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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gothmog" data-source="post: 1462364" data-attributes="member: 317">In 100% of my experiences, when you have PCs wandering around slaughtering non-offensive NPCs, you have a combination of two things happening:1.  DMs who won't enforce consequences for killing NPCs.  Most of the time they either rationalize "the PCs are the stars of the show, so they should get away with it" or they are rather inexperienced DMs who think its "kool" to be so antisocial.  If both the DM and the players don't have a problem with it, I guess its not a big deal, just very juvenile.2.  Players who do this are often either young and trying to have adolescent power fantasies, or are disturbed people who have a lot of bitterness and spite because their real lives suck so bad.  Kids grow out of this sort of thing (hopefully), but for the folks who are bitter and miserable, there are better ways to spend your time than playing a game.  For God's sake, DO something to make your life better rather than boost your own pathetic ego by making others miserable and making pathetic attempts at dominance displays in a fictional world.Yep, I know thats harsh, and I might have stepped on some toes, but I have dealt with this several times in the past, and every time it has been one problem player who nearly wrecks the group.  I have also found that the emotional and mental basket cases make up about 90% of those players who slaughter anything that irks them.  Now if I get someone behaving like this, I lay the holy smackdown on their PC (that PC WILL be brought to justice and exectued), then I kick them out of the group- no questions asked.  That kind of behavior doesn't appeal to me or the friends I game with, and players who conduct themselves in such a manner are not welcome.EDIT: By the way, this is different than an evil campaign.  In evil games, its understood the PCs might be doing some bad things, but the "slaughter the whole village" style of sociopathic evil will result in a very short campaign with dead PCs.  I have run a successful 2 year evil campaign before where the PCs were sneaky, insidious, and diabolical kinds of evil- which made it that much more fun and somewhat disturbing.   <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/nervous.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":heh:" title="Nervous Laugh    :heh:" data-shortname=":heh:" />Double Edit: Something else just occurred to me- DMs killing or doing something horrible to innocent NPCs.  This can be a really effective way to motivate the PCs, especially if it is someone they respect or care about.  This is usually a good thing, since it brings the PCs into the game more and ties them to the world.  Doing this to arbitrarily is a problem though, because PCs will begin to think "whats the point of making NPC allies?"  So about 70% of the time, you need to let the PCs be able to rescue or improve the NPCs situation. <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":]" title="Devious    :]" data-shortname=":]" /></blockquote>

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