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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Herpes Cineplex" data-source="post: 1464779" data-attributes="member: 16936">The only time I ever killed a nearly innocent NPC was when for apparently no reason the spineless, toadying loser my tough-guy character was intimidating suddenly decided to grow a pair.The conversation between me and the GM went something like:Me: You know, my character is absolutely serious about killing this guy if he doesn't obey.GM: He's not obeying.Me: ...so, wait; he's being given a choice between doing something that doesn't harm him or anyone he cares about, or dying messily at the hands of the guy who just intimidated him into the floor and who is, in fact, completely truthful when he says that he will gladly murder him if he doesn't get his way, and he's going with getting killed rather than cooperating?GM: ...he's not obeying.Me: Fine, I f-cking kill him.GM: Are you sure?Me: Yeah.  I told him to do it or I'd kill him, and he's not doing it.  He had his chance.It was disappointing on almost every possible level.  I don't enjoy killing harmless NPCs anyway, but if it had been over something important, or if the NPC had legitimately blown his chance to correctly recognize the threat as really being a promise, or if it had been remotely believable that the NPC would have had enough backbone to stand up to anyone, or...you get the point.  I would've understood it, and it wouldn't have nearly ruined the game for me.  But no, the GM admitted (much, much later) that it was just an arbitrary whim of his and it didn't actually make any sense in the game.  But by that point, I'd already learned not to make intimidating characters who try to push people around in his games (because no matter how intimidating you might be, no NPC will ever take a threat seriously, no matter how obviously serious that threat is), to never waste time interrogating prisoners (because all captured enemies become iron-willed torture-impervious smug little bastards who know everything but divulge nothing), and to never bother trying to negotiate peacefully with any semi-hostile group (because they will never compromise on any point and won't honor any agreement anyway).  :\ Kind of a shame, because that GM did learn after a while that it was okay for some NPCs to not be in total command of every situation at all times, and he stopped pulling that kind of crap.  It came too late for me, though; I was thoroughly conditioned before he reformed.  Now I save my intimidating character concepts for games run by other GMs.--i'm no good at playing genuinely evil characters anywayryan</blockquote>

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