Why is it so popular to kill innocent NPCs?

[Altalazar]

In all my years of gaming, I've never seen PCs kill innocent NPCs - well, not generally. There are a few instances where an evil assassin character of mine killed some who could have been considered innocent - and yet it wasn't random. One was an innkeeper who had led the town guards right to his room - so he ambushed and killed the guards, who were after him, and the innkeeper too. But that could almost, in some twisted logic, be considered self-defense.

But just slaughtering innocent NPCs for the fun of it? I haven't seen it.

 

[random user]

As to dealing with 14th level PC's laying waste to a village, here are some thoughts:

- back in the wild west in the US there were bank robbers, some very successful. As they robbed more and more though, the reward size was increased. Eventually the reward would be high enough that bounty hunters would go after them. Basically, the more bad stuff you do, the more the general outrage is; the higher the outrage is, the more of a reward will be offered. If there is a 100,000gp (how does US$25 million convert into gp anyways?) bounty on your head, you're not going to be a happy adventurer.

- at some point in the indiscriminate killing, you're going to kill someone whom someone cares about. While that 19th level lord and his council of level 17s who rules the land won't deal with some random party rampaging his outer kingdoms, he quite possibly will drop everything if his son/daughter/wife got killed by said party.

Rewards don't have to be simple monetary rewards or vengeance either. For example, once could say: one of the mothers of a guy the pc's killed is childhood friends with someone high up in the assassin's guild. The assassin's guild is about to select a batch of assassin's into the inner circle anyways; the friend tells the mother, well, we needed some criteria to determine who gets initiated into the inner circle, we'll just put out a general proclaimation that whoever brings back the head of a PC will get automatic admittance. That way, you have people gunning for the PCs for their own selfish reasons, and you don't have to worry about shifting the geo-political power shifts if the PC's are able to defeat the NPC's coming after them, nor have a bounty for the PC's which may or may not be hard to believe.

etc etc

 

[Amal Shukup]

this thread reminded me of something...

In a game I played in, the DM wanted to run an encounter with an evil party that was quite a bit more powerful than us and hunting us on behalf of their dark deity (who had taken umbrage at something or other). To help even the score, our deity sent us a 'vision' while we slept of the baddies arriving in a small local town (where we were heading) and setting up an ambush...

This 'vision' was accomplished by our fairly clever DM handing each of us a bad guy character sheet and telling us to "take over the town, wreak some havok, and ambush your party". So we played Evil, high-level characters for a session: Five 13th level completely evil characters in a town we were encouraged to destroy and a full day to kill...

It was quite awful, actually. I mean we sorta got into the novelty of it, but it was horrific: Hundreds were killed without mercy (but, er, creativity), corpses were animated en masse, wells poisoned, crops burned, churches desecrated, trophies taken, dark deities appeased with mass sacrifices... I certainly wouldn't want to do that sort of thing too often. Our poor DM was taken aback by the level of vileness achieved...

Then we ambushed our characters (run by the DM) and killed them all with distressing ease...

Of course, the very next session we got to play our regular good-guy selves and - armed with the fore-knowledge of the planned ambush and our ambushers - avenged the town mightily...

Sort of proves the point though: wanton slaughter of innocents (even if mandated by your gods and in keeping with your alignment and character) WILL generate a response from somebody...

A'Mal

 

[Umbra]

A party has been indiscriminately killing off innocents for sometime. They arrive in a new town and discover no-one trusts them, no-one will trade with them, no-one will provide food, shelter or information. Indeed, mis-information is probably the best tool available to the commoner.

"Yes I've heard of the tomb of the orc king. It's meant to be in a valley further up the river" (which happens to be home to an ancient, grumpy red dragon but, oh dear, I seem to have forgotten to tell you that).

Or

"There is an island in the middle of the Deathwater Marshes that is meant to be the home of the Archmage" (or so I imagine).

The party will become very frustrated with all the time wasted, deadly encounters they seem to keep having and will come to distrust everything said to them.

Then the DM then starts playing with them by dropping a truth amongst the lies which the party will ignore, only to hear later that it was true.

And while this happens, the Clerics of Justice gather a posse and begin to track those evil doers down.

 

[Gnimish88]

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.

Without reading further, I am guessing you will probably be attacked as having an immature attitude about it, but I'm with you! I have run into way to many players who seem to use RPGs as an opportunity to play sociopaths. For those who say it is fun, I would ask: Why? If you want to go on a rampage to prove how tough your character is, go find some goblins. If the fun is in pushing around/killing those who can't effectively fight back...

 

[Djeta Thernadier]

Without reading further, I am guessing you will probably be attacked as having an immature attitude about it, but I'm with you! I have run into way to many players who seem to use RPGs as an opportunity to play sociopaths. For those who say it is fun, I would ask: Why? If you want to go on a rampage to prove how tough your character is, go find some goblins. If the fun is in pushing around/killing those who can't effectively fight back...

I agree that while these people may not be on their way to going on a killing spree IRL, it does say something about them as people. However, it could just be that they have had a frustrating day at work or something , the same reason alot of us like to play games like GTA and mindlessly drive around running people over. I do that sometimes (in GTA, not IRL ) to release stress and I'm about as far from a sociopath as you'll meet.

But in a game, with multiple players, I'd think running around killing people for fun would get awfully old, awfully quick. I play because I enjoy the story (and the combat, but the combat within the context of the story). Now, if we were robbers, or plunderers or some other form of evil character and that WAS the plot of the game and it was done within the context of a good story, maybe...

But if the killing is just done to roll the dice and show off ones characters strength, it's just not my kind of game.

 

[drnuncheon]

I was going to start a thread very much akin to this, bit I think I'll stick it here - if you've got or been in a group that's gone on one of these Knights of the Dinner Table rampages, what set them off? A mysterious stranger looking at them funny? A guardsman trying to harass them?

J

 

[Calico_Jack73]

Because it gives people who feel they are powerless IRL the chance to feel as if they have power of some sort even if it is only in a fantasy world.

 

[Mark]

Why is it so popular to kill innocent NPCs?

Because it is not discouraged and/or consequences for such actions are not presented.

 

[Calico_Jack73]

I'm looking for something beyond the players actively submitting themselves to punishment, regardless of alignment. I am of the opinion that the threat of punishment has to be just that, threatening. What could these low-level commoners do as a punishment that would actually be considered threatening to a higher-level PC party?

In a fantasy setting I could see the commoners praying to their patron deity to be delivered from the evils of the high-level PC party. A Planatar or Solar or some sort of assembled Celestial "SEAL Team" should be able to deal with your commoner-slaying PCs.

Of course Evil gods hate losing followers just as much as the good ones.