PC on PC Action

[Bullgrit]

Have you ever been a part of PC on PC violence? I'm not talking about a PC getting magically charmed/possessed and attacking another PC. I mean PCs in their "right mind" going at it.

For instance, in a Nightlife campaign:
(Nightlife = PCs are vampires, werewolves, etc. -- pre-Vampire the Masquerade)

Of our group of 6 PCS, this one werewolf was really annoying to everyone. It got to a point where he riled up the entire group so that everyone, (except my vampire), charged him with murder in mind. We were in the beginning of a dungeon-like adventure, and the annoying werewolf fled into the "dungeon" with the other 4 PCs chasing him. The whole group ran through several areas where enemies attacked them all as they went past.

I thought it foolish to chase him through the dungeon, so I just stayed put at the entrance. As luck would have it, the annoying werewolf lead the chase in a circle through the dungeon, and came back to the entrance.

Because of the run through the gauntlet, with enemies and PCs whittling his "hit points" down, he appeared before me in pretty bad shape. My vampire pulled his .44 revolver, and shot him dead.

Then the rest of the PCs showed up, trailing a bunch of enemies, and we all exited the premises. In Nightlife, werewolves and such will arise from "death" the next night. We never bothered bringing the "dead" werewolf PC with us, and we never worried about his fate.

The Player never showed up for another game. All the other Players in the game were satisfied with the outcome, though they were annoyed that I had been the one to kill the PC, since they had actually done all the dangerous work of chasing him through the dungeon.

* * *

In a Shadowrun campaign:

My orc mercenary PC looted a cyberdeck from an enemy decker. The troll samurai PC said it was stealing, and didn't like it. We argued about it a bit, (heated arguments as the PCs, good naturely as Players). Eventually, we decided to deal with our argument as orcs and trolls should: violence. Though we agreed, as comrades, to fight unarmed.

The troll knocked out my orc with his first punch. (Trolls hit like a truck.) After that, we considered the matter satisfactorily handled, and we went on our next adventure.

* * *

Do you have any tales of inter-party fights? Were they good or bad events?

Bullgrit

 

[Umbran]

A long time ago, playing 1e, we had a large party, and in it were a couple of gnomes - one svirfneblin illusionist (Neutral with evil tendencies), the other a standard surface gnome illusionist thief (CG). The two gnomes did not get along.

However, they were also the party pipsqueaks, and understood the better part of valor. So, without discussing it between themselves, or the rest of the party, they undertook an epic prank war. Each of them had another character in the party that tended to protect them - a champion, as it were. So, they took to pranking each other's champion.

Each of the champions, not knowing what was going on, figured it was the other champion pulling the pranks. It came to a head when the party barbarian woke up to find himself smelling profusely of flowery (and thoroughly unmanly) perfume, and attacked the party ranger for the deed. It started with fisticuffs, and stepped up to weapons, before the rest of the party stepped in to stop the fight.

Eventually, the party discovered that the gnomes were the source of the actual trouble, and the shorties spent some time being dangled over a cliff by the barbarian and ranger, and given a long talking-to, where they were informed in no uncertain terms that any more hijinks would be blamed on both of them equally, at which point the dangling off the cliff would turn into plummeting off the cliff.

Eventually, the surface gnome died saving the rest of the party from being fireballed. The issue didn't arise until several years later, when he (and several others) got raised from the dead by a poorly worded wish...

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Yep.

My NE F/T in a 3Ed game , Johnny Bones, bullied the party Mage. Once pushed him through a wall of fire (non-magical) to see if it was safe.

Bear, my LN F in a 1Ed game, was the "enforcer" in our group, and was in thrall to the party Thief who kept stealing things he shouldn't. When the party tried to beat some sense into the Thief, Bear stopped them, forcefully.

Omega the Ender was a former alien gladiator "brick" in a supers game. The campaign's intro involved thwarting malfeasance at a warehouse where one of the other PCs worked in his secret identity. Omega gets there and starts looking for baddies, just as the other PC changes out of his civvies and into his fighting togs. Since they had never met, each assumed the other was the one who tripped the alarm...

 

[Kzach]

In general I won't allow it as a GM. There have been a few instances where I've cautiously moved forward with it because I felt it was a good roleplaying opportunity and the players were mature enough not to ruin the game over it, but for the most part, it's always due to one particularly annoying person, or one particularly oversensitive person, or a "Mr. Rage Issues", so I nip it in the bud, stop the game and tell them to sort it out or the person can leave the group.

 

[Heart]

In a game I'm currently apart of, the GM purposely put me in a faction against all other PCs because I was stronger then them.

It's still pretty fun though.

 

[NewJeffCT]

I don't think I'm a good enough DM to get that sort of intraparty conflict going at the table.

Though, I'm sure some of my players would have enjoyed some PC on PC action last campaign, if it was the two female PCs. ;=)

 

[Lanefan]

PC vs PC? Old hat, my friend...

I've instigated it, I've retaliated when someone else instigated it, I've DMed it, played it, seen it, stood by while others did it, died to it, killed others during it, heard the media coverage about it - in-party brawls are as much a part of our games as killing Orcs...and often much more fun!

I could tell a million stories (and bore you all to tears) but I'll instead just direct you to the link in my .sig - read the log of any of the games there and it likely won't be long before you find some brawlin'...

Lan-"five minutes for fighting"-efan

 

[RedTonic]

In most of the games I've played and run, the PCs have not been all on one side.

I'm running a 10 year old campaign still where the PCs are split evenly between a loyalist and a rebel/terrorist faction (12 PCs + several NPCs run by players, with 2-4 characters per player). There's a good amount of fighting in that game--both sparring and "I'm gon' keel yoo!" battling. We're in the final countdown of the game, in fact.

My 3.5e homebrew campaign has all of the PCs nominally on the same side, at least to start. Any factional divisions will, I believe, arise later; they're all "good" aligned and neutral to lawful types as well, with no rogues nor arcanists in the party (which surprised the heck outta me). I have been in 3.xe games where the PCs fight, but usually they stop at threats. Haven't had any fights of that sort from my own PC.

I joined a BESM game a few months ago that opened up with my bodyguard PC and her client being nearly mowed down at a fete; after hauling *** through the building, they arrived at a spaceship prototype to find that someone else was trying to hijack it. Ended in a Mexican standoff between bodyguard and several others who became the game's 'party.' Not long after, said bodyguard also fired a (non-armor piercing) round inside the ship after the erstwhile pilot threatened to fly the ship into the nearest star if she didn't agree to all his demands right there on the bridge.

Now the rest of her party (barring her client) fears her, as it should be. (She's the heavy weapons, demolition, and interrogation expert aboard. Only ex-military PC in the game.)

 

[Jacob Marley]

Aye. I played in a Greyhawk campaign many years ago that consisted of a devout cleric of St. Cuthbert, a paladin of Pholtus, and a ranger who followed Trithereon. (For those unaware of these deities St. Cuthbert is a very LG (LN) deity of law and order as is Pholtus; Trithereon is a very CG deity of liberty. Pholtus and St. Cuthbert have an intense rivalry.)

For the most part these three characters worked rather well together. All three were committed to fighting back Iuz's advancements into Furyondy and the Shield Lands, though they often differed as to the "proper way" to pursue their goals. As the campaign progressed the tension between these three characters was growing. It finally reached the boiling over point after they recaptured a Furyondian castle near the border with Iuz.

The party found themselves with a number of prisoners (both orcs who followed Iuz and the Furyondian citizens who enabled them). The paladin of Pholtus felt that these individuals were traitors who deserved a traitor's death (mercy is not a virtue in Pholtus' faith). The cleric of St. Cuthbert felt that it would be impossible to administer and defend the castle without assistance of its former Furyondian residents. The debate between these two expanded beyond what to do with the prisoners and became a larger debate about the values of the two faiths and, more importantly, which one was going to hold sway over the party. The ranger could not stomach the thought of abiding by the leadership of a Pholtun and joined with the cleric. The paladin left the castle and rallied his followers in the fields outside the walls. The cleric and ranger lead their followers out to meet them. The rest of the party split more or less evenly between the two rival factions. After all was said and done the cleric and ranger lay dead among the bodies of numerous hirelings and henchmen.

We all had a blast and agreed that this was one of our best role-playing sessions. Luckily the guys I play with are all pretty mature about this sort of thing and no one took it personally.

 

[Bleys Icefalcon]

This is becoming a recurring issue in our continuing 3.5 homebrew. It seems we can't go a single sesseion without someone pulling a blade and attacking a party member. I'd like to say it's always one hot-head, but they seem to be taking turns as to who the hot-head is going to be for the night.

Specific Instances:

The party was on a 3 masted privateer about a weeks' sail away from their homeport, out in the middle of the ocean. An NPC who'd booked passage for the voyage had been found death in her cabin the night before. The captain (one of the PCs) had decided to continue on course - as their cargo was perishable, and would cost them a fortune if they turned back. He decided they'd find the culprit and deal with it at sea. One of the other players, playing the Navigator, argued vehemently to go back - and during a late night duscussion between himself, the first mate (also a PC) and a few senior NPC crew-men, the Navigator suggested Mutiny. The first-mate told him point blank, if the navigator ever said that word again, it would be the last thing he'd ever say. Of course now his ire was up, so he spouted off "What word? MUTINY?!?!" - the fight was fierce, but brief, the Navigator was dead. He had nothing to do with the killing of the NPC traveller, he felt they weren't equpped to figure it out. He was right AND wrong, one other NPC, and one PC were killed before they found the culprit, a Doppelgangar posing as a crewman.

There are other, long and winded instances, in other cases, personality onflicts - but every now and then, just to let them get it out of their systems, I run an Evil Only game. We just started one last week actually, and of course, the Fallen Asimar Assassin just rubs the Drow Gestalt Rogue/Wizard all kinds of wrong - to the point that they tried, hard, to kill one another for the better part of an hour's worth of game time.

It adds an interesting element, into-party conflict, but it can also completely shut down your campaign, especially when personaly feelings start getting hurt.