PC on PC Action

[Doug McCrae]

I'm not talking about a PC getting magically charmed/possessed and attacking another PC.

In the last few years, there's been a trend in the groups I'm in for players to give their PCs extremely low Will saves, 0 or lower, in the hopes of being mind controlled and 'forced' to attack the other PCs. This has been the case in both 3e and M&M. Plausible deniability.

There was one particular GM, Ryan, who was particularly noted for his love of using hags, who would forever be charming the PCs. Want some PvP? In Ryan's games all you needed was a low Will save and you could deny all responsibility. The other PCs would even be honor bound to use non-lethal force in response because it wasn't the mind controlled PC's fault. Sort of.

 

[AeroDm]

In our earlier teenage days there was perpetual intra-PC conflict due to real world conflict. It was fun but pretty much ensured no "campaign" could ever endure.

Now days I actually strive to insert that sort of conflict but over in-game or plot reasons. I find that players and PCs will always have some differences and if you can sort of lean on them you can wedge some interesting situations into the game.

 

[RedTonic]

In our earlier teenage days there was perpetual intra-PC conflict due to real world conflict. It was fun but pretty much ensured no "campaign" could ever endure.

Along these lines I once tried to have my PC self-KO by holding her breath until she passed out.

 

[Ariosto]

In a full-scale campaign, it is par for the course. Of course, the Lawful Good and Chaotic Evil types tend not to sign up for the same teams!

Gangbusters tends to see criminals whacking even members of the same gang for various reasons. Suspicious minds make for itchy trigger fingers, and suspicions are often justified among crooks.

 

[C_M2008]

Years ago (during 2e) our GM had some guests sitting in with us and so (unbeknownst to us regulars) had the three of them make up a party of evil adventurers to oppose us. Since there were less of them they were ~ 1 level higher then us (They were about 2nd level, it was a fairly new campaign).

So after some adventuring the evil PCs surprise our party with a well set up ambush - obscuring mist to allow their thief to backstab away and their fighter at mage using ranged spells, attacks to draw us in.

Just as we're about to charge in and give them a righteous beatdown our wizard pipes up: "wait a sec I've got this". During our prior session we had found a scroll, which as always the DM rolled randomly for. All the evil party could do is groan as the ice storm (from the scroll of course) TPK'ed their entire party instantly.

Various other instances -including insanity form drinking multiple potions at once( mixing potions had side effects back in the day), desirable loot , and various alignment issues cause minor PC violence from time to time as well, but the evil party one is my favourite instance.

 

[sam1216]

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

i agree with you

 

[pemerton]

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

Not for a long time now. Back in my undergraduate days, when sessions were longer and time more carefree, players would develop and sometimes act on serious intraparty conflicts. These days more effort is focused on being accommodating within the party, and on playing out any conflicts in ways that don't disrupt the smooth functioning of the party.

The two most memorable PvP that I recall (as GM on both occasions) are the following:

A player's PC had died, and a new player had also joined the game. The first new PC was a yuan-ti wizard with a snake familiar. The second new PC was a human assassin, whose player decided as soon as the two new PCs met that "I hate snakes" and cut the familiar in two. The player of the wizard, irritated but wanting to keep retaliation low key, placed a rotting curse on the assassin. This fit with the idea that his wizard would take revenge, while (at the player-to-player level) ensured minimal disruption, because it was a slow-acting thing which the assassin would have plenty of time to notice and have removed without actually dying from it. However, when the assassin did have the curse lifted, he also had the priests detect for him who had cast it. Learning that it was the wizard, he hired five crossbowmen to ambush the wizard (and, as it turned out, the two other PCs with him) when they were returning home from town in a cart. The combat actually turned out to be a dramatic one, which the PCs won only through some lucky rolling just as the last of their (utterly essential) combat enhancement magic was coming to an end.

Anyway, that assassin PC eventually died in an incident of friendly fire by the party firemage (as I remember it it really was unintentional - the assassin was invisible and "lone wolfing" it on the field of battle, despite requests from other party members to stay back). The new PC was Pandemon, an elven warrior-mage worshipper of Demogorgon. Pandemon was a bit hit-and-miss in his contributions to the party, but in the end (and partly due to Pandemon) the party ended up losing several members. There were only three left - Pandemon and two mages. It culminated in one of those mages dominating Pandemon while the other summoned a darkhunter demon (with the body of a wolf and the head and wings of an eagle) to whom Pandemon was fed.

Pandemon's player went through two more PCs before he moved to Sydney and therefore left the game. (He was never just a disruptive prick, and he was also a member in good standing of a wargaming group that some of the other players were involved in. Unfortunately, the PCs who died because of his hijinks tended always to belong to the same player, which did cause some bad blood.)

 

[Wycen]

We've come close to it in our Apocalypse World sessions, but so far no direct smacking around or shooting has occurred between players. We have tried to influence the actions of each other through Manipulate or Seduce, the social conflict resolution mechanic, but no fighting yet.

I think the most recent would have been a couple years ago in an Eberron campaign when the fighter went crazy and tried to kill a dryad. We thought it was due to a helm of opposite alignment but apparently he was evil from the get go and used the magic helm as an excuse for a frenzied chase through the city.