Bloodthirsty PC's

[weem]

Just posted this on my site and wanted to get some feedback.

Earlier today while at work I listened to the DM’s Round Table podcast (Episode 6) regarding (for the most part) bloodthirsty player’s. Often times, players become cold-blooded killers, allowing for no mercy, and no surrender. Even when they do keep a prisoner, that person tends to be killed to be sure they can not bring harm to the party later.

DM’s can be put in odd situations, for example when they can’t even allow an enemy to escape without a player arguing that the person simply could not have gotten away from them.

At least, this is what I hear about many people’s games. This is, however, not my experience (at least not in a long while) and I want to share with you why I think that is. The following is advice based on the assumption that your player’s characters are not evil characters in description, but rather are demonstrating actions (excessive killing, etc) that are more evil then they are making their characters out to be. In other words, if your players are playing intentionally evil characters, then you are all good.

I Talk To My Players Up Front

Before my campaigns start, I talk to the players about my style. What I expect, what I don’t like and how I avoid it, etc. Most recently, in the game I am currently running, I told my players that they should know running away is an option. That they needed to consider this method of survival if things looked tough. The same goes for enemies. There will be points in the midst of fighting where an enemy may decided his life is worth more than the measly amount of money he was being paid (if anything) to not let people enter a doorway. It does not make any sense for a group of bouncers to fight to the death to prevent someone from entering the back way into a bar. If they are getting beaten, odds are they will give up, or run.

This ‘realism’ (I guess) is something I told my players would play into combat, especially with reasonably intelligent creatures. When the players know this up front, you set the tone for encounters.

Of course, when you allow for enemies to surrender, you give the players multiple opportunities to interrogate their prisoner which can become a nuisance depending on the players and the regularity of their desire to access information – but I will address this separately later.

I Demonstrate The Benefits Of Good Behavior

During the course of the campaign, you need to remember that when the players take and release prisoners, or treat them well (or simply don’t kill them), this is the type of behavior you are looking for, and as such it should be rewarded. I’m not talking about XP rewards however – I level my players when I feel it’s time, so there is not handing out of XP anyway. Rather, I’m talking about showing them in the game that sometimes it pays to not kill.

To give you an example, the players in my current campaign were clearing a ‘Den of Theives’ essentially (an abandoned manor). Most of the theives there were paid very little (and nothing in most cases) and were surving on scraps. Many fled when fighting began, and many that stayed attempted to surrender or flee when they could.

The players kept one such boy and asked him some questions about the manor before telling him to leave the place. The next day (after clearing the manor), the group of thieves was hunting them and they needed to escape the city. They were hidden in a carriage in what would be an attempt to move through the city gates (and past guards who were part of said group). The carraige was stopped among others and they were being searched. The players remained silent, but finally the door to their hidden spot was opened… only it was by the boy they had let go the day before! He saw them, and then closed the door yelling out that it was “all clear” and essentially saving them in turn.

I Demonstrate The Consequences Of Poor Behavior

Fortunately, through 9 levels of play in this campaign, my players have shown great constraint when it comes to the respect of the lives of their enemies. I have not had many opportunities to show them the consequences of poor behavior, but if your players are killing everyone they encounter, there should be a reaction.

To give an example of something that happened recently, my players had been hunted by a man named Merrik – the ‘bad guy’ through the last portion of the Heroic tier. Merrik had killed his own brother Goris (who was a good friend of the PC’s) right in front of them. Needless to say, they had a hatred for this man.

The last few games of the Heroic tier was spent making their way to Merrik to face him, and stop him from “learning an important secret”. When they finally came to face him, he was nearly dead. They rushed him and made sure he did not get up. He did not fight them, or say anything to them other than “you should run”. He said this in an alarmed fashion, as if he was genuinely warning them they were not safe. One character in particular had taken the loss of Goris very badly and told Merrik he needed to explain himself – when he didn’t, the character finished him off – in a very brutal manner. Shortly thereafter the party was assaulted by a demon.

Eventually, the players came to face the king (father of Merrik and Goris) who was clearly upset they had killed his son. Their response was that Merrik had deserved what he had gotten, at which the king stormed off (he had no power to do anything to them in the location they were currently in). The people who ruled this area were initially nuetral about the death, but the more the players mentioned that Merrik deserved it, the more perturbed these people became. Eventually, one of them came out with it and told the players that Merrik had changed. He had discovered the “secret” and it had freed him of the will of a dark being (of which the demon they had faced was an aspect).

Essentially, I had provided a “Moral” (not Skill) challenge where the players had their enemy at his deathbed. They could save him, in what would be the gaining of a great ally, and potentially a great friend. Or, they could kill him and one day face (as they did) a father from whom they took a son. Either outcome was equally possible, but not ultimately detrimental to the game. It was a great moment revealing this truth to the players. They were told (by the NPC rulers there) that they did not blame the PC’s – that given what they had experienced, it was a forgivable event – but it was clear to the PC’s that he may not have ‘deserved it’ as much as they liked to believe.

I’m Not a Gotcha! DM

I think a lot of the behavior of players allowing no one to survive stems from their experiences with DM’s in the past who played the “gotcha” game. DM’s who took advantage of every mistake and mistep, and shoved it right up in their faces. What this does is make the players ultra paranoid and requires them to take those kinds of steps to assure they do not keep getting schooled.

A Few Tips

* Don’t play the gotcha game. Show them that there are many possible outcomes and you will see the players learn they no longer need to take such extreme measures.

* Let the players interrogate, but don’t let it go on forever. Once you feel they know what they are going to know, tell them “you can question him all day, but you are sure you have what you are going to get”. You don’t need to play out every question, or sit through long quite moments while players think of the next question. You know what they want to know – in some cases, once they capture someone, just cut to the chase… “you tie him up and question him… he tells you X and Y and Z”.

* Don’t just say an enemy surrenders – use the enemies words to convey the message. When you say, “okay, they surrender”, it’s very easy for a player to respond, “okay, we kill them”. Instead, tell the players, “the man drops to his knees releasing his weapon and begs, ‘please please stop! I have a daughter!”… that’s much harder to for a player to say “I kill him” to. The first option allows the player to see his decision from a distance where it’s very clean and far from the outcome – the second is in his face.

Anyway, that’s my relatively quick (well, quickly typed) take on the situation.

How do you handle the situation of players who use death as the answer to everything?

If this is not a problem for you, why do you think that is?

 

[Jor-El]

Excellent topic, and an even more expert analysis.

I've faced some of the same issues as a DM myself, and I think alot of it stems from the "Gotcha DM's" that many have played under. I've had players that absolutely refuse to split the party under any circumstance, because they expect that I'm going to spring something unbelievably nasty (and deadly) on them as soon as they do. I've also had the problem of players using the "detect evil" as the catch all excuse for if they should kill something or not.

"It's evil, so it doesn't matter, let's just kill it."

Even when said evil creature isn't necessarily their enemy, and in fact, might be an important NPC that they need some kind of help or info from.

The best solution is to just talk to your players, either before the campaign, or the first time these situations come up, and just explain that you're not trying to pull a fast one on them, and that sometimes, not everything is there to fight and kill.

Another solution is to award more XP for non-combat situations, so the PC's don't get hung up on "we have to kill it to get the XP", which is also a driving force.

I try to award XP for certain story achievements, but realize that unless I give them a tally of it, they tend not to notice. I think I may start emphasizing that more when I award XP at the end of a session so they get the idea that combat isn't the only way to gain that XP, and sometimes more might be gained by avoided combat/killing.

 

[weem]

Thanks for the reply

Adjusting the XP balance leaning more heavily away from combat is definitely something I have seen mentioned, and I can see how that would work in some cases.

 

[renau1g]

This is great for a heroic fantasy, but sometimes I don't have a problem with a group of evil PC's doing this. Actually, my first campaign I played in we were the "bloodthirsty" PC's after the DM had one of our escaped enemy's come back and harry us later on. My paladin had detect evil at will, so if an enemy "smelled evil" then he was smited, no questions asked. If he wasn't evil, that was another story, but like you said, we were punished for letting our prisoners go (after a relatively easy interrogation session)

 

[Doug McCrae]

Good advice, weem. I had a GM who wanted us to talk more than what we were doing, but his NPCs were invariably (actually, come to think of it, exclusively) evil bastards, who would just use the conversation as a chance to cast a charm spell on us. So there wasn't much incentive.

XP for killin' is something I can't get behind. It seems to me it gives such a huge incentive to kill everything you meet. But, eh, I guess that's D&D.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I think this is quite reasonable for a paladin

If Detect_Evil() Then
  Smite()
Else
  Talk()

Could be termed the Miho School of paladin-ing. But I also think other, less militant, styles of paladin are equally reasonable though the former is the only type I've seen played. I, and the rest of my gaming buds, tend toward caricature/satire in our portrayal of character.

 

[nedjer]

Gotcha guys aren't really GMing. Just parading egos - bit like a footie player who's bunged the ref before the game.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Just posted this on my site and wanted to get some feedback.To give you an example, the players in my current campaign were clearing a ‘Den of Theives’ essentially (an abandoned manor). Most of the theives there were paid very little (and nothing in most cases) and were surving on scraps. Many fled when fighting began, and many that stayed attempted to surrender or flee when they could.

The players kept one such boy and asked him some questions about the manor before telling him to leave the place. The next day (after clearing the manor), the group of thieves was hunting them and they needed to escape the city.

There, see? If they'd killed them all they wouldn't have this problem.

(Nice post!)

 

[weem]

XP for killin' is something I can't get behind. It seems to me it gives such a huge incentive to kill everything you meet. But, eh, I guess that's D&D.

Yea, for sure. In fact, I just level my players when I feel the time is right - there is no XP at all

Thanks for the post!

 

[nedjer]

Yea, for sure. In fact, I just level my players when I feel the time is right - there is no XP at all

Thanks for the post!

I've been using a mission based system for leveling for ages and it hadn't occured to me that no XPs for killing might explain much of the lack of indiscriminate killing. Doh! Combative missions still have a high kill but it's much more eh? an option/ as necessary. Can't say I miss bludgeoning every last baby kobold to death.