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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Man in the Funny Hat" data-source="post: 4657810" data-attributes="member: 32740">I think it sounds like D&D as I used to play it in the Auld Dayes.  Great fun.  But to be picky this is INTRA- not INTER-party violence. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> Oh, and I think the barbarian player should have been stopped and made fully aware that it would be perfectly acceptable for other players to interpret his characters actions as not just boys-will-be-boys macho behavior but an attempt at murder, mayhem, etc.  The players whose characters killed the barbarian should have been stopped and made aware that their characters behavior might be questionable even though they might think the barbarian had it coming. Nothing wrong with alignments changing as a result of in-game actions and motivations, but changes should NEVER come as a surprise to the players who are having their characters take those actions.  Alignment is a guide for roleplaying.  It is not a stone and iron wall intended to prevent players from choosing to have thier characters act in whatever way they want.  I'm just saying that if this incident is causing arguments (as they always seem to) there is no reason I have ever been able to fathom that they really should. With respect, everyone who already answered this is hopelessly off base.  You have provided no indication what the PC alignments were PRIOR to this incident and thus nobody can POSSIBLY make good judgements on whether the behavior is inappropriate in the first place.  In the second place this sounds much less a matter of CHARACTER reaction as it is PLAYER reaction and it should be dealt with on that basis. Also, despite the description of the actions taken we don't know much at all about the motivations of the characters involved, or the players.  I mean, was this all a continuous, single battle where the barbarian is killed in the heat of the moment?  Were these fights distinct, deliberate escalations of violence?  Were the PLAYERS as worked up as the characters seemed to be? Insufficient data for ANYONE to give you a meaningful answer. A little hard to tell from your description, but... There should not have really been an issue with the halfling clerics initial "bump".  The barbarians open-combat response seems excessive unless his alignment was already evil, he had already established a behavior pattern of excessive over-reaction, etc.  Anyone who turned away AFTER the barbarian began to attack the halfling effectively indicated that they either approved of, or simply did not care about the barbarians actions.  The two characters who killed the barbarian mostly get a pass for that.  It is perfectly acceptible that the barbarians actions be viewed as insanity or at least attempted murder.  If they decided that the barbarian HAD attempted to actually kill the halfling there is no reason they should let him live and thus ensuring that he was truly dead even after being beaten into unconsciousness is reasonable. As a side note, it is my opinion that when one PC takes actions that can actually do points of damage to another PC we are talking LETHAL violence.  I don't care if both PC's are 18th level fighters.  The ability of their hit points to soak up lots of damage is irrelevant to the fact that the man next to you needs to swing his sword with the intent to CAUSE physical harm - and that ranges right up to killing you in one blow.  Just because the players have meta-game knowledge that the opponent won't die from the attack does NOT mean the characters share that knowledge.  Unless the PLAYERS involved are explaining their characters motivations, their motivations as players, and their intent to META-GAME the system and inflict damage without REAL threat to the character, there is no reason to assume that a mere 1 point of damage doesn't require the same intent to kill as 100 points. Now the act of chopping up the barbarians corpse so that they can flush it down the crapper demonstrates a shocking disregard for the dead over and above what he deserved for his actions toward the halfling.  There are very few cultures where that would be acceptible.  However, this is still something that might be driven by PLAYERS being gleefully juvenile and that is something that needs to be kept seperate from CHARACTER-driven motivations. Throughout this entire incident I see a number of points where the DM should have brought the game to a screeching halt, warned players that their characters actions would have consequences, and only after that allowing them to proceed.  The bit about chopping the body up to flush it in the toilet I'd have said that the PLAYERS should either knock it off right then or their CHARACTERS would have to be interpreted as suddenly reverting to particularly brutal and savage actions that would have severe implications for their alignment.  If those alignment changes would have disruptive repurcussions to the game (beyond what had already happened) then I'd flatly forbid it for that reason.</blockquote>

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