D&D General A History of Violence: Killing in D&D

[overgeeked]

Yes, D&D is a squad-level wargame with role-playing elements barely tacked on. Always has been. That people play entire sessions without combat does not change that. That people use this wargame to play in-depth, character focused stories also does not change that.

 

[payn]

Payn's review of Snarf's Posts.

They're fine, I guess. But too short. Really needs to elaborate more.

lol, I was just surprised becasue you unpacked the ever living crap out of the topic in gameplay, and then dropped a big ol diddy on the end about a play tool without much explanation.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

I wanted to add to this...but I can't find anything to add, except that I don't much care whether or not my players want to make evil PCs. Usually they don't, but I leave it up to them and apply logical consequences to all actions (good and bad).

It’s just a preference for now. Back in college and such we had more evil groups than good and never pretended to be heroes.

Maybe I will want to try again someday…today is not that day. I need uplifting more now…

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

lol, I was just surprised becasue you unpacked the ever living crap out of the topic in gameplay, and then dropped a big ol diddy on the end about a play tool without much explanation.

Well, the topic of VTTs isn't that interesting to me, but that's the way D&D is moving. I assumed it was self-evident that the use of VTTs for D&D would naturally increase the combat, simply because it makes it easier to run more complex and complicated combats. Maybe not! But that's for another day.

As for the very final bit, I thought it would be funny. But you know ... there's a fine line between clever and stupid.

 

[Guest 85555]

I have no idea how I went from searching for sex punishment gifs to send to my wife to landing on this, but i am glad i did. I read the whole thing. While I don't have experiance with 5E, I found your take refreshing and perplexing.

I hope I am not offending but it seems the issue isn't with the system, but more with the DM's running the game. Any DM knows this fundamental rule. All things including D&D rely on balance. You have a murder party on your hands, no problem. Your protagonist now become the antagonist. Would it be so out of line that an city guard or royal knights would get help from an adventurer, mercenary, or assassin's guild? Setting trap after trap that didn't require fighting but creativity and teamwork.

I have no idea how I went from searching for sex punishment gifs to send to my wife to landing on this, but i am glad i did. I read the whole thing. While I don't have experiance with 5E, I found your take refreshing and perplexing.

I hope I am not offending but it seems the issue isn't with the system, but more with the DM's running the game. Any DM knows this fundamental rule. All things including D&D rely on balance. You have a murder party on your hands, no problem. Your protagonist now become the antagonist. Would it be so out of line that an city guard or royal knights would get help from an adventurer, mercenary, or assassin's guild? Setting trap after trap that didn't require fighting but creativity and teamwork.

There is no right or wrong way to play but every action has an opposit equal reaction. And of you DMs out there need help with an unruly party let me know. I'd be happy to help, lol.

A little confused which part of this response was for @Snarf Zagyg and which was for me. But I think it is perfectly easy to manage problems in D&D through GMing or through talking with players. My point was simply IF you want them to take the idea of violence serious in a moral sense, and to be clear: I don't think anyone should feel like they have to do this as I consider D&D violence harmless and fun, then the best way IMO is to play in a system where the stakes for violence are closer to real life (or to mod D&D so the mechanics match more real world violent stakes: something different editions are closer to than others IMO). If you play in a system where people are all equally squishy, weapons are approximately as dangerous as they are in the real world, I find it makes people more cautious and thoughtful about using violence. The other side of it was more on the GM end, which was it is about how the world responds to the players being violent, how violence can lead to a further cycle of revenge. But at the end of the day, that is more a play style issue than an issue of whether players ought to be taking violent actions in the game or not

 

[payn]

I hope I am not offending but it seems the issue isn't with the system, but more with the DM's running the game. Any DM knows this fundamental rule. All things including D&D rely on balance. You have a murder party on your hands, no problem. Your protagonist now become the antagonist. Would it be so out of line that an city guard or royal knights would get help from an adventurer, mercenary, or assassin's guild? Setting trap after trap that didn't require fighting but creativity and teamwork.

I am a neo-alignment type of GM who does exactly this. The player character's action determine how they are seen by numerous factions and people of the setting. However, Ive found players that were quite shocked that the PCs could be seen as antagonist at all. It just didnt compute that the PCs are not "heroes" and thus their actions are always for the greater good in a very simplistic way. Also, it played strangely with alignment in past with this type of mindset. This is where the assassin that only kills bad guys is actually a good guy comes from. A sort of ends justify the means morality stretch to fit the overall dynamic of white hat PCs. Exasperated, of course, by no evil GMs because of problematic player behavior of evil that must steal all babies candy and kick every puppy as a requirement of the label.

 

[Randomly Generated Name]

yeah posted on yours by mistake looked for the delete comment but then got distracted by my wife's reply to my gif..lol sorry!

A little confused which part of this response was for @Snarf Zagyg and which was for me. But I think it is perfectly easy to manage problems in D&D through GMing or through talking with players. My point was simply IF you want them to take the idea of violence serious in a moral sense, and to be clear: I don't think anyone should feel like they have to do this as I consider D&D violence harmless and fun, then the best way IMO is to play in a system where the stakes for violence are closer to real life (or to mod D&D so the mechanics match more real world violent stakes: something different editions are closer to than others IMO). If you play in a system where people are all equally squishy, weapons are approximately as dangerous as they are in the real world, I find it makes people more cautious and thoughtful about using violence. The other side of it was more on the GM end, which was it is about how the world responds to the players being violent, how violence can lead to a further cycle of revenge. But at the end of the day, that is more a play style issue than an issue of whether players ought to be taking violent actions in the game or not

 

[Reynard]

I don't think D&D makes a good vehicle to explore the real world implications of violence. First and foremost, most players don't have an intimate enough relationship with violence, and those that do probably don't want to work that out at the table. But even that aside, D&D doesn't apply nuance to violence: that is, in combat, you are fine until you are dead, and there are no lasting consequences.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I have no idea how I went from searching for sex punishment gifs to send to my wife to landing on this, but i am glad i did. I read the whole thing. While I don't have experiance with 5E, I found your take refreshing and perplexing.

I hope I am not offending but it seems the issue isn't with the system, but more with the DM's running the game. Any DM knows this fundamental rule. All things including D&D rely on balance. You have a murder party on your hands, no problem. Your protagonist now become the antagonist. Would it be so out of line that an city guard or royal knights would get help from an adventurer, mercenary, or assassin's guild? Setting trap after trap that didn't require fighting but creativity and teamwork.

There is no right or wrong way to play but every action has an opposit equal reaction. And of you DMs out there need help with an unruly party let me know. I'd be happy to help, lol.

Welcome! Stick around a while, we don't bite. Mostly.

Although, given what you were searching for when you found this, that might not be a feature but a drawback.

Anyway, no offense taken at all. I am a huge fan of DMs and tables making the game their own. I was just thinking about various issues, and when I make the mistake of thinking, I tend to post very long essays here.

I try not to do that too often. The thinking thing. Always ends up in a bad way. Now ... I have to go see if Netflix still has Is It Cake?

 

[Alzrius]

But the future? The future is VTT. And VTT? That's combat.

I agree, and tried to say what was essentially this same point elsewhere, but was told in no uncertain terms that this was absolutely impossible and could never, ever happen.