[True/False] There is a point in every campaign when the PCs come to blows.

[el-remmen]

A little bump to see if there are any new opinions/votes on this issue. . .

We haven't had any punches thrown between PCs in a while, but one thing I noticed in re-reading this thread is a lot of people interpreted my question, or I guess the situation to be one where PCs might kill each other (either purposefully or accidentally), but in my experience, I would say 95% of the purposeful PC-on-PC violence (that is, nothing involving charm or domination) was of the non-lethal variety.

 

[drothgery]

Except in case of mind control, PC-on-PC violence has been extraordinarily rare in either of the groups I played with long-term.

 

[jeffh]

Rarely and not for a long time, and invariably symptomatic of non-game-related interpersonal problems among the participants on those occasions when I have seen it happen. They've been some of the most thoroughly unpleasant game sessions I've ever presided over.

The closest one of my own characters has come to intramural violence was in a one shot, an embarrassing but non-dangerous Command spell on someone who was about to do something I considered extremely foolish.

 

[Agamon]

Any campaigns? Yes.
Most campaigns? Perhaps.
Every campaign? No.

That said, it almost always leads to bad feelings.

Agreed. My bro can be a bit stubborn, and it sometimes leads to him saying "my way or bust". But it's only ever led to in-party physical conflict once.

More likely to happen: some outside force compels a PC to attack his friends. I've had 3 campaigns end because of this and a few others that caused a lot of grief. I try to stay away from that these days (as fun as it can sometimes be for a DM to sit back and watch the chaos unfold )

 

[Michael Silverbane]

I'd say that it happens more than half the time in long-term games that I've participated in (not including instances anti-social acting out or actual fallings out between players).

A couple of the more memorable times, for me, have been...

In a campaign that I played in, I was playing a paladin, and another member of the party became demon-possessed somehow. Usually, the character was in control of himself, but rarely, the demon took possession, and set about wreaking havoc. My paladin was very confused, at first, because he would sometimes get 'false positives' from the demon-possessed character on the detect evil. That is, the character would detect as evil, but the paladin knew that the character was not evil, based on the character's deeds and words (they group had been traveling together for quite some time, and the two characters were friends, the paladin had witnessed the other character's goodness for himself). Eventually, the demon gave himself away to my paladin. So, with the help of another party member, we managed to beat him into submission and restrain him until the demon could be exorcised.

In a campaign that I ran, one of the party members was accused of intentionally letting a plague (a figurative one, in the form of an escaped bad guy) loose on a planet. The evidence did not look good (some members of the court having it out for the party) so, in a fit of good sense, the character demanded that he be granted the right of trial by combat (something that he could do, due to his character's background). He chose one of the other party members as his second. The court agreed, choosing the other two party members as its champions. The accused was victorious, but barely, even after a tiny bit of shenanigan on behalf of an interested third-party.

In both of these cases, it was clear that the conflict was between the characters, not the players. Tactics were used, stops were pulled out, wackiness ensued, and a good time was had by all.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Barring magical compulsion, it doesn't happen in our groups. It's not prohibited, or even discussed. It just doesn't happen.

When I learned to play AD&D, I was in a large game-store group where intra-party conflict was pervasive and even tacitly encouraged. I actually kinda enjoyed it, as a kid, but even back then I was always on defense. Even when my magic-user made an unwitting pact with a devil and became LE, he got along fine with the other PCs.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Any campaigns? Yes.
Most campaigns? Perhaps.
Every campaign? No.

That said, it almost always leads to bad feelings.

This. (Although almost always might be a bit of an overstatement. But only a bit.)

 

[Fallen Seraph]

There is inter-party conflict as related to whatever is happening in the story, ie: the players know it is the characters fighting not them.

It also never comes to actual blows, it is more back-door dealings, bribing, etc, etc.

 

[Mort]

I encourage internal conflicts and reward them. But conflict must be relevant and limited to the story and the PC classes' backgrounds. Everyone gets a reward out of such internal conflicts and the "loser" gets even more than the "winner". It is strange but it works

If I was in a group and found out that the DM (without telling the players) was encouraging inter-party conflict, this would be the quickest way to lose me as a player.

While I've certainly seen conflict between PC's many times over the years, I've rarely seen it done well and without hurt feelings. In most cases at least one of the players was definitely not OK with the outcome.


Now if this was an up front assumption and the DM was open about it (For example, we did an evil mini-campaign a bit ago where the whole point was to be the one coming out on top) that's a whole different story and I'm fine with it - so as long as it's out in the open.

 

[Set]

We used to see a lot of this, a few decades back, and even saw a few DMs who chortled along, loving it, because it meant that they didn't have to really do any work, just put the PCs in a situation and watch them kill each other over some doctrinal interpretation of what their alignment meant.

Then we started discouraging Paladin characters, and de-emphasizing alignment as a whole, and since then, it's been smooth sailing.

No more cries of 'You killed my prisoner!' 'The town guard treated me disrespectfully!' 'I attack the king's advisor because she detects as evil!'

The assassins, necromancers, evil clerics of the insane god of destruction, etc. seem to mesh together like a finely-tuned machine compared to a party of all LG characters with different notions of what 'LG' means (but all agreed that a LG alignment means that they are morally justified in attacking anyone, PC or NPC, who offends their personal interpretation of right and wrong).

I know that doesn't work for everyone, but generally, you learn to tell the players that are going to be unable (or unwilling) to function in a cooperative activity by the character they place in front of you. It doesn't always say 'Paladin,' but it's one of the warning signs. It's usually a player thing, and that player will be just as prone to causing inter-party conflict if he plays a Wizard, but the Paladin just gives him an excuse to attack other PCs and then hide behind the 'I'm just role-playing my alignment!' defense.

Other classes don't have built in justifications for being jerks, so the less jerkish ones are likely to behave themselves and allow everyone to have a good time working together, instead of ordering everyone else to obey their character's alignment restrictions and code of behavior.