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<blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 6930984" data-attributes="member: 6787650">No, it's not a good enough mechanic to create killing-averse behavior in players who otherwise would kill. Instead, you need to structure your game in different ways. If you want murder to be an emotionally-significant event you need to emphasize unintelligent/nonhumanoid opponents (undead work pretty well), make combat rare (definitely not 6+ fights per day--maybe more like 1 fight per story segment on average, just like a fantasy novel), make lots of plot happen in discovery/negotiation/exploration/riddling/investigation instead of combat mode, and/or provide external reasons (such as legal penalties for murder) to make &quot;deleting enemies from existence&quot; not a &quot;win&quot; button.Think hard about the reasons you (as a group) are playing D&amp;D in the first place. If you're playing it with people who specifically want to act out violent fantasies without repercussions (<a href="https://stirgessuck.wordpress.com/2014/09/25/the-promise-of-dd/" target="_blank">https://stirgessuck.wordpress.com/2014/09/25/the-promise-of-dd/</a>), there's probably nothing that can stop them from rejoicing in simple violence without ruining their fun. If so, you can either grin and bear it (possibly using unintelligent/undead foes in a dungeoncrawl as described above) or bow out and find some other way to occupy yourself while they slaughter things.Also, read this article: <a href="https://stirgessuck.wordpress.com/2014/09/26/violence-through-the-ages-of-dd/" target="_blank">https://stirgessuck.wordpress.com/2014/09/26/violence-through-the-ages-of-dd/</a></blockquote>

[QUOTE="FormerlyHemlock, post: 6930984, member: 6787650"] No, it's not a good enough mechanic to create killing-averse behavior in players who otherwise would kill. Instead, you need to structure your game in different ways. If you want murder to be an emotionally-significant event you need to emphasize unintelligent/nonhumanoid opponents (undead work pretty well), make combat rare (definitely [I]not[/I] 6+ fights per day--maybe more like 1 fight per story segment on average, just like a fantasy novel), make lots of plot happen in discovery/negotiation/exploration/riddling/investigation instead of combat mode, and/or provide external reasons (such as legal penalties for murder) to make "deleting enemies from existence" not a "win" button. Think hard about the reasons you (as a group) are playing D&D in the first place. If you're playing it with people who specifically want to act out violent fantasies without repercussions ([URL]https://stirgessuck.wordpress.com/2014/09/25/the-promise-of-dd/[/URL]), there's probably nothing that can stop them from rejoicing in simple violence without ruining their fun. If so, you can either grin and bear it (possibly using unintelligent/undead foes in a dungeoncrawl as described above) or bow out and find some other way to occupy yourself while they slaughter things. Also, read this article: [url]https://stirgessuck.wordpress.com/2014/09/26/violence-through-the-ages-of-dd/[/url] [/QUOTE]

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