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Human Paragon 3
2010-05-11, 09:09 AM
This is part 4 of a weekly series of DM theory threads.

Juris's DMing Series Master TOC Thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=8392687#post8392687)

This week's topic is by request: How to deal with player vs. player conflict. I think this is something most DMs have to deal with at some point in their career, as there are many situations that may lead to it. Sometimes it's good roleplayers RPing a legitimate in-character gripe. Other times it's intermediate players attempting to "play their alignments" or the classic Paladin vs. Rogue conundrum. The worst case scenario is probably a personal issue between players, not characters, that manifests itself through the game. Whatever the reason for the conflict, it's probably not constructive to your game, and it's definitely your job as the DM to adjudicate it.

So what did you do when it happened to you? How did you handle it? What are some good ways to resolve such conflicts, in or out of game? Have you ever actually used a PvP conflict as a tool to improve your game, help drive the plot, or enhance the experience?

Anecdotes, theory and advice below!

Saph
2010-05-11, 09:39 AM
I find it depends completely on the real-life relationship between the players. Players who get on well with each other can make just about any IC conflict work, no matter how extreme. Even an all-out teamkilling free-for-all can be hilarious as long as the players treat it as a game and don't take it too seriously.

On the other hand, PvP conflict can lead to massive resentment and hard feelings. In my experience, every time PvP goes bad - and I mean literally every, single time - it's because of OOC issues between the players.

Here are two examples to illustrate. In one of these two examples, the PvP conflict led to major bad feeling which ultimately led to the group splitting up. In the other, the PvP conflict was treated as a joke and the players in question carried on working together quite amicably. See if you can guess which was which.

Star Wars game: As a result of a ship hijacking going wrong (don't they always?) the party ended up boarding and taking over a pirate ship and taking its crew hostage. One of the party members, the tech, decided he didn't want to risk his life this way, and got himself and all the pirate crew onto an escape pod and bailed out. The other pirate ships promptly attempted to blow the party's ship into dust, and only some fancy flying by the pilot kept them alive. The tech stayed with the pirates, and the tech's player rolled a new character and rejoined the party next session.

D&D game: The party wizard managed to annoy the party fighter by singing quotes from "Charlie the Unicorn" at him. The fighter clobbered the wizard with the flat of his greatsword and knocked her unconscious. The wizard retaliated by hiding a piece of paper with Explosive Runes inside the fighter's armour. Unluckily for the fighter, the time he discovered it was just after a battle a couple of sessions later, where he was on 2 HP. The explosion killed him. Since the party was low-level, he couldn't be raised.
Now, which one do you think caused the more bad feeling? The Star Wars one, or the D&D one?

Answer:
The Star Wars one. The incident was the source of a fair amount of rancor at the time, which just kept getting worse as the campaign progressed. By contrast, the D&D one caused no real friction at all, and after the shock wore off, the rest of the players decided it was highly amusing.

The difference? In the Star Wars game, the tech's player and his girlfriend had gradually been becoming less and less engaged with the rest of the group. The DM had also considered the pirates the "good guys" and had been expecting the PCs to ally with them, even after the pirates had stolen their ship. By contrast, the rest of the group disliked the pirates, and were getting fed up with the tech player's lack of interest in anyone except his girlfriend. The three-way bad feeling was never resolved and the group finally split up a few months later.

In the D&D game, on the other hand, the players were all friends, and talked out their problems. The wizard's player felt really bad about killing the fighter, tried to take it back, and apologised afterwards. The fighter's player took it in stride, made a new character, and contented himself with making constant jokes about the wizard's player being a "player-killer", which the wizard's player accepted as fair.
The key was the relationship between the players, not what happened in the game.

KainStormhold
2010-05-11, 09:44 AM
I admit that I don't have extensive inter-player conflict experience, I usually play with friends from high school and family back home so we don't run into it too too much. One instance in an Exalted campaign I was running last year does come to mind though.

Basically, the conflict arose between two players over one's general style of play. His combat methods to be specific. The complaint itself, some would say, was a moot point since it was over style. Basically, one player really didn't like that another PC in the group was a sadistic, hedonistic, overly violent SOB. More than once the fact that the offending character used his hook swords like meat hooks, viscerally describing the type of damage he wanted to do with them, rather than using them with any kind of style or even attempting to do stunts and whatnot caused an out of character argument. These would usually arise when the player would use such brutal tactics on an average mortal that could hardly survive being smacked with a blunt object let alone eviscerated.

Rather than pull both players aside and give them crap for disrupting the game, I used it as an example to help the person complaining develop his character. I talked with him about it one day when we were hanging out, and basically just asked how his character felt about the whole situation, not him but his character specifically. He said his character, who I will say was a paragon of self-control for a godling on the loose, found it disgusting and unnecessary. So, I told him to play out his frustration and disappointment in-character and maybe the other character could be shown the error of his ways.

To be honest, I knew the odds of that happening were nil at best since the other player didn't RP at all unless he was ripping into something or abusing some sort of drug or person in character. The roleplaying of the conflict worked out slowly, since only one of them acknowledged the conflict in-game, until it reached a final breaking point.

In the middle of a dungeon the sadistic character, who was a coward on top of it, needed to sate his sadistic and hedonistic urges since I'd made him burn up all of his willpower controlling them. When he finally snapped he assaulted a mortal woman the group had with them, ironically he was the one who had promised her protection so that he could keep her nearby. The player who had been trying to change his companion for near on three in-game months happened to be nearby since the three of them had split off from the main group in an attempt to open a locked gate. What ensued was probably the best example of in-character player versus player combat I've ever witnessed.

The sadist was left in a pool of his own blood to die as the other character led the woman safely through the side wing of the dungeon and opened the door. The player who died promptly quit the game since he "wasn't allowed to be awesome the way he wanted to".

His character made a comeback as an Abyssal villain NPC later in the campaign, but he got smacked down again by the same character.

Sorry that was so long but I felt it bared telling in a bit of detail. In the end I basically decided that the best course of action for inter-player conflict is to find a way to resolve it in game so that the other players at least get some drama out of it. Also, if the conflict is really really bad, you as a DM have to ask yourself if one or either of the players involved belong in your game. If they are causing more than half of the group to enjoy it less, then my answer is to find a way to remove them.

Gnaeus
2010-05-11, 10:14 AM
I find it depends completely on the real-life relationship between the players. Players who get on well with each other can make just about any IC conflict work, no matter how extreme. Even an all-out teamkilling free-for-all can be hilarious as long as the players treat it as a game and don't take it too seriously.

On the other hand, PvP conflict can lead to massive resentment and hard feelings. In my experience, every time PvP goes bad - and I mean literally every, single time - it's because of OOC issues between the players.

I couldn't agree more. My gaming groups tended to have a lot of PVP, because

I played in a lot of LARPs, where PVP is very common. Even after I stopped LARPing, and most of my friends did as well, we had still mostly come out of that background. Betraying or killing another PC was fully accepted in our groups, as long as it was driven by IC reasons.

The more out-of-character time the players spend with each other, the less problem PVP is likely to be. For a very long time, we would game, the game would end, and we would all go to someone's house and have a party for a couple of hours. Everyone who had fought with other PCs would spend time hanging out with the players, would usually apologize, and if there were hard feelings they would be dealt with. It helped the players remember that we (ourselves) and our characters were different.

When you get a group where this OOC after game or outside game interaction doesn't happen, PVP is a problem. There are a number of players that I feel uneasy about dealing with, because our characters became enemies. I assume that they are mature and aren't holding a grudge, and they have never indicated otherwise, but I don't KNOW. I will admit that when I have spent many more hours thinking of player X as his/her character and as my enemy, than I have interacting with him/her as a real person, it will color our OOC interactions. We are more likely to take offense at any number of real or perceived slights (use of OOC knowledge, differing rules interpretations, whether they are holding a grudge from one character to another etc...) than we would be if we had had the time to sit down and have a drink and watch a movie together after the unpleasantness happened.

Totally Guy
2010-05-11, 10:19 AM
We have some real fun with this in our group but we're not a D&D group so take my experiences as something eccentric. :p

Most player vs. player situations come from a a fundamental disagreement of what the group ought to do. Rather than just roleplay it out we use a debate mechanic. We prefer this as it makes it about the character's abilities rather than the player's social weight.

Both players set the terms. What'll happen if they win. If either player is unhappy with the terms they can elect to have the character walk away but that means leaving the current scene. Everybody has to acknowledge that the argument isn't mind control. :)

Then we look at how they'll go about arguing. The skills are majorly diverse, there's Persuasion, Rhetoric, Suasion, Stentorious Debate, Oratory etc... So the players describes how they'll do it. A player might say "I'll persuade my friend to see my side...", I as GM would say that it sounds like persuasion then they'll remember "Oh, I have a higher Rhetoric skill, I'll start making up inspirational speeches to win him over!" We like this because generally this keeps people acting in an in character manner. Of course the Zealot, with his high Suasion skill, will wave his arms around citing religious texts (as long as the context fits him doing that to get his way)!:smallcool:

Then we move onto the actual argument part. It's tactical, you have to guess what your opponent will likely say. And the speeches fly until someone runs out of "Social hit points".

The loser is entitled to a compromise dependent on how much "damage" they did. The winner gets what he wants and they agree a suitable consession for the loser. (Sometimes it's good to play for a compromise, also it encourages high stakes.)

If you lose a debate in this way you can choose to escalate to violence. A player considered this last session but went against it. He played out the internal struggle instead and was rewarded for that.

The argument stops a situation occuring where two players both strongly want to do opposing things but the obvious mechanical solution is to resort to violence.

"It's what my character would do" is a phrase I do not let anyone use at the table. :smallyuk: I am generally pretty easy going but this is my pet peeve. In my mind this line of thinking is responsible for much of the antisocial behaviour in roleplaying.

Human Paragon 3
2010-05-11, 10:24 AM
So what do you/would you tell your players when they insist they are just roleplaying their characters to the best of their abilities (and it's causing a problem)?

Choco
2010-05-11, 10:32 AM
Saph has this spot-on: The relationship between the players (all of them, including the DM, not just the ones fighting), is what determines of PvP can be done without ruining the game. If the players are all good friends and get along well, then they can deal usually deal with PvP just fine, even if it seems to come out of nowhere.

As for PvP going bad, there are plenty of possible combinations, and really the only solutions are for the DM to flat out forbid PvP or to remove one or both of the fighting players (or just PC's if the fighting is all roleplaying) from the game.

Some bad scenarios I have witnessed, and if you have any of these players/situations in your game, it is in your best interest to ban PvP and probably think hard about whether or not all these players (or just PC's in some cases) belong in the group:

The Chosen One: One side of a potential PvP conflict has the DM's backing for one reason or another. Significant other, family member, BFF, or simply the "chosen one" of the story, everyone knows this person will never lose at PvP because the DM will intervene to help him, or at the very least set the stage so he has a huge advantage.

The Grudeholder: One or both sides of the PvP conflict never let go of a grudge, and make it their goal to get revenge on the player(s) that killed them. Every character from that point on that they roll up is built specifically to take down the object of their ire, and they will do so at the earliest opportunity, even if it is in the middle of a boss fight.

The Crybaby: This type of player seems to actively provoke others into PvP, probably thinking he can win, but then loses and never gets over it, and in a worst case scenario leaves the game. He may not go as far as a Grudgeholder and make revenge characters, but he will NEVER let anyone forget how <x> killed his character in cold blood for no reason at all.

The False Chosen one: This type of player has some special relationship with the DM (see Chosen One) and falsely thinks the DM will give him preferential treatment. Explodes in a fit of rage when the DM not only allows his character to get killed, but sympathizes with the other side.

The Chaotic Stupid: Attacks anyone for any reason. If he does not directly attack a PC then he usually provokes the PC's into attacking him via his stupid actions being detrimental to the whole party. Upon defeat he either goes the way of the Grudeholder or Crybaby, or just rolls up another chaotic stupid character and repeats the process indefinitely.

The Lawful Anal: He is the paragon of good and law that everyone should aspire to be, and anyone who does not needs to be killed. Even if this starts out just being in character, the other players will grow to hate the player, thinking he is power tripping. Upon losing, he just rolls up another paladin-ish character or goes the Chaotic Stupid route out of spite.

The Catfighters: 2 or more players just don't get along, and they pass that on to their characters who should otherwise get along fine. Nothing good ever results, and these kinds of players are almost always Grudgeholders as well. Talk to them OOC and if that doesn't help, remove one or all of them from the group.

Glyde
2010-05-11, 10:47 AM
We live by a simple rule, and that's the player controls the character, not the other way around. If solving a PVP problem would be 'out of character', so be it. Do it anyway, and roll with it.

Gnaeus
2010-05-11, 10:50 AM
Some bad scenarios I have witnessed, and if you have any of these players/situations in your game, it is in your best interest to ban PvP and probably think hard about whether or not all these players (or just PC's in some cases) belong in the group:

The Chaotic Stupid: Attacks anyone for any reason. If he does not directly attack a PC then he usually provokes the PC's into attacking him via his stupid actions being detrimental to the whole party. Upon defeat he either goes the way of the Grudeholder or Crybaby, or just rolls up another chaotic stupid character and repeats the process indefinitely.

The Lawful Anal: He is the paragon of good and law that everyone should aspire to be, and anyone who does not needs to be killed. Even if this starts out just being in character, the other players will grow to hate the player, thinking he is power tripping. Upon losing, he just rolls up another paladin-ish character or goes the Chaotic Stupid route out of spite.

I think these two might be very GOOD times for PVP. Maybe you have a decent roleplayer who through whatever misconception found himself with a character fundamentally at odds with the rest of his party. PVP might be a better way to resolve this than a DM edict that player A wins, player B loses, his character is exiled from the party and has to reroll.

Of course, these might have been better handled by doing a better job building a unified party in the first place, but by the time you are at this point and depending on other circumstances PVP may be in order here.

valadil
2010-05-11, 10:50 AM
My strongest opinion about player conflict is that out of game everyone needs to be on the same page. I know a lot of players who are more than happy to play in a PvP game. However, if they suddenly get backstabbed while assuming they're in a friendly game, that's no good. How far in game feuds can go is something that needs to be made clear to everyone before the fight even starts.

If the game is friendly, I feel it is the player's responsibility to find an in game justification to cooperate. If they really feel that the character can't do that, the character should walk away. Hold your head high knowing you didn't compromise character and move on. That PC can always be played again in a different game.

Totally Guy
2010-05-11, 10:52 AM
So what do you/would you tell your players when they insist they are just roleplaying their characters to the best of their abilities (and it's causing a problem)?

I've pointed out that they should take the game in a direction they want to see it go in as a player. We've spoken about where the game might go in different outcomes to the conflict and asked everyone if that's interesting to them. Players are my proirity, characters are playthings. :p

Last session a player wanted to kill another player's character and then persue his own goals (even outright stating that "It's what my character would do"). We discussed it and said that that could happen but then we'd have a fundamental split in the party that we cannot resolve. I'd not be providing contrived circumstances to get them back together again.

Seeing as I'm not going to run a separate campaign for just one player we'd have to carry on with the killer player playing a new character.

After thinking about it the player decided that he could still take the game in a direction he (as a player) wanted to go in without violence this time.

I have not been in a situation where there have been out of character tensions coming into the game. Our whole table has been very well behaved. I very nearly got angry once against a player meddling with my guy. I'm glad I didn't. :smallredface:

Choco
2010-05-11, 10:54 AM
I think these two might be very GOOD times for PVP. Maybe you have a decent roleplayer who through whatever misconception found himself with a character fundamentally at odds with the rest of his party. PVP might be a better way to resolve this than a DM edict that player A wins, player B loses, his character is exiled from the party and has to reroll.

Of course, these might have been better handled by doing a better job building a unified party in the first place, but by the time you are at this point and depending on other circumstances PVP may be in order here.

Yeah, I tend to agree, which is why I specified what I have seen people do upon losing. If killing the character does not remove the problem, sometimes the DM just needs to step in.


We live by a simple rule, and that's the player controls the character, not the other way around. If solving a PVP problem would be 'out of character', so be it. Do it anyway, and roll with it.

Any player that I hear using "that is what my character would do" as an excuse to damage another party member in any way, I force them to read http://www.giantitp.com/articles/tll307KmEm4H9k6efFP.html, specifically the Decide to React Differently part. I think Rich does a damn fine job describing how to deal with RPing, In Character issues that not everyone in the party wants.

Gnaeus
2010-05-11, 10:55 AM
Another important factor is the age in play of the characters. If I am playing a cleric of Pelor in a good/neutral aligned party and Bob walks in with his brand new Dread Necromancer with zombie allies, Bob should expect some PVP either immediately or as soon as I learn what he is. If Bob is playing his DN in a functioning neutral/evil party and I walk in with my new LG cleric, I should expect to be added to the ranks of reanimated corpses soon. The DM should really warn those players of possible repercussions to their builds, but he shouldn't stop the fight.

Choco
2010-05-11, 11:00 AM
Another important factor is the age in play of the characters. If I am playing a cleric of Pelor in a good/neutral aligned party and Bob walks in with his brand new Dread Necromancer with zombie allies, Bob should expect some PVP either immediately or as soon as I learn what he is. If Bob is playing his DN in a functioning neutral/evil party and I walk in with my new LG cleric, I should expect to be added to the ranks of reanimated corpses soon. The DM should really warn those players of possible repercussions to their builds, but he shouldn't stop the fight.

+1

I tend to let players make whatever type of character they want, but only on the condition that they can get along with the other PC's (unless it is a hostile game to begin with, anyway). If you want to bring a CE character into a mostly LG/NG party, you had better do a damn good job explaining to me how you are going to fit into the party WITHOUT PvP. And I DO NOT allow "secretly evil" characters, so the rest of the party is told what Bob is planning and asked to either find a way they can work with him, or simply tell him he can't be evil.

BlckDv
2010-05-11, 11:10 AM
As many others have said; pre-conflict discussion is key. IF everyone has an understanding about what level of conflict is allowed, they will be able to laugh off antics that might kill a game when unexpected.

On two extremes:

1) I had a party that had an overt players make their PC in secret with the DM, and may lie, cheat, and steal from other PCs so long as it follows the rules agreement, the party only knew what they could ICly discover about each PC. One of the PCs was a priest of the god of death and judgement (known to run the most fanatic cadre of bounty hunters in the setting), and would quietly accept any bounties placed on other party members and then arrange through hired hands and clever ploys to capture or kill the PCs for the bounty. When the players eventually realized that that PC had a collection of "trophies" from every killed PC, their was a lot of laughter and "NOW I get it" around the table, and the game kept rolling.

2) A group I ran in Planescape that had NOT set out any rules about how loyal to the party a PC was assumed to be happened to overhear a rogue (archetype, not class) PC pocketing some treasure before calculating how much to claim she had found. Several players threw a fit that the rogue player was screwing over the party and ruining the game and demanded she quit; the game fell apart two sessions later.

The first PC directly and unapologeticly had slain PCs in their sleep, shot allies with poisoned arrows during ambushes, and in general been a bastard, but the rest of the party lost no respect or felling of fellowship with the player because they had requested, and understood, that they were playing in a gritty "who can you trust?" setting; the second PC was played spot on with her backstory and personality; but different players were expecting different games, and it led to a collapse.

(Edited for grammar)

Akal Saris
2010-05-11, 11:16 AM
For my own experiences, I run a Birthright game in which each PC is a separate monarch, but they frequently adventure together. Pvp is semi-encouraged, since you gain the powers of another monarch when you kill him, but also discouraged by a general "Nobody wants to start WWIII" system of ties between characters, plus most of the characters like each other.

So far, there have been 2 player fights, neither of which went particularly well. In the first fight, it would have gone better, but one of our players was unusually young (we were all around 22, and he was 15), and this was his first character death, so he was very emotional about it. It was also unexpected, since the other PC basically ambushed him while the party split up. Anyhow, he took it harder than anyone expected, since he hadn't expressed much interest in the character until he died.

The other PC felt really bad afterwards, and eventually they got over it, though the killer PC left the group a few months afterwards due to conflicts with another player. It ended up being a net positive though, since the younger player got the opportunity to try out his new Tome of Battle character, and he really loves the new one. I'm hoping nobody will kill him again :P

Yukitsu
2010-05-11, 11:20 AM
So what do you/would you tell your players when they insist they are just roleplaying their characters to the best of their abilities (and it's causing a problem)?

Resolved part by the DM, part by the players. About 4 of his players never initiate PvP, while 3 do (no, they aren't all in the same game). If a player starts PvPing, there is an "are you sure you want to do that" from the DM, and if they persist, we get a nod from the DM and the lot of us that don't initiate PvP gang up and kill him. This is because the party won't tolerate a backstabbing traitor in the party, even if they are acting "in character."

Choco
2010-05-11, 11:23 AM
This is because the party won't tolerate a backstabbing traitor in the party, even if they are acting "in character."

That is how it should be IMO. "Because he is a PC" is no reason to be forced to travel/deal with a character that you would normally kill on sight if it were an NPC.

Human Paragon 3
2010-05-12, 09:06 AM
Here is an anecdote about a time I used a PvP conflict as a plot point, and leveraged a cool, exciting scene out of it. Spoilered for wall-o-text.



So the two characters were a Monk and a Soulknife. Yeah, I know. Anyway, they were fairly seasoned roleplayers who are good friends IRL, and they wanted to play characters who had a past with eachother with no love lost. This created an interesting party dynamic, with the two constantly bickering. They very nearly came to blows a number of times, but always held back, probably for the sake of the game, or because they were always in so much danger that fighting amongst themselves would lead to disaster. It was fun, but sometimes made it hard to get things done, and there was always tension over the table.

One of the plot points of the game turned out to be a super scientist who pulled people from other realities into ours using a powerful set of artifacts. He could then program them and send them out to do his bidding.

One day when the party was incognito in the setting's main city (where they were considered outlaws), the group split up to get different tasks done silmotaneously. Part of the group went to follow up on a suspicious message they received, a few went to meet a contact under cover of darkness, and one or two stayed back to hold down the fort.

Since I was already talking to people individually for the above reason, what I did next didn't seem suspicious. I told the monk that I would be sending an exact duplicate of him to assassinate the rest of the group, and I wanted him to play the doppleganger to avoid arousing suspicion. Here is what I told him to do:

"I want you to go to the inn where the party is staying and tell Tycho (the soulknife) that you need to talk to him in private. Once you get him alone, you'll take out a gem, say 'This is a gift from Xenith' (the BBEG) and drop it onto the ground. This will trigger a silence spell that will blanket the room so nobody will hear what you'll do next. Once the room is silent, initiate a grapple with Tycho and continue grappling him until you bring him to -10 HP. Next, open the door and kick the gem into the next room and kill everybody there, starting with the PC druid. (They were mostly low-level followers, so this was actually possible. Only the druid was a threat, but in the silenced room, he couldn't cast.) Once they're all dead, I want you to wait by the door for the rest of the party to come back. Use your surprise round to flurry of blows the first person to come through the door and use stunning fist, then initiate a grapple. I want you to kill the entire party if possible."

"OK," he said.

Honestly, I didn't even expect him to kill the soulknife. I was pretty sure he would be able to alert the others of the danger he was in, or even just win in the standup fight. It was one-on-one, with two equal level PCs of similar power level. However, the surprise round made enough of a difference. Even though he DID manage to alert his followers that he was in danger, the monk was able to grapple Tycho to death before he himself was killed.

Although, the soulknife's player was a little upset about being killed, the gravity of the situation was intense. The monk's players hands were actually shaking as he reached for the dice like he was picking up a loaded gun.

The soulknife was later revived (using the same artifact that the bad guy was using to make dopplegangers) so no harm no foul. They even managed to use the dead body to fool the enemy into thinking he was dead for a while, so in the end it was actually a net gain for the party.

The fight released a lot of tension, and after that a healing process began. The two characters worked through their difficulties and even became friends of a sort.


Analysis:

One way to resolve conflict is to actually let the PCs fight it out. Some ways of doing this are better than others. Maybe one can be dominated. Maybe they BOTH are dominated. Maybe they've been forced to fight in an arena battle. However you contrive it, it should not be the result of an immediate argument between the characters, but something unrelated that nevertheless fulfills the characters' desire to fight it out. If you can do it in a way that guarantees safety (ex. the arena is manned by clerics who heal anyone who goes below 0 hp and raise anyone who dies, or there's an enchantment in place that does the same), this is better.

Another way to help resolve character conflicts is to put the PCs in a situation where they really depend on one another to survive. By this, I don't mean a normal combat, but a situation where a CHOICE by one of the conflicting characters determines whether the other lives or dies. This works especially well if one character has to risk their life for the other. Situations like this can lead to character developing moments and slowly let you resolve the conflict in character.

And if one character lets the other die, that solves half of your problem, too. Character A gets to sort of kill character B, but his hands are clean. Player B is pissed off, but he makes another character who has no existing beef with character A.

Obviously this won't work as well when the problem is between two PLAYERS as opposed to two characters, but if done tactfully these maneuvers can pay off even in the worst situation.

sidhe3141
2010-06-06, 11:48 PM
The group I'm in tends to have a fair amount of PvP (more often in the form of double-crosses and political maneuvering than armed conflict, though, if that matters). We generally accept it because a)we've come to expect some level of that sort of thing, b)it tends to take the plot in directions even the DM doesn't expect, and c)done right, it's surprisingly fun for all involved.

Enix18
2010-06-20, 12:29 AM
This recently came up in my group's last game session, actually.

The problem arose from the player of the Elf Ranger, who inexplicably began a sudden shift from Chaotic Neutral to Chaotic Evil. The first session of our game he was absolutely fine: he played his character as a somewhat arrogant (and naive) young wood elf, and while this was slightly annoying sometimes it also provided for some good roleplaying, with my pragmatic Orc Cleric bludgeoning him into submission before basically agreeing to train him to become a real warrior. However, in this session he was a completely different person, approaching the entire adventure in the most idiotically violent manner.

Now, as a DM I have dealt with ridiculously violent characters before, but always there has been a good in-game reason for this violence, and it has usually been done with humor or style that made it not detract from the overall game. This player, however, was doing nothing of the sort. He had no in-game reason for being so violent, yet he consistently resorted to his swords whenever the DM presented a new obstacle. This player literally attempted to stab every single person we met over the course of the adventure, including the new Rogue character that was being introduced to the party. His stupidity got so out of hand that eventually the Rogue and I had to physically restrain his character. Even then, though, he continued to threaten violence, and when we finally released him he continued to try and stab everything!

Finally, I decided that my character was equally as fed up as I was, and I attacked him. Immediately, he started complaining to the DM and refused to tell me his armor class because I "couldn't" attack him. The DM let me assume that an 18 was high enough to hit him and allowed me to roll for damage despite the player's protestations. Unfortunately, this did nothing to put the player in his place: as soon as we met another NPC, the Ranger was trying to stab him again.

This whole time, both the Rogue and I had been telling him out of character how annoying his was being and trying to get him stop, as his idiotic shenanigans ended up wasting quite a bit of time.

I mean to talk to this player before the next session to figure out what's going on. If he doesn't cut this behavior out I honestly can't have my character and stand by and bear such idiocy, but I don't want to do anything drastic without giving him fair warning. I still don't understand, though, why he chose to pit himself against the party when we made it clear that we wouldn't tolerate his violence. Perhaps my next talk with him will shed some light, but right now I can safely say that intra-party (or PvP) conflicts, when not done in good conscience, are highly detrimental to the game overall.

CubeB
2010-06-20, 01:10 AM
I'm a new DM, but here's my take of how I would handle it.

1) Always tell the party what kind of campaign you're in. I have loose alignment restrictions for all of my classes, but I tend to either tell my PCs something like "This will be a Neutral Campaign with leanings toward Good", or I look at the party's alignments and warn the outliers of potential difficulties. The former option is more effective, IMO.

2)Never allow Chaotic or Lawful Stupidity. Chaos is not random stabbery, and Lawful is not Smite Jaywalkers.

3) IC Conflicts need to be justified. If OOC leaks into the game, then pause the session and try to talk things out.

4) IC Conflicts are played out with normal combat rules. No free Coup De Grace. No "You can't hit me".