PKing between PCs; do you allow it?
- Thread starter Krug
- Start date
jgbrowning
Hero
Nope, never have. I don't think it's fun.
joe b.
joe b.
Laslo Tremaine
Explorer
I have yet to see a group that can handle this.
Unless, of course, you're playing Paranoia. Then it is required...
Unless, of course, you're playing Paranoia. Then it is required...
Kanegrundar
Explorer
It's never come up in any group I've played with. If there was a really good reason for it, I guess I would let it fly. It would have to be a darn good story-driven reason however.
Kane
Kane
mhacdebhandia
Explorer
In the first Third Edition game I played, the party was evenly split between evil and neutral PCs. Two of the evil PCs had a strong rivalry, which was never truly resolved but which could easily have led to the deaths of either or both of them.
With the right players and the right characters, I think deadly conflict can add a lot to a campaign.
With the right players and the right characters, I think deadly conflict can add a lot to a campaign.
CronoDekar
First Post
I have to agree with joe here -- I personally just find PKing unfun and makes things difficult. Even if I had the right people doing it, I can't see it being anything I'd get any enjoyment out of.
Steel_Wind
Legend
I allowed it last.... in 1979.
I decided to ban it. Looking back - for the past 26 years or so?
A fine decision and I'm sticking with it. No. And by no - I mean NO and HELL NO.
Exception: PC is acting under a suggestion or other compulsion of NPC/ critter controlled by DM. Then it's just an attack and not the PC killing a PC - but a monster attacking by other means.
I decided to ban it. Looking back - for the past 26 years or so?
A fine decision and I'm sticking with it. No. And by no - I mean NO and HELL NO.
Exception: PC is acting under a suggestion or other compulsion of NPC/ critter controlled by DM. Then it's just an attack and not the PC killing a PC - but a monster attacking by other means.
In theory, I allow it. In practice, PKing only happens when the killer accidentally kills another PC (bad luck or bad planning). It could happen due to mind-affecting magic easily enough.
I'm fine with rivalries and disagreements between PCs but after seeing another DM's campaign disintegrate due to PKing, I adopted a strict policy that all future campaigns must have parties that think of themselves as a team and work accordingly. Your fellow adventurers are people who you trust with your life. They are the last person in the world you'd pick a fight with. Even if they were a total jerk, only a PC engaging in behaviour that was anathema to other PCs could trigger a genuine fight in my games. Otherwise, the PCs tend to argue and debate without coming to blows. If they have to settle a dispute by combat (or stop another PC from doing something horrible), they'll resort to unarmed brawling, wrestling (i.e. grappling) or non-lethal spells.
I'm fine with rivalries and disagreements between PCs but after seeing another DM's campaign disintegrate due to PKing, I adopted a strict policy that all future campaigns must have parties that think of themselves as a team and work accordingly. Your fellow adventurers are people who you trust with your life. They are the last person in the world you'd pick a fight with. Even if they were a total jerk, only a PC engaging in behaviour that was anathema to other PCs could trigger a genuine fight in my games. Otherwise, the PCs tend to argue and debate without coming to blows. If they have to settle a dispute by combat (or stop another PC from doing something horrible), they'll resort to unarmed brawling, wrestling (i.e. grappling) or non-lethal spells.
HeapThaumaturgist
First Post
Generally I never ever ever EVER ... EVAR allow Evil PCs in my games. Just leads to too many problems. Even if it's not going to lead to problems ... it'll find a way to lead to problems.
With this is rules on PK behavior. I'll go right OOC table-top and tell folks it's not going to fly. I'll explain why, but it's not going to be fun for anybody at the table but the guy doing the stabbation, and it's not going to be fun for him very long.
I actually tried PLAYING an evil character in a recent campaign. It was, I thought, the only way an evil PC could be played in a game without ruining the game. Honestly, I was a wee bit cocky. I had a good back-story, a long-term driving goal that would seamlessly unite him with the party and with a good-aligned group. He was so well tied up that the only way TO role-play him would leave him ACTING almost like a paladin. So basically he was evil in that he didn't particularly LIKE doing good, but did so anyway. In function he was perfect for the campaign ... in mannerisms and role-playing, the most fun I've ever had ... just generally a haughty snotty S.O.B. (he called all the gnome NPCs "halflings" because "all you little people look alike", he generally reffered to everybody in the party not a Drow as "those of the slave races", and hired one of the other PCs as a body-guard). But, little by little, as the campaign progressed along ... the rest of the party started turning evil. The player with the good (most were Neutral in some way) started acting evil as all get out. Eventually the neutral clerics were raising undead to help in combat, contemplating Desecrating pastoral groves to raise MORE undead, and more or less being black as heck.
It got to the point where we all had to generally go OOC and decide to help the GM get the game back on track and headed in the direction he originally intended ... which was pretty heroic, with the party acting as a group of freedom-fighters against an oppressive empire.
While I don't think there was anything wrong with my CHARACTER, or how I played him (and generally I think everybody at the table, including the GM, especially the GM, absolutely love the PC and how I've worked him) it's just too much of a temptation to get all weird and wicked in a game.
So, yeah, I don't go in for ANY of that in my games. No matter how well done, no matter how poignant and full of good RP flavor, stuff like PK and evil just get their fingers into the game and start to mess it up. I probably could have had just as much fun playing a paladin, say, and we'd have never had to sit back and wrench the game back into alignment in the middle.
--fje
With this is rules on PK behavior. I'll go right OOC table-top and tell folks it's not going to fly. I'll explain why, but it's not going to be fun for anybody at the table but the guy doing the stabbation, and it's not going to be fun for him very long.
I actually tried PLAYING an evil character in a recent campaign. It was, I thought, the only way an evil PC could be played in a game without ruining the game. Honestly, I was a wee bit cocky. I had a good back-story, a long-term driving goal that would seamlessly unite him with the party and with a good-aligned group. He was so well tied up that the only way TO role-play him would leave him ACTING almost like a paladin. So basically he was evil in that he didn't particularly LIKE doing good, but did so anyway. In function he was perfect for the campaign ... in mannerisms and role-playing, the most fun I've ever had ... just generally a haughty snotty S.O.B. (he called all the gnome NPCs "halflings" because "all you little people look alike", he generally reffered to everybody in the party not a Drow as "those of the slave races", and hired one of the other PCs as a body-guard). But, little by little, as the campaign progressed along ... the rest of the party started turning evil. The player with the good (most were Neutral in some way) started acting evil as all get out. Eventually the neutral clerics were raising undead to help in combat, contemplating Desecrating pastoral groves to raise MORE undead, and more or less being black as heck.
It got to the point where we all had to generally go OOC and decide to help the GM get the game back on track and headed in the direction he originally intended ... which was pretty heroic, with the party acting as a group of freedom-fighters against an oppressive empire.
While I don't think there was anything wrong with my CHARACTER, or how I played him (and generally I think everybody at the table, including the GM, especially the GM, absolutely love the PC and how I've worked him) it's just too much of a temptation to get all weird and wicked in a game.
So, yeah, I don't go in for ANY of that in my games. No matter how well done, no matter how poignant and full of good RP flavor, stuff like PK and evil just get their fingers into the game and start to mess it up. I probably could have had just as much fun playing a paladin, say, and we'd have never had to sit back and wrench the game back into alignment in the middle.
--fje
Greatwyrm
Been here a while...
I game with a good bunch of folks, but I've seen in-party conflict go too far. I usually give the players pretty free reign, but that's one thing I've just had to stop all together. After I almost had two characters die in a bar fight between party factions at the beginning of a sci-fi Alternity adventure, I just let everyone know at the beginning that they have to be on the same side.
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