The serious nature of killing.

[MidgetMarine]

I just finished watching a video on this topic by the ever-loud spoken Ander Wood of woodwwad on youtube. [If you want to watch it. HERE

Combat, and killing by proxy, tend to be a rather large part of RPGs. And yet the severity of taking another life is rarely referenced, at least in the rules. And that got me thinking.

And, in thinking about my own experiences with using the nature of killing and the effects upon my characters. I was wondering, how do you handle killing. Do you just run the "Bash em' Smash em' Move on." Or do you delve deeper into the serious nature of killing? Feel free to share stories, opinions, etc. I'm interested to hear what you think.

Coming to you live from a pile of Kobold corpses

-MidgetMarine

[Kelb_Panthera]

Honestly, I waffle between the two extremes depending on the mood of the game.

Sometimes things have a serious tone that calls on you to think about such weighty things.

Other times you cave in the kobolds' heads without a second thought.

It's all about the mood of the game really.

The delineation between fantasy and reality is where the impact of ending another creature's life gets diluted. Sure you're smashing kobold heads, but at the same time no real people or creatures are actually being harmed.

It can even be cathartic, when the head you'd really like to smash belongs to an arrogant boss or an insufferable coworker. Though if you think those thoughts hard enough it may be wise to seek professional council, rather than mercilessly slaughter imaginary creatures.

[Lord Tyger]

I would generally recommend against any mechanical consequences for killing except in special cases- (IE, Paladins going off on a murderspree, creatures that have abilities triggered by their deaths, etc). Roleplaying-wise, it depends on the characters and the players, but as a GM I feel I am totally within my rights to have that orc tribe include noncombatants and children who will react with dismay to a bunch of heavily armed adventurers showing up and slaughtering their spouses/children/parents.

[LibraryOgre]

Generally, we do not. I think we deal with it most in modern or near-future games, and seldom with fantasy or far-future games.

In most medieval fantasy, killing is part of life... not necessarily a beloved part of life, but chopping down goblins, bandits and the like is part of the genre. There's not many fantasy novels that deal with it as a problem... the main one I can think of is the Guardians of the Flame series, and those involve modern characters.

In more modern RPGs, I frequently deal with the seriousness of death, but largely from the point of view of the consequences of killing. In Shadowrun, we avoid killing because it makes us bigger, juicier targets. In modern conspiracy RPGs, even if you've got the proverbial "license to kill", doing so raises questions and brings down the law.

[Strawberries]

Yes, it depends on the kind of game I'm playing.

If it's light and funny, then the only reason I need to go killing the bandits/goblins/undead/whatever, is that they're doing generically evil things, and my characters don't dwell on the aftermath too much (read: nothing at all)

If it's a bit more deep, then no, killing is serious business, no matter if the victims are humans, kobolds or whatever (mindless undead excluded, obviously). In that case, I tend to roleplay the repercussions (and if I'm playing 'good' characters, I do my best to leave killing as a very last resort).

As often happens in RPGs, there's not a singular "right" answer. It's heavily influenced by the players, the GM and the mood of the game.

[valadil]

To be honest this is something I usually ignore.

I've made a general rule of avoiding problems with solutions that are tedious to veteran role players. For example, problems like carrying 10 tons worth of tin coins given 2 mules and an 18 strength fighter. This sort of thing is interesting once, but it remains the same problem no matter which character attacks the problem. Given that most of my friends have gamed for decades and have all probably seen this problem before.

I put the emotional consequences of murder in the same boat. It will vary from one character to another for sure but it isn't a journey I'd want to take repeatedly. For the most part I'm willing to assume my adventurer characters have already come to term with the fact that he's killed.

I have GMed a session that made death more important though. In my Gamr of Thrones campaign a friendly NPC was murdered. I wanted to show off the bleak tone of the world so I had a funeral for the NPC. One of the players took it upon himself to have a eulogy. It was actually one of te most touching game sessions I've ever played in.

[Jerthanis]

The issue with dealing with the serious nature of killing is that most RPGs have physical challenges that manifest as combat with the negative repercussions of dying or other permanent failure conditions. If you put a person in a situation with the intent of it being a regular situation, the characters reacting to it as if it weren't regular will feel phony.

The idea of presenting more complex, interesting and unique scenarios that have multiple methods of solving, with different costs to pay and different end results is a great first step, but the other side of it is letting your character's abilities in non-combat have effective resolution mechanics behind them. If 90% of your abilities have to do with combat, and those are the flashiest and most fun, you'll probably choose combat as the problem solving method. It also helps not to have the 10% that aren't combat mechanics have fuzzy resolution or ironclad and binary results.

[Water_Bear]

On the one hand, I really dislike the trope of computer engineers or plumbers picking up a gun and being able to casually kill people without any hesitation or emotional response other than maybe throwing up. It's unrealistic and robs the story of drama.

But in an RPG, at least most of the RPGs I've ever played, putting realistic limitations on PCs in combat would be an unbearable handicap. Even trained police and soldiers have historically been reluctant to aim and fire directly at an enemy, and can have some pretty serious traumas afterwards. And unless your doctor character is a sociopath they're going to have even more trouble actually delivering killing blows and even worse emotional results afterwards.

I'm not sure what a happy medium would be. I like nWoD a lot, and it would be the closest out of the systems I'm familiar with, but even there the Morality penalties for killing are pretty seriously brutal; if you kill even a handful of people you can end up losing your character. Even using the H;tV rules to modify Morality or allow you to keep playing Morality 0 characters, it's pretty hard to play a character who kills regularly.

IDK, maybe that's the point, but it just rubs me the wrong way.

[Tengu_temp]

The issue with dealing with the serious nature of killing is that most RPGs have physical challenges that manifest as combat with the negative repercussions of dying or other permanent failure conditions. If you put a person in a situation with the intent of it being a regular situation, the characters reacting to it as if it weren't regular will feel phony.

The idea of presenting more complex, interesting and unique scenarios that have multiple methods of solving, with different costs to pay and different end results is a great first step, but the other side of it is letting your character's abilities in non-combat have effective resolution mechanics behind them. If 90% of your abilities have to do with combat, and those are the flashiest and most fun, you'll probably choose combat as the problem solving method. It also helps not to have the 10% that aren't combat mechanics have fuzzy resolution or ironclad and binary results.

Combat and killing is not the same. I played many characters who were experienced, badass fighters, but refused to kill sapient enemies when they could avoid it and preferred the Batman approach of beating them up and handling them to the authorities instead. When one of them was forced to kill someone, or attacked someone with the intent to kill, you knew that things got serious.

[Slipperychicken]

My groups tend to be "Kill, loot, shop, kill". We pay very little attention to the severity of homicide, on both sides of the DM screen.



But then, very few games (or other media, like movies, books, legends, folklore, etc) involving violence bring the issue up at all. So I think it's a cultural thing. We gloss over the horrors of violence, instead emphasizing the awe-inspiring power and feeling of conquest associated with the ability to end lives. To this end, we often dehumanize (or demonize) the targets of our violence (in both cultural media and real life) to dull the emotional impact which violent death normally has on observers. That emotional impact would obviously detract from the entertainment value (or political message) of the violent demonstration, so we try to marginalize it whenever it's convenient.

It's wildly successful in desensitizing us to violence, usually by designating the targets as members of some hated out-group (masked cultists, rapists, criminals, communists, nazis, terrorists, business executives, racial minorities, etc), or simply ignoring the victims' plight by having them die off-screen (or give their death very little attention). This is part of the reason that violence is so acceptable to us in media, because we've become so adept at ostracizing and marginalizing that we don't even realize we're doing it.

Killing in that cultural context isn't seen as the disgusting, horrific crime it is in real life, but an assertion of personal strength in defending the self or overcoming an obstacle.

[LibraryOgre]

I think that, for most games, the default state for PCs is "reasonably comfortable with necessary homicide." You may not like it, you may seek to avoid it for other reasons, but you're not going to collapse the first time you kill someone in-game... either you've done it before, or it doesn't overtly discomfit you.

Many games with virtue and flaw systems, however, have "flaws" that modify this... and, usually, both directions away from "reasonably comfortable with unnecessary homicide" are flaws. In Shadowrun, you can take a flaw as a pacifist (refuse to kill), an extreme pacifist (refuse to fight), or as someone who freezes in combat. On the other hand, your character can find it impossible to break away from a fight once started, or consider casual violence an acceptable social lubricant ("He insulted me? I punch him.")

[Dimers]

Heck, most people prefer to avoid the idea of sapients' death in real life, and we HAVE to deal with it out here. Why would I bring it into a game? -- you know, where I'm trying to relax?

(Rhetorical question. I have several reasons. And I do sometimes address the seriousness of death in games. But I sure don't make a habit of it. It's got to be just the right people.)

Unrelated point: quite a few games inherently make death less daunting or significant. If you can bring people back to life ... talk with people after they've died ... know what truly awaits 'beyond the veil' ... visit the worlds where the dead, um, live ... Then death isn't as big a deal anymore.

[Jacob.Tyr]

I usually look at combat a little differently than other DM's I've played with. 0 and below HP represents unwilling/unable to fight anymore, not unconscious/dying. Your opponent isn't unconscious, they're just so beaten up they're no longer able to fight back. You don't actually kill anything unless you specifically say that you're going to kill it.

This, of course, makes subdual damage nonexistant, but who uses that anyway?

[Jerthanis]

Combat and killing is not the same. I played many characters who were experienced, badass fighters, but refused to kill sapient enemies when they could avoid it and preferred the Batman approach of beating them up and handling them to the authorities instead. When one of them was forced to kill someone, or attacked someone with the intent to kill, you knew that things got serious.

True, but if a game has a lot of physical conflict with ideologically opposed groups, eventually killing will likely become a solution to something sometime. The more physical conflict, the more likely killing will become an answer eventually. The less physical conflict between ideologically opposed groups, the less likely killing will become an answer eventually.

[Narren]

I've had players get confused when they became wanted criminals over a bar fight that someone else started. They assumed that since some obnoxious drunk guy threw a punch at them, combat had begun and it was open season to cut him open.

[NichG]

My solution is a little weird I suppose. I run systems in which its easy to incapacitate enemies without killing, either via houserules or because thats how the system works (like 7th Sea, where basically people don't die unless you specifically decide to coup-de-gras them after they're already unconscious).

It doesn't address the seriousness of killing, but it makes it easier to have a game go by without someone going 'whoops, killed him!'. If a character chooses to kill in such a system, its by choice, not by accident or by the mechanics making it really hard to play the game without doing so.

[Averis Vol]

interesting question. It depends on the character I decide to play. If its one of my stylized paladins, or basically any character of a good alignment, I will probably be the last person to draw a blade, BUT, If someone threatens the life of an ally or someone innocent......my characters generally have no problem putting them down.

as an example, I'm currently playing a Killoren Barbarian/paladin of freedom, and through the intricacies of plot devices, our groups goliath swordsage went a little.....well, ape **** and raised his big ass hammer to the cleric of pelor; the man who has saved his life numerous times and who has been as a brother to him constantly. So.....the rogue paladin takes the bag and basically says come at me bro, and I pop rage, charge with my recently sharpened falchion and drop him to 0 hp in 1 round. now I was perfectly willing to kill him because I know he would waste every last one of us if we took the -4 for non lethal so I did what was necessary to preserve the lives of my friends and allies. coincidentally, the rogue paladin was a fan of the truncheon, so 1 hit dropped him unconscious rather then me wasting him with one more shot.

I think what it comes down to for me is necessity of murder; of it is necessary I'm golden on it. If I can avoid it, its probably safer not to kill a potentially bad person.

[Kane0]

In one campaign I play in every encounter has consequences, and as a result we have only been in a total of three fights (not counting the other three PvP fights)

In another many creatures are kill on sight as thats how they approach you.

My own is a mix of these two. Many are out to kill you and there are many standing in your way (and you have good reasons) but if you go using your Detect Evil spells as a reason to kill anything on your path to the McGuffin you are going to be hunted down very fast by all sorts of nasty things.
You're never safe in Planescape, Berk.

[NichG]

The last character I played I was more or less going for 'realistic human persona, pacifist tendencies'. He was a scientist in an Adventure campaign. I think it did generally work out, up until a few really traumatic events where I really didn't have the frame of reference to portray it realistically at all.

He objected to killing, used nonlethal means even against dangerous foes much to the irritation of some of the party for whom he was providing weapons tech. When he nearly died, he was kind of walking-dead for awhile, catatonic with the shock of being in such a situation but more or less being on autopilot (and also because I wanted to actually play in game that day). Then somewhat later, he had a sort of climactic moment where he had to decide whether to kill with a really horrible weapon in order to save his life. Having been so close to death before, his resolve was worn down a bit, and so he fired. Unfortunately, he missed the shot and killed something he didn't intend to. And lost an arm. So he was pretty screwed up for awhile after that.

Afterwards he kind of snapped and got on a whole 'its okay, I can just fix the world! That will make things better!' kick. But then enough people were jerks about the whole thing that he started to lose faith in humanity, became jaded, a bit shell shocked, etc. He still avoided killing, but it was less from a strong positive outlook and more from a 'well, you just don't kill people' kind of perspective. Then he had an Oppenheimer moment. So, yeah, I had no idea what to do with that.

Before that, I played a former deity with the initial philosophy of 'killing is just cutting their souls loose so they can come hang out with me in the afterlife' who mellowed a lot when he saw that the humans he was travelling with were far more amoral. That was a pretty cosmic-scale campaign though, so 'what, you destroyed another universe?' was uttered a few times.

[TalonDemonKing]

On the one hand, I really dislike the trope of computer engineers or plumbers picking up a gun and being able to casually kill people without any hesitation or emotional response other than maybe throwing up.

Plumbers are horrible, mass murderers. It makes sense that they don't feel any hesitation or remorse.

[Yora]

I think the main reason enemies get slaughtered in such high numbers in RPGs is because it is assumed that enemies never attempt any action to preserve their life. If they see PCs, they attack on sight, and always keep fighting until the last one is dead.
If you want players to be more reserved about killing, have the enemies reluctant to get into fights about life and death and have them flee when they are getting significantly injured or a number of their allies have allready fallen. AD&D did have a morale system for things like that, but every other RPG I've seen never adressed the issue at all and movies and video games also never have enemies retreating. Except for bosses, who are meant to be faught again later.
Skyrim has badly injured enemies begging for mercy, but if you leave them alive they just heal a bit and attack them again. Unless you plan to run away as they are on the ground and you don't have any allies with you, it is just stupid to not finish them off immediately.

[Dread Angel]

My personal view on it is that of many posters - depends entirely on the group and flavour of the campaign.

I recently had a gladiatorial-combat type situation, where any of the PCs could sign up if they could pass a rudimentary combat test. (Side note - ranger and oracle went through fine, cleric went into the room, and literally got hit over the head before he had a damn clue what was going on and tossed unconscious out the door, funny as hell).

Throughout the tournament, the PCs witnessed multiple matches in which the losing NPC was brutally torn to bits, and one where the winner spared his opponent's life.

After all kinds of shenanigans, the Oracle was in the final with an NPC (summoner). This NPC was a gnome done up in full plate with tower shield, and just let his eidolon fight for him. It was a bastard of a fight but forethought (in the form of a scroll of Heat Metal) allowed the Oracle to win it. The gnome was laying there having barely escaped his armor before it killed him, blistered, scorched, burned and oozing ichor. The Oracle (who is...not insane, so much as has a massive obsession with narcotics in general and hallucinogenics in particular) standing over him with his morningstar ready to splatter his face in.

And instead, the oracle drops his last healing spell to save the dude's life. Why? Because he is fundamentally a good person.

Meanwhile there's the ranger who literally would rather fire off arrows at people's eyes before they're even in shouting range......regardless of who they are or whether they're overtly hostile.

I personally make it a challenge for me as GM to make the players consider the repercussions of their actions. Attacking an orc camp? Women and children there.

The second half of my campaign (levels 12-20) will have the PCs dealing with members of a dystopian mini-society who are uniformly bred for their particular skill, literally born to be a blacksmith or whatever. And very...contemptuous of outsiders. The PCs will be forced to deal with hostiles at some points and will need to decide how to go about defeating the encounters.

If they slaughter the entire island, great. Cue them getting the attention of a death god who will attempt to forcibly convert them. Violently. Post-mortem if necessary. If they take pains to not harm the innocent (read: everyone but the BBEG) they instead garner the attention of a good deity and will begin being subtly guided towards benefits, boons and general helpfulness such as "luck" bonuses to very important rolls etc.

In-game logical rewards and repercussions are a way to make it known that their deeds do have consequences, good and bad.

[Slipperychicken]

I've had players get confused when they became wanted criminals over a bar fight that someone else started. They assumed that since some obnoxious drunk guy threw a punch at them, combat had begun and it was open season to cut him open.

I actually was playing as a Warforged once, and managed to shatter a brawler's spine (killing him instantly) with my Slam attack (didn't have IUS, but didn't want to use my Greatsword either, compromised by fluffing the slam as a punch). Didn't regret it much in-character or out, since I knew that brawler didn't have so much as an hp total, much less a name or, visual description beyond "brawler" (Bad DMing). But it made me think a little.

[GolemsVoice]

If you want players to be more reserved about killing, have the enemies reluctant to get into fights about life and death and have them flee when they are getting significantly injured or a number of their allies have allready fallen. AD&D did have a morale system for things like that, but every other RPG I've seen never adressed the issue at all and movies and video games also never have enemies retreating. Except for bosses, who are meant to be faught again later.
Skyrim has badly injured enemies begging for mercy, but if you leave them alive they just heal a bit and attack them again. Unless you plan to run away as they are on the ground and you don't have any allies with you, it is just stupid to not finish them off immediately.

That always bugs me in video games. I'd wager a lot of players, especially in tabletop RPGs, would be more than willing to let their enemies get away, if they can be sure they'll no longer be a threat. If they just wait a few minutes/days and come back, well, then you have the choice of either constantly evading them or killing them off for good.

That being said, a lot of things in D&D will attack you no matter what. For demons and devils, or mindless undad/constructs, that's often enough no problem. For beasts and such, well, maybe. The real problem comes with "always chaotic evil" Orcs and such, who are, technically, in full control of their actions and not NECCESSARILY evil.

[Frozen_Feet]

My method of dealing with this is simple: I hang a lampshade on it, often in the form of assuming a role of outside observer and telling what they think. Saying to the players "you mercilessly slaughter the helpless goblins" or "the crowd look at your group of mass-murdering hobos with terror and disgust" will likely not get under their skin the first time, but after enough repetition, they will learn what is and what isn't acceptable in any particular game world, and eventually will start regarding each subject matter with desired seriousness.

Another great tool is, as a GM, to react disgusted towards unnecessary violence etc.

But as discussed, the only way to make players seriously consider non-violent options is to make non-violence a viable option. If everything tries to kill you regardless, it makes perfect sense to kill them back.

Plumbers are horrible, mass murderers. It makes sense that they don't feel any hesitation or remorse.

We are what now? Don't believe the enemy propaganda!

[Eldonauran]

The characters I play are adventurers and are already battle hardened by the time they see play. There is little emotional fluctuation when they have to take a life simply because they are always pulled into a fight or the fight is a forgone conclusion. I do not play 'evil'.

The character can reflect on his/her actions when there is no danger. Box up those emotions, use them for fuel and keep on moving. Your comrade bites it? You shove those emotions down, finish the fight and honor them later.

[ReaderAt2046]

The RPG I'm currently in has delt with this issue (for my character) in a really odd way. The local military general has gone off his head and framed the PCs for being spies for a foreign nation. As a result of this, my character is forced to fight his allies, which means he will go to extreme lengths to avoid having to kill them.

[Water_Bear]

My solution is a little weird I suppose. I run systems in which its easy to incapacitate enemies without killing, either via houserules or because thats how the system works (like 7th Sea, where basically people don't die unless you specifically decide to coup-de-gras them after they're already unconscious).

It doesn't address the seriousness of killing, but it makes it easier to have a game go by without someone going 'whoops, killed him!'. If a character chooses to kill in such a system, its by choice, not by accident or by the mechanics making it really hard to play the game without doing so.

That is a really good point though; in most of the systems I've ever played, it is nigh-impossible to actually defeat someone nonlethally without some form of magic or cheesey stun abilities. Granted, a great way to kill someone IRL is to try to knock them out with a chokehold or a sap to the back of the head, but putting people in non-strangle-y submission holds is much easier here than in any game I've ever played.

[PersonMan]

For me, it depends both on the game and the character. Some will just rip right through opposition to achieve their goals while others come from a background of mass murder and are trying to avoid further killing at almost any cost.

[Zahhak]

I tend to run shorter campaigns with generally low level PCs. Something I've done for campaigns I expect (or hope) to go on for awhile is to include a "sanity score" which is 5xCHA (max 100). This is the percent of how sane your character is, and it goes down when certain things happen (a friend is killed, you killed a bunch of people, watched someone ritually murdered, etc). Basically, anything that would happen to a character that might cause PTSD or a similar condition.

The check is a D% vs their current sanity (meet or exceed and you lose sanity). The amount lost is dependent on the specific event and is usually a low value (d3, d4, d4+1 normally). Every time a character loses 10% of their sanity they become more unstable. Normally, by the time they're down around 60 the character is retired because they're too unstable. And usually any event that causes sanity lose causes temporary insanity, such as becoming suddenly extremely claustrophobic, which makes them enraged unless outside.

You cannot regain sanity magically, it takes a few sessions with a psychologist in a mental institution. I've actually included a mental hospital in a game in case any of the PCs got too unstable there was some place to put them.