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View Full Version : Roleplaying Did anyone ever have problems with "evil" PCs in a game without alignment?



Yora
2015-05-12, 01:34 AM
There are plenty of stories about people complaining about other players who constantly keep sabotaging the game because they are playing an evil character.
Does that problem exist in games that are not D&D or campaigns in D&D that don't use alignment? I have the strong suspicion that having alignment as part of the game is what really creates all those chaotic evil and also chaotic neutral characters who keep doing disruptive things. It's basically the rules of the game telling them "You can play this type of character, and if you do you should be disruptive to play your character correctly".

goto124
2015-05-12, 01:48 AM
People have problems with the Lawful Stupid paladin, because 'that's how Lawful Good is supposed to be played'.

Disruptive behavior is independent of alignment. Alignment is just an excuse to be disruptive.

You play an evil PC in a no-alignment game the exact same way as you would play her in an alignment-based game.

The problem does exist in no-cosmic-alignment games. Players just don't hide behind 'my PC is Evil', they hide behind some other variation of 'that's what my character would do'.

Hiro Protagonest
2015-05-12, 01:54 AM
People have problems with the Lawful Stupid paladin, because 'that's how Lawful Good is supposed to be played'.

But Lawful Good when played like that is also seen as a descriptive trait where you're supposed to never compromise...

Alignment is supposed to be prescriptive, but it's used descriptively. Remove alignment and you don't have that inflexible descriptive mindset. Problem solved.

Yora
2015-05-12, 01:57 AM
I believe you mixed up descriptive and prescriptive.

Hiro Protagonest
2015-05-12, 01:58 AM
Oh. Whatever, I don't get in enough of these alignment debates to remember exactly. :smalltongue:

goto124
2015-05-12, 01:59 AM
While we're at it, what do 'descriptive' and 'prescriptive' mean? I see these terms used regularly in alignment debates but no one has really clarified.

@V: Which is which?

Hiro Protagonest
2015-05-12, 02:01 AM
It means one is a label assigned based on how your character acts. The other is how your character acts.

Milo v3
2015-05-12, 02:45 AM
While we're at it, what do 'descriptive' and 'prescriptive' mean? I see these terms used regularly in alignment debates but no one has really clarified.

@V: Which is which?

Descriptive: Your alignment is a description based on what you've done
Prescriptive: Your actions are directed by what alignment you have

Xuc Xac
2015-05-12, 02:52 AM
Descriptive: You ate that baby, so you're Evil.
Prescriptive: You're Evil so you have to eat babies.

TheCountAlucard
2015-05-12, 04:13 AM
I'll keep this short: yes, this problem still shows up in games without alignment; they'll still use the same kind of language, though: "But I'm a Ravnos!" "But I'm an Infernal!" "But I'm a pirate!" "But I'm a hacker!"

Spore
2015-05-12, 05:20 AM
The problem does exist in no-cosmic-alignment games. Players just don't hide behind 'my PC is Evil', they hide behind some other variation of 'that's what my character would do'.

Still this comes up more often in games where you have some sort of "philosophical" character attribute. Some people read "be evil" as "do everything your ethics and standards forbid not understanding that "evil" guys can save the city from certain doom because they on their own want to rule it.

Maglubiyet
2015-05-12, 07:33 AM
To answer the OP's question -- yes, I've seen it in other games. In Runequest I was in a group with two guys who were pretty psychotic. Torturing prisoners was their main thing, but they dabbled in other "evil". Even in a game without a codified system of morality it came across as wrong. Like they were way too into it. I quit that campaign after one of the guys tried to permanently drain my character's stats when he visited me in prison (can't remember that spell's name).

It wasn't logical or purposeful, it was just plain mean-spirited. I don't get that. If you've got deep-seated emotional issues, maybe you should discuss them with a therapist instead of acting them out with your gaming buddies.

I also had one player in a GURPS Space campaign who exhibited pretty similar behavior. I didn't realize at first that he had taken both disadvantages, Bloodthirsty and Sadism. Very similar to choosing a CE alignment, he was playing his character as written ("that's what he would do!") The group hated him and he ended up bringing them down by his actions (the Space Patrol tends to sit up and take notice when a simple data grab job ends up leaving a station full of mutilated corpses). Since then I've been very careful in scrutinizing new characters in my campaigns.

These couple examples aside, I think Yora may onto something about D&D's alignment system. In my experience it's pretty unusual for games without Evil to have such disruptive characters. I can only think of the two I mentioned above over the years playing in many different systems. Even in Shadowrun, when you're playing nominal "bad guys", it never got that bad.

EDIT: Oh wait, I just remembered a third incident. A "superhero" in an old V&V campaign of mine decided, inexplicably, to fly to a random suburban home and use his invisibility power to pretend to be a ghost, tormenting the family within. After a while he massacred them all and then nailed their cat to the front door before flying off. I took the lesson from this that "power corrupts"...and that some people should never have any.

Earthwalker
2015-05-12, 07:42 AM
I am not sure I think yes I did. Playing Shadowrun one player wanted to be a vigilante and spent time punishing wrong doers. "Wrong Doers" being whoever he decided moment by moment. It took alot of time away from the game just for his actions and generally just was terrible. You are powerful in shadowrun compared to norms and as such it was easy for him to subdue people and then start to describe how he wanted to torture / interogate them.

You basically play the criminals in Shadwrun but I am more a suits and mirrored shades GM and having to listen to this nonsense I gave up on it and decided against playing with him.

Of course this still isnt the general "evil" archtype you see where, you have to work against the group and gernerally be a jerk to the other players (with the paladins doing just the same to you)

Mr.Moron
2015-05-12, 07:57 AM
Plenty. Hell there was a guy in my old gaming group whose go-to solution whenever he needed information or wanted to influence anything was to beat someone up and start breaking their fingers. This was the guaranteed approach no matter what the system, setting or character concept he was playing. That was pretty much the ONLY method any of his characters had for interacting with any NPC that didn't immediately do/give his character what he wanted the first they were asked.

I can think of other examples too, from players who always try to solve every problem with sexual favors or something they can frame as an innuendo, or who only play characters that find all rules and authority viscerally offensive.

I've actually seen way more of these kind of characters outside D&D than inside. I think the fact the D&D presents itself as a heroic game first and foremost and explicitly has rules against evil sets expectations in a way that other games don't. The descent into power fantasy abandonment of all sensible behavior is easier when then the game isn't telling you not to do that. This seems to hold true among the gamers I've played with anyway.

Hawkstar
2015-05-12, 08:04 AM
Yes, I've had this problem. I was this problem. I also managed to be 'Lawful Stupid" at the same time, despite no Lawful alignment.

I was just playing a very single-minded, purpose-built character. Then a street gang of orphaned children attacked us with knives, bricks, shivs, and other lethal weapons, and my character responded with arcane incineration. The cat-headed guard robot does not have a "stun" setting! (Of course, the way he's built, the kids would have kicked his ass had he tried engaging in fisticuffs with him. 20 CON, 8 STR.)

truemane
2015-05-12, 08:16 AM
Descriptive: You ate that baby, so you're Evil.
Prescriptive: You're Evil so you have to eat babies.

Genius. I'm quoting that from now on whenever this comes up.

And I'm totally sigging it.

Lacco
2015-05-12, 08:22 AM
Shadowrun 4th:
Proud Street Samurai starts killing homeless people because "watching the exit" is boring. No longer plays in my games.

Another proud Street Sam writes a letter to assassins on a body. With katana. It was a body of his only ally - a priest. Now: one of the better players.

Third proud Street Sam parks his helicopter into a hotel/house for the elderly. No longer plays in my games.

...should I continue?

Yes, shadowrunners are criminals. But if I see another proud Street Samurai draw his trusty Predator at a civilian because he is in his way, I'm going to respond with a flaming bovine retribution :smallbiggrin:

So yes, it exists. Some times it can be talked out - and the guilty party then stops. Sometimes it can be taught (my players turned one such street sam into a real street sam by example). And some times...

Yora
2015-05-12, 08:34 AM
You basically play the criminals in Shadwrun but I am more a suits and mirrored shades GM and having to listen to this nonsense I gave up on it and decided against playing with him.

Of course this still isnt the general "evil" archtype you see where, you have to work against the group and gernerally be a jerk to the other players (with the paladins doing just the same to you)


I'll keep this short: yes, this problem still shows up in games without alignment; they'll still use the same kind of language, though: "But I'm a Ravnos!" "But I'm an Infernal!" "But I'm a pirate!" "But I'm a hacker!"

The more I think about it, the root of the issue seems to be players creating characters with opposing goals and motives. But telling the players they have to pick one of several opposing sides for their character probably is only making things worse when the GM allows them to pick different ones. I never played Vampire and know just a little about it, but the idea of having mixed clan parties seems patently stupid.

https://40.media.tumblr.com/536798c88ea25e03e0172e3b51f05b18/tumblr_no8obm2J2V1rv231do1_400.jpg

Don't tell the players "You should be in a conflict with your party members and actively oppose them".

Geddy2112
2015-05-12, 08:45 AM
Never evil, but I played a game of changeling the lost where most of the party was chaotic stupid on full speed. The party chirurgeon loved nothing more than sedating innocent people and performing surgery on them. Granted, he was probably the best doctor on the planet and never killed people, sometimes he would remove tumors or discover that they have disease X. The party learned never to get drunk around him because if you passed out he might remove your kidney. Still saved us anytime we got hurt and never did anything overtly evil...another party member would do nothing besides drink, smoke weed and party(I honestly dont remember anything else about said character). Between the two, we had trouble getting through sessions without a random brain biopsy and pub crawl.

Mr.Moron
2015-05-12, 08:47 AM
Never evil, but I played a game of changeling the lost where most of the party was chaotic stupid on full speed. The party chirurgeon loved nothing more than sedating innocent people and performing surgery on them. Granted, he was probably the best doctor on the planet and never killed people, sometimes he would remove tumors or discover that they have disease X. The party learned never to get drunk around him because if you passed out he might remove your kidney. Still saved us anytime we got hurt and never did anything overtly evil...another party member would do nothing besides drink, smoke weed and party(I honestly dont remember anything else about said character). Between the two, we had trouble getting through sessions without a random brain biopsy and pub crawl.

Never did anything overtly evil? He was stealing organs from people!

Geddy2112
2015-05-12, 09:29 AM
Never did anything overtly evil? He was stealing organs from people!

The kidney thing only happened once, and he did give mine to somebody who needed one, so probably more of a chaotic but good action. Otherwise it was only vestigial things like appendix, gallbladder etc. or necrotic tissue, cancers etc. He certainly broke the "do no harm" part of his oath, but we all agreed that he was in a morally grey(and chaotic stupid) area, not overtly evil.

Hawkstar
2015-05-12, 12:41 PM
On the whole baby-eating thing... I actually do have a character that does eat babies, but I wouldn't consider him "Evil", due to his status as "Animalistic Predator" who's pretty much blind to the concept of 'species' and difference between "Person" and "Animal". But that's more amusing anecdote than actual argument point.


The more I think about it, the root of the issue seems to be players creating characters with opposing goals and motives. But telling the players they have to pick one of several opposing sides for their character probably is only making things worse when the GM allows them to pick different ones. I never played Vampire and know just a little about it, but the idea of having mixed clan parties seems patently stupid.

https://40.media.tumblr.com/536798c88ea25e03e0172e3b51f05b18/tumblr_no8obm2J2V1rv231do1_400.jpg

Don't tell the players "You should be in a conflict with your party members and actively oppose them"."But where's the drama in that?"

Ettina
2015-05-13, 07:58 AM
On the whole baby-eating thing... I actually do have a character that does eat babies, but I wouldn't consider him "Evil", due to his status as "Animalistic Predator" who's pretty much blind to the concept of 'species' and difference between "Person" and "Animal". But that's more amusing anecdote than actual argument point.

My Dad had a cat who ate babies. Baby bunnies.

Maugan Ra
2015-05-13, 10:04 AM
I played a Radical character in Dark Heresy at one point (a Xanthite Adept, to be precise) who ended up turning on the rest of the party. Actually I think it was only a few of them, since the party ended up splitting more or less down the middle at one point...

Basically we were running through an arc where the idea was that our Inquisitor master had started dabbling in forbidden technology, building a precognitive machine that ended up having bad side effects. Killed a few hundred people, stretched the veil between the Materium and the Immaterium pretty thin, that sort of thing. The idea was pretty obviously for us to decide he'd gone too far and bring him down.

Except when we got to his base and fought our way to confront him, we indulged in the traditional 'the bad guy explains his plans and motivations' scene, where the Inquisitor admitted there was a problem with the device but that he was pretty sure he knew how to fix it, and besides a few sacrifices were justified in the name of protecting the Imperium.

And... my character agreed with him. As did the assassin, if I remember right (it's been a few years). So when he gave the traditional 'join me and we can save the galaxy' proposal, we both said 'yes'. Which the GM apparently hadn't expected at all.

The ones who said no tried to stop us, we fought back, and everything went right to hell. There may have been a Daemonhost at one point, I can't quite recall.

So yeah, I think the general point is that it's not so much the evil alignment that's the problem, so much as when different members of the party have divergent beliefs and backgrounds. The disagreements this creates can make for excellent role play... but it can also go too far and cause everything to explode.

goto124
2015-05-13, 10:35 AM
My Dad had a cat who ate babies. Baby bunnies.

Cats are Evil...

Necroticplague
2015-05-13, 11:06 AM
Yes. How disruptive one's behaivor is to the game is independent of any sort of written alignment. Heck, have one PbP where the character was an antagonistic, selfish jerk who did nothing but piss off the other PCs and then say 'if you don't like me, don't hang out with the same circle of friends'. This despite the fact that the vast majority of the game was actually freeform RP with the only real mechanics coming in use less than 1/10th of the time.

LibraryOgre
2015-05-13, 11:30 AM
In Shadowrun, I find there's usually a good mix of characters... and one ******* who wants to be an ******* just to be an *******.

Shadowrun usually has a "pink mohawk" to "mirrorshades" axis. Pink Mohawk characters have wild, flamboyant plans that play like an action movie. Mirrorshades players have stuff more like "Sneakers"... lots of planning, the hope to have minimum necessary collateral damage, and frequently try to minimize fallout on the people you have to incapacitate.

We planned a run like that. Hit an armored car, take out the driver, etc.. Even formed plans so, while the driver wouldn't be able to get us, he wouldn't be clearly implicated. And one of our players decided we'd have an easier time if the driver wasn't around, so he decided to buy the driver tickets out of country, manufacture some e-mails that showed him planning it, etc. Basically, purposefully screwing over the NPC for the hell of it, despite the rest of us actively trying not to screw him over.

In Vampire? It's the guy who decides that your city would be better if he killed the mayor, so he uses his superpowers to do that. Or the guy who wants to be prince, so he throws around Domination, Presence, blood bonds and diablerie like they're candy... had one guy, playing a Brujah, tell me I had to toe the line and do what he said or he was going to have me assassinated. My little blood trash 14th gen who liked to roll gangbangers was worth assassination.

Invariably, the connecting feature is "disruptive to the game everyone else thought they were playing."

Honest Tiefling
2015-05-13, 01:09 PM
I tried to play DnD without alignment once. And before we started playing one of the players was asking how I felt about him erasing the souls of the dead, because we didn't have alignment so it shouldn't be a problem. Despite the fact that almost everyone else was an altruistic hero.

I am thinking of instituting a new rule that I get to smack the players with the rulebooks if they cannot come together to agree on a basic morality and reason they are adventuring together/ties to each other like I asked.

Sith_Happens
2015-05-13, 11:12 PM
had one guy, playing a Brujah, tell me I had to toe the line and do what he said or he was going to have me assassinated. My little blood trash 14th gen who liked to roll gangbangers was worth assassination.

Did you assassinate him first? Because threatening to your face to have you assassinated is just asking for you to beat him to it.

LibraryOgre
2015-05-14, 04:33 PM
Did you assassinate him first? Because threatening to your face to have you assassinated is just asking for you to beat him to it.

He did it in a room full of his ghouls and cronies. And he had between 6 and 8 generations on me. I could've taken him in a fight, maybe, but the ST was also allowing incredibly stupid **** from him.

I replaced that guy with an Assamite child-sorcerer with a couple blood-bound Gargoyles and the friendship of the Tremere.

Havelocke
2015-05-14, 04:35 PM
I was running the Star Wars RPG "Farstar" campaign (can't remember the name of it). The concept is that the rebels have a ship, go into distant space tracking remnants of the empire yadda yadda. Most of the PC's were honest, hard working, rebels except one guy who was an "outlaw". The up and coming Jedi and the "outlaw" were good friends, but frequently the "outlaw" would completely derail the story line by attempting to set up organized crime and prostitution rings on the planets they stopped at. Once the group were attempting to get information from a merchant, the Jedi was doing a great job at diplomacy but eventually got bored of the conversation, he wanted to pay the merchant for the information he did provide and asked the "outlaw" to "take care of the good man". The "outlaw" shot him point blank with a blaster. These caused all sorts of mayhem and chaos within the story line and instead of a series of heroics and diplomacy the group was frequently fleeing the local populace all the while coming under fire. That group did not last long and we never finished the campaign much to the dismay of the majority of the group.:smallannoyed:

draken50
2015-05-14, 05:35 PM
It's been interesting but player alignment for me has been more of a barometer, and way to avoid players that may not fit at my tables then a real ban.

Basically, when I give the overall theme of the game and preferred player behavior (Work as a team, city based intrigue vs. treks through wilderness). Problem players often become more easily spotted by how they work within those constraints.

Wanted to play a ranger, but it's a city intrigue game? Good players talk to me, work out urban ranger variants or just try to see how well their concept will work in the game. Problem players whine... a lot, or leave... which is also nice.

Am I limiting player creativity? You bet I am! :)

The thing is, I don't want the player who wants to play the out-for-himself, assassin who makes blood sacrifices to dark gods for more power. At least, not when rest of the party is a Paladin of Tyr, a dwarf cleric of Hanseath and a Sorcerer bent on basically running arcane version of Professor X's school for gifted (and probably dragon-blooded) kids.

Cealocanth
2015-05-14, 06:04 PM
I've been playing in the alignment-free Savage Worlds system for about a year now and I have noticed a slight change with the disruptive PC mentality but not a disappearance of it. You still have your Annoying Neutral characters and your Immersion-Breaking Evil characters, but without an alignment system, players tend to that relatively quickly. These players, who I find are usually vying for GM attention, no longer have "that's what my alignment says that I should do" excuse. In fact, the best excuse I've seen used in these cases are "my character is just that annoying and screwed up, I'm just playing him straight." This is usually solved in one of two ways, either the player backs off a little and/or puts a bit more thought into his character and comes out with something more interesting, or the disruptive character dies by doing something stupid or angering the wrong person.

Then again, my group usually polices itself relatively well. If a player is acting out, the other players, in character, always make sure to act appropriately. When I don't GM, I actually find that I tend to swing towards the darker, more evil and psychotic characters because that's what I find interesting. I design my characters to be nuanced with personalities very different from my own, but sometimes the complexity of the build doesn't shine through, and I get the same treatment. I enjoy it, actually. It allows a kind of character growth that you would get in most stories without the GM having to do anything.

Kane0
2015-05-14, 10:07 PM
4e and 5e for the most part eschew alignment as a suggestion, and have no practical impact on gameplay if the players so choose.

I've played games in both of these editions where people chose to be 'evil' and functioned in the party just fine until **** hit the fan regarding a certain artifact.

In fact the absence of the more alignment system of 3.x made players play up their characters personality a little bit more to compensate, which was funny.

Also, as a side note I've played evil characters in a good party just fine, in 3.x and in 5e. Sometimes other characters even wanted to be more like me, without realizing how evil I actually was. Good times.

I guess its just that disruptive players that make diruptive characters and mask it behind alignment or other excuses. It can happen in any game.

Sith_Happens
2015-05-15, 02:44 AM
He did it in a room full of his ghouls and cronies. And he had between 6 and 8 generations on me. I could've taken him in a fight, maybe, but the ST was also allowing incredibly stupid **** from him.

The word "assassinate" generally implies something a bit smarter than attacking him right then and there in a room full of his minions.

Segev
2015-05-15, 09:08 AM
How did you manage a child-sorcerer Assamite? Tell me more!

Narren
2015-05-15, 11:50 AM
Cats are Evil...

Chaotic Evil, to be specific. All of them.

rs2excelsior
2015-05-15, 12:13 PM
Descriptive: You ate that baby, so you're Evil.
Prescriptive: You're Evil so you have to eat babies.

...I think I'm also sigging this. Excellent description, good sir.


Cats are Evil...


Chaotic Evil, to be specific. All of them.

I believe the listed alignment for cats is CE--Cute Evil.

As in they are evil, but also cute; not that they are cutely evil.

Hiro Protagonest
2015-05-15, 01:05 PM
I believe the listed alignment for cats is CE--Cute Evil.

As in they are evil, but also cute; not that they are cutely evil.

Oh no, who will save us from the ebil?

Roderick_BR
2015-05-15, 01:25 PM
I'll keep this short: yes, this problem still shows up in games without alignment; they'll still use the same kind of language, though: "But I'm a Ravnos!" "But I'm an Infernal!" "But I'm a pirate!" "But I'm a hacker!"
"But this game doesn't have alignment, so I can't be considered evil".

goto124
2015-05-15, 09:20 PM
Descriptive: You ate that baby, so you're Evil.
Prescriptive: You're Evil so you have to eat babies.

You know what, may I sig this too? It'll be great for any alignment debates when the Descriptive/Prescriptive thing comes up.

Xuc Xac
2015-05-16, 05:46 AM
Feel free to quote anything cool that I say. Or anything that's so uncool that it's funny.

rs2excelsior
2015-05-16, 11:36 AM
Oh no, who will save us from the ebil?

http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/animaljam/images/6/6b/Army-of-Darkness-cuter-than-expected-actually-meme-evil-cat-meme_thumb.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20130901163657

Anonymouswizard
2015-05-16, 04:39 PM
I see 'evil' characters quite a bit, but then again I seem to always get stuck with the 'kill em and nick their stuff' groups when I GM, so 'evil' characters aren't uncommon. Unfortunately, when I play we tend towards the more investigative style, because that's the games I prefer and sign up for.

I tend to play either very generic characters when going for heroic, so my characters tend towards the more distinctive lawful or chaotic neutrals, which can cause problems (I once bugged another character because my Thaumaturge did not like not knowing information, I agreed the group accidentally withholding that the train I got on was about to crash made up for it), but also discovered that the problem lies more with them being played badly and going against the party than the character types themselves.

I did mention in a discussion a character I want to lay, a LE Cleric of Wee Jas who believes that nobody should die before their allotted time, and will save both PCs and villains because it isn't time to die. Another member of the discussion (from the game with the Thaumaturge) pointed out that it could be used to make a hilarious 'evil' character.
'IT'S YOUR TIME TO DIE PEASANT!' *MACE*

Pluto!
2015-05-16, 05:25 PM
Does Kill Puppies For Satan count?

It's all about playing incompetent evil problem PCs.

One time the PCs may or may not have broken into a wealthy widow's home and done unspeakable things involving her prize-winning chinchilla and her top-of-the-line industrial blender in order to summon a demon to photoshop compromising photographs with which to blackmail a priest into exorcizing a poltergeist named Wendel because he kept stealing the characters', er, herbs. Another time, one of the PCs wound up selling all his neighbors (including children and pets) as lifeless corporeal husks for demonic possession in order to petition a zoning infraction of the local In-N-Out.

goto124
2015-05-16, 10:00 PM
It's all about playing incompetent evil problem PCs.

Evil alignment not required :miko:

LibraryOgre
2015-05-17, 06:40 PM
The word "assassinate" generally implies something a bit smarter than attacking him right then and there in a room full of his minions.

The amount the ST was letting him get away with made that unfeasible.


How did you manage a child-sorcerer Assamite? Tell me more!

The Assamites include a group who are sorcerers; my character was born a poor black child in the 20s, and was "saved" from death by an assamite sorcerer.

Segev
2015-05-18, 08:12 AM
The Assamites include a group who are sorcerers; my character was born a poor black child in the 20s, and was "saved" from death by an assamite sorcerer.

Ah, didn't know that clan had sorcerers.

Neat. :)

MistahBoweh
2015-05-18, 07:38 PM
I was once in a pathfinder game in which my character didn't start out evil, but events over the course of multiple real-world months caused my bard/rogue Arcane Trickster to wind up on opposite ends of the party. He started out as a lowly wandering minstrel and tricked his way into a landed title and more power than he could ever want (leadership feat ho!), but grew bitter as the party with Shadow Walk access kept pulling him away from his castle and then denying him the ability to return by himself. Eventually, after a lot of other inciting events, he tried to assassinate the party blight druid after a fight left the druid unconscious. Another party member who also had leadership had his grappler cohort stop me while he himself dealt with my ranger/assassin cohort, resulting in a standstill.

There was a nearby cursed treasure trove owned by a djinni imprisoned in a demiplane. She had offered the party to remove the curse in exchange for retrieving an artifact which would grant her release, but there was no longer time for that. I broke free of the grappler and rather than charge for the druid again, I charged for the trove which I knew held a ring of wishes with a single charge left. If the curse was lethal, I was dead anyways. If it wasn't, I would use the ring to enslave the dijinni and have her remove the curse anyways, then deal with the druid and the party.

As it turns out, the 'curse' was a demilich. It was a fitting end to a lowly bard whose ambition rose far too high.

A situation like this can happen in most any game. The real question is whether party conflict is a problem in the first place. That depends on what you want out of the game. If you play to work together to fight huge monsters and complete epic quests, you probably don't want to be fighting each other. If you play to co-operatively tell a story, there's really nothing more interesting or exciting.

I suppose the other distinction here is that it was a character development thing. I didn't start evil. The blight druid had struck a deal with a devil. Though he was sort of forced into it, there was some justification for my murder attempt. The other guy was actually betraying me, as we had already discussed killing the druid months before. None of us were simple, flat characters. But we also weren't rigid. Like real people, we were fickle. Our characters changed from session to session, depending on their mood and surroundings. We evolved over the year of play which led up to the demilich incident. In a campaign where players are asked for an alignment system before actually playing the character, change becomes less likely. There will always be people who try to play their alignment instead of playing their character, and that will weaken the storytelling. However, I do not believe any alignment system is inherently at fault for that. It is the players who dictate why they play and what they want out of the game, not the game itself.

Quild
2015-05-19, 10:01 AM
I played once in a campaign in which I was asked to create an evil character because others had decided before me they would play evil. There was just a neutral one.

Group was like this:
- Chaotic Evil wizard: Necromancer that randomly kills non-human characters because they make funny skeletons. Also kill whoever says he doesn't know the answer while interrogated. Except once when we had 3 hostages to interrogate, one of which I had stunned during the fight. He killed the stunned guy. Who happened to be the officer whom could have answered.

- Chaotic Evil Cleric: Also necromancer... He did some stupid things, but the one which is also evil is when he refused to pay fees to enter a big town, spat on the guard asking for 1SP, refused to pay the fine of 10GP and fled. He decided to sleep in a barn, got spotted by hounds, killed them, killed the farmer and... burnt the barn. Then had to flee again because of incoming mob and guards.

- Lawful Neutral warrior (dwarf): She was the less evil character of the group until... Well, we had to flee the guards after easily killing a bard on stage(*) in front of thousand of peoples (also fleeing) and since it wasn't easy for her, she decided to use her axe on whoever was in her way. She had some major alignment change. I'd say this one was descriptive.

- Neutral Evil Blackguard (slightly homebrewed, totally meta-gamed): I played it mostly Lawful Evil, hired as a mercenary in a first place. Other players assumed I had joined the group once my contract was fulfilled, I considered I was mostly here for my share if my "am I paid enough (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0721.html)" chart was fine with it.
I was also trying to have the dwarf killed because she make us (me) lose (not win) some big diamonds but I wanted the character killed without the player realizing I helped for that. I almost managed twice but she was lucky.


We really were quite slow and needed some railroading...

Banjoman42
2015-05-19, 10:58 AM
In my experience with games with no alignment (which are few), disruptive/evil characters were even more of a problem because the other players suddenly didn't have the "I'm good" excuse to beat the crap out of the disruptive character when he was out of line.

I don't encourage PvP, but when a player slaughters every NPC in the village, something has to be done, and it's nice to have alignment to fall back on, especially when the serial killer PC accuses you of "Metagaming". Yes, the serial killer accused anyone against him of meta gaming, but that's a different story.

Havelocke
2015-05-19, 12:10 PM
I was able to stop a super powerful character in the Star Wars campaign, and take him down a peg or two. He was a bounty hunter who had this suit of armor and gizmos, he created new weapons which were crazy powerful but had limited ammo. The party was in a network of caves on a low tech world looking for some Macguffin. I created this race of primitive aliens who were just learning about how to make fire. The bounty hunter tried intimidating one then killed it. I had a tribe of them dump pots of oil over him then light him on fire. He tried blasting his way out, shouted at the R2 droid to put him out, but since he treated the droid like garbage, the droid disobeyed and fled. Eventually all the ammuntion this guy carried (rockets, grenades, thermal detonators, etc...) went off, he never thought that I would have him go like that, but I told him about a little thing called Karma.

Knaight
2015-05-19, 01:10 PM
I've had a handful of players fresh from videogames go full murderhobo because of the lack of restrictions. The lack of restrictions on setting response (e.g. the ability of terrorized citizens to hire mercenaries, put up bounties, etc.) and subsequent death of said characters tends to fix that fairly well.

Yora
2015-05-19, 02:21 PM
Yeah, fighting a hopeless fight against bounty hunters, soldiders, and war wizards can awesome in its own way. And then the players hopefully understand that RPGs don't have "load last save point".

Karl Aegis
2015-05-19, 02:50 PM
I had some go immediately to a bar to get drunk and then to the black market for drugs. They did have a mission to recover an artifact, but they didn't accomplish anything.