Why is it so popular to kill innocent NPCs?

[Tinker Gnome]

Well, I always hear stories on these forums about PC killing innocent NPCs for no reason. Can someone please explain this to me? I always try to be nice to them and would feel bad if I ever hurt, or killed one of them.

 

[dinggle]

because it's fun

it's just fun, sometimes, to kill one or two, or in one personal instance, scores of people. there are occasions when you want to show NPCs your power, or get rid of a whole village, or do something else like that. it doesn't say anything about the player, it's just human nature.

 

[Darklone]

I would assume that the DM has a hard time to make his NPCs more than "walking XP-treasure or information gathering" devices.

Or: The PCs often show a strange moral behaviour in my games. Common example (a problem which occured in several groups who played that adventure): the PCs defeat a pirate attack on the trading ship on which they booked passage. By law, the captain of their ship is the new owner of the pirates vessel... but my players (and many others as well) didn't think that's right. They somehow felt betrayed. One other group even killed the captain and his crew. And got stuck in the middle of an ocean without any idea how to steer a ship....

So I know three reasons why PCs kill random NPCs:
- The NPCs are not played as "human" beings.
- The PCs do metagame modern point of views about ownership and morale... though I guessed it would be the same by modern law...
- The players actually want to play evil PCs.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

it's just fun, sometimes, to kill one or two, or in one personal instance, scores of people. there are occasions when you want to show NPCs your power, or get rid of a whole village, or do something else like that. it doesn't say anything about the player, it's just human nature.

It's not human nature.. it's a small minority of players who think this is fun. I think it says quite a bit about the player, and not anything good. I'm not saying that people who carry out these type of actions in a game are going to do the same thing at a shopping mall, but the lack of empathy they show does tend to manifest itself in lesser ways in their real lives. This is my opinion based on having played with people who behave this way.

 

[Wormwood]

Because what would adolescent power fantasy be without the excercise of your power?

 

[DragonLancer]

Its the unrealistic abuse of power. For example, I've had groups who would attack and kill the low-level city guards just because they were going to be arrested for whatever minor reason. Rather than RP then want to just kill anyone who interferes in their fun.

Thats not every group, obviously, but it shows its head often enough.

 

[Arthur Tealeaf]

it's just fun, sometimes, to kill one or two, or in one personal instance, scores of people. there are occasions when you want to show NPCs your power, or get rid of a whole village, or do something else like that. it doesn't say anything about the player, it's just human nature.

Nice 1st post... That sounds kind of sick though.

 

[hong]

When you're 21, the whole world is your oyster. When you're 14, the whole world is your dungeon.

 

[Gilladian]

My players have never killed helpless/innocent NPCs. They did absolutely jump for joy once when a really obnoxious rich boy who had hired them and then insisted on going along (to betray them) got killed by a demon in the attempt. They then took the body to an alley, doused it with rum and left it there for the guards to find.

Next day a very worried city guardsman came along to check that "poor Lady Maxima" was all right - her escort had been found mauled by a crocodile after collapsing drunk in an alley. The PC's laughed about it for quite a while.

 

[Moe Ronalds]

My players are damn near psychotic, and never have they just gone around killing townspeople all higglety pigglety. They've played animal hentai artists, dabblers in the occult with protoplasmic jaws and once a scientist who killed a puppy to use its soul to power his brain-robot- but NEVER have they gone around killing random innocents.