My players are psychopaths.

[Dr Mushroom]

I currently DM for a small group of friends. We all went in together on buying the core books and kits. We take turns to DM, usually for a few weeks/months at a time, depending on the story.


My problem is that my players are massively hostile towards each other (in character, not IRL), usually resulting in big PVP pissing matches, attack NPC bystanders for no reason (and on one occasion destroyed a man's pipe that he was smoking, again, for no reason). They also behave hugely violently towards anyone who doesn't do what they want, and they generally behave like chaotic evil barbarians riding through town. I have no idea how to get them to remotely follow the campaign without just blatantly railroading them. Any ideas?
The players are first level by the way, as we are very new at this. Just letting everyone know.

eg: When the players were in a small village, they went to a blacksmith to get some weapons. He gave them a quest for a 700gp reward each. (That was a generous amount considering the prices of items and availability of gold in my setting.) They refused, holding out for more money. When the blacksmith had had enough and thrown them out of his store, the dwarf fighter attempted to break the door down while screaming threats. He then acted indignant when the guards arrested and fined him, insisting he had done nothing wrong.

[Dimers]

Sounds like they want a completely different kind of game from what you're running. *shrug* Maybe switch to a "villains running roughshod" sandbox game? -- if that could be fun for you.

If this is the only way they want to play, and you've confirmed that with out-of-game conversation, and you aren't interested in a game of that nature ... just leave and try to find a more compatible group. Zero game is better than negative game.

EDIT: You sound disturbed by the other players' acting out their violence. I sympathize; it's not what I want to see in other people either.

[Yakk]

You could try having fewer rails, and more concrete problems.

Instead of a large social organization where the PCs are near the bottom, have a tiny one where the PCs are near the top, and their actions make the difference between their own life and death as well as the community.

You protect the blacksmith and go on the blacksmith's quests not because the blacksmith bribes you, but because if the blacksmith gets the metal he wants, he can build new magical items for the PCs and the community.

The players are the rulers of the civilians, and they are the player's resources. Those not under the players are rivals and threats, and maybe eventually allies.

Alternatively, you can return to the old standard: your PCs are folks trying to get rich by raiding old tombs.

It is also possible that the players are reacting to you being over-controlling. Far from certain, but a possibility.

It is also possible that you aren't compatible: maybe they want to play power fantasies of raiding vikings, and not power fantasies of well behaved paragons of virtue who behave in civilized manners.

[Dr. Yes]

I can see dealing this in one of two ways:

1. You might just talk to the players out of character. Point out that they are acting like huge d-bags in game, and if they are not careful they will find themselves being the villains of the adventure instead of the heroes. If they keep acting the same way, start sending paladins, gendarmes, and bounty hunters after them. Losing to one of these can actually lead straight into my second suggestion, which is...

2. Let them be evil, and have more powerful forces conscript them. Governments throughout history have made great use of violent psychopaths and happily turned them against their enemies; these people were often called "mercenaries". If you can hire them on in exchange for their freedom instead of money, so much the better!

[Hal]

Honestly, I'd have an out of character chat with the players.

"Look guys, I appreciate playing in-character as much as the next guy, but this game is going to fail, spectacularly, if you continue to play chaotic stupid characters."

[johnbragg]

I can see dealing this in one of two ways:

1. You might just talk to the players out of character. Point out that they are acting like huge d-bags in game, and if they are not careful they will find themselves being the villains of the adventure instead of the heroes. If they keep acting the same way, start sending paladins, gendarmes, and bounty hunters after them. Losing to one of these can actually lead straight into my second suggestion, which is...

2. Let them be evil, and have more powerful forces conscript them. Governments throughout history have made great use of violent psychopaths and happily turned them against their enemies; these people were often called "mercenaries". If you can hire them on in exchange for their freedom instead of money, so much the better!

This.
1. The paladin-types track down and apprehend them, with the attendant violence.
2. Then the sleazy-powerfuls recruit them out of prison for, er, certain tasks. In some other city.
3. When they decide to screw over the sleazy-powerfuls and not do the job, then you come after them with the assassin-types.
4. Next up is your, BBEG--a vampire who wants these psychotic but highly talented PCs as thrall-proteges. (Make clear that undead=NPC, automatically.)

[rockdeworld]

Do the villains wait upon the heroes to act? Is a dragon going to descend upon a small town of helpless villagers only after some PCs come into sight? Do political schemes wait to be implemented until someone can exposes them?

Munchkin has words for players who don't beat their enemies. Those words are bad stuff.

Whatever happens, happens. Your PCs are actively helping to make a crapsack world, so give it to them. That's how you don't railroad people: you give them opportunities at every step of the way to make things right - even after stuff goes wrong. Someone heard a rumor that a villain's going to raise an undead army to conquer the world? Maybe the PCs stop him, maybe they chop off the rumor-guy's head for not ponying up the gp they want. The current village is in an uproar because all their graves are empty? Maybe the PCs check it out, maybe they set the people's houses on fire. The sky is growing dark because A HORDE OF ZOMBIE DRAGONS ARE BLOTTING OUT THE SUN? Maybe the PCs figure out where they came from to stop it, or defend the local townsfolk, or run like heck, or maybe they ignore it. Zombie dragons are attacking the PCs? Now it's a problem. After the PCs deal with it, they can make their way through the post-apocalyptic world to find whatever caused it and kill it, or they can PvP and die. Their choice.

And if they kill each other in PvP, let them die. They can roll up new characters. Besides, the only thing that brings warring factions together anyway is a common enemy.

Edit: The other posters have good suggestions too.

[Epinephrine]

My players aren't that bad, but they seem to have no issue just killing whoever they want to get things done. Originally I was hoping they'd be "good" and want to do things out of duty, honour, etc., but it didn't work. The cleric of Eraathis managed to get them all banded together mostly because the invasion is threatening civilisation, and they depend on civilisation for the things they like: booze, taverns, fawning public, songs about how awesome they are. If you let the invasion happen, you might not have all those things.

So maybe appealing to their selfishness might do it? Point out that it is to their advantage to help out, since it wins them accolades, gets them better treatment, and ensures that things are available to them?

[johnbragg]

My players aren't that bad, but they seem to have no issue just killing whoever they want to get things done.

Pretty sure someone has used that as a textbook definition of Evil alignment.


Originally I was hoping they'd be "good" and want to do things out of duty, honour, etc., but it didn't work. The cleric of Eraathis managed to get them all banded together mostly because the invasion is threatening civilisation, and they depend on civilisation for the things they like: booze, taverns, fawning public, songs about how awesome they are. If you let the invasion happen, you might not have all those things.

Much like Tarquin helping OOTS stop Xykon.


So maybe appealing to their selfishness might do it? Point out that it is to their advantage to help out, since it wins them accolades, gets them better treatment, and ensures that things are available to them?

That, combined with negative consequences for their already-established Evil behavior.

This might be railroading, but it would also be great fun. If your players are that out of control, maybe the (non-good) Powers That Be who get them out of jail also assign them a powerful minder. With level draining ability. So casual, pointless brutality would have an immediate and obvious cost.

If the players band together to take out the minder, so be it--you've got your players working together, at least.

[cavalier973]

"We've been hired to start a war, which is a prestigious line of work, with a long and glorious tradition."

[Dr Mushroom]

Thanks for all the answers. I decided to just go with the option of letting them do whatever they like, but making their actions have consequences to the world around them, rather than straight up railroading them, as I have been known to do on occasion.

[Dr Mushroom]

Sounds like they want a completely different kind of game from what you're running. *shrug* Maybe switch to a "villains running roughshod" sandbox game? -- if that could be fun for you.

If this is the only way they want to play, and you've confirmed that with out-of-game conversation, and you aren't interested in a game of that nature ... just leave and try to find a more compatible group. Zero game is better than negative game.

EDIT: You sound disturbed by the other players' acting out their violence. I sympathize; it's not what I want to see in other people either.

I'm not disturbed per se, the main problem is that they see themselves as heroes and don't get why the guardsman has a problem with them telling him he has a plague only their party's cleric can solve... for a price of course.

[Wymmerdann]

Also worth remembering. You don't have to justify the actions of your NPC's in or near-character. They might not be happy with the fact that they've been fined, but that's tough. If they complain too loudly the captain of the guard might just have them roughed up to teach them a lesson. Lose a surge. Resist? Combat encounter and get jailed or chased out of town. Being evil douchedbags has consequences.

If they start complaining about harsh punishments, it's worth pointing out that common punishments for theft or fraud include losing a limb.

Typical punishment systems aren't fleshed out for PC's because PC's are typically heroic.

So yeah, don't rub their nose in it, but if they happen to see that you have a "Limb Loss Results Table" and ask what its about, you have an opening.

Severely anti-social behavior is subject to criminal sanctions for a reason.

*May have just started DMing my first campaign.*

[windgate]

I'm not disturbed per se, the main problem is that they see themselves as heroes and don't get why the guardsman has a problem with them telling him he has a plague only their party's cleric can solve... for a price of course.

As an analogy for these "heroes", People who are insane often don't think they that they are. In fact they sometimes think everyone else are they crazy ones and only they see it....

The players characters are free to think and behave however they want. Players get frustrated when the DM tries to railroad their character's actions and alignment, it should go both ways. A natural consequence of their behavior is that the regional government will eventually hire NPC adventurers to capture and protect townsfolk from these delusional mass murdering "heroes"

Make the point with bounty posters listing their crimes.....

[Yakk]

I strongly expect that this is some PCs reaction to being told "you should" and "your character would" and being railroaded all the time.

They are trying to impose their view on this fantasy world, and are being stymied. So they try more ridiculous things until it works, and the world actually bends in the shape they want it to.

The reaction -- that guards out fight the PCs, that someone hires NPC adventurers to track them down -- all seemingly reasonable, but often simply the attempt for the DM to replace "your character should" with "I will use my ability to define what the world is to impose what I think your character should".

Back off on the railroading. Instead of having NPCs coerce PCs via "here is some gold for a quest if you do what I say", try simple stuff like "there are rumors of treasure in them there hills". D&D is a game of cryptrobbers at its roots.

[obryn]

You should talk out of game with them and try and reach a consensus on what sort of game everyone wants to play. If it's not a game you want to run, then someone else can do it.

-O

[Metahuman1]

This is mercifully for you a problem in a 4E game. Characters are easy to over power if you actually want to let there be things that are medium and big deals in the world, and not simply blindly follow the CR guide.


Let them do this to something that you warn them in character repeatedly is not something they should pull this on, then let that something have them as his usual pre-breakfast warm up.


And then have them spend twenty minutes making new characters, repeat as needed. That's another advantage to dealing with this in 4E, character creation is short and simple and not terribly time consuming unless you spend inordinate amounts to time thinking up fluff.

[Dr Mushroom]

Back off on the railroading. Instead of having NPCs coerce PCs via "here is some gold for a quest if you do what I say", try simple stuff like "there are rumors of treasure in them there hills". D&D is a game of cryptrobbers at its roots.

The point of that quest was: "Oh no! If only someone would track down the bandits that stole the shipment of metal to my shop! The deliveryman said he saw them entering a cave to the south! Could you help?"
Which was greeted by a "How much will you pay?" then "I don't think that's enough money." then "**** you, blacksmith! I'm going to kill you!"
This was just a random quest by the way. Not anything I desperately wanted them to do enough to try and force them into it.

[Dr Mushroom]

Sounds like they want a completely different kind of game from what you're running. *shrug* Maybe switch to a "villains running roughshod" sandbox game? -- if that could be fun for you.


We actually began something like that when they were falsely accused of murder (by an elderly woman, no less) and their response was... mace to the face from horseback. They then decided that the logical way to get out of this was to kill everyone present (it was a tiny mountain village) and escape. They then wanted to become actual villains, but decided they liked being heroes better and I basically just rewound time to give them a chance to behave rationally.

[windgate]

We actually began something like that when they were falsely accused of murder (by an elderly woman, no less) and their response was... mace to the face from horseback. They then decided that the logical way to get out of this was to kill everyone present (it was a tiny mountain village) and escape. They then wanted to become actual villains, but decided they liked being heroes better and I basically just rewound time to give them a chance to behave rationally.

I think at this point we are dealing with a genuine concept of a party of anti-hero's. The definition varies wildly but basically you have a villainous characters doing something heroic. Usually they start being a classical evil or self interested person whose behavior changes over time.

Examples I can think up off the top of my head:
Artemis Entreriri (Forgotten Realms), Vegeta (DBZ), Severis Snape (Harry Potter) and basically any character played by Vin Diesel...

Let them be evil, let the world hate them for it and have NPCS fight against them. Counterbalance this by constantly introduce situations, plot elements and characters that might give them a reason to redeem themselves.

[Yakk]

I didn't think it was this particular time that it happened at. I'm thinking it could be a pattern they learned, maybe not even from you.

The only way their characters can interact in ways more powerful than persuasion of DM is by using their combat abilities. So if they aren't interested in playing a negotiation game with someone who has all the cards (the DM), defaulting to in game violence is pretty natural (as it is a domain in which the DMs actions are somewhat restricted by the game mechanics).

That is one of the reasons why I want a D&D type game with some robust social capital and empire building mechanical systems. I should just go off and play Reign I guess, but that is overly abstract.

[Dr Mushroom]

I didn't think it was this particular time that it happened at. I'm thinking it could be a pattern they learned, maybe not even from you.


Couldn't not be from me. We are very new to D&D and have only played it among ourselves.

[wolfdreams01]

I currently DM for a small group of friends. We all went in together on buying the core books and kits. We take turns to DM, usually for a few weeks/months at a time, depending on the story.


My problem is that my players are massively hostile towards each other (in character, not IRL), usually resulting in big PVP pissing matches, attack NPC bystanders for no reason (and on one occasion destroyed a man's pipe that he was smoking, again, for no reason). They also behave hugely violently towards anyone who doesn't do what they want, and they generally behave like chaotic evil barbarians riding through town. I have no idea how to get them to remotely follow the campaign without just blatantly railroading them. Any ideas?
The players are first level by the way, as we are very new at this. Just letting everyone know.

eg: When the players were in a small village, they went to a blacksmith to get some weapons. He gave them a quest for a 700gp reward each. (That was a generous amount considering the prices of items and availability of gold in my setting.) They refused, holding out for more money. When the blacksmith had had enough and thrown them out of his store, the dwarf fighter attempted to break the door down while screaming threats. He then acted indignant when the guards arrested and fined him, insisting he had done nothing wrong.

Why did the blacksmith have them thrown out of his store? That sounds like really d----y behavior. If he was asking them for a favor and they didn't want to do it, he's entitled to express disappointment. But saying "OK, in that case I have no use for you, GTFO" is really rude and just asking for trouble. I think that you were at fault here.

In my opinion, it's a little naive to expect players to respond well to "good" and badly to "evil". Generally speaking, characters in the game will behave like characters in real life - they respond well to people treating them nicely and doing favors for them, and poorly to people treating them like d----bags - REGARDLESS OF ALIGNMENT. You need to practice giving your NPCs some ranks in Charm.

You can test this out as an experiment and see for yourself. Next time your characters come up against a villain, instead of having him attack them, have him try to negotiate. Let him explain that it's all a big misunderstanding, and that he is being unfairly judged by people who hold a different perspective. 9 times out of 10, if the villain refuses to attack or flee, and behaves respectfully and politely, the players can be convinced that maybe he's not evil. If he throws in a minor magical item during the conversation as a no-strings-attached gift, it's practically a guarantee that they'll think he's just misunderstood.

[Dr Mushroom]

Why did the blacksmith have them thrown out of his store? That sounds like really d----y behavior. If he was asking them for a favor and they didn't want to do it, he's entitled to express disappointment. But saying "OK, in that case I have no use for you, GTFO" is really rude and just asking for trouble. I think that you were at fault here.


The blacksmith threw them out because they were constantly trying to get him to give them more reward money, which, when it became clear that the blacksmith would simply wait for other adventurers to come along, devolved into violent threats. I think that realistically having someone threaten you bodily harm for money is a firm basis for asking them to leave your shop.

[wolfdreams01]

We actually began something like that when they were falsely accused of murder (by an elderly woman, no less) and their response was... mace to the face from horseback. They then decided that the logical way to get out of this was to kill everyone present (it was a tiny mountain village) and escape. They then wanted to become actual villains, but decided they liked being heroes better and I basically just rewound time to give them a chance to behave rationally.

This is actually a pretty reasonable response to the situation, considering the context. In a medieval world, court systems would be unlikely to believe a group of outsiders over locals, so giving up their weapons and putting themselves in the town's power would be exceptionally foolish. They probably considered the old woman a bad guy (which she was) and felt that they were giving her some vigilante justice.

In general, the lower the technology level of the game setting, the easier and more reasonable a response it is to engage in blatantly criminal behavior. When there is no way to perfectly identify somebody and news travels slowly, you can massacre a village, ride out a few days, and nobody will know about your crimes. It's basically like the Wild West. In the absence of a strong central justice system, "vigilante justice" is far more compelling a force.

By contrast, a high-tech cyberpunk game encourages following the law, or at least being much more subtle about breaking it. When there are cameras everywhere, APBs can be swiftly circulated, and a centralized authority clamps down on lawbreaking, players are encouraged to curb their antisocial impulses. In fact, whenever I want to run a "Criminal PCs" campaign, I always go cyberpunk since it is that much more challenging for the players.

[Dr Mushroom]

This is actually a pretty reasonable response to the situation, considering the context. In a medieval world, court systems would be unlikely to believe a group of outsiders over locals, so giving up their weapons and putting themselves in the town's power would be exceptionally foolish. They probably considered the old woman a bad guy (which she was) and felt that they were giving her some vigilante justice.

In general, the lower the technology level of the game setting, the easier and more reasonable a response it is to engage in blatantly criminal behavior. When there is no way to perfectly identify somebody and news travels slowly, you can massacre a village, ride out a few days, and nobody will know about your crimes. It's basically like the Wild West. In the absence of a strong central justice system, "vigilante justice" is far more compelling a force.

By contrast, a high-tech cyberpunk game encourages following the law, or at least being much more subtle about breaking it. When there are cameras everywhere, APBs can be swiftly circulated, and a centralized authority clamps down on lawbreaking, players are encouraged to curb their antisocial impulses. In fact, whenever I want to run a "Criminal PCs" campaign, I always go cyberpunk since it is that much more challenging for the players.

What you say may be true, but the point was not that massacring a village would be an implausible way to evade detection but that it is hardly a heroic action, especially when you didn't commit the crime in the first place.

[wolfdreams01]

The blacksmith threw them out because they were constantly trying to get him to give them more reward money, which, when it became clear that the blacksmith would simply wait for other adventurers to come along, devolved into violent threats. I think that realistically having someone threaten you bodily harm for money is a firm basis for asking them to leave your shop.

Did you consider having him cower and beg? After all, a bunch of armed mercenaries were threatening him. And it's obvious they're more powerful than he is, otherwise why would he need their help?

If you have the blacksmith behave realistically and beg instead of threatening, you can tug at the player's heartstrings. Maybe have his crippled daughter hobble out from the back room right as they are in the middle of robbing him, for maximum pathos. But if you have the blacksmith act like he is superior to them by throwing them out, then you're just BEGGING the players to prove you wrong.

[Dr Mushroom]

Did you consider having him cower and beg? After all, a bunch of armed mercenaries were threatening him. And it's obvious they're more powerful than he is, otherwise why would he need their help?

If you have the blacksmith behave realistically, you can tug at the player's heartstrings. Maybe have his crippled daughter hobble out right as they are in the middle of robbing him, for maximum pathos. But if you have the blacksmith act like he is superior to them by throwing them out, then you're just BEGGING the players to prove you wrong.

Well it was an on the fly decision given that I hadn't really considered this eventuality, but if they had refused to leave his shop then it is likely that he would have cowered and begged. His exact words (or as near as I can remember) were "How dare you! Get out of my shop or I'll call the guards!"
So it was a situation that was likely to backfire on the players given that they were level 1 and the guardsmen would definitely been better armed and trained than they were.

[obryn]

Let them do this to something that you warn them in character repeatedly is not something they should pull this on, then let that something have them as his usual pre-breakfast warm up.
I just want to say - do not do this. This is the sort of passive-aggressive, railroady thing that can ruin games. And your players will rebel against this just as much, probably justifiably so if it's just kind of dropped in out of nowhere.

"Here's my godlike NPC who's come to teach all of you players a lesson about playing elfgames the right way!"

Handling this out of the game is really and truly the most sane and sensible way to handle most or all in-game problems. Abusing your role as the DM is pretty much always the worst idea. It can be comforting to hide behind a role where you have apparent control over the situation, but you need to talk with your players as collaborators instead of children.

-O

[is_Wayside]

I currently DM for a small group of friends. We all went in together on buying the core books and kits. We take turns to DM, usually for a few weeks/months at a time, depending on the story.


My problem is that my players are massively hostile towards each other (in character, not IRL), usually resulting in big PVP pissing matches, attack NPC bystanders for no reason (and on one occasion destroyed a man's pipe that he was smoking, again, for no reason). They also behave hugely violently towards anyone who doesn't do what they want, and they generally behave like chaotic evil barbarians riding through town. I have no idea how to get them to remotely follow the campaign without just blatantly railroading them. Any ideas?
The players are first level by the way, as we are very new at this. Just letting everyone know.

eg: When the players were in a small village, they went to a blacksmith to get some weapons. He gave them a quest for a 700gp reward each. (That was a generous amount considering the prices of items and availability of gold in my setting.) They refused, holding out for more money. When the blacksmith had had enough and thrown them out of his store, the dwarf fighter attempted to break the door down while screaming threats. He then acted indignant when the guards arrested and fined him, insisting he had done nothing wrong.

Man, that sounds like fun. I wanna be an evil villain in a sandbox game so badly.

[Vitruviansquid]

A different way of looking at this than those suggested by most of the posters before me is that your players are simply learning the boundaries of the game and getting used to having the power that players in RPG's have that they'll probably never experience in a video game, board game, or any other kind of game.

Let them go nuts. Even run the best possible game for psychopaths. I think they'll eventually come to understand the limitations of playing like this on their own.

[Arcas Corricol]

Most of my party are psychopaths anyway so my advice is that you make subtle changes to your plan, leading them into traps, getting bigger monsters and doing things which make them cherish their peaceful times instead of getting completely pwned by a level 28 dragon.

Since they're level ones that will be a great lesson, or you can just make them make choices which have direct impacts on them instead of being so submissive, they also need to be reminded they're only level 1 and they aren't invincible. Fear is a great motivator.

:belkar:

[Yuki Akuma]

Most of my party are psychopaths anyway so my advice is that you make subtle changes to your plan, leading them into traps, getting bigger monsters and doing things which make them cherish their peaceful times instead of getting completely pwned by a level 28 dragon.

Since they're level ones that will be a great lesson, or you can just make them make choices which have direct impacts on them instead of being so submissive, they also need to be reminded they're only level 1 and they aren't invincible. Fear is a great motivator.

:belkar:

This is a great way to find your entire group walking out on you. So if you don't want to DM or have friends anymore, totally do this!

[dric_dolphin]

Sometimes the players just want to play psycopats. Assuming they don't start killing each other, I find that OK (of course, they will be the villains, no the heroes).

I had simillar issues (on 3.5, not 4e), but eventually the players turned on one another... the result was the end of my campaign. Do you guys have any tips on how to make players get along, when they clearly want to PVP?

[Tegu8788]

Do you guys have any tips on how to make players get along, when they clearly want to PVP?

No. You don't make your players do anything. You can nudge them, guide them, but you can't make them do anything. If they really just want to fight each other, then give them the chance to do that within the game.

[dric_dolphin]

No. You don't make your players do anything. You can nudge them, guide them, but you can't make them do anything. If they really just want to fight each other, then give them the chance to do that within the game.

What I meant was: Do you guys have any tips that will discourage the players to PVP?

[ghost_warlock]

The easiest way I know is to reinforce just how much like rocket tag PvP is in 4e. Most of the time, whoever wins initiative is going to win pure and simple.

[Eurus]

Yeah, if you want to discourage them from murdering each other, just tell them that 3.5 is a terrible system to try and do that in. Seriously, it is. It leads to a horrible spiral of rocket tag and metagame subterfuge that isn't particularly fun for most people, and definitely not for the DM.

It's true that you really can't make people play a game that they don't want to play or in a way they're not interested in, and you shouldn't try to passive-aggressively make them. But you also shouldn't run a game that you're not interested in, because that tends to be a doomed endeavor. If it comes down to it, you just have to explain that you really don't like running PvP or villainous games or whatever the issue in question is. If someone else wants to run it, great.

[dric_dolphin]

I was thinking about the issue this weekend, and I think I came across an interesting solution - if they REALLY want to play PVP, I could change the campaing and set the players as gladiators. It wouldn't last very long, but at least they could kill/fight each other in a more controlled environment! What do you guys think of that?

[DHKase]

If you're fine playing referee to a gladiator campaign, and the players are into the idea then why not? A friend of mine runs a 4E arena style showdown and it does quite well. Low level (as in level 1) characters are the better for this since they can be easily killed in grizzly ways; with out giving the overwhelming advantage to the strikers and controllers.

Edit:
To further clarify. The way he runs it is that each match is timed, players can 'respawn' the moment they die and who ever dies the least wins.

[Alejandro]

How old are these players, and have they ever played tabletop before? Or MMORPGs?