When to and when not to allow PvP.

[SgtCarnage92]

A particular thing I have encountered throughout my years as a GM is situations in which a Player Character attacks another Player Character, generally over something fairly trivial.

This has been a problem for several reasons. First of all, it slows everything down, especially if it takes place in the middle of something else going on. It frustrates the players who aren't involved in the conflict as well. I've also seen that it can create tension between players that can lead to some very bad situations OOC.

I've since put forth a houserule banning PvP play. However, I do see some of the benefits of PvP play for certain story or character moments. If a player decides that they're character is going to betray the party at some point, allowing that player to run the betrayal scene seems fair (before the character is inevitably turned into an NPC). Also, it can act as a form of policing certain behaviors within the party itself.

As players and GMs, how do you see PvP play? Is it something that should be completely allowed, something that should be limited to certain situations, or something that should be banned completely? Do you have any stories of PvP leading to a better play experience? Or horror stories about PvP making things worse?

[Stellar_Magic]

This is very much a case by case type of thing. There are situations where PvP is not only allowable but totally sensible occurrence... A kobold rogue joining the party in the middle of the a dungeon could easily find himself full of arrows on making his presence known, for example.

However, if it happens regularly and becoming a problem you should probably speak to the aggressor in the situations. Especially if it's repeating several times or one player in particular seems to be singled out.

Another thing is to do is to pose it to the rest of the players. "Are you going to let him do this?"

At which point they can perhaps intercede somehow, dog pile the aggressor, or so forth.

[ComaVision]

I allow PvP entirely, and have never played in a game where it was forbidden. Even so, I'm the only person I know that has purposely initiated PvP.

[Red Fel]

It's complicated. On the one hand, if a player says, "Okay, my character stabs his character while he's sleeping," you can't very well say, "No, you don't do that," without throwing the concept of player agency out the window. So, at least in my mind, you can't exactly prevent PvP in that sense.

What you can do is have a reasonable understanding at the table. All the players agree, upfront - either there may be PvP, or there may not be PvP. And be very clear what PvP is - it's not just actual combat between characters. It can also include many attempts to undermine, sabotage, or subvert the other characters. It can include theft, harassment, and other forms of assorted dickery. Be very clear on what constitutes PvP, as there may be players seeking to hide behind a "no killing" policy in order to get away with unpleasant behavior. The players must agree to this before play starts.

Okay. So, say your players agree to a no-PvP policy. What happens if someone breaks the agreement? Well, it depends. Oftentimes, this is out of character conduct, which merits out of character consequences. Talking to and chastising the offending player is an option. If you prefer in-character consequences... Well, are you familiar with the origins of the word "outlaw?" One who committed crimes was considered an outlaw, meaning that the laws of the land no longer protected him. Nobody could be punished for anything they did to him. Think about how that could be applied to an offending PC.

If the players do agree to PvP at the table, it's a done deal. They agreed to it in advance, it happens. If the players unanimously change their minds, that's one thing, but if it was agreed upon and happens subsequently, there's really no room to complain.

Ultimately, I don't see it as the DM's role to allow or disallow PvP - that's between the players. The DM's role, in my mind, is merely to enforce whatever agreement was formed on the subject between the players.

[jedipotter]

As players and GMs, how do you see PvP play? Is it something that should be completely allowed, something that should be limited to certain situations, or something that should be banned completely? Do you have any stories of PvP leading to a better play experience? Or horror stories about PvP making things worse?

It's so odd the games that do the ''limited to certain situations''. After all who gets to decided when?


I have always done my games: completely allowed.

Good Story

Spoiler: Story

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So, it's an all female game where everyone is a sister in a single drow house. So it's two full games of plots and scams and backstabs and lots of evil. Then the third game. It starts with a ''simple'' raid on a deep dwarf fortress. Each PC brings some forces to the battle and together they take the fortress. And one round later PC 1 tries to kill PC 2 and ''make it look like the dwarves did it''. PC 2 is almost killed....but is saved at the last second when the follower of PC 1 attacks her, going for the same ''she was killed in battle line'' . So PC 1 has to frantically fight off her own forces, as PC 2 gathers her forces to attack. And PC 2's forces turn on her too. PC 3 rushes forward with the grand idea of killing PC 1 and 2, and is back stabbed by her own forces too that try and take out all three PC's. PC 4 sees PC 3 get back stabbed by her own forces...as she was moving forward to attack PC 3 herself...and she simply turns and attacks her own forces. PC 5 sits back to watch all the fun....and is ambushed by a couple of returning deep dwarves.

Each character is brutally attacked, loosing ability points, hit points, items, limbs and levels. My game is highly lethal, so they know the end of all their character's is very close.....unless they do something. Surrounded, near death and in real trouble the five sisters all ban together to save each other...and themselves. PC 5 has her forces charge into PC 4's so the deep dwarves attack all of them. PC 4 leaps to help PC 3 and PC 1 and PC 2 make a stand together.....

And barley, just barley, all five of the PC's live through the adventure...


....And return home baddy beaten. So games four and five are really pure survival urban games where nearly everyone, even their own forces, allies and house members tries to take out a weakened sister or two or three. They can't trust anyone.....except each other. And they do.

The game goes on for a couple years, until game 125 the Dark Sisters take over their House. They make PC 5 (who is the 'shyest and most humble of them') the Matron Mother, with the other for as Sister Mothers....

....And the five sister drow PC never fought each other again after that first time back in game 3......

[SgtCarnage92]

All interesting takes on it. Mostly pro-PvP, interestingly enough. I think I'm going to go ahead and leave it up to my players during the pre-game (as I do most other things). I suppose that I need to adjust my own viewpoints on PvP as I've always seen it as a disruptive behavior overall. I've always considered the best way to handle IC conflict is with an OOC agreement on how it is to be handled, what the limits are agreed upon by the players. Is it limited to snarky quips? Elaborate pranks? Or something potentially lethal? At least semi-adversarial relationships within a party can be a really fun dynamic that can lead to some awesome character moments and storytelling.

Please, keep the stories and interesting viewpoints coming. It's always interesting to see what the playground has to say.

[Gavran]

I think the GM has the right to not run a game with PvP if they so choose. It's a player decision, but the DM is a player too. Frankly I think it's something that needs to be unanimously agreed on.

[GloatingSwine]

It's complicated. On the one hand, if a player says, "Okay, my character stabs his character while he's sleeping," you can't very well say, "No, you don't do that," without throwing the concept of player agency out the window. So, at least in my mind, you can't exactly prevent PvP in that sense.

In a circumstance like that it's going to depend on the game itself though. If there's a beef between two characters that might conceivably lead to one getting stabbed in his sleep by the other then maybe so, but otherwise it's maybe an instance where you'd have a word with the player and explain that he's being a nobber and should reconsider his life choices.

[hifidelity2]

I have always allowed it

I have normally found that a player will challenge another player openly – not had any “Player X stabs Player Y in their sleep” if for no other reason that if I was a PC and one of the party was stabbing up other party members I would be thinking – maybe I’m next and either quite the group or have to get a 1st strike in

[Themrys]

When playing with mature adults, I would allow it. Immature adults or teenagers though, I would either (more likely) not DM for them at all, or have very strict rules, wherein all unmotivated harassment or other idiocy gets them kicked out of the game immediately.
I have found that in-character conflict works well if the players like each other and the conflict is entirely ingame. It does not work, however, if there is any outgame motivation for doing ****ty things.
For example, if the OotS had players, and the player of V was a woman, while the player of Belkar was a man, I would kick the player of Belkar out for kissing V, and thus avoid the ensuing prank-war. (With different sexes, I might do the same, but the aforementioned situation is one where I would not hesitate at all, because I have seen this before, and it just doesn't pay to wait until the female player complains.)

[Eisenheim]

The fundamental issue is the necessity of an agreement beforehand about what kind of story the group is coming together to tell. There is nothing inherently wrong or worse about stories that involve intra-party conflict. The problem is that many people come to the table with the assumption that there is a tacit agreement against pvp, an assumption that many rpgs also make.

I just think the best thing is to figure out with players what kind of story they want to tell and go from there.

[A_Man]

I detest PVP as a player, I find it to generally be a case of the players having huge egos and getting offended a bit, so in order to get back at the offender, they attempt to kill the character, often times breaking character to do this.

Spoiler: An Example

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In one of the PbP games I was in, we had a player who got tired of his old character because he ended up being the loser in the party (poor RPing mixed with using a lot of playing as a jerk in a group where he was the healer (aka, negligible combat skills, and as such, a pure support build), so, he remade a character that the GM said that at first, no one will like (Half-Chinese in a "Revolt against the Chinese!" campaign), but this guy did it anyways. The character was a bulldozer with only attack edges, and was pretty much the strongest member of the party, and this player made sure everyone knew that. We'll call this guy PC1

So, in his intro-sidequest, he was showing off that he was awesome by attacking a couple Dojos, but accidentally killed a master, and was beaten up and thrown into a ditch out of town. So PC2 was sent off to find him. And, when PC2 found him, he decided that the best way to bring him into the party was to attack him, when PC1 was badly wounded. This was obviously a jab to prove that PC2's character was mighty and could take on PC1. Needless to say, PC2 won easily, and made him part of the party, but as a lesser member.

Now, fastfoward a couple weeks, and the town hosts a big tournament. PC1 (the jerk) trounces PC2, but, then decides to also have his girlfriend thrown in jail. PC2, using OOC knowledge, realizes that PC1 did that, and ambushes him, trying to kill him. He's caught by the guards, at which point he burns down a house to make a distraction and kills PC1.

All of this occured before the main quest happened, mind you. And was a annoying, pointless waste of time for everyone else, while these two tried to prove who's character was the best. Ugh.

Another problem with PvP is that it's usually done to get cool stuff. Like, when I give out magic loot, one of the players always says "If I don't get what I want, I'll stealth kill all of you." Which he probably couldn't do, but who would want that? Ugh.

And the worst cases are when it's a player who hates his character and just wants to have fun in the end, and makes the game so much worse because he ruins the trust between all the other players IC.

In my experience, it's almost always used as a way for a guy to get what he wants or measure his ego.

I'm sure some people can enjoy it, if done well, but so far, I've never seen it done properly.

[Eisenheim]

On the subject of good PvP, I have found that fate core, with a very good GM, is wonderful for running PvP that is satisfying and does not destroy group cohesion going forward. One of the important things about good PvP, in my opinion, is that it needs goals other than killing the other character, and is best as a heat-of-the-moment conflict that can be talked out later or simply tabled.

[Solaris]

As a player I loathe it, and as a DM I despise it. I very strongly discourage PvP, especially in a game where the characters are supposed to be heroic.

[Alex12]

In the group I play in, PvP is assumed to always be an option unless stated otherwise.
There are times when PvP is not only okay, but expected. For example, most evil campaigns.

Spoiler

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In the most recent evil campaign my group had, it wasn't a question of if PvP was going to break out, it was a question of when. In the evil campaign before that, my character was a LN ex-military guy, and while he didn't have a problem with most things, one of the foundational aspects of his own personal system of ethics involved surrender. If someone surrendered to him, he would accept the surrender unless there was a clear reason not to, and inflict no further physical injury on the captive, provided they complied with certain fairly reasonable demands (basically boiling down to taking their stuff and non-violently interrogating them, and then either securing a vow to never knowingly harm us again before releasing them, or taking them to the nearest law enforcement group, at our discretion.) I made no secret of this stance, and I fully acknowledged that if someone surrendered and then attacked us afterward, they'd be put down without remorse and no further surrender would be accepted since they obviously can't be trusted. When one of the boss guys surrendered, he was perfectly cooperative, and after getting what we wanted from him, we let him go (albeit much poorer), making him promise to stop the bad stuff he was doing or we'd come back and smash him again. As he was leaving, another player attacked him, even though he'd been fully cooperative. So I killed that character.

[mephnick]

It's destroyed every campaign it's happened in, IME, so I heavily discourage it.

It's not off the table though, but I've mainly washed my hands of evil campaigns because of it.

[Frenth Alunril]

I allow it, encourage it, let it boil over, and hand out dice to roll up new level 1 characters.

[goto124]

In a tabletop game, aren't the players supposed to work together as a party? Which means they should not try to kill each other or do that sort of jerk things to one another anyway?

It would take hefty amounts of maturity to make sure PvP doesn't turn into OOC strife.

[Grim Portent]

In a tabletop game, aren't the players supposed to work together as a party? Which means they should not try to kill each other or do that sort of jerk things to one another anyway?

Only in some RPGs, others actively encourage it.

Black Crusade has rules that give players bonus exp for disrupting the goals of players provided the method of disruption is appropriate to the players god. Nurgle gives rewards for making other PCs sick, Khorne for disrupting the careful plans of both PCs and NPCs, Tzeentch for deceptions that harm others causes to give a few examples.

Paranoia is pretty big on sowing competition and mistrust as well.

The Vampire games are all about players belonging to factions and bloodlines that barely tolerate each other at the best of times. Inter player strife is considered a good thing in the setting.

[Themrys]

In a tabletop game, aren't the players supposed to work together as a party? Which means they should not try to kill each other or do that sort of jerk things to one another anyway?

It would take hefty amounts of maturity to make sure PvP doesn't turn into OOC strife.

Depends. I once took part in a game where everyone was handed a secret mission by the GMs, and, as it turned out, those goals were often conflicting. (I got the explicit mission to find and destroy the enemies of my character's people).

As we all knew the missions were not personal against the players, but assigned by the GMs, it was just hilarious to watch how everyone tried to, successfull or unsuccessfully, sabotage each other. As I recall, my character died when someone cut off the rope that held the chandelier in place,and the whole heavy thing came down.

I imagine that a game where PvP is part of the game usually works like this - everyone knows PvP is supposed to happen, and no one feels backstabbed when it does

In more group-oriented games, the person who introduces PvP is more often someone who has outgame motivations to do so (other than "It's fun for everyone involved, that is), and that's why it doesn't work.

[goto124]

As we all knew the missions were not personal against the players, but assigned by the GMs, it was just hilarious to watch how everyone tried to, successfull or unsuccessfully, sabotage each other. As I recall, my character died when someone cut off the rope that held the chandelier in place,and the whole heavy thing came down.

I imagine that a game where PvP is part of the game usually works like this - everyone knows PvP is supposed to happen, and no one feels backstabbed when it does

In more group-oriented games, the person who introduces PvP is more often someone who has outgame motivations to do so (other than "It's fun for everyone involved, that is), and that's why it doesn't work.

Thank Themrys, that really explains a lot

It's probably the same reason PvP works in MMORPGs- it's not personal.

What were the penalties for dying? If it was heavy, it could go back to the 'backstabbed feeling'.

[Themrys]

Thank Themrys, that really explains a lot

It's probably the same reason PvP works in MMORPGs- it's not personal.

What were the penalties for dying? If it was heavy, it could go back to the 'backstabbed feeling'.

I can't remember if it was possible to raise the dead in that game. It didn't matter, as it was planned that we play only a weekend, and the death of most characters happened at the end of the weekend. (Maybe some people whose characters died earlier got new characters, I can't remember. I recall that the GMs were good at keeping everyone happy, though.)

PvP in MMORPGs is, actually, often personal - I think it is called "body camping" - some players kill a character, wait until it gets revived, kill it again, and so on. (Okay, not personal as such, but you do develop a personal hate towards that kind of person after awhile.)

[dps]

In a tabletop game, aren't the players supposed to work together as a party? Which means they should not try to kill each other or do that sort of jerk things to one another anyway?

That was basically the default assumption of early DnD, which also basically assumed that PCs would be of Lawful or Good alignments, and that it was best if all members of a party were LG. Just having that sort of party, if the players actually RP their characters, would more-or-less rule out any serious PvP anyway. But that's not really true of more recent editions of DnD, and as has been pointed out, certainly not true of some other systems.

[Solaris]

That was basically the default assumption of early DnD, which also basically assumed that PCs would be of Lawful or Good alignments, and that it was best if all members of a party were LG. Just having that sort of party, if the players actually RP their characters, would more-or-less rule out any serious PvP anyway. But that's not really true of more recent editions of DnD, and as has been pointed out, certainly not true of some other systems.

I'd say that's still the general assumption 3E D&D is based on. It's not adhered to as strongly, but the party being at least Good-aligned is still one of the founding assumptions of the game. Just look at how many suggested adventure hooks are 'help these people out' with minimal reward.

[SgtCarnage92]

I think something that's been the biggest problem for me is PvP creating OOC strife and if I can make sure the group understands that it's only between characters and it's never taken so far as for one or multiple players to no longer be having fun PvP could be a very interesting tool depending on the group playing.

[Frenth Alunril]

I actually had a player hate his party so bad that he betrayed them to the avatar of an evil god in the culmination of the game. He was quickly dispatched by an npc when the Sorc sent a message to this backstabbers wizards guild. A scry, a teleport and an imprisonment later, our backstabbing wizard threw a pizza and rage quit.

The cleric laughed him out of the room, which almost turned into a fist fight. 3 hours of combat later the party beat the odds, defeated an avatar through blind chance, and cheered like maniacs.

I'll never forget it!

[Jay R]

The best answer is to have players all of whom are friends, and all of whom are mature, decent people who don't like to hurt their friends.

I don't know any other answer, because that covers every game I've played in the last quarter century.