Why are people so uncomfortable with PvP?

[mhacdebhandia]

people take it personally because they typically have one character in the game. One players character attacking another players character is interpreted as "I want you out of the game" and it thus taken personally.

The other factor is that oftentimes people create characters very carefully. Long gone are the days when everyone rolled stats and then picked thier race and class according to what they rolled. When you randomly generate the character, the attachment is lower.

The only way PCvPC works is if the players control multiple randomly generated PCs in the campaign and the campaign itself has a high attrition rate.

Or if the players involved in character versus character conflict are the type of roleplayers who don't identify with their PCs to the point of resenting that conflict.

I don't pretend to be my character, and I think that has something to do with my detachment from their success and failure - I am more interested in what their "life story" is going to be than I am invested in seeing them succeed. If their failure and death is an interesting story, then I'm as happy to play through that as I am to play through their rising above hardship and reaching their goals.

Sometimes I play characters with goals I wouldn't like them to achieve in real life, too! I don't have that level of discomfort with evil or selfish PCs that I know many gamers have, because while I'll play those characters exactly as committed to their goals as they would be if they were real people, I don't have a personal investment in their success.

Maybe it's just that I enjoy the journey as much as reaching the destination.

Two fellow players in my first Third Edition campaign, at least one of whom I know is deeply invested in his characters and identifies with them strongly, played out a strong dislike, distrust, and rivalry between their characters throughout the two-year campaign. Both players were good friends, with no out-of-game issues driving their characters' conflict apart from a mutual desire to play through such a hatred. Each played his character's motivations in this instance to the hilt - and, while I know that each of them hoped their character would prove the victor, I also know neither one of them would ever have had any hard feelings if they had been the loser.

That's why I argue that a dislike of intraparty conflict is situated in the "traditional" party-of-heroes model of D&D adventuring and gameplay - it's inimical to the teamwork and moral outlook assumed by that style. Even gamers like me who aren't possessive of their PCs or invested in their success can be irritated by expecting to play in that style and finding out that other players aren't willing to go along with it.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I would never advocate PvP in D&D unless both players were for it.

Let me make sure I'm understood. PvP in D&D should be about exploration of character and inter-character interactions. It is not something to do out of the blue because you feel like it. I'm not advocating the rogue suddenly, out of the blue, deciding to slit everyone's throats in their sleep unless the other players are okay with that. It's about fun.

It isn't for every campaign. I'm running two campaigns at the moment. One is my attempt at a heroic campaign of good battling evil where if the PCs turn evil, then they become NPCs. Another is an intrigue and political game involving evil PCs. Two very different campaigns with different rules regarding character alignment.

Now, the reason I bring this up, is because PvP should go the same way. Every game I run won't look kindly upon PCs fighting each other, just like not every game I run will allow evil PCs. A Ravenloft campaign I ran years ago almost encouraged such behavior. A barbarian campaign I ran later regarded it as dishonerable.

And, finally the players. Some players can enjoy party in-fighting if it is interesting, climactic, and fun. Some can't. When they can't, don't do PvP. When they enjoy it, you can find the time and place where it fits. And, it can fit. The example of holding your friend backto save his life is a sitution that is both fun and climactic. Even the PHB (or is it the DMG?) have examples of PCs rolling initiative and such against each other. It's all about how far the players are able to take it without bad feelings.

I agree with all of this to the fullest extent permitted by local law.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Ummm, there is role playing and then there is war gaming. There really isn't a third choice here that I know of.

That's why I call it a false dichotomy - because you are falsely assuming that anything which isn't "Bob the Player pretending that he is Bill the Fighter" is not role-playing, and labelling that "wargaming".

I don't pretend that I am the characters I play. I don't think like them, I don't put myself in their shoes, I don't identify myself or parts of myself with them, I don't play translated versions of myself with or without idealisation, I don't play the person I wish I could be . . . but I do speak for them (not as them), make decisions for them that they themselves would make based on my absolute knowledge of their personality and motivations (not by imagining how I would react in their situation), portray them to the other players and to the DM - in short, I roleplay them.

Roleplaying is not just pretending to be someone else. This pseudo-Method idea that "you are your character" is a widespread but limited and faulty assumption.

 

[Crothian]

Roleplaying is not just pretending to be someone else. This pseudo-Method idea that "you are your character" is a widespread but limited and faulty assumption.

So, yo you the character is a piece on the table that you control like a puppet? Is that what you are trying to get at?

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I think that's an inaccurate (and kind of insulting) way to look at it.

My characters aren't "puppets" in the sense that I jerk them around, having them do this and that on my whim. No, I flatter myself that I create pretty interesting characters with deep backgrounds and motivations, and then over the course of the game I play them in reaction to unfolding events in accordance with their personality, that background and those motivations.

As I said, my personal desires don't really come into it - because the only thing I'm interested in from the roleplaying side of things is seeing if there's an interesting story that comes about from my character's interaction with events and the setting.

They're not "pieces on a game board" or "puppets" because I constrain myself to portraying them honestly, to having them act as they would naturally act if they were real people.

I don't see how the way I do things can be described as if it were a boardgame. My characters have personalities and goals and motivations. I portray them accurately - not through pretending to be them, but at a remove. How is that less a form of roleplaying?

If nothing else, I guarantee you that the only difference between me and someone who does pretend to be their character, as far as anyone is ever likely to be able to discern, is that I'm not invested in the PCs' success - and that's something I've seen in people who do strongly identify with their PCs, so it's hardly diagnostic.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

It's like acting. There are plenty of fine actors who don't adhere to the American understanding of the Method - you don't have to be your character on stage or on screen to play them. That's what I'm getting at.

 

[Crothian]

I think that's an inaccurate (and kind of insulting) way to look at it.

My characters aren't "puppets" in the sense that I jerk them around, having them do this and that on my whim. No, I flatter myself that I create pretty interesting characters with deep backgrounds and motivations, and then over the course of the game I play them in reaction to unfolding events in accordance with their personality, that background and those motivations.

I have no idea how that's insulting, but I'm tryign to understand what you are saying becasue it sounds like you are saying you prentend to be the character except you hate the pretend word, so I'm trying to find something else that fits. And everything you said up there can apply to a puppet, except the jerky movemnts. Proffesion puppetters can make a puppet act smooth and very human like.

They're not "pieces on a game board" or "puppets" because I constrain myself to portraying them honestly, to having them act as they would naturally act if they were real people.

and you can't do that with minis and a puppet?? :\

If nothing else, I guarantee you that the only difference between me and someone who does pretend to be their character, as far as anyone is ever likely to be able to discern, is that I'm not invested in the PCs' success - and that's something I've seen in people who do strongly identify with their PCs, so it's hardly diagnostic.

Rght, so as you can see I think you are role playing exaclty like everyone else is but you just want to belive you are doing it differnetly. Nothing you have said leads me to think otherwise, you just seem to want to be offended by certain termology.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Well, maybe everyone else is just using the words "pretend to be" without reference to the English meaning of that phrase, but I doubt it.

Lots of gamers do identify with their characters and pretend to be them when they play - I've never done so. I've never played for escapist purposes, to pretend I'm someone else with a different life going on adventures.

I have different motivations, is all. But indeed my point is that the differences are internal - I'm not just wargaming or boardgaming, I'm roleplaying, just not exactly the same way nor for the same reasons as the majority.

I don't think that makes me special, just different. It does irritate me when people assume all roleplayers pretend to be their characters or identify with them, and there's been a lot of that in this thread.

 

[ThirdWizard]

The tangent of "what is roleplaying?" is an interesting one.

It is also interesting that it comes into this thread. Is it a bad roleplayer or a good roleplayer who can distance themselves from their character enough to realize that actions against their character are not actions against their own person? Now, if you ask this question when talking about the DM controlling NPCs it is virtually a unanimously good thing. When you're talking about interactions with other players, though, it becomes a lesser thing?

When a player brings an ooc conflict in game it is bad. When a player brings an in game conflict ooc it is also bad. These are almost axioms. So, we can definately say that there should be a degree of separation between player and PC in all cases. The question becomes, how much separation before we're playing Monopoly and I'm "the boot?"

Okay, so back to the topic at hand. The players who see PvP as a fun thing are in a bind. If they were "really" roleplaying then they would be identifying with their characters and justly getting mad at the other players through this identification. The fact that they arn't getting mad means they arn't roleplaying. But, they can't get mad at other players because they would be taking an in character conflict out of character, a very bad thing. Thus, PvP must be the culprit to blame, and must be a bad thing in and of itself.

But, I posit the question. Can you tell someone is roleplaying or not by looking at them? If you define it as an internal indentification with the character, then you cannot. Two people could be playing in exactly the same way to an onlooker, but then one will not be roleplaying and another will be.

Personally, I think making it a philosophical question is a bit overly complex.

 

[Romnipotent]

Players have to realise their not characters and characters have to stop making players feel guilty for their deaths.

Meet Ted, he has abandonment issues, is quite dilussional and plays dwarf fighters... thats all he plays. He likes them, they're dependable and stable. He's never wanted to hurt anyone elses PC ever. Ted's friend James plays rogues, wizards, and the occasional barbarian. James was beaten as a child and to this day likes torturing spiders. James one day is play a rogue barbarian wizard... he's a powerful raging sneak attacking touch spell specialist! Finally!
In the game he's being annoyed by the stoic dwarf, he's just like his father... never letting him have any fun... and then James has his PC attack Teds...

The unfortunate matter of it all is that people get upset... I keep saying it too, its a game! As I see it the problem is in trust, sometimes the PC on PC action is to sort out pecking order, to eliminate a bad seed, part of a developing neurosis, or the built up anger over stupid mistakes made over and over and over and over and over and over and over again and again.

Player on Player violence itself is wrong because its actual violence. I object to people fighting, especially over a game. Character on Character action, Im all for... if you're evil and like to eat the livers of Elves, then thats cool! Just understand repurcussions, Sometimes people are too childish over the paper in front of them.

(extra)

I'm of the opinion that anything in the world can be attacked and anything in the world can attack me. I've developed this playing Gurps, not so much because gurps can kill you with a common cold, but because we play in the Kalamar setting, where oath's, vow's and laws mean some people may very well be forced to attack a fellow players character just because its in character. The combination of Kalamar and Gurps has made me realise this more than other systems.