's character. The other problem you tend to have is that even if that isn't the motivation, having a conflict between two characters tends to create frustration between two players.

Out of game problems need to be talked out, usually resulting in some sort of social contract. In game problems need to be role played out, preferably guided by the social contract and mutual respect between players and not just what they think the character would do.

As a general rule, I'd advise most groups of new players to have the following explicitly in the social contract:

a) You must play a character that has a motivation to stay with the group.
b) You must play a character that has a motivation to be allied with the group, and sees the success of the group as critical to their own success, regardless of what that character's underlying motive happens to be.
c) You must play a character that won't immediately be drawn into conflict with the group, or which at the very least won't as a first chose attempt to resolve conflicts violently.

As a DM, I'd be looking at this table conflict with questions like:

a) Is someone being annoying out of character, and is someone letting themselves be annoyed by that?
b) Are people choosing to play characters that fit with the group, or are they deliberately trying to draw spotlight to themselves by being 'the outsider'?
c) Is the player's play sophisticated and mature enough to be the outsider - the Belkar Bitterleaf - in a group? (In this case, clearly not.)
d) Does the player have story goals in mind and is he signaling ways to work out the problems in a way that everyone has fun? If the players are signaling that they want a mutually fun solution, then let them play. But if someone is just being pig headed about the fact that their character would leap to murder a comrade at the first opportunity, probably we've got a problem with the social contract and we need to work out what everyone wants from the game (or at the very least, what the DM wants from the game).

As a group matures, you can have more sophisticated plot lines with betrayals and conflicts and that sort of thing, but those sort of plots when they work well involve players who can engage in sophisticated signaling of consent and purpose and who are motivated by the mutual sense that "this is a really cool story" and want the story to stay cool. Pulling off a betrayal or conflict plot for purely selfish reasons is always a bad thing, because fundamentally RPing is a social activity where everyone is trying to have fun. One of the earliest groups I was involved in though their main campaign, after obtaining name level, they'd consensually allowed one of the PC's in the party to become the BBEG of the setting, and the main storyline revolved around the remainder of the party dodging the attempts of the PC to kill his comrades while they organized a rebellion against him. That's pretty cool, but not every group can pull that off well, especially without fully relegating the evil PC to NPC status.

As a player, I have been involved in these scenarios several times. It's my experiences in 30 years of gaming that 80% of people can basically only play themselves. Well, in one group there was a newbie who could only play Chaotic Evil characters. Regardless of the character he conceived, the character would be basically Chaotic Evil in conduct. And there was also a newbie in the group who could only play Lawful Good characters. Regardless of the character he built, the character would be scrupulously honest. There was no point in putting skill points in 'bluff' because it would never occur to the player to be dishonest. There was really no point in writing anything but lawful good on the sheet because his first instincts were always to be heroic, valiant, fair, and honorable. The only time I ever got him to compromise was when I could get him to have conflicting duties to multiple groups, in which case he'd be perfectly lawful good and organize his loyalties and duties into a numbered hierarchy and decide which had priority in this situation.

Needless to say, despite being friends, in play these two players were continually at loggerheads. During one campaign, the LG player was playing a LG character and the CE player was playing a CE character, and the LG character discovered the truly vile IC activities the CE player was engaged in. To preempt the LG character bring the CE character to justice (no vigilantism here, remember), the player decided his CE character would kill the LG character. The two mortally wounded each other, and then I had my character act to let both of them die of their wounds and prevent either from receiving medical attention because that's what my character would do in the situation. And that was the last of the PnP we had. (We probably wouldn't have had it in the first place if I was the DM, because I wouldn't have approved the CE character for play.)

But I've also had PnP wreck campaigns, with parties basically having TPKs when things went to blows and the few survivors not being in a shape to then survive the scenario.

 

[PrometheanVigil]

Was wanting to see If anyone has run into this before and the best way to handle the issue. The game I play in is a rather large group (at least the largest I've ever been in). We have 9 players plus the DM. With the exception of the DM and myself all are either new to D&D (6 months on this game) or haven't played since 2nd ed. I help the DM, with looking up spell effects, character creations, and little things, so he can focus on keeping the game flowing. One of the players started out as a bard that played a "bad bard" not as in evil just bad. This player is also bad about saying "that's what my character would do". This player recently gave up on her bard and created a Grave Cleric. In our last game our rogue went to "collect" a trophy (and by trophy I mean a finger, too strange to go into that whole story) from some creatures the group killed. The grave cleric freaked out and went to stop him saying she couldn't allow it. The rogue goes watch me. This results in the cleric attacking the rogue. Being the tank of the group and since they were right beside me, I proceeded to step in-between them. Until our other problem player makes it known that they are actually 30' away from me (as that is where the bodies fell). They moved and proceeded to keep going at it. Maybe we should have stopped it, but it played out and the cleric got a lucky roll and knocked the rogue down. Fast-forward to the end of game clean up and I find a couple other players had a problem with what happened. Now it seems the rogue (with assassin background) and 2 other players are planning on assassinating the cleric. How did this go off the rails so fast and is there a good way to resolve this?

These imbred-donkeys need to calm the act-of-procreation down. I honestly can't fathom what goes through players heads when they think resorting to KGB-inspired solutions is what will solve this offensive-bodily-product.

Your best thing is to talk it out but with the strong suggestion of having a PvP duel, potentially with the result of the duel being permadeath if you've got the reproductive-faculties to suggest it. That kind of suggestion 99% of the time causes players to calm the act-of-procreation down and actually realise, "hey, that's what happens when you roleplay and are an offensive-snooker-cue in insisting on doing something grotesque and act-of-procreation disgusting". And then that'll be nipped in the bud and the players will leave each other alone in the future. If you're playing with grown-ass adults, this should be straightforward and accepted without any offensive-animal-byproduct. If not, it's dueling time!

The problem you usually see in PvP is that a player is frustrated with another player, and he decides to deal with that problem by having his character take out his frustration on that other player's character. The other problem you tend to have is that even if that isn't the motivation, having a conflict between two characters tends to create frustration between two players.

Out of game problems need to be talked out, usually resulting in some sort of social contract. In game problems need to be role played out, preferably guided by the social contract and mutual respect between players and not just what they think the character would do.

Nah, I let em' fight in my games. Far more healthier -- if they do anything to endanger other players' games during their fight, they get punished. Hard. This is honestly a much better way of dealing with the problem than a mountain dew fueled backyard fistfight. And it's most assuredly better than just having "words". Grown-ass men don't listen to words, action is what counts. It ends up being the nerdiest act-of-procreation honor duel ever and we all further-act-of-procreation love it.

Needless to say, despite being friends, in play these two players were continually at loggerheads. During one campaign, the LG player was playing a LG character and the CE player was playing a CE character, and the LG character discovered the truly vile IC activities the CE player was engaged in. To preempt the LG character bring the CE character to justice (no vigilantism here, remember), the player decided his CE character would kill the LG character. The two mortally wounded each other, and then I had my character act to let both of them die of their wounds and prevent either from receiving medical attention because that's what my character would do in the situation. And that was the last of the PnP we had. (We probably wouldn't have had it in the first place if I was the DM, because I wouldn't have approved the CE character for play.)

Gods eye view, this sounds like a terrible situation at the table. Not because of the scenario but because of how it was handled. "Well, that's enough of that tomfoolery!" should not be an acceptable way of handling this offensive-bodily-product. You should totally just have the healer character heal the character being less of an inbred-donkey. That or something else much more authentic/realistic.

Mind, I'm not specifically calling you on this. It's just a pattern of response/resolution that I see repeated countless times on forums and Q&A sites like RPG.SE alongside other really ill-advised solutions like Don't Split The Party(tm) etc...

parties basically having TPKs when things went to blows and the few survivors not being in a shape to then survive the scenario.

Always makes even the best campaigns even better, dunnit?

 

[Lanefan]

The only advice I'd chuck in here for the DM is to, at the start of next session, lay down the law hard in one respect: that what happens in character stays in character. If Falstaff (Joe's PC) and Halfred (Mary's PC) want to scream at each other and throw down in-game, that's fine; but as soon as Joe and Mary start yelling at each other out-of-character someone gets tossed.

After that: let 'em fight, sit back and enjoy the show.

Gods eye view, this sounds like a terrible situation at the table. Not because of the scenario but because of how it was handled. "Well, that's enough of that tomfoolery!" should not be an acceptable way of handling this offensive-bodily-product. You should totally just have the healer character heal the character being less of an inbred-donkey. That or something else much more authentic/realistic.

Were I playing the healer, and not knowing the rest of the context e.g. whether either of these PCs were friendly with the healer etc., chances are I'd have done the same thing and just left 'em there*. LG characters can be every bit as bad to have around as CE characters, depending in both instances how they're played.

* - and depending on my healer's outlook on life and-or greed level I might have looted them both as well!

Also, there's a bigger issue if you heal just one; and that's that in choosing which one you heal you're setting the tone in some ways for the whole rest of the campaign! If you heal the LG then you're pushing the campaign toward a more typical heroic sort of affair...particularly if the LG is one of those types who is fussy about who he'll run with (e.g. an old-school Paladin type). If you heal the CE then you're sending a clear message that anything goes in this crew and that anyone trying to play a very Good or very Lawful character might be out of luck.

If your PC (or you as player) have strong feelings either way then you heal the one that suits you. But if you don't, better just to let them both die...or heal them both, but that just punts the same decision down the road a bit.

Lanefan

 

[Celebrim]

Gods eye view, this sounds like a terrible situation at the table. Not because of the scenario but because of how it was handled. "Well, that's enough of that tomfoolery!" should not be an acceptable way of handling this offensive-bodily-product. You should totally just have the healer character heal the character being less of an inbred-donkey. That or something else much more authentic/realistic.

So, never handle OOC problems with IC solutions. IC my character did not know which of the two characters was being less of an "inbred-donkey" as you put it. And I wasn't going to put myself in a situation of having my character choose on the basis of which player was less of an "inbred-donkey". So I had my character respond in a very IC way, namely something like, "As you all know, I'm escorting my daughter. My primary duty is to her safety. These two gentlemen were clearly poor choices of travelling companions, as they resorted to resolving whatever differences that they had between them through violence. Acts like this threaten all of our safety. Let this be a lesson: they that live by the sword will die by the sword. It's best we continue on without such persons, and find companions of better breeding and decorum in the future."

The big issue in healing just one of them was not just that I would be sending a signal that I preferred a heroic game to a non-heroic game; I had plenty of ways to signal that. The big issue was that I was not in any way signaling which friend I preferred. Perhaps if my character had known more about the dispute, then I would have had the character chosen sides on that basis. But I wasn't going to be overtly meta-gaming in this situation.

Everyone in the conflict lost. And I made it darn clear that my character wasn't going to put up with that crap so that it would be a perpetually losing move, and that changed the calculus.

 

[Lanefan]

So, never handle OOC problems with IC solutions. IC my character did not know which of the two characters was being less of an "inbred-donkey" as you put it. And I wasn't going to put myself in a situation of having my character choose on the basis of which player was less of an "inbred-donkey". So I had my character respond in a very IC way, namely something like, "As you all know, I'm escorting my daughter. My primary duty is to her safety. These two gentlemen were clearly poor choices of travelling companions, as they resorted to resolving whatever differences that they had between them through violence. Acts like this threaten all of our safety. Let this be a lesson: they that live by the sword will die by the sword. It's best we continue on without such persons, and find companions of better breeding and decorum in the future."

The big issue in healing just one of them was not just that I would be sending a signal that I preferred a heroic game to a non-heroic game; I had plenty of ways to signal that. The big issue was that I was not in any way signaling which friend I preferred. Perhaps if my character had known more about the dispute, then I would have had the character chosen sides on that basis. But I wasn't going to be overtly meta-gaming in this situation.

This is all fine and dandy.

Everyone in the conflict lost. And I made it darn clear that my character wasn't going to put up with that crap so that it would be a perpetually losing move, and that changed the calculus.

But this isn't fine and dandy, and were I running a character in that game who was of the - let's call it 'disruptive sort' - your healer would have just painted a nice big target on its back...or front...or whichever other part happened to get in the way.

Why is that, you ask?

Because in effect you're telling the rest of the table how to play. In-character, you're doing the Paladin thing of dictating who you will and will not accept in the party regardless of what the other characters might think.

I've been in this situation as a player, where someone else at the table tried to enforce his views on not only what should and shouldn't be played (no evils, no chaotics, no infighting) but how they were to be played (everyone follows the plan, no deviations, no secrets). Really, really annoying to me as a more chaotic player who usually plays characters who like to think for themselves!

 

[Celebrim]

But this isn't fine and dandy, and were I running a character in that game who was of the - let's call it 'disruptive sort' - your healer would have just painted a nice big target on its back...or front...or whichever other part happened to get in the way.

Why is that, you ask?

Because in effect you're telling the rest of the table how to play. In-character, you're doing the Paladin thing of dictating who you will and will not accept in the party regardless of what the other characters might think.

I've been in this situation as a player, where someone else at the table tried to enforce his views on not only what should and shouldn't be played (no evils, no chaotics, no infighting) but how they were to be played (everyone follows the plan, no deviations, no secrets). Really, really annoying to me as a more chaotic player who usually plays characters who like to think for themselves!

The only 'rule' is was implying was don't create a character that is going to quickly get into violent conflict with the rest of the party.

If you want to play Belkar Bitterleaf, fine. Just play Belkar Bitterleaf with the complexity and table value that the player of Belkar Bitterleaf has played the character.