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There seems to be this general notion going around that PvP in RPGs is inherently bad, whether in and of itself or as specifically applied to rolling dice to headshot a muthafucker -- muthafucker being that degenerative-asshole-across-the-table-from-you's character.

I don't understand this.

I condone and even encourage this shit all the time in any and all games I host. Puts players on edge and makes em' think twice, ramps up intensity and emotional/economical buy-in value and autocorrects asshole/escapist behaviour at the table: this being my experience, of course. Run several different systems in my modest time as a GM and none of them seem to change how the above plays out -- death is a legit outcome in all cases. Much fun had by all every time which I'm very thankful for.

So what's the deal?

I am fine with it. It can make for some fun gaming but everyone needs to be on the same page. For me it is about whether the players at the table will enjoy this sort of thing. Worst case scenario I'nve seen is you have one guy who thinks it is a player versus player situation and everyone else has to keep killing his characters. Best case scenario is a game where everyone is onboard and embraces the chaos.

Some conflict between PCs is pretty close to essential to my idea of an interesting RPG. It has been a part of my gaming for 40+ years and a game where all conflict is banned sounds even more boring than the first season of STNG.

And for intraparty conflict to be interesting, there needs to be the potential for things to escalate beyond simple debate or harsh words so PvP violence has to be possible. And for some PCs the potential for intraparty violence is central to their character concept - Wolverine type characters would be a typical example, and we see the same thing in some of the interactions between the Musketeers in Dumas especailly in  the later books when their aims differ.

That being said, a game where PCs are headshotting other PCs would quickly lose interest for me as well. I prefer verbal conflict to be frequent, the threat of physical violence to be ever present when verbal conflict occurs, but actual physical violence to be rare and typically to be resolved before the need for head shots.

It's from the OOC MADS (out of character mutual assured destruction spiral) when the table doesn't sit around and talk about expectations. If PvP "suddenly becomes allowed" then it is assumed players will specifically build PCs to take out each other. Thus the table spirals into endless grief as an acceptable counter-response between players, GM looking blithely on.

Like jr. high all over again.

Doesn't have to be a logical argument or acceptable behavior. It just has to be the assumed default response of the community of players. I myself find it cop-out bullshit, that players regularly lose their shit so easily and devolve without talking things out, but it apparently happened enough to be received truth.

So I avoid it by having The Talk -- as if with real live adults! -- before actual play.

I prefer the option for PvP to remain open... mostly as arguments and intra-party theft... with combats being rare.

But that's in an ideal situation with good friends and known temperaments... too many groups I've played with were made up of acquaintances and PvP actions were never going to go well. In-game squabbles were almost guaranteed to spill out into OOC arguments and resentments.
 
Our current Pathfinder group has had a couple of blow ups that shut down the game session while we resolved them.
The most recent one touched off when my PC (a rogue) mentioned to the Fighter PC (a mercenary) that we should cut the Paladin PC out of some recently discovered loot because he'd ran off and avoided the fight. It was just a suggestion that I expected the mercenary to turn down... but before that could happen the Paladin's Player... rather than arguing for splitting the loot evenly... just had his PC storm off and out of the game.
Lots of OOC arguing followed and long e'mails between sessions... leading to a complete reset of the campaign, with new characters and a dictum from the GM that 'all loot will be split evenly' and warnings against PvP actions (not how I would have handled it but I guess it appeases some of the bad feelings).

Heck, I've seen fist fights/blood drawn in games of Diplomacy so it's no surprise that RPGs might fire up even stronger emotions when PCs start fighting amongst themselves.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;805297There seems to be this general notion going around that PvP in RPGs is inherently bad, whether in and of itself or as specifically applied to rolling dice to headshot a muthafucker -- muthafucker being that degenerative-asshole-across-the-table-from-you's character.

I don't understand this.

I condone and even encourage this shit all the time in any and all games I host. Puts players on edge and makes em' think twice, ramps up intensity and emotional/economical buy-in value and autocorrects asshole/escapist behaviour at the table: this being my experience, of course. Run several different systems in my modest time as a GM and none of them seem to change how the above plays out -- death is a legit outcome in all cases. Much fun had by all every time which I'm very thankful for.

So what's the deal?

I prefer PvP at the table so that Players can police their own. You know that one annoying as shit guy who keeps fucking with everyone's fun during the game while claiming he's "just role-playing his character"? Yeah, fuck him and his character, let another Player Character just off him.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;805297There seems to be this general notion going around that PvP in RPGs is inherently bad, whether in and of itself or as specifically applied to rolling dice to headshot a muthafucker -- muthafucker being that degenerative-asshole-across-the-table-from-you's character.

I don't understand this.

I condone and even encourage this shit all the time in any and all games I host. Puts players on edge and makes em' think twice, ramps up intensity and emotional/economical buy-in value and autocorrects asshole/escapist behaviour at the table: this being my experience, of course. Run several different systems in my modest time as a GM and none of them seem to change how the above plays out -- death is a legit outcome in all cases. Much fun had by all every time which I'm very thankful for.

So what's the deal?

You encourage players assassinating other players in all of your games? It's one thing to let in character conflicts develop and resolve themselves, and another if the DM feels the need to intervene in character to character relations to gin up some bloodsport.

At any rate, I'm not sure what you mean by "going around." There have always been players who don't like PvP mortal combat. It's not exactly a new strain of influenza.

If your experience is that DM encouraged PvP autocorrects asshole behavior then you haven't had very creative assholes, which is a good thing I guess. The good ones can wipe an entire party in one fell swoop.

Quote from: jeff37923;805319I prefer PvP at the table so that Players can police their own. You know that one annoying as shit guy who keeps fucking with everyone's fun during the game while claiming he's "just role-playing his character"? Yeah, fuck him and his character, let another Player Character just off him.

And if that guy's next character is also chaotic dickish, then it's time resort to a good old fashioned shunning.

RPGs are based on implicit assumption that players form a group that works together for a common goal. Thus they are co-operative by nature. Subsequently pitting players knowingly against each other does not work in long-term campaign but it can work in a single shot adventure (perhaps played in a convention).

Players are human and thus they often do things that either accidentally or by nature go against each other and groups I've played have been mature enough to accept it as part of their characters' behaviour.

All actions in my game table are done face to face with each other (including plotting each other) this seems to be the order of the day. However, at the same time I've noticed following (this is from my own experience only): Players can "screw" each other in a campaign while being part of same group is entirely possible but it works when stakes are not important. They are always frown upon when stakes are vitally important to group survival or greater task at hand.

I have seen a couple of times some immature players to blow up on player versus player actions but they are banned from gaming since they frighten some players (and I do not like bullies). Main reason to this seems to be player seeing him versus others attitude and thus not embracing the co-operative nature of game.

I also believe that any action done behind other players back actually heightens psychology of players potentially acting against each other (although I do not have academic studies to back this up).

Thus I suggest following: allow players to do what they wish as long as they do it openly to all. This causes self policing that both allows and even condones actions and reactions based on character actions but also diminishes more aggressive behavior. I do also assume that my players are adults.

Quote from: Nikita;805322RPGs are based on implicit assumption that players form a group that works together for a common goal.

That is one assumption. One that many people share. It is not universally shared nor is it necessary to play and enjoy RPGs.

It's worth noting that working together towards a common goal does not prevent all disagreements or conflicts. (For examples look at any group activity.)  Personally I find working out how the characters manage their disagreements to be one of the interesting parts of playing RPGs. Of course having PC disagreements be entertaining requires that the players have a common goal of playing an entertaining game together.

Quote from: Bren;805326It's worth noting that working together towards a common goal does not prevent all disagreements or conflicts.

Still, that seems to be the picture a whole lot of Players have in their heads, especially nowadays. I've been called 'disruptive' for even presenting mild arguments against party schemes or having my PC openly dislike another PC.
"It's bad for the story" is how one GM put it.

I despise PvP.  I always have.  It's the most unforgivable sin at my table, and any act of backstabbing greenlights the rest of the party to kill your character, no questions asked, with the explicit warning that a second offense means ejection from the campaign.  Period.

But I certainly disagree with the OP that anti-PvP is in any way, shape or form a "general notion going around ..." unless by that he means "... in my own gaming circle."  PvP's always been around and will always be there, and I suggest it's probably become more popular than in older times with the rise of MMORPGs, where there's far less of a social compact of cooperation.

Its seen as usually, but not allways bad because it is one of THE most common methods a disruptive player will use to ruin everyone elses enjoyment of the game. And because 85% of the time is one, maybee two jackasses wanting it and the rest of the group is against it.

One reason for opposition is that it means no one is likely to make it past level 1 for very long. Pretty much no adventure is going to survive either out the door, or once treasures been collected. Because at least half the incidents reported were the killer using it as an excuse to grab all the loot and "win"...

Another reason is as noted above. It can easily lead to a death spiral for the gaming group.

Personally a reason I dislike it is because it gets absolutely boring as all hell very very fast. It is probably one of the most unimaginative gags to pull ever in a session.

If I want that sort of play I'll get into a Paranoia session. Otherwise if theres a player killer in the group then either they are out, or I am. The old gag of "But I was just being in character!" is a guarantee boot out the door.

Now. All that said...

There are situations where it can be fun. It can even be alot of fun.

The oft mentioned magic user reincarnated as an otter incident came about from a double-blind PC group vs PC group event and was one of my more memorable and interesting sessions.

Another avenue is the arena where players are pitted by force against eachother. There is even sparring where you are doing subdual damage instead of to the death. And of course there are doppelgangers and intellect devourers that can turn a group in on itself really well if things go catastrophically. A helm of alignment change could do that too.

There are other viable avenues where it can be interesting.

"I kill all the characters in their sleep and take their loot." is NOT interesting. "I stab my companion in the back at the tavern - because Im Evil!" is NOT interesting.

Take note that this is totally different from inter-party personality conflicts. Thats usually expected to occur if the players are playing their characters well and they really are an eclectic group of misfits.

Quote from: Simlasa;805330Still, that seems to be the picture a whole lot of Players have in their heads, especially nowadays. I've been called 'disruptive' for even presenting mild arguments against party schemes or having my PC openly dislike another PC.
"It's bad for the story" is how one GM put it.

Thats a good example of a bad DM. Or one burned on a bad player using personality conflict to be disruptive. It can certainly happen. Ive been in a game with such a player.

Quote from: Ravenswing;805331But I certainly disagree with the OP that anti-PvP is in any way, shape or form a "general notion going around ..." unless by that he means "... in my own gaming circle."  PvP's always been around and will always be there, and I suggest it's probably become more popular than in older times with the rise of MMORPGs, where there's far less of a social compact of cooperation.

Its been around as a problem quite a long time. Theres at least one article in an early edition of Dragon that discusses the subject. Probably several.

Quote from: Simlasa;805330Still, that seems to be the picture a whole lot of Players have in their heads, especially nowadays. I've been called 'disruptive' for even presenting mild arguments against party schemes or having my PC openly dislike another PC.
"It's bad for the story" is how one GM put it.

RPGs are based on group to do adventures and actions based on their actions and thus players will definitely discuss and argue about what to do all the time. Thus there is conflict among players all the time on a table as they discuss the best way to go forwards.

I think it it is perfectly normal for characters not to like each other and in my view (and experience) normal adults who play do not think about it twice.

Since your experience about "what players think" is so different to mine I am very interested in hearing more. Can you tell me if they were these established groups or more of a one off games? Do you see this being now "the norm" in playing and since when has this change happened?

Quote from: Bren;805309Some conflict between PCs is pretty close to essential to my idea of an interesting RPG. It has been a part of my gaming for 40+ years and a game where all conflict is banned sounds even more boring than the first season of STNG.

And for intraparty conflict to be interesting, there needs to be the potential for things to escalate beyond simple debate or harsh words so PvP violence has to be possible. And for some PCs the potential for intraparty violence is central to their character concept - Wolverine type characters would be a typical example, and we see the same thing in some of the interactions between the Musketeers in Dumas especailly in  the later books when their aims differ.

That being said, a game where PCs are headshotting other PCs would quickly lose interest for me as well. I prefer verbal conflict to be frequent, the threat of physical violence to be ever present when verbal conflict occurs, but actual physical violence to be rare and typically to be resolved before the need for head shots.

Frequent headshotting is frequent headshotting. Usually because one of the assholes decides shotguns waved in front of faces when shit gets tense over expenditure for a shared Haven is a good idea. Said shotgun Disarmed and Specified Targeted to their own head brought much-needed satisfaction to disarming Nosferatu.

Honestly, talking goes out the window when you start screwing with a PCs money/resources. It's all about the cheddar.

Quote from: Opaopajr;805314It's from the OOC MADS (out of character mutual assured destruction spiral) when the table doesn't sit around and talk about expectations. If PvP "suddenly becomes allowed" then it is assumed players will specifically build PCs to take out each other. Thus the table spirals into endless grief as an acceptable counter-response between players, GM looking blithely on.

Like jr. high all over again.

Doesn't have to be a logical argument or acceptable behavior. It just has to be the assumed default response of the community of players. I myself find it cop-out bullshit, that players regularly lose their shit so easily and devolve without talking things out, but it apparently happened enough to be received truth.

So I avoid it by having The Talk -- as if with real live adults! -- before actual play.

Hah hah!

Problem is, it's usually those GMs that give the rest of us a bad name.

Quote from: Simlasa;805318I prefer the option for PvP to remain open... mostly as arguments and intra-party theft... with combats being rare.

But that's in an ideal situation with good friends and known temperaments... too many groups I've played with were made up of acquaintances and PvP actions were never going to go well. In-game squabbles were almost guaranteed to spill out into OOC arguments and resentments.
 
Our current Pathfinder group has had a couple of blow ups that shut down the game session while we resolved them.
The most recent one touched off when my PC (a rogue) mentioned to the Fighter PC (a mercenary) that we should cut the Paladin PC out of some recently discovered loot because he'd ran off and avoided the fight. It was just a suggestion that I expected the mercenary to turn down... but before that could happen the Paladin's Player... rather than arguing for splitting the loot evenly... just had his PC storm off and out of the game.
Lots of OOC arguing followed and long e'mails between sessions... leading to a complete reset of the campaign, with new characters and a dictum from the GM that 'all loot will be split evenly' and warnings against PvP actions (not how I would have handled it but I guess it appeases some of the bad feelings).

Heck, I've seen fist fights/blood drawn in games of Diplomacy so it's no surprise that RPGs might fire up even stronger emotions when PCs start fighting amongst themselves.

So the problem is immature players? Not temperments, personalities, none of that: just immaturity?

Struggle GM is struggle GM.

Quote from: jeff37923;805319I prefer PvP at the table so that Players can police their own. You know that one annoying as shit guy who keeps fucking with everyone's fun during the game while claiming he's "just role-playing his character"? Yeah, fuck him and his character, let another Player Character just off him.

I believe in the power of players self-policing, too. It's amazing how much more of an impartial party you're perceived as when you cultivate that behaviour. Works spectacularly well with 8+ player tables.

It works so well that I've had a few different players ragequit in different games because other players developed an allergy to their bullshit and had a GM-approved allergic reaction of mind-controlling/sabotaging/outright murdering their PC.

Quote from: Natty Bodak;805320You encourage players assassinating other players in all of your games? It's one thing to let in character conflicts develop and resolve themselves, and another if the DM feels the need to intervene in character to character relations to gin up some bloodsport.

At any rate, I'm not sure what you mean by "going around." There have always been players who don't like PvP mortal combat. It's not exactly a new strain of influenza.

If your experience is that DM encouraged PvP autocorrects asshole behavior then you haven't had very creative assholes, which is a good thing I guess. The good ones can wipe an entire party in one fell swoop.

The trick is that the good players don't need combat to wipe a party which makes me wonder in turn what your experience has been? Fortunately and thankfully, I usually don't just have "good" players, I have great players. Former's creative, latter's just not socially awkward. Big difference in my experience.

I actively encourage all forms of asshole deterrance. I've dealt with some serious badguys before and each time I learnt a new form of shithead denial tactics like Razhiel absorbing souls to gain new powers. Best bit is once you've got players subscribing to such beliefs, you can start to take a well-earned backseat while your players fuck with anyone who wants to try it. It's satisfying.

This may interest people who need to deal with these issues when writing RPG books:

This week I discussed (in my class) with few people who had RPG playing background and came from rural areas. They had one very important observation: "In a city you can always throw away someone who is arsehole but you cannot do it in a village where number of players is tiny." Thus they considered it vital to have tips in RPG books for dealing with such people that work beyond "drive them off" as they were often starting to GM/Play the game...

Quote from: Nikita;805335I think it it is perfectly normal for characters not to like each other and in my view (and experience) normal adults who play do not think about it twice.

I'd have thought pretty normal as well. The games I've run have always had a fair bit of rivalry and conflict... and I can't recall much complaint about it... but I'm running those for old friends or newbies... not veteran gamers I meet at the game shop.

QuoteSince your experience about "what players think" is so different to mine I am very interested in hearing more. Can you tell me if they were these established groups or more of a one off games?

Established groups that I joined or that were newly formed... but not one-offs.

QuoteDo you see this being now "the norm" in playing and since when has this change happened?

I have no idea if it's 'the norm' but it's struck me as common since I started playing again (rather than just running games). Way back when I was first playing it seemed quite expected that other PCs would steal from you or backstab you... fuck with you just for a laugh. I've seen way less of that over the past ten years or so.  
Heck, our High School AD&D group was mostly made up of kids from our church's youth group and we had all sorts of intra-party combats and assasinations and plotting and general dickery. No one ever rage-quit over it.

Truthfully, in my mind it goes hand in hand with a general trend towards 'easier' games where the PCs are pretty much guaranteed success... why argue about a plan when the GM will see to it that any plan succeeds? Why fight over loot when it's practically raining from the sky?
The Pathfinder group I play in doesn't work that way (we fail a LOT) but a couple of the Players seem to think it's a bit harsh (thus the stomping tantrum and GM's semi-capitulation)... and as a whole still think we should be of one mind and never fight/argue.
Maybe it's some extension of that 'Just say yes' philosophy... I dunno. I'll ask them more about it next game.

I'm not saying it's a huge issue or 'wrong'... just that I've had to adjust my expectations/play-style towards something that feels a bit more Kumbaya than I was used to.

Quote from: Simlasa;805330Still, that seems to be the picture a whole lot of Players have in their heads, especially nowadays. I've been called 'disruptive' for even presenting mild arguments against party schemes or having my PC openly dislike another PC.
"It's bad for the story" is how one GM put it.

I'd have been very tempted to respond with, "Well it might be bad for your story, but that's only because your story sucks" or "Well since I never signed up to be a puppet in your theater I'm not all that concerned with sticking to your story."

Quote from: Ravenswing;805331I despise PvP.  I always have.  It's the most unforgivable sin at my table, and any act of backstabbing greenlights the rest of the party to kill your character, no questions asked, with the explicit warning that a second offense means ejection from the campaign.  Period.

You jumped from PvP conflict immediately to backstabbing without any intermediate steps at all. It seems like a number of people who have rules against any PCvsPC conflict seem to equate all conflict with backstabbing. That doesn't correspond to my experience and it lacks nuance, but at least you make your preferences really clear.

I may be misunderstanding what you are saying due to the very strong aversion you have, but are characters allowed to disagree in game and if so how are the characters supposed to resolve their disagreements?

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;805339Frequent headshotting is frequent headshotting. Usually because one of the assholes decides shotguns waved in front of faces when shit gets tense over expenditure for a shared Haven is a good idea. Said shotgun Disarmed and Specified Targeted to their own head brought much-needed satisfaction to disarming Nosferatu.

Frequent headshotting sounds incredibly boring. Obviously the first mistake was not killing the Nosferatu right from the start. After all, the only good vamp is a dusted vamp.

QuoteSo the problem is immature players? Not temperments, personalities, none of that: just immaturity?

Yep.

QuoteIt works so well that I've had a few different players ragequit in different games because other players developed an allergy to their bullshit and had a GM-approved allergic reaction of mind-controlling/sabotaging/outright murdering their PC.

In over 40 years of GMing, I've never had a player rage quit. Mature players do help, but we were all immature once. What really helps is addressing out of game problems – and all player problems are out of game problems – out of game. You can't fix stupid and you can't fix assholes with game rules.

QuoteI actively encourage all forms of asshole deterrance.

The only effective asshole deterrence occurs in the real world.

Quote from: Nikita;805341This may interest people who need to deal with these issues when writing RPG books:

This week I discussed (in my class) with few people who had RPG playing background and came from rural areas. They had one very important observation: "In a city you can always throw away someone who is arsehole but you cannot do it in a village where number of players is tiny." Thus they considered it vital to have tips in RPG books for dealing with such people that work beyond "drive them off" as they were often starting to GM/Play the game...

Feeling stuck with the hand you are dealt socially is another version of the primary geek social fallacy. But you can't fix people problems with game rules. There are a million books that try to teach you how to manage, lead, communicate, assert yourself, and deal with conflict. Why would anyone look to game rules to teach them how to better interact with other human beings when there are so many other resources available that are specifically targeted to that purpose?

It's also a fallacy that you need more than two people to roleplay. If you can't find one other person in your village who isn't an asshole, then you probably need to find a new hobby, move to a new location, or realize that maybe you are the problem. (Generic you, not you in particular.)

In my new game High Strung, PCvPC gaming is actively encouraged. You need Hope to survive, and Hope is ablated by daily life. You can gain Hope by gigging and by recording, which is limited, or you can gain Hipe by screwing with your bandmates. Now there is no combat mechanically in High Strung, so the worst you can do physically is punch another character in the nose, but you can do all kinds of nasty tricks like seducing a PC's S.O., or screwing with their stash, or sliping another PC a laxative just before a gig. So no real violence, but lots of screwing around. It is a prime source of fun in the game.

-clahs

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;805339The trick is that the good players don't need combat to wipe a party which makes me wonder in turn what your experience has been? Fortunately and thankfully, I usually don't just have "good" players, I have great players. Former's creative, latter's just not socially awkward. Big difference in my experience.

I said exactly that: PvP/combat isn't required to for a "good" player or "good" asshole to torpedo the whole shebang.  What's good for the goose is good for the gander.  There's no technique available to an non-asshole player that isn't also available to the asshole player. PvP is no solution for an asshole player. PvP can take care of an asshole character, if that character doesn't employ PvP to take out everyone else first.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;805339I actively encourage all forms of asshole deterrance. I've dealt with some serious badguys before and each time I learnt a new form of shithead denial tactics like Razhiel absorbing souls to gain new powers. Best bit is once you've got players subscribing to such beliefs, you can start to take a well-earned backseat while your players fuck with anyone who wants to try it. It's satisfying.

Unrestrained PvP is jet fuel for a serious asshole player. If you are playing favorites with PvP opportunities in support of the players that you think aren't assholes, then you might as well just call it GM fiat, and be done with it.

PvP is important, in my opinion, because without it as an option the games are lacking verisimilitude. But it's incredibly tedious when when it's overused.

There are folks that don't like it (at least one has weighed in here), and if those games work without it, more power to them. To think that anti-PvP sentiment is just now "going around" means that you haven't noticed what's been going on in 50 years of RPGs.

Quote from: Bren;805348The only effective asshole deterrence occurs in the real world.

This should be printed on the $100 bill, because it's money.

In my experience, it's usually the most disruptive "I'm only doing what my character would do" assholes who are against PvP, obviously used as a shield.  In just about every campaign I've played, which usually go long-term, PvP is just assumed to be a possible consequence, like anything else.

When you have players who are actually immersed in the setting and roleplaying their character, PvP will be rare and usually very interesting.

If you play with adults, PvP won't be a problem, nor will non-PvP.

If you don't play with adults, PvP will be disruptive, leading to players worried more about offing each other then their enemies, and non-PvP will lead to nothing but passive-aggressive arguing and general social dysfunction.

"The characters are meant to be cooperative" means right off the bat you're making 3rd person decisions treating your characters as fictional characters...no thanks, I like roleplaying.  If the characters decide to be cooperative, or the reverse, so be it.

I enjoy co-op only. I actually find the new wod settings hard to use, because every player could potentially be part of a different organisation and have different orders. That makes it hard to play without having player vs player or you have to ignore the faction orders and let the party goals overrule them.

Personally I am against it. Character conflicts and arguments are fine and I have no problem with characters having different goals and seeking different rewards. But outright PCs attacking and killing another PC, not my style of play. Thankfully I've never been in a group where that was a problem. One time a PC was working against the group but his character was being mind controlled by the bad guys and no one knew. That was understandable.

But any player who thrives on being and asshole and killing the other PCs to "win" or be "cool", I don't want to play with that person.

I prefer PvP conflict over combat but it has never been ruled out in our campaigns. I find it irrational that good and evil characters are going to be in sync on most situations, let alone all. Players are actively encouraged to express those goals to the GM and the GM should give paths for all characters to obtained those goals and not be surprised when diametrically opposed goals leaf to strife.

If that leads to some form of violence and the players handled it with maturity I'd be ok, it just hasnt.

I think the last few editions of D&D have moved away from any sort of inter group conflict and as a side note: the rules have gone out of their way to minimize fatracide which I'm completely against.

If your wizard throws a fire ball into room then everything not immune should burn. None of this "enemies only" of 4e and carving out zones in 5e. AoE affects should be dangerous in tight quarters. This sort haphazard use of AoE attacks is what usually led to PvP conflict at our table. I'm totally against neutering the consequences of these attacks which I think is directly related to limiting PvP conflict.

I don't see it as player vs player. But player character vs player character. The players are having a blast during it. If a player says they have issues with that happening in a game, they don't get invited is all. Players are screened first before allowing them into a game.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;805379I don't see it as player vs player. But player character vs player character. The players are having a blast during it. If a player says they have issues with that happening in a game, they don't get invited is all. Players are screened first before allowing them into a game.

Oh! Yes! I was specific in my comment - it's PCvPC, NOT PvP! Never, never PvP!

-clash

Quote from: Doughdee222;805372But any player who thrives on being and asshole and killing the other PCs to "win" or be "cool", I don't want to play with that person.

Me either, that's why I play with people who thrive on roleplaying, which every once in a while can honestly result in open conflict between characters.

Quote from: Nikita;805322RPGs are based on implicit assumption that players form a group that works together for a common goal. Thus they are co-operative by nature. Subsequently pitting players knowingly against each other does not work in long-term campaign but it can work in a single shot adventure (perhaps played in a convention).

Players are human and thus they often do things that either accidentally or by nature go against each other and groups I've played have been mature enough to accept it as part of their characters' behaviour.

All actions in my game table are done face to face with each other (including plotting each other) this seems to be the order of the day. However, at the same time I've noticed following (this is from my own experience only): Players can "screw" each other in a campaign while being part of same group is entirely possible but it works when stakes are not important. They are always frown upon when stakes are vitally important to group survival or greater task at hand.

I have seen a couple of times some immature players to blow up on player versus player actions but they are banned from gaming since they frighten some players (and I do not like bullies). Main reason to this seems to be player seeing him versus others attitude and thus not embracing the co-operative nature of game.

I also believe that any action done behind other players back actually heightens psychology of players potentially acting against each other (although I do not have academic studies to back this up).

Thus I suggest following: allow players to do what they wish as long as they do it openly to all. This causes self policing that both allows and even condones actions and reactions based on character actions but also diminishes more aggressive behavior. I do also assume that my players are adults.

Sounds quaint. No shade but it does, hah hah.

And honestly, that doesn't sound like an emotionally healthy group on all sides. Lacking self-esteem and having anger problems. It sounds like defending aganist the man-eating plant rather than pulling out its roots before it grew teeth.

Quote from: Simlasa;805330Still, that seems to be the picture a whole lot of Players have in their heads, especially nowadays. I've been called 'disruptive' for even presenting mild arguments against party schemes or having my PC openly dislike another PC.
"It's bad for the story" is how one GM put it.

Are you fucking kidding me?

I eat GMs like that for breakfast. I'm fucking serious, that pisses me off -- I don't know about Ravenswing but that's actual fucking backstabbing to every other GM out there.

Quote from: Ravenswing;805331I despise PvP.  I always have.  It's the most unforgivable sin at my table, and any act of backstabbing greenlights the rest of the party to kill your character, no questions asked, with the explicit warning that a second offense means ejection from the campaign.  Period.

But I certainly disagree with the OP that anti-PvP is in any way, shape or form a "general notion going around ..." unless by that he means "... in my own gaming circle."  PvP's always been around and will always be there, and I suggest it's probably become more popular than in older times with the rise of MMORPGs, where there's far less of a social compact of cooperation.

Whoah, no-one said anything about backstabbing! Touchy as fuck over here. Seriously though, what happened to you? A "sin"?

Yeah, see, I don't do "social compacts". I find them unhealthy when they 9/10 times lead to the above quoted type of GM and players.

Quote from: Omega;805332Its seen as usually, but not allways bad because it is one of THE most common methods a disruptive player will use to ruin everyone elses enjoyment of the game. And because 85% of the time is one, maybee two jackasses wanting it and the rest of the group is against it.

One reason for opposition is that it means no one is likely to make it past level 1 for very long. Pretty much no adventure is going to survive either out the door, or once treasures been collected. Because at least half the incidents reported were the killer using it as an excuse to grab all the loot and "win"...

Another reason is as noted above. It can easily lead to a death spiral for the gaming group.

Personally a reason I dislike it is because it gets absolutely boring as all hell very very fast. It is probably one of the most unimaginative gags to pull ever in a session.

If I want that sort of play I'll get into a Paranoia session. Otherwise if theres a player killer in the group then either they are out, or I am. The old gag of "But I was just being in character!" is a guarantee boot out the door.

Now. All that said...

There are situations where it can be fun. It can even be alot of fun.

The oft mentioned magic user reincarnated as an otter incident came about from a double-blind PC group vs PC group event and was one of my more memorable and interesting sessions.

Another avenue is the arena where players are pitted by force against eachother. There is even sparring where you are doing subdual damage instead of to the death. And of course there are doppelgangers and intellect devourers that can turn a group in on itself really well if things go catastrophically. A helm of alignment change could do that too.

There are other viable avenues where it can be interesting.

"I kill all the characters in their sleep and take their loot." is NOT interesting. "I stab my companion in the back at the tavern - because Im Evil!" is NOT interesting.

Take note that this is totally different from inter-party personality conflicts. Thats usually expected to occur if the players are playing their characters well and they really are an eclectic group of misfits.

That sounds like a weak GM at the head of that game, total honesty.

Why is it a gag? See, this is what I don't get. These immediate preconceptions that it's immature. Or if a player does sleep-stabs, that it's not allowed to play out with the natural consequences thereof, or the GM straight-out punishing that player because they can. It just sounds like not bringing dickish behaviour to account which can lead to a player thinking its ok to do as a "gag" because the red flag behaviour goes unchecked.

Arenas are awesome. I tend to get all Roman Colosseum with them and shit. Anyway, seperation of church and state approach is not the way

Quote from: Omega;805333Thats a good example of a bad DM. Or one burned on a bad player using personality conflict to be disruptive. It can certainly happen. Ive been in a game with such a player.

I thought so. This might be where this now-emerging-for-me-in-this-thread mindset stems from.

Quote from: Bren;805348I'd have been very tempted to respond with, "Well it might be bad for your story, but that's only because your story sucks" or "Well since I never signed up to be a puppet in your theater I'm not all that concerned with sticking to your story."

You jumped from PvP conflict immediately to backstabbing without any intermediate steps at all. It seems like a number of people who have rules against any PCvsPC conflict seem to equate all conflict with backstabbing. That doesn't correspond to my experience and it lacks nuance, but at least you make your preferences really clear.

I may be misunderstanding what you are saying due to the very strong aversion you have, but are characters allowed to disagree in game and if so how are the characters supposed to resolve their disagreements?

Frequent headshotting sounds incredibly boring. Obviously the first mistake was not killing the Nosferatu right from the start. After all, the only good vamp is a dusted vamp.

Yep.

In over 40 years of GMing, I've never had a player rage quit. Mature players do help, but we were all immature once. What really helps is addressing out of game problems – and all player problems are out of game problems – out of game. You can't fix stupid and you can't fix assholes with game rules.

The only effective asshole deterrence occurs in the real world.


Feeling stuck with the hand you are dealt socially is another version of the primary geek social fallacy. But you can't fix people problems with game rules. There are a million books that try to teach you how to manage, lead, communicate, assert yourself, and deal with conflict. Why would anyone look to game rules to teach them how to better interact with other human beings when there are so many other resources available that are specifically targeted to that purpose?

It's also a fallacy that you need more than two people to roleplay. If you can't find one other person in your village who isn't an asshole, then you probably need to find a new hobby, move to a new location, or realize that maybe you are the problem. (Generic you, not you in particular.)

I wish I could be that naive but GM'ing domestically and for clubs (i.e. the real world) knocks those ideas outta ya head real quick. 'Thankful for that, though.

So you're advocating for what Ravenswing is saying, then? With the headshotting and shit.

To an extent. Seems short-sighted, though. Fuck with the assholes who are disrespecting your players and yourself in-game and they ragequit or get the message and take a seat. Everyone wins.

Quote from: Natty Bodak;805351I said exactly that: PvP/combat isn't required to for a "good" player or "good" asshole to torpedo the whole shebang.  What's good for the goose is good for the gander.  There's no technique available to an non-asshole player that isn't also available to the asshole player. PvP is no solution for an asshole player. PvP can take care of an asshole character, if that character doesn't employ PvP to take out everyone else first.



Unrestrained PvP is jet fuel for a serious asshole player. If you are playing favorites with PvP opportunities in support of the players that you think aren't assholes, then you might as well just call it GM fiat, and be done with it.

PvP is important, in my opinion, because without it as an option the games are lacking verisimilitude. But it's incredibly tedious when when it's overused.

There are folks that don't like it (at least one has weighed in here), and if those games work without it, more power to them. To think that anti-PvP sentiment is just now "going around" means that you haven't noticed what's been going on in 50 years of RPGs.



This should be printed on the $100 bill, because it's money.

You didn't say that though, hah hah. But I get where you're coming from. Thinking we may be on different tiers now, though. Unrestrained PvP is lovely -- see below.

Who said anything about playing favourites? I positively encourage assholes to show their cards. What happens is that 9/10, the threat of PvP being for real in the game from the get-go tends to end it before its even thought of because now they're sticking their neck out. It ain't a gag no more (see above). Just like in real-life, 'start waving a gun at people, prepare to get shot.

I'm not 50yrs old, though. What kind of supposition is that? Hah hah! Who says that, really...

Quote from: CRKrueger;805355In my experience, it's usually the most disruptive "I'm only doing what my character would do" assholes who are against PvP, obviously used as a shield.  In just about every campaign I've played, which usually go long-term, PvP is just assumed to be a possible consequence, like anything else.

When you have players who are actually immersed in the setting and roleplaying their character, PvP will be rare and usually very interesting.

If you play with adults, PvP won't be a problem, nor will non-PvP.

If you don't play with adults, PvP will be disruptive, leading to players worried more about offing each other then their enemies, and non-PvP will lead to nothing but passive-aggressive arguing and general social dysfunction.

"The characters are meant to be cooperative" means right off the bat you're making 3rd person decisions treating your characters as fictional characters...no thanks, I like roleplaying.  If the characters decide to be cooperative, or the reverse, so be it.

Good man. This is more in line with my own experiences.

I'm starting to get the feeling a significant amount of the responders here fall into the latter category you mentioned which speaks ill of them and the games they play in. Not healthy, son. 'Hope that's not the case.

That last statement is how everyone should be going into games. Like equity, you gotta come with clean hands.

Quote from: jan paparazzi;805358I enjoy co-op only. I actually find the new wod settings hard to use, because every player could potentially be part of a different organisation and have different orders. That makes it hard to play without having player vs player or you have to ignore the faction orders and let the party goals overrule them.

I'm a dedicated, specialist NWOD GM (see my sig). Most probably why I don't see the problem with PvP in all its forms and without restriction, hah hah!

Generally though, once you start ignoring all those crore factors (and they are core factors, this is NWOD after all), you've already started to canabalize the game and develop bad GM traits. Very easy to do with NWOD, very demanding game but I do love it.

Quote from: Doughdee222;805372Personally I am against it. Character conflicts and arguments are fine and I have no problem with characters having different goals and seeking different rewards. But outright PCs attacking and killing another PC, not my style of play. Thankfully I've never been in a group where that was a problem. One time a PC was working against the group but his character was being mind controlled by the bad guys and no one knew. That was understandable.

But any player who thrives on being and asshole and killing the other PCs to "win" or be "cool", I don't want to play with that person.

That's why it's one of my biggest gaming pleasures to fuck with those who get off on fucking others. I don't have time for wanton PC killing, especially if that was the only reason a player joined in (which I did have one time but that asshole didn't last long and got his PC's ass beat by a Fighting Style specialist)

Quote from: MonsterSlayer;805375I prefer PvP conflict over combat but it has never been ruled out in our campaigns. I find it irrational that good and evil characters are going to be in sync on most situations, let alone all. Players are actively encouraged to express those goals to the GM and the GM should give paths for all characters to obtained those goals and not be surprised when diametrically opposed goals leaf to strife.

If that leads to some form of violence and the players handled it with maturity I'd be ok, it just hasnt.

I think the last few editions of D&D have moved away from any sort of inter group conflict and as a side note: the rules have gone out of their way to minimize fatracide which I'm completely against.

If your wizard throws a fire ball into room then everything not immune should burn. None of this "enemies only" of 4e and carving out zones in 5e. AoE affects should be dangerous in tight quarters. This sort haphazard use of AoE attacks is what usually led to PvP conflict at our table. I'm totally against neutering the consequences of these attacks which I think is directly related to limiting PvP conflict.

Fucking A! Now there we go. That's the killer right there. Area of Effect! I get the sense that's even too much for some of the responders here (which tells they either houserule it away or certain spells might get outright banned even when the end justifies the cost or it would just make sense for the character).

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;805379I don't see it as player vs player. But player character vs player character. The players are having a blast during it. If a player says they have issues with that happening in a game, they don't get invited is all. Players are screened first before allowing them into a game.

Now if this happened more there would be no worries and I honestly think the hobby would be healthier for it.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;805396Sounds quaint. No shade but it does, hah hah.

And honestly, that doesn't sound like an emotionally healthy group on all sides. Lacking self-esteem and having anger problems. It sounds like defending aganist the man-eating plant rather than pulling out its roots before it grew teeth.

I am afraid but you need to explain yourself on this one.

Quote from: Bren;805348Feeling stuck with the hand you are dealt socially is another version of the primary geek social fallacy. But you can't fix people problems with game rules. There are a million books that try to teach you how to manage, lead, communicate, assert yourself, and deal with conflict. Why would anyone look to game rules to teach them how to better interact with other human beings when there are so many other resources available that are specifically targeted to that purpose?

It's also a fallacy that you need more than two people to roleplay. If you can't find one other person in your village who isn't an asshole, then you probably need to find a new hobby, move to a new location, or realize that maybe you are the problem. (Generic you, not you in particular.)

When you making a commercial product it is vital to include rules and tips how to play the game. In my view including tips how to deal with problems is part of those rules because new players do not necessarily know how to play RPGs at all.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;805396I wish I could be that naive but GM'ing domestically and for clubs (i.e. the real world) knocks those ideas outta ya head real quick. 'Thankful for that, though.

You think a WoD club is the real world? You are incredibly naive.

QuoteSo you're advocating for what Ravenswing is saying, then? With the headshotting and shit.

Why would you think that? Did you actually read what I wrote to Ravenswing? It would really help if you read the quotes before responding to them.

QuoteTo an extent. Seems short-sighted, though. Fuck with the assholes who are disrespecting your players and yourself in-game and they ragequit or get the message and take a seat. Everyone wins.

Smarter to not play with assholes. But there are some people who just can't resist fucking with other people. Usually those people are assholes. Fortunately they are very easy to spot and there is no need to play with them.

Quote from: Nikita;805400When you making a commercial product it is vital to include rules and tips how to play the game. In my view including tips how to deal with problems is part of those rules because new players do not necessarily know how to play RPGs at all.

While I agree that getting along with other people is important to enjoying a game, I don't see tips on how to get along with other people as something necessary or even desirable to include in the game rules - whether that game is Monopoly, Risk, Diplomacy, or an RPG.

Perhaps we just want different things in our game rulee or maybe we have very different ideas of what such tips would look like. Do you have examples of the sort of tips you are wanting to see?

I've seen a lot of players who excel at PCvPC, power-gaming, and other munchkinry — but!, will rein it all in by a GM holding a strong, tight leash and pre-game chat. Because one has the talent to excel in being that asshole player does not mean they will choose to be that asshole, especially if you can talk to them about your game expectations beforehand.

I have openly started games before where I said PCvPC is allowed, but, for example, I: a) don't want you messing with so-&-so because new player training, or b) am starting you elsewhere with different responsibilities because campaign reasons, or c) reward alternate PCvPC solution because desired mood, etc. and so on.

Not every player will have the same player skill. Not every group will blend, mesh (I'd like to call it blesh!), with player styles. Not every table will share the same assumed expectations. That's where my job as GM comes in. I openly talk about these things, stating what is allowed, restricted, assisted, and expected.

Dealing with a people problem through removed layers, be it game mechanics, group expectations, or social punishment, just leaves room for confusion. Real world problems require real world solutions. And the best way to start is ask real world people to not be a problem, and then explain how for your group or game.

Personally, I don't go for PvP combat. I've never seen it end well. Conflicts between the PCs are fine but I like to stop to short of out and out violence (or really too much conniving). It works for others but its not my thing.

Quote from: Bren;805414Smarter to not play with assholes. But there are some people who just can't resist fucking with other people. Usually those people are assholes. Fortunately they are very easy to spot and there is no need to play with them.

I think I've only managed to play with a small handful of outright assholes. More often problems arise from chemistry between players that percolates over time... friction between revealed play styles and preferences and just coming to realize you don't like Bob because he's reminds you of your ex-girlfriend's brother Rufus... or whatever.

Quote from: Nexus;805422Personally, I don't go for PvP combat. I've never seen it end well. Conflicts between the PCs are fine but I like to stop to short of out and out violence (or really too much conniving). It works for others but its not my thing.

The corollary to that is you also probably do not find yourself attracted to Machiavellian schemer, Byzantine politics, games, yes? I've noticed it as a pattern among those who tend to dislike oWoD or IN SJG internal friction campaigns. I'm guessing, but trying to place a pattern.

Quote from: Simlasa;805425I think I've only managed to play with a small handful of outright assholes. More often problems arise from chemistry between players that percolates over time... friction between revealed play styles and preferences and just coming to realize you don't like Bob because he's reminds you of your ex-girlfriend's brother Rufus... or whatever.

You can talk to people who aren't assholes and they will adjust their behavior. See Opaopajr's comment below for how to do that.  Weird chemistry of the Bob and Rufus variety you may be able to get over by talking and getting to know the person as Bob who is actually different from Rufus. If not, well then you should opt out of playing with Rufus.

Quote from: Opaopajr;805419Dealing with a people problem through removed layers, be it game mechanics, group expectations, or social punishment, just leaves room for confusion. Real world problems require real world solutions. And the best way to start is ask real world people to not be a problem, and then explain how for your group or game.

Very, very well said.

Quote from: Bren;805429If not, well then you should opt out of playing with Rufus.

And I did... though he didn't remind me of anyone he did annoy me for reasons that were beyond his control.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;805396You didn't say that though, hah hah. But I get where you're coming from. Thinking we may be on different tiers now, though. Unrestrained PvP is lovely -- see below.

Who said anything about playing favourites? I positively encourage assholes to show their cards. What happens is that 9/10, the threat of PvP being for real in the game from the get-go tends to end it before its even thought of because now they're sticking their neck out. It ain't a gag no more (see above). Just like in real-life, 'start waving a gun at people, prepare to get shot.

If you think a real asshole is more invested in the survival of their character than being an asshole, then you haven't met a real asshole.  We were all once big fish in little ponds, though. So, as you say, no shade hah hah, right?

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;805396I'm not 50yrs old, though. What kind of supposition is that? Hah hah! Who says that, really...

Welcome to the hobby, kid. Stick with it and stick around and you might learn a thing or two.

Quote from: Simlasa;805425I think I've only managed to play with a small handful of outright assholes. More often problems arise from chemistry between players that percolates over time... friction between revealed play styles and preferences and just coming to realize you don't like Bob because he's reminds you of your ex-girlfriend's brother Rufus... or whatever.

Oh man. Rufus. What a tool!

Quote from: Natty Bodak;805435If you think a real asshole is more invested in the survival of their character than being an asshole, then you haven't met a real asshole.  We were all once big fish in little ponds, though. So, as you say, no shade hah hah, right?

Welcome to the hobby, kid. Stick with it and stick around and you might learn a thing or two.

Hes a troll. He isnt going to learn because hes not here to learn.

PvP can be a great part of a large campaign on the Blackmoor/Greyhawk model,  to which for instance Gangbusters (as I recall) seemed to be geared. The GM's role becomes more that of a referee. Alignment was originally included in D&D I think primarily because of its utility in that context.

It can even be fundamental to a specific scenario, the thing that makes the zing.

The logistics of the most common rpg-playing arrangements, though, make it more usually a problem than an asset. "Don't split up the player-characters" for instance is conventional wisdom for practical reasons of the headaches it can create, and splitting up is one likely consequence of conflict.

Quote from: Nikita;805322RPGs are based on implicit assumption that players form a group that works together for a common goal. Thus they are co-operative by nature. Subsequently pitting players knowingly against each other does not work in long-term campaign but it can work in a single shot adventure (perhaps played in a convention).

Players are human and thus they often do things that either accidentally or by nature go against each other and groups I've played have been mature enough to accept it as part of their characters' behaviour.

All actions in my game table are done face to face with each other (including plotting each other) this seems to be the order of the day. However, at the same time I've noticed following (this is from my own experience only): Players can "screw" each other in a campaign while being part of same group is entirely possible but it works when stakes are not important. They are always frown upon when stakes are vitally important to group survival or greater task at hand.

I have seen a couple of times some immature players to blow up on player versus player actions but they are banned from gaming since they frighten some players (and I do not like bullies). Main reason to this seems to be player seeing him versus others attitude and thus not embracing the co-operative nature of game.

I also believe that any action done behind other players back actually heightens psychology of players potentially acting against each other (although I do not have academic studies to back this up).

Thus I suggest following: allow players to do what they wish as long as they do it openly to all. This causes self policing that both allows and even condones actions and reactions based on character actions but also diminishes more aggressive behavior. I do also assume that my players are adults.

RPGs are based on implicit assumption that players form a group that works together for a common goal.

I don't agree with this. The implicit assumption is that players take on the roles of people int eh the environment and these people have their own goals, aims and foibles. Some times the objectives of al of them will overlap you might find a couple of PCs so well suited that they can form a strong partnership must most of the time therte will be tension. It's no different to any group, shit its no different toteh players sitting round the table playiong the game. A group of individuals who share a common goal.

So PvP to me isn't even a consideration. Its part of the weave and weft of the world. A PC can always pull a blade and kill another PC. Or poison their food, or steal their purse of course that is possible. However, just like in the real world actions have consequences. If your PC kills another PC other PCs may find out and then they may take revenge, etc etc ...

Now if a Player just turns up with PCs whose aim is to kill the rest of the party you have an issue (well unless you actually set him up as an assassin hired to kill the rest of the party... AKA an Eiger Sanction Scenario) if they do it all the time then you don't have roleplayers.

So a degree of maturity round roleplaying is expected and maturity implies subtlety and complexity which implies a greyer morality.

PvP interactions were essential parts of two of my formative table-top roleplaying experiences: En Garde! and Melee/Wizard. The tension and competition greatly increases player engagement with roleplaying and adds much excitement to the table. I find games a bit dull when there is nothing like this going on in the campaign.

Quote from: Nikita;805399I am afraid but you need to explain yourself on this one.

That whole group dynamic sounded bad. I felt like I should have been there, put the fear of god into those "bullies" and picked up the frightened players and gave em' some hot coco or something.

Quote from: Bren;805414You think a WoD club is the real world? You are incredibly naive.

Why would you think that? Did you actually read what I wrote to Ravenswing? It would really help if you read the quotes before responding to them.

Smarter to not play with assholes. But there are some people who just can't resist fucking with other people. Usually those people are assholes. Fortunately they are very easy to spot and there is no need to play with them.

While I agree that getting along with other people is important to enjoying a game, I don't see tips on how to get along with other people as something necessary or even desirable to include in the game rules - whether that game is Monopoly, Risk, Diplomacy, or an RPG.

Perhaps we just want different things in our game rulee or maybe we have very different ideas of what such tips would look like. Do you have examples of the sort of tips you are wanting to see?

Yo, I wasn't attacking you. Chill. What you're saying is fine but to me it's a little optimistic. Especially when you're telling Ravenswing how he's saying what he's saying "lacks nuance". Come on man.

Yes, I do. It ain't gaming with your friends 'round your house. These gamers are coming to game -- its a different level. Wildly different personalities, really great guys, all know exactly what they want. And they're paying for a quality game which directly supports the club which is awesome.

Your first mistake statement. Equivalence of the backstab reaction, i.e. kill them immediately without mercy, even if the motive/mindset behind it is different.

Nah, on a similar note to Natty, it's not always immediately apparent who the shitstick's gonna be, especially if they're "good" (we're ironing out the exact definition of that term here). They got poker faces, some of them.

Quote from: Opaopajr;805419I've seen a lot of players who excel at PCvPC, power-gaming, and other munchkinry — but!, will rein it all in by a GM holding a strong, tight leash and pre-game chat. Because one has the talent to excel in being that asshole player does not mean they will choose to be that asshole, especially if you can talk to them about your game expectations beforehand.

I have openly started games before where I said PCvPC is allowed, but, for example, I: a) don't want you messing with so-&-so because new player training, or b) am starting you elsewhere with different responsibilities because campaign reasons, or c) reward alternate PCvPC solution because desired mood, etc. and so on.

Not every player will have the same player skill. Not every group will blend, mesh (I'd like to call it blesh!), with player styles. Not every table will share the same assumed expectations. That's where my job as GM comes in. I openly talk about these things, stating what is allowed, restricted, assisted, and expected.

Dealing with a people problem through removed layers, be it game mechanics, group expectations, or social punishment, just leaves room for confusion. Real world problems require real world solutions. And the best way to start is ask real world people to not be a problem, and then explain how for your group or game.

Boom! Good man. Like CK, this guy gets it. If your GM's a dweb, the game's a bust. Only problem is that last statement. Hybrid approach is what I would seek 'cause the examples given so fair seem more one-on-one, interview style type affairs.

Quote from: Nexus;805422Personally, I don't go for PvP combat. I've never seen it end well. Conflicts between the PCs are fine but I like to stop to short of out and out violence (or really too much conniving). It works for others but its not my thing.

Respect it.

Quote from: Simlasa;805425I think I've only managed to play with a small handful of outright assholes. More often problems arise from chemistry between players that percolates over time... friction between revealed play styles and preferences and just coming to realize you don't like Bob because he's reminds you of your ex-girlfriend's brother Rufus... or whatever.

That sounds ratchet as shit.

Quote from: Opaopajr;805428The corollary to that is you also probably do not find yourself attracted to Machiavellian schemer, Byzantine politics, games, yes? I've noticed it as a pattern among those who tend to dislike oWoD or IN SJG internal friction campaigns. I'm guessing, but trying to place a pattern.

I feel like it's something about this too. I don't even think its their playstyle. I think these players just don't like conflict, point blank. And that's fair... when kept to themselves. It not necessarily a good thing when that attitude gets reflected in the gamebooks. It doesn't make sense in a hobby where roleplaying a character is the core.

Quote from: Natty Bodak;805435If you think a real asshole is more invested in the survival of their character than being an asshole, then you haven't met a real asshole.  We were all once big fish in little ponds, though. So, as you say, no shade hah hah, right?



Welcome to the hobby, kid. Stick with it and stick around and you might learn a thing or two.

More than I would have thought, surprisingly. A lot these guys and girls are invested in their characters, or at least their value as a tool to be used outta pocket. Some of these fish need water, son.

If you've got something to teach, I'm all ears. Otherwise, cut the condescending granpappy crap with the smarm on the side.

Quote from: Omega;805444Hes a troll. He isnt going to learn because hes not here to learn.

I am. That's the entire point of this thread. Looking to see what's behind the sentiment, then discuss it and agree or disagree. Simple, really.

Quote from: Phillip;805453PvP can be a great part of a large campaign on the Blackmoor/Greyhawk model,  to which for instance Gangbusters (as I recall) seemed to be geared. The GM's role becomes more that of a referee. Alignment was originally included in D&D I think primarily because of its utility in that context.

It can even be fundamental to a specific scenario, the thing that makes the zing.

The logistics of the most common rpg-playing arrangements, though, make it more usually a problem than an asset. "Don't split up the player-characters" for instance is conventional wisdom for practical reasons of the headaches it can create, and splitting up is one likely consequence of conflict.

I really get that whole referee angle. I think you've gotta be sharp, concise and assertive when it comes to judgement calls and keeping the peace. There can be no doubt who's in charge.

See, even some of the players I've had in the past outside of my club have shared that oft-quoted idea. I don't agree with it at all. In fact, I see it as a crutch, honestly. It's not hard to manage a table of 10 players splitting off into cliques of 2-3, with their own side missions and dialogues going on. It's something I've literally been praised for in reviews of my club. Management is a thing in this game, logistics as well.

Quote from: jibbajibba;805479RPGs are based on implicit assumption that players form a group that works together for a common goal.

I don't agree with this. The implicit assumption is that players take on the roles of people int eh the environment and these people have their own goals, aims and foibles. Some times the objectives of al of them will overlap you might find a couple of PCs so well suited that they can form a strong partnership must most of the time therte will be tension. It's no different to any group, shit its no different toteh players sitting round the table playiong the game. A group of individuals who share a common goal.

So PvP to me isn't even a consideration. Its part of the weave and weft of the world. A PC can always pull a blade and kill another PC. Or poison their food, or steal their purse of course that is possible. However, just like in the real world actions have consequences. If your PC kills another PC other PCs may find out and then they may take revenge, etc etc ...

Now if a Player just turns up with PCs whose aim is to kill the rest of the party you have an issue (well unless you actually set him up as an assassin hired to kill the rest of the party... AKA an Eiger Sanction Scenario) if they do it all the time then you don't have roleplayers.

So a degree of maturity round roleplaying is expected and maturity implies subtlety and complexity which implies a greyer morality.

Now there we go. That's reasonable expectations. Very much along the lines of my own posts in this thread.

Quote from: Larsdangly;805480PvP interactions were essential parts of two of my formative table-top roleplaying experiences: En Garde! and Melee/Wizard. The tension and competition greatly increases player engagement with roleplaying and adds much excitement to the table. I find games a bit dull when there is nothing like this going on in the campaign.

Right!

I don't particularly like PVP in my RPGs, although under the right circumstances I suppose it could be alright (if all parties involved were fine by it and having fun). I wouldn't use it to resolve player issues though -- if someone is a dick, I'd prefer to get rid of the player than the character.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;805501Yo, I wasn't attacking you. Chill. What you're saying is fine but to me it's a little optimistic. Especially when you're telling Ravenswing how he's saying what he's saying "lacks nuance". Come on man.

Aggression seems to be your shtick. Which makes a lot of what you are saying sound like you are attacking someone. If you don't want to give that impression, a less confrontational and jargon laden approach would really help.

I'm aware that gaming with friends is different than gaming with chance met acquaintances. I've done both. Overall, I prefer gaming with people I know well. It allows a depth to the experience that isn't available in the club gaming scene. But the same methods for dealing with assholes work with people who are mere acquaintances. Tell them what behaviors are unacceptable. If they comply great. If not, tell 'em not to let the door hit them in the ass on their way out.

QuoteYour first mistake statement. Equivalence of the backstab reaction, i.e. kill them immediately without mercy, even if the motive/mindset behind it is different.

I have no idea what you are trying to say here. No idea whatsoever.

QuoteNah, on a similar note to Natty, it's not always immediately apparent who the shitstick's gonna be, especially if they're "good" (we're ironing out the exact definition of that term here). They got poker faces, some of them.

In my experience, assholes are always fairly obvious and easy to detect. Apparently that ability is not universal since I am sometimes surprised when other people seem to take what seems eons to notice that shit.

What's easy logistically depends on priorities that may not be the same as yours or mine: The final verdict comes from players whose enjoyment of the game (or lack thereof) is what it is regardless of any theory of what it "ought to be."

Also, splitting the party was just one example of many potential difficulties.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;805297There seems to be this general notion going around that PvP in RPGs is inherently bad, whether in and of itself or as specifically applied to rolling dice to headshot a muthafucker -- muthafucker being that degenerative-asshole-across-the-table-from-you's character.

I don't understand this.

I condone and even encourage this shit all the time in any and all games I host. Puts players on edge and makes em' think twice, ramps up intensity and emotional/economical buy-in value and autocorrects asshole/escapist behaviour at the table: this being my experience, of course. Run several different systems in my modest time as a GM and none of them seem to change how the above plays out -- death is a legit outcome in all cases. Much fun had by all every time which I'm very thankful for.

So what's the deal?

A civil war in the setting, turned into a civil war among the player characters. It was the damnest thing too.

This particular incident started when the PCs returned to the City-State of the Invincible Overlord from a dungeon adventure. While they were shopping and spending their gold, they heard the bells ringing at the Cathedral that signaled an important the announcement.

The PCs joined the crowd, and out comes the priest, who announced the high priest was dead. He was elderly so this was expected at some point. What was unexpected was that immediately afterward the priest announced that the Invincible Overlord was a enemy of the church. That all the faithful to rise and overthrow him. That they should support the nobles who also risen up against the Overlord.

Then immediately people started fighting each other in the cathedral square. The city guard allied with the temple guard and then started fighting the Overlord's troops. Then bells starting ringing a call to arms from a rival temple.

The PCs initial reaction was of stunned confusion. When they saw people being hacked down, they rushed in and started to separate the combatants and calm things down. And they were making some headway. Until one of the Rogue PCs who was nominally a Overlord loyalist, politics wasn't big with this group, went after the priests instigating the riots.

This drew the attention of the paladin of the party and the cleric who were followers of the same deity as the temple. The Rogue wouldn't back off and attack the Paladin standing between him and the priest. Granted the Rogue wasn't attacking to kill but to get the Paladin out of the way. But the Paladin PC finally had it and the two started to hack into each other.

Meanwhile the Priest PCs was trying to rally temple guards and city guards and get them to retreat to the temple.  But finally lost it after a group of opportunists (NPCs) fighting with the Overlord's forces got in the way of the retreat. After this he was full out fighting on the temple's side.

Which brought him into conflict another PC who was a Knight of the Overlord. The knight decided to run his group down and the two of them went at it.

Of the remaining two PCs, a dwarven wizard and a human female Rogue. The Dwarven Wizards popped an Invisibility Ring and hunkered down. The Female Rogue rode a Broom of Flying doing nothing but healing party members with potions and magic items if they went down regardless of which side they were fighting on. She also stopped a rape, and several assaults in nearby alleys.

What caused all this is a result of one of the ways I run my campaigns. I have a timeline of events that I keep updating in light of what the PCs do and not do. One of the things that been going on is a civil war involving the Invincible Overlord. The war is in its early stage and until confined to the periphery territories of the Overlord.

In any campaign what I primarily focus on depends on the interests of the players. But whatever they are doing it part of the larger world of my Majestic Wilderlands. Throughout the campaign they avoided politics. Which is fine. Instead they focused on scrounging up rumors, lore and finding all the ruins and dungeons in the area of City-State.  Including megadungeons like Tegal Manor and the Majestic Wilderlands.

Along the way, they had some effect, and made some contacts, but nothing that would alter the fact that on this particular day in the campaign, the High Priest would die, that his underling, now in control, would throw in their support in with those rebelling against the Overlord to try to take control of City-State.

Now the party is split and one group of PC attacked the other. I am prepared to run separate session if need be. But I suspect they will find a way to get back together. A lot of their dungeon exploration is outside of City-State territory and there are things that the group is dealing with that are actually more important in their mind than the fact that City-State has gone up in flames. I am sure they will surprise me next session.

Quote from: Ravenswing;805331I despise PvP.  I always have.  It's the most unforgivable sin at my table, and any act of backstabbing greenlights the rest of the party to kill your character, no questions asked, with the explicit warning that a second offense means ejection from the campaign.  Period.

A rigid attitude like that brings with its own problems.

Personally what I find works better is enlightened self interest among the players as their characters combined with a setting that has a life of its own.

Players that are "backstabbers" in most negative sense bring with them a bunch of other problems both in-game and out of game. While dealing with out of game issues is its own special brand of fun. It take longer because it usually complicated by social dynamics.

But luckily for me as the referee, poor out of game behavior is often attended by poor in-game behavior. And because I run my various setting as places with a life of it own that means the characters of these players often run afoul of the in-game law or social network. And frankly they are often idiots in-game as they are out of game.

As a result, I wind up killing or incapacitating their character by the rules with total fairness. The most creative punishment in my campaign, thanks to a co-DM, was turning an elven character into a donkey sentenced to offer rides  for a hundred years. He was turned into animal because he treated others like an animal. The final incident was the fireballing, multiple times, of a village to fuck with another PC. Mind there were several less dramatic incident where the character was warned of his behavior by his fellow elves.

Needless to say, the next character was considerably more sedate.

I despise rules like no PVP because it is a metagame mechanic that breaks the game. More importantly doesn't work, because it doesn't address the asshole who is a social manipulator and other various types of group dynamics. A PC should have think twice about his actions in light of the fact he can get ganked.

I will say in most cases this is an non-issue for a typical tabletop campaign as they are about a small group who know each other. It is only in LARPS and Organized Play I have seen this be an issue. Situations where in essence strangers get together.

You guys all need to play more Amber....

Some people do quite loathe treachery in games: One game of Diplomacy is for them too many, though they may  be fine with openly cutthroat competition.

Others resent collusion in multi-player games, and even have a hard time keeping their cool when foiled in a "Euro-game" situation in which a player was not even aware of that negative consequence of positively furthering his own progress.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;805396Sounds quaint. No shade but it does, hah hah.

Are you fucking kidding me?

I eat GMs like that for breakfast. I'm fucking serious, that pisses me off

That sounds like a weak GM at the head of that game, total honesty.

You didn't say that though, hah hah.

I'm not 50yrs old, though. What kind of supposition is that? Hah hah! Who says that, really...

Fucking A! Now there we go.

Nah, you sound 15.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;805501More than I would have thought, surprisingly. A lot these guys and girls are invested in their characters, or at least their value as a tool to be used outta pocket. Some of these fish need water, son.

If you've got something to teach, I'm all ears. Otherwise, cut the condescending granpappy crap with the smarm on the side.

All ears, and it looks like it's starting break through to you. You're coming to realize that your world / local ecology might not hold all the fish in the sea. Depending on how sefl-aware you are you may embrace this, or you might defensively tell yourself you knew that all along.

Either way, condescension can be quite the proper attitude and tool in order to work out the hierarchy so we can further educate you as needed.  One day when you grow out of the teen poseur nwod stuff you might be prepared for something a bit more satisfying.  I hope the process treats you well, and that your ub3r l337 supernatural strike commando anti-asshole assassins follow in your footstips and develop a mature sense of how all this does work in the real world.

Prost!

Quote from: jibbajibba;805479RPGs are based on implicit assumption that players form a group that works together for a common goal.

I don't agree with this. The implicit assumption is that players take on the roles of people in the environment and these people have their own goals, aims and foibles. Some times the objectives of all of them will overlap you might find a couple of PCs so well suited that they can form a strong partnership must most of the time there will be tension. It's no different to any group, shit it's no different to the players sitting round the table playing the game. A group of individuals who share a common goal.

I don't agree with this.

Quote from: jibbajibba;805479So PvP to me isn't even a consideration. Its part of the weave and weft of the world. A PC can always pull a blade and kill another PC. Or poison their food, or steal their purse of course that is possible. However, just like in the real world actions have consequences. If your PC kills another PC other PCs may find out and then they may take revenge, etc etc ...

It's too easy to get away with PCicide.

Quote from: jibbajibba;805479So a degree of maturity around roleplaying is expected and maturity implies subtlety and complexity which implies a greyer morality.

That subtlety and complexity is too hard to replicate playing make believe with dice.

Quote from: Natty Bodak;805518All ears, and it looks like it's starting break through to you. You're coming to realize that your world / local ecology might not hold all the fish in the sea. Depending on how sefl-aware you are you may embrace this, or you might defensively tell yourself you knew that all along.

Either way, condescension can be quite the proper attitude and tool in order to work out the hierarchy so we can further educate you as needed.  One day when you grow out of the teen poseur nwod stuff you might be prepared for something a bit more satisfying.  I hope the process treats you well, and that your ub3r l337 supernatural strike commando anti-asshole assassins follow in your footstips and develop a mature sense of how all this does work in the real world.

Prost!

You really think it will?  

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;805396That's why it's one of my biggest gaming pleasures to fuck with those who get off on fucking others.

Quote from: Bren;805348You jumped from PvP conflict immediately to backstabbing without any intermediate steps at all. It seems like a number of people who have rules against any PCvsPC conflict seem to equate all conflict with backstabbing. That doesn't correspond to my experience and it lacks nuance, but at least you make your preferences really clear.

I may be misunderstanding what you are saying due to the very strong aversion you have, but are characters allowed to disagree in game and if so how are the characters supposed to resolve their disagreements?

My overwhelming experience with PvP, both in gaming circles with which I've been familiar and the comments of others, is that for every upfront face-to-face PC vs PC duel, there are fifty backstabs or other acts of theft or treachery.  The notion, as many a defender of the practice has stated to me, that this is just healthy conflict, is bullshit.  Most practitioners aren't after "healthy conflict," they're after the sure thing.

Disagreements, that's another matter.  Groups take the consensus, and they go on from there.  That's an entirely different situation from "My thief steals his Amulet of Uberness when he's sleeping," and I think everyone here knows that.

Caveat: this is, of course, a social compact thing.  Someone playing in a Vampire LARP, where PvP is an expected part of the landscape, oughtn't whine when he gets the short end of the stick, and if he can't hack PvP, he has no business playing Vampire.  (Which since I can't, I don't.)

And folks?  How about we don't get hung up any more on the term "backstabbing" than we're being asshole pedants who smarmily say "But it can't REALLY be 'PvP' unless the players themselves are having fistfights!"

Quote from: estar;805513A rigid attitude like that brings with its own problems ... I despise rules like no PVP because it is a metagame mechanic that breaks the game. More importantly doesn't work, because it doesn't address the asshole who is a social manipulator and other various types of group dynamics. A PC should have think twice about his actions in light of the fact he can get ganked.

It most certainly does work, and has worked for over 35 years.  I don't think it's any more out of line to explain that up front than any other behavior that shouldn't take place at my table, and in fact it's my responsibility to do so: it's desperately unfair for a new player to join my campaign and not be informed what is and isn't expected.

Does it address your social manipulator?  No, it doesn't, and neither does any other hard-and-fast rule, nor does anyone expect it to do so, any more than we expect the "You have to roll the dice where at least one other player or the GM can see the result," "Don't spit in the snacks" or "Show up on time or call to explain why you can't" rules don't deal with that either.

And how does a rule like that "break the game?"  It does nothing of the sort: it's one of a number of guidelines that restrict the kind of character you're allowed to play, that's all.  If I've decided that the kind of campaign I'm doing is that everyone's playing a wizard -- this being, as to that, what my current party wanted to do -- then you can't play a gutter rat, and you can't play someone who doesn't speak the language, and you can't play a Nazi stormtrooper, and you can't play a Wookie.  Those are all of a piece with "... and you can't backstab your fellow PCs."

The game is somewhat straitened if player-characters can never be rivals in anything, from romance to promotion. I personally prefer a group of players who can engage in competition in a game without animosity in real life, and that was obviously desirable in the wargame hobby of which rpgs were a part in the early days. If I'm playing the Russians, then the player invading with French or Germans had better be doing his best to confound me or it won't be much of a game!

Quote from: jeff37923;805319I prefer PvP at the table so that Players can police their own. You know that one annoying as shit guy who keeps fucking with everyone's fun during the game while claiming he's "just role-playing his character"? Yeah, fuck him and his character, let another Player Character just off him.

Whereas I don't play with assholes.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;805297There seems to be this general notion going around that PvP in RPGs is inherently bad, whether in and of itself or as specifically applied to rolling dice to headshot a muthafucker -- muthafucker being that degenerative-asshole-across-the-table-from-you's character.

I don't understand this.

I condone and even encourage this shit all the time in any and all games I host. Puts players on edge and makes em' think twice, ramps up intensity and emotional/economical buy-in value and autocorrects asshole/escapist behaviour at the table: this being my experience, of course. Run several different systems in my modest time as a GM and none of them seem to change how the above plays out -- death is a legit outcome in all cases. Much fun had by all every time which I'm very thankful for.

So what's the deal?

My, aren't WE fierce.

Quote from: Old Geezer;805536Whereas I don't play with assholes.

So, you've never played at a convention or a hobby shop or a friend's house where you never had met the other Players before and didn't know if one of them was an asshole or not? My God, you have astounding luck for a man who is considered a Venerable Sage of Gaming in his own mind.

Quote from: Sommerjon;805519I don't agree with this.

It's too easy to get away with PCicide.

That subtlety and complexity is too hard to replicate playing make believe with dice.

Weird ...

You don't agree that the base element of RPG is  ...  players take on the roles of people in the environment and these people have their own goals, aims and foibles.

ie we are tryign to play believable characters in a shared imagined world

I agree that if you are down in a dark tunnel it is very easy to get away with killing someone and get away with it. Probably why dungeon adventuring attracts so many murder hobos :)

You don't need to use dice diplomacy and Amber don't use dice after all :)

But really you must be dealing with quite immature players if you think allowing them to play independent realistic characters is too much of a risk because they will always opt to play characters that will kill each other and its too hard to police that in game so ...

When I roleplay I roleplay. I have roleplayed a lot of self serving quasi-sociopathic folk, but I have played a lot of idealistic selfless altruistic folk, I tend to play people that are a a bit of a mix of both, want to do good but a bit cowardly, want to be carefree and not tied down by "social mores' but at the same time had a shred of decency that won't allow them to see their brothers in arms left behind. You know conflicted types that try to mirror real people.
This isn't very hard to achieve with make believe with or without dice I mean we have been doing it since we were about 14 or 15 and I am sure that most of the people on the site would say the same thing.

In real life I could easily see a stranger follow them home kill them and take all their stuff and the chance of me being caught are miniscule (more likely in the UK due to CCTV) but I don't, not because I fear being caught but because I am not a crazy psychopath....

Quote from: Bren;805506Aggression seems to be your shtick. Which makes a lot of what you are saying sound like you are attacking someone. If you don't want to give that impression, a less confrontational and jargon laden approach would really help.

I'm aware that gaming with friends is different than gaming with chance met acquaintances. I've done both. Overall, I prefer gaming with people I know well. It allows a depth to the experience that isn't available in the club gaming scene. But the same methods for dealing with assholes work with people who are mere acquaintances. Tell them what behaviors are unacceptable. If they comply great. If not, tell 'em not to let the door hit them in the ass on their way out.
I have no idea what you are trying to say here. No idea whatsoever.

In my experience, assholes are always fairly obvious and easy to detect. Apparently that ability is not universal since I am sometimes surprised when other people seem to take what seems eons to notice that shit.

You sound cold,  removed and slightly dry in the way you write and sometimes say stuff that sounds mad rude, although all you're trying to do is be precise. It's not a shtick, it's just how you talk. And that's fine.

Vampire should have been shot first immediately. "Backstabber" be killed off immediately. One out of "it's boring", the other "sin" . Same basic thing, different motivator.

Quote from: Phillip;805507What's easy logistically depends on priorities that may not be the same as yours or mine: The final verdict comes from players whose enjoyment of the game (or lack thereof) is what it is regardless of any theory of what it "ought to be."

Also, splitting the party was just one example of many potential difficulties.

Nah, I believe there are basic skills that all GMs should have under their belt. Scalable table management is one, though it's certainly not.basic training. There are levels to this thing. And one should aspire to be the best in whatever it is they do. Set standards.

Seriously, party splitting, not something to worry about.

Quote from: estar;805511A civil war in the setting, turned into a civil war among the player characters. It was the damnest thing too.

This particular incident started when the PCs returned to the City-State of the Invincible Overlord from a dungeon adventure. While they were shopping and spending their gold, they heard the bells ringing at the Cathedral that signaled an important the announcement.

The PCs joined the crowd, and out comes the priest, who announced the high priest was dead. He was elderly so this was expected at some point. What was unexpected was that immediately afterward the priest announced that the Invincible Overlord was a enemy of the church. That all the faithful to rise and overthrow him. That they should support the nobles who also risen up against the Overlord.

Then immediately people started fighting each other in the cathedral square. The city guard allied with the temple guard and then started fighting the Overlord's troops. Then bells starting ringing a call to arms from a rival temple.

The PCs initial reaction was of stunned confusion. When they saw people being hacked down, they rushed in and started to separate the combatants and calm things down. And they were making some headway. Until one of the Rogue PCs who was nominally a Overlord loyalist, politics wasn't big with this group, went after the priests instigating the riots.

This drew the attention of the paladin of the party and the cleric who were followers of the same deity as the temple. The Rogue wouldn't back off and attack the Paladin standing between him and the priest. Granted the Rogue wasn't attacking to kill but to get the Paladin out of the way. But the Paladin PC finally had it and the two started to hack into each other.

Meanwhile the Priest PCs was trying to rally temple guards and city guards and get them to retreat to the temple.  But finally lost it after a group of opportunists (NPCs) fighting with the Overlord's forces got in the way of the retreat. After this he was full out fighting on the temple's side.

Which brought him into conflict another PC who was a Knight of the Overlord. The knight decided to run his group down and the two of them went at it.

Of the remaining two PCs, a dwarven wizard and a human female Rogue. The Dwarven Wizards popped an Invisibility Ring and hunkered down. The Female Rogue rode a Broom of Flying doing nothing but healing party members with potions and magic items if they went down regardless of which side they were fighting on. She also stopped a rape, and several assaults in nearby alleys.

What caused all this is a result of one of the ways I run my campaigns. I have a timeline of events that I keep updating in light of what the PCs do and not do. One of the things that been going on is a civil war involving the Invincible Overlord. The war is in its early stage and until confined to the periphery territories of the Overlord.

In any campaign what I primarily focus on depends on the interests of the players. But whatever they are doing it part of the larger world of my Majestic Wilderlands. Throughout the campaign they avoided politics. Which is fine. Instead they focused on scrounging up rumors, lore and finding all the ruins and dungeons in the area of City-State.  Including megadungeons like Tegal Manor and the Majestic Wilderlands.

Along the way, they had some effect, and made some contacts, but nothing that would alter the fact that on this particular day in the campaign, the High Priest would die, that his underling, now in control, would throw in their support in with those rebelling against the Overlord to try to take control of City-State.

Now the party is split and one group of PC attacked the other. I am prepared to run separate session if need be. But I suspect they will find a way to get back together. A lot of their dungeon exploration is outside of City-State territory and there are things that the group is dealing with that are actually more important in their mind than the fact that City-State has gone up in flames. I am sure they will surprise me next session.

This sounds awesome! Well done my man!

Quote from: Natty Bodak;805518All ears, and it looks like it's starting break through to you. You're coming to realize that your world / local ecology might not hold all the fish in the sea. Depending on how sefl-aware you are you may embrace this, or you might defensively tell yourself you knew that all along.

Either way, condescension can be quite the proper attitude and tool in order to work out the hierarchy so we can further educate you as needed.  One day when you grow out of the teen poseur nwod stuff you might be prepared for something a bit more satisfying.  I hope the process treats you well, and that your ub3r l337 supernatural strike commando anti-asshole assassins follow in your footstips and develop a mature sense of how all this does work in the real world.

Prost!

Hah hah, he doesn't stop, does he?

Why do I get the feeling you're one of those window-dressing ponces with a copy of the God Delusion in their hands in Starbucks who dresses in couduroy who tries to talk like they're an intellectual but are really just arrogant snobs who spit out names like Kant and Engels like they've just got their philosopher of the month club mag in the mail.

On your bike, son...

Quote from: Old Geezer;805537My, aren't WE fierce.

Darling, I'm fabulous!

Quote from: jeff37923;805539So, you've never played at a convention or a hobby shop or a friend's house where you never had met the other Players before and didn't know if one of them was an asshole or not? My God, you have astounding luck for a man who is considered a Venerable Sage of Gaming in his own mind.

I know, right? Why are these guys speaking like they're some wizened old guard who've ascended to a higher plane of thinking or something?

Quote from: Sommerjon;805516Nah, you sound 15.

Not the worst thing in the world, all things considered.

You're new? What's your take on the subject?

Fascinating thread. For some historical perspective, may I suggest Gary Fine's "Shared Fantasy" (University of Chicago Press, ISBN 0-226-24943-3), chapter four, page 145 for how this issue played out in Prof. Barker's campaign?

Quote from: jeff37923;805539So, you've never played at a convention or a hobby shop or a friend's house where you never had met the other Players before and didn't know if one of them was an asshole or not? My God, you have astounding luck for a man who is considered a Venerable Sage of Gaming in his own mind.

I won't speak to the Glorious General's experience - I doubt I'm qualified to do so! - but speaking for myself, I have indeed had astounding luck in not having had to game with assholes. I've played at a few conventions and hobby shops over the years, as well as at a few friend's houses, I can think of only two or three real assholes that I've met in that time; I didn't play with the one, after I caught him pocketing some of my miniatures, and I simply refused to game with the two who routinely cheated on dice rolls.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;805555I won't speak to the Glorious General's experience - I doubt I'm qualified to do so! - but speaking for myself, I have indeed had astounding luck in not having had to game with assholes. I've played at a few conventions and hobby shops over the years, as well as at a few friend's houses, I can think of only two or three real assholes that I've met in that time; I didn't play with the one, after I caught him pocketing some of my miniatures, and I simply refused to game with the two who routinely cheated on dice rolls.

Granted, the jerks are few and far between, but they do still exist and PvP usually solves them when they are found.

Quote from: Ravenswing;805528My overwhelming experience with PvP, both in gaming circles with which I've been familiar and the comments of others, is that for every upfront face-to-face PC vs PC duel, there are fifty backstabs or other acts of theft or treachery.  The notion, as many a defender of the practice has stated to me, that this is just healthy conflict, is bullshit.  Most practitioners aren't after "healthy conflict," they're after the sure thing.

Your experience is utterly unlike anything I have ever seen anywhere in 40+ years of regular gaming in half a dozen states and two countries.

Quote from: Ravenswing;805528And folks?  How about we don't get hung up any more on the term "backstabbing" than we're being asshole pedants who smarmily say "But it can't REALLY be 'PvP' unless the players themselves are having fistfights!"

You use the term "sin" unironically in the context of playing an RPG and pendantry is the thing you think is the problem in this discussion. Seriously?

Quote from: Sommerjon;805522You really think it will?

Not really, of course. Just trying some diagnostics to figure this guy's pathology out. Right now I have to with a juggalo from the Steven Seagal school of RPGs. I had no idea there were juggalos in London, but there you go.

Quote from: jibbajibba;805544Weird ...

You don't agree that the base element of RPG is  ...  players take on the roles of people in the environment and these people have their own goals, aims and foibles.

No I don't agree with players take on the roles of people in the environment and these people have their own goals, aims and foibles. full stop.

Quote from: jibbajibba;805544ie we are trying to play believable characters in a shared imagined world

I love that you use trying.

Quote from: jibbajibba;805544I agree that if you are down in a dark tunnel it is very easy to get away with killing someone and get away with it. Probably why dungeon adventuring attracts so many murder hobos :)

You don't need to use dice diplomacy and Amber don't use dice after all :)

Getting away with murdering someone in a RPG is child's play.  RPGs rely upon a random factor most usually dice. Bringing up Amber?  Really?

Quote from: jibbajibba;805544But really you must be dealing with quite immature players if you think allowing them to play independent realistic characters is too much of a risk because they will always opt to play characters that will kill each other and its too hard to police that in game so ...

No I game with people who aren't their characters 24/7/365.  What happens at the table is a caricature of a self serving quasi-sociopathic or idealistic selfless altruistic.

I see RPGs as a mix of game and collaborative fiction. And the fiction I'm interested in is where the players are heroes of some kind.

Players are authors, too, so there are certain meta rules I enjoy to guide characterization.

If you fuck with things 'because that's my character,' hey, you wrote the character. You can rewrite it. It isn't holy writ.

Disagreements, sure, but actual pvp? No thanks.

I am fine with player versus player, and with conflict occurring within the party (in fact I'd say I prefer it), but if you are forcing that on a group that has no interest, you are being a dick and that is what gives the style of play a bad name. This boils down to being able to read the room and know what people at the table consider acceptable gaming behavior. There is a reason "it's what my character would do" is synonymous with being a jerk. Some folks simply don't seem to know when they are antagonizing the rest of the group. It is a spectrum. Some folks are cool with a bit of internal conflict, some are fine with outright violent confrontation, some want a purely competitive style of play, and others want the party to basically get a long. You really need to know what kind of group you are in before you go stabbing a PC in the middle of the night.

RPGs are poor tools for collaborative fiction. There are better ways of doing collaborative fiction that doesn't require the hassle and setup of a tabletop RPG.

Quote from: estar;805583RPGs are poor tools for collaborative fiction. There are better ways of doing collaborative fiction that doesn't require the hassle and setup of a tabletop RPG.

Maybe you haven't been doing it right.

Quote from: Sommerjon;805571No I don't agree with players take on the roles of people in the environment and these people have their own goals, aims and foibles. full stop.

Then I guess you shouldn't play with people who do. But then it sounds like you don't.

QuoteGetting away with murdering someone in a RPG is child's play.

Really? That sounds...dull.

QuoteNo I game with people who aren't their characters 24/7/365.  What happens at the table is a caricature of a self serving quasi-sociopathic or idealistic selfless altruistic.

Outside of a Jack Chick comic, the first part is true of everyone who plays RPGs. The last part sounds really weird. Are you really saying the purpose of playing an RPG is to caricature a gang of sociopathiic altruists?

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;805575I am fine with player versus player, and with conflict occurring within the party (in fact I'd say I prefer it), but if you are forcing that on a group that has no interest, you are being a dick and that is what gives the style of play a bad name. This boils down to being able to read the room and know what people at the table consider acceptable gaming behavior. There is a reason "it's what my character would do" is synonymous with being a jerk. Some folks simply don't seem to know when they are antagonizing the rest of the group. It is a spectrum. Some folks are cool with a bit of internal conflict, some are fine with outright violent confrontation, some want a purely competitive style of play, and others want the party to basically get a long. You really need to know what kind of group you are in before you go stabbing a PC in the middle of the night.

This is way too nuanced. I'm not sure you're allowed to post in this thread. ;)

Quote from: Will;805584Maybe you haven't been doing it right.

RPGs are games first and foremost; if your goal is something else, then yes, I think there are better ways to achieve that.

QuoteAnd the fiction I'm interested in is where the players are heroes of some kind.

I don't see how this has anything to do with cooperative play, honestly. In fiction, heroes don't always get along, and sometimes are directly at odds with each other. Of course, if we ASSume RPGs are a game, and thus the players are on the same team, they have a common goal to strive for. Either the characters are independent actors, or they're game pieces. In the former case, you *might* end up with conflict, even if the players aren't being dicks. Half of Captain America's time is spent getting disparate personalities to work with each other, not actually fighting crime. Would you consider Thor getting into a pissing match with the Hulk not being heroes? I can't even name one instance the Thing didn't try to throw down with Hulk in the comics...but hey, still heroes.

Quote from: Brad;805587I don't see how this has anything to do with cooperative play, honestly. In fiction, heroes don't always get along, and sometimes are directly at odds with each other.

Don't you know, Marvel Superheroes always get along!

Except that time that Tony Stark supported registration of superpowers

Or that time Captain America demanded Cyclops hand over his granddaughter.

Or that time...

Oh wait, no, no they don't.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;805554Fascinating thread. For some historical perspective, may I suggest Gary Fine's "Shared Fantasy" (University of Chicago Press, ISBN 0-226-24943-3), chapter four, page 145 for how this issue played out in Prof. Barker's campaign?

Phil did indeed have a group that actively encouraged PvP, mostly in the form of chicanery.  There is a good reason I switched groups; I wanted to fight the Yan  Koryani, not other players.

Quote from: Will;805584Maybe you haven't been doing it right.

Or maybe he has.

EDIT:  I agree with his premise; RPGs are a shitty way to do collaborate storytelling.  The successful RPGs I've seen in 42 years are those that think first and foremost about players having fun.

I have an extremely low threshold for pseudo-intellectual/literary pretentious wankery, especially after watching it destroy Tekumel.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;805555I won't speak to the Glorious General's experience - I doubt I'm qualified to do so! - but speaking for myself, I have indeed had astounding luck in not having had to game with assholes. I've played at a few conventions and hobby shops over the years, as well as at a few friend's houses, I can think of only two or three real assholes that I've met in that time; I didn't play with the one, after I caught him pocketing some of my miniatures, and I simply refused to game with the two who routinely cheated on dice rolls.

Coffman Union on Tuesday nights was mostly plagued with ding-a-lings rather than assholes, but we did a fair job of avoiding them too.

I guess we've been lucky/atypical in always having a large group of potential players to choose from.  Honestly, some of the experiences people write about make me shake my head.  I wouldn't put up with that sort of nonsense, and neither would you... we have railroads to build, after all.

My hobby time is precious; I'm not going to waste it policing some overgrown adolescent's shitty behavior.

Or in the words of Bill Hoyt, "Don't game with psychopaths."

As for my actual opinion on the topic: I like player conflict, though I prefer it stay below actually trying to kill/harm the other character.

If it happens though, and it makes sense in context (and the player didn't just make an asshole character to be an asshole), then eh, I go with it.

I once played in an L5R game that experienced a near TPK before the GM managed to actually introduce anything beyond a bridge where we met. The only reason it wasn't a TPK is my character just kind of stood there, then crossed the bridge after everyone else killed each other over the slights they perceived. (I apparently, being the contemplative Dragon, was the only one who wasn't hotheaded).

Quote from: Emperor Norton;805597I once played in an L5R game that experienced a near TPK before the GM managed to actually introduce anything beyond a bridge where we met. The only reason it wasn't a TPK is my character just kind of stood there, then crossed the bridge after everyone else killed each other over the slights they perceived. (I apparently, being the contemplative Dragon, was the only one who wasn't hotheaded).

that actually sounds pretty cool. :cool: But I bet it would have been even better with some kind of flute music and slow motion. :D

Heh those shame-culture warrior societies, gotta love 'em.  I wonder how all the "never PvP" crowd do playing Vikings or Samurai.  Do you not allow PCs to insult other PCs honor either?   What about their family's honor?  Someone to who you didn't know they had giri?  Hell, how do you even think about running a Roman campaign without the possibility of PvP?

First, very often they don't.

Second, honor cultures often have very definite and elaborate rules around honor, and many people who don't like PvP don't like it because a significant number of assholes use it as an excuse to dick around with people rather than play a character with a strong sense of honor.

Third, can we not go down the "we are manly men playing manly games full of manly PvP" route?

Fourth, different people like different things.

Quote from: Old Geezer;805601First, very often they don't.

Second, honor cultures often have very definite and elaborate rules around honor, and many people who don't like PvP don't like it because a significant number of assholes use it as an excuse to dick around with people rather than play a character with a strong sense of honor.

Third, can we not go down the "we are manly men playing manly games full of manly PvP" route?

Fourth, different people like different things.

I didn't say "If you don't like PvP, you don't have the stones to play a Samurai, Viking or Roman." What I asked was how do you deal with playing with cultures that can require the defense of honor and reputation through combat if players are actually banned from PvP.  Doesn't have to be those cultures either.  

Renaissance Italian city states seems like another tough one.  "Players are all family members." Ok, is primogeniture banned too?  

Say goodbye to an entire genre with cyberpunk, etc.

If every session turned into The Reservoir Dogs, I'd get new players before I'd go meta on the restrictions, seems to defeat the whole purpose of role-playing, no different then the railroading GM who says "No, you can't turn left, you go right."

PvP is tedious shit that slows the game down for no fun reason. Except usually for the arsehole who thinks it's fun for them, because it isn't for anyone else at the table.

I have no time to indulge some twat's love of messing with other people at the table, just because they can.

Quote from: CRKrueger;805604I didn't say "If you don't like PvP, you don't have the stones to play a Samurai, Viking or Roman." What I asked was how do you deal with playing with cultures that can require the defense of honor and reputation through combat if players are actually banned from PvP.  Doesn't have to be those cultures either.  

Renaissance Italian city states seems like another tough one.  "Players are all family members." Ok, is primogeniture banned too?  

Say goodbye to an entire genre with cyberpunk, etc.

If every session turned into The Reservoir Dogs, I'd get new players before I'd go meta on the restrictions, seems to defeat the whole purpose of role-playing, no different then the railroading GM who says "No, you can't turn left, you go right."

Fair enough.

I've encountered a lot more assholes than I have players who want to play a character or setting with a strong honor culture, myself.

The difference is, the assholes don't get a second chance.

Quote from: Will;805584Maybe you haven't been doing it right.

I have had quite a bit of experience in collaborative fiction specifically alternate history. I understand it quite well. Games are useful to decide the outcome of a plot point when the group doesn't have a consensus on what to do with it. But gaming is not the focus, working on a story is.

Tabletop Roleplaying is designed around player agency. This is what makes tabletop a poor fit for collaborative fiction. When a player is stopped from doing something he can do as his character for a out of game reason it is metagaming.

Quote from: Old Geezer;805594Or maybe he has.

EDIT:  I agree with his premise; RPGs are a shitty way to do collaborate storytelling.  The successful RPGs I've seen in 42 years are those that think first and foremost about players having fun.

I have an extremely low threshold for pseudo-intellectual/literary pretentious wankery, especially after watching it destroy Tekumel.

I'm sorry that storytelling games touched you in your no-no place.

But, you know what? At my table, 'collaborative storytelling' has pretty much been synonymous with 'focus on players having fun.' Only 30 years, not 42, but hey.


I have an extremely low threshold for people pulling the 'you are having fun wrong,' whichever flag it happens to be flying under.

Quote from: estar;805609Tabletop Roleplaying is designed around player agency. This is what makes tabletop a poor fit for collaborative fiction. When a player is stopped from doing something he can do as his character for a out of game reason it is metagaming.

And so?

Metagaming can work totally fine. It has in nearly every game I've run. Metagaming helps cut down on stupid player blowups.

Metagaming is pretty much the same as 'GM and players agree not to do X because it'd suck.'

Quote from: Old Geezer;805601Second, honor cultures often have very definite and elaborate rules around honor, and many people who don't like PvP don't like it because a significant number of assholes use it as an excuse to dick around with people rather than play a character with a strong sense of honor.

Throughout history the main reason violence was checked was due to rules, mores, and laws. The problem that arises in many tabletop campaigns is the lack of law enforcement.

I don't mean that the referee forgets to add a legal system his campaign. What I am talking is the lack of the feeling that the one's character is in a society with laws. A society with the means and the will to go after those who engage in assault or murder.

The type of problem PvP behavior that people are talking about here I call Maddog syndrome. Because that what the player act like; a frothing bat shit insane dog biting everybody in sight. However it is something binary. The behavior exist along a sliding scale. Most players will only engage in PvP if they think they can get away with it.

My approach is give the players a sense that they are part of a in-game society. It will not stop the mad-dog but it will isolate that kind of player from others who are more of a opportunists type. Making it easier to deal with without having an explicit no PvP rule.

Quote from: Will;805610I'm sorry that storytelling games touched you in your no-no place.

But, you know what? At my table, 'collaborative storytelling' has pretty much been synonymous with 'focus on players having fun.' Only 30 years, not 42, but hey.


I have an extremely low threshold for people pulling the 'you are having fun wrong,' whichever flag it happens to be flying under.

I'm glad it works for you.  Anything other than "story is what happened to happen" has sucked for me consistently.

The problem is not styles, the problem is when styles collide.  Not all people can have a fun game together.  This is neither good nor bad, it simply is.

Quote from: Will;805612And so?

Metagaming can work totally fine. It has in nearly every game I've run. Metagaming helps cut down on stupid player blowups.

Metagaming is pretty much the same as 'GM and players agree not to do X because it'd suck.'

It negative, what you been describing is a bunch of prohibitions. Don't PvP, etc, etc. What I find works better is to get the players enlightened self-interest going. They don't PvP because group cooperation is clearly worth more in my campaigns than the reverse. And it for the same reason as it works in real life, people acting together as group are able to do more and get more.

And the little things I do to keep things in-line are because the Adventuring Party is at its heart a gang of thugs even if they are a bunch of Lawful Good Paladins. And without a sense of in-game society they will eventually end up acting like thugs.

I do what I do in my games because I assume the worst of my players. I live in a rural area and do not always have the best when it comes to players. So I have to come with ways that allow everybody to have fun without resorting to metagaming and least common denominator out of game rules.

Yeah I allow PvP in my campaigns, but last month was the first PvP fight in years. For a variety of reason fucking with other PCs is way down the list of my players even they are notorious for it in other campaigns.

Quote from: Will;805610I'm sorry that storytelling games touched you in your no-no place.

The correct phrasing is,

"Show us on the doll where storytelling games touched you in a bad way."

To which the reply is,

* points to RPGsite *

.....did I just compare RPGsite to my junk?

Quote from: Old Geezer;805619The problem is not styles, the problem is when styles collide.  Not all people can have a fun game together.  This is neither good nor bad, it simply is.

Like I said earlier I live in a rural area so more often than not I have to deal with trying to mesh players with different styles in the same campaigns. The best way to deal with it I found is to focus on create interesting experiences.

I read a book in the 80s about an Mount Everest expedition and it talked about how the party didn't get along yet they managed to get to the summit. Of course afterwards they wouldn't have anything to do with each other.

So I figure I can get the group to agree on a goal and make achieving it interesting then the players will figure out how to paper over their differences while achieving it. This is one reason I focus on sandbox campaigns.

It not perfect but gets the job more often than not. And does it without a long list of out of game table rules.

Quote from: Old Geezer;805621
.....did I just compare RPGsite to my junk?

The big purple... well!

Estar:
I find it nice to put up clear flares of 'if you are contemplating crossing this line, something's dun fucked up.'

This is the result of a lot of experience, not just some armchair theorizing.

I fully accept other people have fun doing other stuff, if that wasn't clear.

Quote from: Kiero;805606PvP is tedious shit that slows the game down for no fun reason. Except usually for the arsehole who thinks it's fun for them, because it isn't for anyone else at the table.

I have no time to indulge some twat's love of messing with other people at the table, just because they can.

No.
This is only the case if you believe that only the npcs are allowed  motivation and goals. I have run fantastic games where pvp became the whole of the game.
I ran amber at GenCon and the game ended with one PC bound and gagged being tortured by the other PCs because of his part in a coup. I felt it was a particularly  successful game and the players were embarassingly glowing with praise about it.
The gms job is to create a believable world populated with believable people. You don't get to force the PC's through your maze like lab rats. They are free agents and that means they are entirely allowed to plot scheme and kill each other.

Quote from: jibbajibba;805629No.
This is only the case if you believe that only the npcs are allowed  motivation and goals. I have run fantastic games where pvp became the whole of the game.
I ran amber at Gen on and the game ended with one PC bound and gagged being tortured by the other PC's because of his part in a coup. I felt it was a particularly  successful game and the players were embarrassingly glowing with praise about it.
Th gms job is to create a believable world populated with believable people. You don't get to force the PC's through your maze like lab rates they are free agents and that means they are entirely allowed to plot scheme and kill each other.

Emphasis mine. That right there is fucking boring, I play RPGs to explore a world and the stuff going on in it, not scheme against the other people sitting at the table.

No need to "force" anything when there's mutual agreement between the players that we aren't going to waste everyone's time with PvP bullshit.

Quote from: estar;805613Throughout history the main reason violence was checked was due to rules, mores, and laws. The problem that arises in many tabletop campaigns is the lack of law enforcement.

Quote from: estar;805620It negative, what you been describing is a bunch of prohibitions. Don't PvP, etc, etc.

I found the juxtaposition of rules are the method people use to check violence and rules shouldn't be used to check violence ironic.


I also think most people commenting either have a very extreme experience with immature assholes in mind and or they approach this issue wrong - or should we say less than effectively.

Step 1 should be a discussion about the players' levels of comfort with PCs with opposed goals, intraparty bickering, intraparty threats, and PvP violence. Almost all the problem stories occur because the players don't agree on these points combined with a too rapid escalation to deadly force. (Some groups, especially mature or long running groups can skip step 1 or do it during play and go straight to step 2.)

Step 2 should be an agreement that everyone is there to have fun so some agreement about how conflict should be handled works best. One tactic I have found successful is for players to escalate conflict gradually rather than immediately jumping to poisoning food or daggering fellow PCs in their sleep.

Example: A difference of opinion about what to do with prisoners. Here one player is at odds with some or all of the party.

• Start with "I don't think we should kill the prisoners."
• If that doesn't work, escalate "Killing prisoners is dishonorable and I won't stand for it."
• If necessary make it clear your PC is serious and willing to do what it takes to defend his point (and honor). "Over my dead body." Draw sword and stand between would be killer and prisoners.
• Hope your comrades will back down and rediiscuss if they know you are serious. Try not to kill them. "Stay back. I don't want to hurt you." Fight defensively.
• At a certain point, if nothing else has worked you are at full out PvP. "OK then. You've been warned." Fight offensively.

Obviously different systems and styles of play may either facilitate this or make it more difficult. But a staged approach of escalation is more likely to resolve conflict without killing. Probably why police forces use a staged  approach to violence.

Step 3 follow two simple further rules (1) don't be an asshole and (2) don't continue to play with assholes.

I'm curious whether people who are extremely anti PvP never have serious conflicts amongst their PCs or if they do, what method they use to resolve those serious conflicts.

The biggest problem in this thread is the original

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;805297autocorrects asshole... behaviour

Asshole behavior is not corrected by more asshole behavior.  Asshole behavior is corrected by telling somebody to stop being an asshole followed by refusing to play with them if they don't stop.

Life's too short for cheap beer or gaming with assholes.

Quote from: Will;805625The big purple... well!

No, TBP is Aqualung in this metaphor, not the place being touched.

In a traditional game life and death is all around the PCs.  Why in the flying fuck would you want to hitch your life to someone you can't trust?

Quote from: Kiero;805630Emphasis mine. That right there is fucking boring, I play RPGs to explore a world and the stuff going on in it, not scheme against the other people sitting at the table.

No need to "force" anything when there's mutual agreement between the players that we aren't going to waste everyone's time with PvP bullshit.

But the players loved it.
In all my years roleplaying I find Amber gives the deepest roleplaying experience and the deepest level of immersion and Amber is the most PvP game out there. Even Chargen is constructed round PvP....

The other PCs are part of that world. Ragar the Bold is just as much a part of the world in motion as Count "Obvious Antagonist" and making the PCs only focus on GM constructed threats and oposition is a false premise that restricts role-play.

I can site multiple examples from the CoC game where one of the PCs was, unbeknownst to the rest of the party, a serial killer and whose crimes became the centre of their investigation, to an incident where one PC was sent to kill another in her appartment in 1920s NY, to an Amber PC with multiple personality syndrome and advanced shapeshift who was his own arch nemesis, to a bunch of Holy knights working with some Camerilla Vampires in Texas to eliminate a Sabbat threat, and hundreds of others where the PvP stuff became more than just a petty arguement betweeen asshole PCs but where it became the entire focus of the game and a created the sort of RPG moments that are talked about in reverential tones 30 years later down the pub.

It comes down to a few things
i) do you want to simulate a world in motion or a set adventure path for the Players
ii) Are PCs supposed to be fully realised people with complex motivations and objectives or just complex playing pieces in a board game
iii) Are the only obstacles that are valid GM constructed obstacles because the GM is the only valid generator of content

Quote from: Sommerjon;805637In a traditional game life and death is all around the PCs.  Why in the flying fuck would you want to hitch your life to someone you can't trust?

Idealism
Ego
Money
Power
Sex
Envy
Sloth
self preservation

The usual reasons Kids join street gangs, people join the army and folk sign up to join the circus

Quote from: CRKrueger;805599Heh those shame-culture warrior societies, gotta love 'em.  I wonder how all the "never PvP" crowd do playing Vikings or Samurai.  Do you not allow PCs to insult other PCs honor either?   What about their family's honor?  Someone to who you didn't know they had giri?  Hell, how do you even think about running a Roman campaign without the possibility of PvP?

I've played, sporadically, in feudal Japan-based campaigns; a few months in a Bushido campaign, once.  We didn't go out of our way either to insult one another or take insult in each other's comments.

Now yes -- I agree that if you're playing one of those hyper-touchy milieus straight, where you're expected to Take Offense at the drop of a hat upon the slightest off-color comment (real or imagined), you'd better not be anti-PvP.  What exactly did you expect for an answer?

But sheesh, that's a play choice.  I don't like comedic/slapstick milieus, so I don't play in them.  I don't like horror, so I don't play in it.  I don't like dungeon fantasy, so I don't play that.  I don't like D&D, so I don't play it.  We each have the game styles, milieus, features and rules sets we enjoy, and the ones we don't.  

I'm somewhat surprised at the number of people here who have such a hard time wrapping their heads around that.

Quote from: Natty Bodak;805351Unrestrained PvP is jet fuel for a serious asshole player.

Catching up with a few comments, I'm in complete agreement with this.  The notion that PvP is somehow the antidote to the asshole is farcical: it's the medium in which the assholes swim.  For every group where PvP is used to "autocorrect" assholes, I've seen a half-dozen where the assholes justify themselves through waving the PvP card.  The way to deal with assholes isn't to allow other players to kill their characters; the way to deal with assholes is for GMs and groups to have the basic maturity it takes to confront and deal with them, OOC, and to eject them from groups if they don't shape up.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;805396Whoah, no-one said anything about backstabbing! Touchy as fuck over here. Seriously though, what happened to you? A "sin"?

Well aren't you just special.  So you've never before in your life encountered someone with a strong opinion on something?  I get to have a mad on for the things I have a mad on for, I'm unlikely to ask your permission, and I don't feel the need to justify that to smarmy assholes or anyone else.

Quote from: Bren;805506In my experience, assholes are always fairly obvious and easy to detect. Apparently that ability is not universal since I am sometimes surprised when other people seem to take what seems eons to notice that shit.

I think you're missing the problem.  It's not that gamers can't ID assholes.  It's that so many gamers are GSK prisoners who'll go to huge lengths -- up to and including watching their groups disintegrate around them -- to do anything about them.

Quote from: Bren;805558You use the term "sin" unironically in the context of playing an RPG and pendantry is the thing you think is the problem in this discussion. Seriously?

As long as there are people hung up on colloquialisms and slang, yeah.  I really don't feel the need to defend my word choices, either.  If you're hellbent on ascribing hidden meanings to simple words in an Internet discussion, yeah, whatever, knock yourself out.

Quote from: Ravenswing;805640What exactly did you expect for an answer?

I wasn't expecting "we don't", but that sure answers my question.

Quote from: Ravenswing;805640I'm somewhat surprised at the number of people here who have such a hard time wrapping their heads around that.

Don't have a problem with that, just a little surprised that iconic cultures, tropes, genres, scenarios are off the table because of the belief that PvP always leads to Knights of the Dinner Table behavior, when it really doesn't have to.

Quote from: Ravenswing;805641The way to deal with assholes isn't to allow other players to kill their characters; the way to deal with assholes is for GMs and groups to have the basic maturity it takes to confront and deal with them, OOC, and to eject them from groups if they don't shape up.

I don't think PvP or rules against PvP do anything against an asshole player.  You kick 'em out, then go ahead and play with non-assholes.  If someone's not an asshole, the mere option of the freedom to attack another PC isn't going to turn them into an asshole anymore then it turns you into a workplace shooter.

Quote from: CRKrueger;805643Don't have a problem with that, just a little surprised that iconic cultures, tropes, genres, scenarios are off the table because of the belief that PvP always leads to Knights of the Dinner Table behavior, when it really doesn't have to.

The vast majority of players, honestly, don't give a shit about cultures, tropes, genres, scenarios, or anything else besides goofing around and maybe throwing some dice.

Sure, I'd be interested in a Samurai or Viking type game, and you bet your nuts I'd be careful about what I said in character.

Just like I'd love to play a Pendragon game.  But most gamers aren't interested in anything as detailed or involved as Pendragon.

90% of everything is crap, and that includes the population of RPG tabletop players.  And PvP becomes just another tool for them to express their crapitude.

The mere fact we're talking about this makes us part of a small minority, just like those of us model railroaders who actually try to run our basement empires like a real railroad are in the small majority.

There is a reason WoW is the way it is, and makes as much money as it does.  "The game that knows what you want, and gives it to you."

And, of course, what constitutes PvP?

If Robilar goes off to China to find the Hootercups of Eternal Perkiness to trade at the Temple of the Eager Virgin for the Peener of Vecna,

but my character seduces Hornelia the Insatiable, High Priestess of the Temple of the Eager Virgin, and she GIVES me the Peener of Vecna,

and when Robilar gets back, I tell him that he can have the Peener of Vecna in exchange for a lifetime supply of beer...

is that PvP?

The real question is, who is gonna be the dude who cuts off his peener to apply the Peener of Vecna?

Quote from: jibbajibba;805639Idealism
Ego
Money
Power
Sex
Envy
Sloth
self preservation

The usual reasons Kids join street gangs, people join the army and folk sign up to join the circus

Notice how that didn't answer the question

Quote from: Old Geezer;805645And, of course, what constitutes PvP?

If Robilar goes off to China to find the Hootercups of Eternal Perkiness to trade at the Temple of the Eager Virgin for the Peener of Vecna,

but my character seduces Hornelia the Insatiable, High Priestess of the Temple of the Eager Virgin, and she GIVES me the Peener of Vecna,

and when Robilar gets back, I tell him that he can have the Peener of Vecna in exchange for a lifetime supply of beer...

is that PvP?

No it is only PvP if your character rolls initiative to beat Robilar over the head with the Peener of Vecna.

Otherwise it is just two characters pursuing their own goals.

Yeah, let's clarify that there's a spectrum. I'm fine with player conflicts, within reason.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;805648The real question is, who is gonna be the dude who cuts off his peener to apply the Peener of Vecna?

No the real question is what character is leaving the Temple of the Eager Virgin? That's end game crap where my character just says "no I'm good here" and then roll another character.

The other question might be what Geezer is smoking?

Quote from: Emperor Norton;805648The real question is, who is gonna be the dude who cuts off his peener to apply the Peener of Vecna?

* hands you Peener of Vecna *

You first...

Quote from: MonsterSlayer;805652No the real question is what character is leaving the Temple of the Eager Virgin? That's end game crap where my character just says "no I'm good here" and then roll another character.

The other question might be what Geezer is smoking?

My regular Monday night Roll20 game with my buddy in the DPRK is off tonight because his ISP is down or whatever.  The dude is the poster child for a railroading DM, but he seems to have an uncanny ability to get perfect player attendance for his games, and it seems like he's got an army of artists and voice actors to support the game, so that's pretty cool. Anyway, he condones and encourages PvP when it suits him.

Anyway, I'd too would like to hear more about this Temple of the Eager Virgin adventure since I've got this unexpected down time.

Quote from: Will;805651Yeah, let's clarify that there's a spectrum. I'm fine with player conflicts, within reason.

Good point.

"We are a bunch of Samurai, so an insult will be avenged with blood"

is different from

"I'm gonna screw him over hurr durr hurr durr"

Quote from: Natty Bodak;805654Anyway, I'd too would like to hear more about this Temple of the Eager Virgin adventure since I've got this unexpected down time.

So you're saying this should be a participation reward for my Kickstarter?

Quote from: Sommerjon;805649Notice how that didn't answer the question

It absolutely answered the question. Those are reel life things I see in the world everyday for the reasons why people are in relationships, endeavors, and business with people that would absolutely stab them in the back.

You could add:
Laziness
Hero complexes
Faith
Allegiance
And many others... but it doesn't mean that in the end you should expect characters vested in their goals will not do everything possible to achieve their goals for good or bad.

And why not let the players play it out if they want
Maybe the cleric is called to bring that nasty necromancer back to the light. Maybe the necromancer doesn't take kindly to that. The fighter just wants to keep the party together long enough to avenge his dead parents and doesn't care from there. But the thief needs the necromancer and priest to work together to beat the lich he knows is in this dungeon but the thief hasn't told anyone because he expects them all to die and he will keep all the loot.

Or something.

Is that "PvP" or "players have their own agendas?"

I tend more towards the latter interpretation myself, and it's what I prefer; I HATE this notion of "the player characters are ONE BAND OF HEROES TRIED AND TRUE."

Quote from: Old Geezer;805656So you're saying this should be a participation reward for my Kickstarter?

As shameless money grabs go, it'd work on me.

Quote from: MonsterSlayer;805657It absolutely answered the question. Those are reel life things I see in the world everyday for the reasons why people are in relationships, endeavors, and business with people that would absolutely stab them in the back.

You could add:
Laziness
Hero complexes
Faith
Allegiance
And many others... but it doesn't mean that in the end you should expect characters vested in their goals will not do everything possible to achieve their goals for good or bad.

And why not let the players play it out if they want
Maybe the cleric is called to bring that nasty necromancer back to the light. Maybe the necromancer doesn't take kindly to that. The fighter just wants to keep the party together long enough to avenge his dead parents and doesn't care from there. But the thief needs the necromancer and priest to work together to beat the lich he knows is in this dungeon but the thief hasn't told anyone because he expects them all to die and he will keep all the loot.

Or something.

Yup ....

I trust you to cover me when I draw my nine and wipe the guy on the corner because we were both sent by Lizard to toast the dude. Doesn't mean that you haven't been told to then stick a couple in the back of my head and leave me in a burned out car wreck because I've been banging his girlfriend.

I mean these people have you know like read books, watched Movies and TV and live in the real world ....???

Quote from: Natty Bodak;805654My regular Monday night Roll20 game with my buddy in the DPRK is off tonight because his ISP is down or whatever.  The dude is the poster child for a railroading DM, but he seems to have an uncanny ability to get perfect player attendance for his games, and it seems like he's got an army of artists and voice actors to support the game, so that's pretty cool. Anyway, he condones and encourages PvP when it suits him.

Anyway, I'd too would like to hear more about this Temple of the Eager Virgin adventure since I've got this unexpected down time.

Sir, thank you for  contacting Comcast customer service.

Comcast has already assigned a technician to the problem.  ETA is Friday between 8 AM and 6 PM. Our technician well contact you 8 hours before arrival for a convenient repair window.

Please fill out our online  customer service survey regarding your contact with Comcast today.

* Orson Welles slow clap *

Quote from: MonsterSlayer;805661Sir, thank you for  contacting Comcast customer service.

Comcast has already assigned a technician to the problem.  ETA is Friday between 8 AM and 6 PM. Our technician well contact you 8 hours before arrival for a convenient repair window.

Please fill out our online  customer service survey regarding your contact with Comcast today.

At least now I can recognize how Paranoia has been adopted by mainstream customer "support" staff.

if my players looked like they were going to start fighting each other i would probably try and steer the party to ysgard so somebody dying does not ruin everything

Quote from: Bren;805348It's also a fallacy that you need more than two people to roleplay. If you can't find one other person in your village who isn't an asshole, then you probably need to find a new hobby, move to a new location, or realize that maybe you are the problem. (Generic you, not you in particular.)

i have to disagree geographic isolation is a bitch some people dont even live in what you could call a village some people live or far out farms and rarely interact with other people it can be really important to maintain friendships

Quote from: Sommerjon;805519I don't agree with this.

It's too easy to get away with PCicide.

That subtlety and complexity is too hard to replicate playing make believe with dice.

i dont know what sort of lawless settings your playing in if one of my players goes and rapes murders and pillages the city guard attacks them why would it be any different for pcs

Quote from: Sommerjon;805571Getting away with murdering someone in a RPG is child's play.  RPGs rely upon a random factor most usually dice. Bringing up Amber?  Really?

the only time dice will come into getting away with things is if you try and escape when people come to bring you to justice (well i suppose that people will need spot or search checks to find bodys but still)

Quote from: Bren;805348It's also a fallacy that you need more than two people to roleplay. If you can't find one other person in your village who isn't an asshole, then you probably need to find a new hobby, move to a new location, or realize that maybe you are the problem. (Generic you, not you in particular.)

i have to disagree geographic isolation is a bitch some people dont even live in what you could call a village some people live or far out farms and rarely interact with other people it can be really important to maintain friendships

Quote from: Sommerjon;805519I don't agree with this.

It's too easy to get away with PCicide.

That subtlety and complexity is too hard to replicate playing make believe with dice.

i dont know what sort of lawless settings your playing in if one of my players goes and rapes murders and pillages the city guard attacks them why would it be any different for pcs

Quote from: Sommerjon;805571Getting away with murdering someone in a RPG is child's play.  RPGs rely upon a random factor most usually dice. Bringing up Amber?  Really?

the only time dice will come into getting away with things is if you try and escape when people come to bring you to justice (well i suppose that people will need spot or search checks to find bodys but still)

i think the peenor of vecna would be a great way to ensure i remember venca is male

Quote from: tuypo1;805681i think the peenor of vecna would be a great way to ensure i remember venca is male

Not all women don't not have dicks.

Sheesh.

Quote from: Old Geezer;805656So you're saying this should be a participation reward for my Kickstarter?

I would seriously toss in a bit just to get a completely juvenile adventure filled with 14 year old boy jokes.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;805683I would seriously toss in a bit just to get a completely juvenile adventure filled with 14 year old boy jokes.

I'll consider that a challenge.

Maybe the players should have to steal the Lampshade of Obviousness?

Quote from: MonsterSlayer;805657It absolutely answered the question. Those are reel life things I see in the world everyday for the reasons why people are in relationships, endeavors, and business with people that would absolutely stab them in the back.

You could add:
Laziness
Hero complexes
Faith
Allegiance
And many others... but it doesn't mean that in the end you should expect characters vested in their goals will not do everything possible to achieve their goals for good or bad.

And why not let the players play it out if they want
Maybe the cleric is called to bring that nasty necromancer back to the light. Maybe the necromancer doesn't take kindly to that. The fighter just wants to keep the party together long enough to avenge his dead parents and doesn't care from there. But the thief needs the necromancer and priest to work together to beat the lich he knows is in this dungeon but the thief hasn't told anyone because he expects them all to die and he will keep all the loot.

Or something.

There is a slight difference in Billy stabbing you in the back to get the corner office and Billy literally stabbing you in the back.

Strange that you two are willing to use; Idealism, Ego, Money, Power, Sex, Envy, Sloth, self preservation, Laziness, Hero complexes, Faith, Allegiance as reasons to justify hooking up with someone you absolutely loathe when the easiest thing for you to do is say "Nope, bye"
I have little interest in games where David Duke is hanging with Al Sharpton cuz Conflict!

Quote from: tuypo1;805675I dont know what sort of lawless settings your playing in if one of my players goes and rapes murders and pillages the city guard attacks them why would it be any different for pcs.

Why would your players do rapes murders and pillages in front of the city guard?  Do they also radio ahead to the local dungeon that they are coming?

Quote from: tuypo1;805675The only time dice will come into getting away with things is if you try and escape when people come to bring you to justice (well I suppose that people will need spot or search checks to find bodies but still)

How would they find out so easily?

they would find out easily because thats there job you have to work to hide a murder

and just because somebody went raping away from the city the victim can always turn them in to the guard

also why does the stabbing become non-literal just because it had a purpose

Quote from: Sommerjon;805686There is a slight difference in Billy stabbing you in the back to get the corner office and Billy literally stabbing you in the back.

Strange that you two are willing to use; Idealism, Ego, Money, Power, Sex, Envy, Sloth, self preservation, Laziness, Hero complexes, Faith, Allegiance as reasons to justify hooking up with someone you absolutely loathe when the easiest thing for you to do is say "Nope, bye"
I have little interest in games where David Duke is hanging with Al Sharpton cuz Conflict!

Why would your players do rapes murders and pillages in front of the city guard?  Do they also radio ahead to the local dungeon that they are coming?

How would they find out so easily?

Um don't know if we can be any clearer on this...
Start with the list I guess....
Idealism - You see the best in everyone and believe then can be persuaded to do right simply by seeing others charting that course
Ego - you know that anyone one they meet you will be won over by your charisma and charm. They simply wouldn't be able to imagine doing you harm.
Money - there is a huge pile of loot down in this dungeon somewhere and anyone that is prepared to help you get a share of it is in
Power - you need to recover the Lost crown of Ages and with it you will be able to rule the world. You will of course need some help any bunch of proles will do
Sex - you so want to shag this guy that you will put up with him coming along on a quest just if it gives you the chance to bang him later, even if it means you have to put up with his whining and moaning
etc
etc

I mean 90% of D&D parties form up ad hoc in a tavern cos some old geezer asked if any one there would be interested in going to a really dangerous place and bringing back a McGuffin  Do you really think they are all going to instantly be willing to lay down their lives for each other on the basis of a shared pint?

Quote from: tuypo1;805687they would find out easily because that's their job you have to work to hide a murder

and just because somebody went raping away from the city the victim can always turn them in to the guard

also why does the stabbing become non-literal just because it had a purpose

You don't have to work nearly as hard you seem to think you do to hide a murder.  If the City Guard can easily find the culprit behind the murder, convenient...

Because in one you lose an office, the other you are dead?

Quote from: jibbajibba;805688Um don't know if we can be any clearer on this...
Start with the list I guess....
Idealism - You see the best in everyone and believe then can be persuaded to do right simply by seeing others charting that course
Ego - you know that anyone one they meet you will be won over by your charisma and charm. They simply wouldn't be able to imagine doing you harm.
Money - there is a huge pile of loot down in this dungeon somewhere and anyone that is prepared to help you get a share of it is in
Power - you need to recover the Lost crown of Ages and with it you will be able to rule the world. You will of course need some help any bunch of proles will do
Sex - you so want to shag this guy that you will put up with him coming along on a quest just if it gives you the chance to bang him later, even if it means you have to put up with his whining and moaning
etc
etc

Idealism - You see the best in everyone and believe then can be persuaded to do right simply by seeing others charting that course
And if you have no PC to play this off of? Where is the Conflict?  Or is this when the Player goes out of their way to recruit crazy psycho NPC to redeem?
Ego - you know that anyone one they meet you will be won over by your charisma and charm. They simply wouldn't be able to imagine doing you harm.
And if every PC falls for your charismatic charm?  Where is the Conflict?  Or is this when the Player pushes into dick territory to see how far the others will be willing to let the Ego rule the table?
Money - there is a huge pile of loot down in this dungeon somewhere and anyone that is prepared to help you get a share of it is in
Oh that's the character Billy made so deal with it?  Yeah, no.
Power - you need to recover the Lost crown of Ages and with it you will be able to rule the world. You will of course need some help any bunch of proles will do
You actually expect to be able to find and recover such a great artifact with whatever semi warm bodies show up?  You wont care to even do any do diligence on who and what they are?  Are you Mr. Ego in disguise?
Sex - you so want to shag this guy that you will put up with him coming along on a quest just if it gives you the chance to bang him later, even if it means you have to put up with his whining and moaning
The sole purpose of your character is to fuck another PC?  Yeah, no.  Sorry I'm here to game not to live out your fuck fantasies.

Quote from: jibbajibba;805688I mean 90% of D&D parties form up ad hoc in a tavern cos some old geezer asked if any one there would be interested in going to a really dangerous place and bringing back a McGuffin  Do you really think they are all going to instantly be willing to lay down their lives for each other on the basis of a shared pint?

For a person who prides himself on how great he is a spinning a yearn, 90% of your games start in a tavern looking for a dangerous place to loot a MacGuffin?  Is that how Power hoodwinked Ego, Sex, and Idealism?  But then again, Sex is there cuz they gots to fuck Ego, Ego is there to prove to Power that Ego is better than Power, poor Idealism is there to show Power, Ego and Sex that they should be doing right, and finally Monies.  This is great because...Conflict! :rolleyes:
That explains a lot.

If that's what you like. Go for it :cheerleader:
Me, I find that not fun and boring.

oh you were talking about metaphoric backstabing

yeah you can hide a body but you cant stop a rape victim from going to the authoritys (well you can there is a spell somewhere that stops people from talking about a specific subject im not sure where it is though)

as for pillaging somebody is going to notice all that missing stuff


now onto your sex hatred wanting to get into somebody's pants does not make somebody some sort of sex addict a normal character is interested in sex would you rather everybody make asexual characters

hell a sex addiction can make a fine character motivation it works for the lich in my setting

the idealism creates conflicts with the characters that are not idealists and just want to kill the person and go on to the next adventure

Quote from: tuypo1;805687they would find out easily because thats there job you have to work to hide a murder

and just because somebody went raping away from the city the victim can always turn them in to the guard

You actually have no idea at all of how pre-modern "justice" really worked, do you.

who said anything about pre modern justice its a fantasy world they have the technology

Quote from: Sommerjon;805689You don't have to work nearly as hard you seem to think you do to hide a murder.  If the City Guard can easily find the culprit behind the murder, convenient...

Because in one you lose an office, the other you are dead?


Idealism - You see the best in everyone and believe then can be persuaded to do right simply by seeing others charting that course
And if you have no PC to play this off of? Where is the Conflict?  Or is this when the Player goes out of their way to recruit crazy psycho NPC to redeem?
Ego - you know that anyone one they meet you will be won over by your charisma and charm. They simply wouldn't be able to imagine doing you harm.
And if every PC falls for your charismatic charm?  Where is the Conflict?  Or is this when the Player pushes into dick territory to see how far the others will be willing to let the Ego rule the table?
Money - there is a huge pile of loot down in this dungeon somewhere and anyone that is prepared to help you get a share of it is in
Oh that's the character Billy made so deal with it?  Yeah, no.
Power - you need to recover the Lost crown of Ages and with it you will be able to rule the world. You will of course need some help any bunch of proles will do
You actually expect to be able to find and recover such a great artifact with whatever semi warm bodies show up?  You wont care to even do any do diligence on who and what they are?  Are you Mr. Ego in disguise?
Sex - you so want to shag this guy that you will put up with him coming along on a quest just if it gives you the chance to bang him later, even if it means you have to put up with his whining and moaning
The sole purpose of your character is to fuck another PC?  Yeah, no.  Sorry I'm here to game not to live out your fuck fantasies.

Allof these are totally fine reasons why a PC might align them selves with a group of neardowells to seem on the surface to be entirely untrustworthy.

I had a Bardic Riddlemaster who once allied himself with a bunch of cutthroats because it seemed like the most likely way to help get his friends theatrical troupe a new Patron... in retrospect he was a little too idealistic :)

QuoteFor a person who prides himself on how great he is a spinning a yearn, 90% of your games start in a tavern looking for a dangerous place to loot a MacGuffin?  Is that how Power hoodwinked Ego, Sex, and Idealism?  But then again, Sex is there cuz they gots to fuck Ego, Ego is there to prove to Power that Ego is better than Power, poor Idealism is there to show Power, Ego and Sex that they should be doing right, and finally Monies.  This is great because...Conflict! :rolleyes:
That explains a lot.

I said 90% of D&D games... I don't run all the D&D games in the world do I ?

In my current campaign we have
A Paladin knight Justicar sent by the order of the Stone to a village being plagued by goblin attacks and his servant.
A representative of the Sidhe Court sent to the same place for ostensibly similar reasons but in reality because the Fairy Queen has felt the rumblings of a dark force from ages past and needs to know the details.
A Warlock who actually works for said dark force and has been attached to the group through said forces machinations of the Order of the Stones higher ranking politicos
A local man who has been the one leading the local defense (local hero Background)
They were joined briefly by a professional dualist who was just passing through and has since passed through taking the Paladin's warhorse with them.

Everyone has private motivation, everyone has their own hooks.

However I am fully aware that most D&D groups meet in taverns and similar locations as I am sure you are :)

QuoteIf that's what you like. Go for it :cheerleader:
Me, I find that not fun and boring.

what kind of paladin would let somebody steal there mount

What kind of clown doesn't know the difference between their and there?

Quote from: tuypo1;805694what kind of paladin would let somebody steal there mount

The one that realised he couldn't take it into the goblin warrens as it um ... wouldn't fit and so left it with the other party member who subsequently stole it.

What exactly was he to do about that?
But do doubt like all good paladin mounts Gordon will find his way back to his owner eventually....

fair enough

Quote from: tuypo1;805692who said anything about pre modern justice its a fantasy world they have the technology

The problem of pre modern justice is not technology. It lies in the fact that it was personal, the wronged had to act as prosecutor and investigator. The king and the law where there to keep everything above board and public. So that feuds don't start erupting all over the place.

Even worse for the adventurers, the law and the legal system was focused on handling crime within a community like a town, village, or parish. Much of the proceeding involved people oath swearing that one side said was right and true. However had the most oaths sworn for him won the case.

With places strangers, like adventurers, at an immmediate disadvantage. And if the incident involved two strangers, the local might decide to punish the whole lot of them.

Quote from: jeff37923;805556Granted, the jerks are few and far between, but they do still exist and PvP usually solves them when they are found.

Oh, I've gamed with a lot of 'jerks' over the years; I generally tolerate their behavior, but they usually lose interest in the campaign after a while - no bennies for being a jerk. These days, I save myself a lot of trouble and simply pre-screen players before committing to game with them. I play a lot fewer games, but I've had a lot more 'quality' game time then 'quantity' game time over the past few years.

Of course, this also may be 'cause I'm in such a niche position; I rarely play games, anymore, due to being stereotyped as "that crazy scary Tekumel freak guy GM". I'm looking forward to going to Gary Con this year, simply for the chance to actually play for once... :)

Quote from: Old Geezer;805593Phil did indeed have a group that actively encouraged PvP, mostly in the form of chicanery.  There is a good reason I switched groups; I wanted to fight the Yan  Koryani, not other players.

What? What? You mean you didn't like all of the backstabbings, poisonings, murders, and rapes that the bright lads in the Monday group felt were at the core of good role-playing?

I'm shocked, just shocked to hear this - you mean you came over to our "nerd group" (as Phil used to describe us) to explore and have fun? :)

Quote from: Old Geezer;805594I have an extremely low threshold for pseudo-intellectual/literary pretentious wankery, especially after watching it destroy Tekumel.

This. And it's still going on, too. :)

Quote from: estar;805583RPGs are poor tools for collaborative fiction. There are better ways of doing collaborative fiction that doesn't require the hassle and setup of a tabletop RPG.

Agreed. This idea of "story before characters" in a type of game specifically centered around roleplaying a character, I don't get it.

Quote from: CRKrueger;805599Heh those shame-culture warrior societies, gotta love 'em.  I wonder how all the "never PvP" crowd do playing Vikings or Samurai.  Do you not allow PCs to insult other PCs honor either?   What about their family's honor?  Someone to who you didn't know they had giri?  Hell, how do you even think about running a Roman campaign without the possibility of PvP?

Vampire, it's always Vampire. And ESPECIALLY Mage, if done right.

(Full disclosure: currently hosting M:TAw game at the club)

Quote from: Old Geezer;805601First, very often they don't.

Second, honor cultures often have very definite and elaborate rules around honor, and many people who don't like PvP don't like it because a significant number of assholes use it as an excuse to dick around with people rather than play a character with a strong sense of honor.

Third, can we not go down the "we are manly men playing manly games full of manly PvP" route?

Fourth, different people like different things.

We are men! Manly men!

So, in other words, you're saying escapism takes precedent over how stuff works in real life? Even if that would mess with the core concepts of a given RPG?

Quote from: CRKrueger;805604I didn't say "If you don't like PvP, you don't have the stones to play a Samurai, Viking or Roman." What I asked was how do you deal with playing with cultures that can require the defense of honor and reputation through combat if players are actually banned from PvP.  Doesn't have to be those cultures either.  

Renaissance Italian city states seems like another tough one.  "Players are all family members." Ok, is primogeniture banned too?  

Say goodbye to an entire genre with cyberpunk, etc.

If every session turned into The Reservoir Dogs, I'd get new players before I'd go meta on the restrictions, seems to defeat the whole purpose of role-playing, no different then the railroading GM who says "No, you can't turn left, you go right."

Mr. Pink!

It really is saying "I don't care what it says this game is about in the book, fuck you if you think we're going to play even somewhat close to this, even if that original materials is why you even got into it in the first place".

Quote from: Kiero;805606PvP is tedious shit that slows the game down for no fun reason. Except usually for the arsehole who thinks it's fun for them, because it isn't for anyone else at the table.

I have no time to indulge some twat's love of messing with other people at the table, just because they can.

That's not my experience at all. In fact, complete opposite, it intensifies the gameplay experience for all involved.

What exactly made it slow in your case? Any prominent examples come to mind?

Quote from: estar;805609I have had quite a bit of experience in collaborative fiction specifically alternate history. I understand it quite well. Games are useful to decide the outcome of a plot point when the group doesn't have a consensus on what to do with it. But gaming is not the focus, working on a story is.

Tabletop Roleplaying is designed around player agency. This is what makes tabletop a poor fit for collaborative fiction. When a player is stopped from doing something he can do as his character for a out of game reason it is metagaming.

Again, agreed.

Even stuff like a PC acting in a way that might have been affected by learning info that the PCs themselves would not normally know and said actions affecting the agency/potential outcome of another PC's scenario has caused upset among my players and caused some instigatory behaviour which I had to shut down hard. A very good reason not to metagame.

Quote from: Will;805610I'm sorry that storytelling games touched you in your no-no place.

But, you know what? At my table, 'collaborative storytelling' has pretty much been synonymous with 'focus on players having fun.' Only 30 years, not 42, but hey.


I have an extremely low threshold for people pulling the 'you are having fun wrong,' whichever flag it happens to be flying under.

No-one pulled that flag?

You're closer to doing that so far than most others in this thread from what I can see. "Fun" is a relative term in RPG context and you are practically saying "I don't care, other types of gameplay satisfaction don't matter, story over characters everyday and anyday". A lot of anti-PvP responders seem to feel that way here or at least partially.

Quote from: Will;805612And so?

Metagaming can work totally fine. It has in nearly every game I've run. Metagaming helps cut down on stupid player blowups.

Metagaming is pretty much the same as 'GM and players agree not to do X because it'd suck.'

Suck for who? This is where this gets real divisive. Would it truely suck for everyone involved or is someone having to compromise on their satisfaction in the game, maybe even missing out on game elements they might really enjoy or like the sound of?

Quote from: estar;805613Throughout history the main reason violence was checked was due to rules, mores, and laws. The problem that arises in many tabletop campaigns is the lack of law enforcement.

I don't mean that the referee forgets to add a legal system his campaign. What I am talking is the lack of the feeling that the one's character is in a society with laws. A society with the means and the will to go after those who engage in assault or murder.

The type of problem PvP behavior that people are talking about here I call Maddog syndrome. Because that what the player act like; a frothing bat shit insane dog biting everybody in sight. However it is something binary. The behavior exist along a sliding scale. Most players will only engage in PvP if they think they can get away with it.

My approach is give the players a sense that they are part of a in-game society. It will not stop the mad-dog but it will isolate that kind of player from others who are more of a opportunists type. Making it easier to deal with without having an explicit no PvP rule.

90%. This is one of those few examples where genuinely you can't make a generalisation on players. It's not most, it's some. Getting away with it implies being a dick: that's definitely most likely not the case most of the time. More likely is one PC beating the crap out of -- to them -- an annoying shithead PC across the table for the reason PvP happened.

Quote from: Old Geezer;805634The biggest problem in this thread is the original




Asshole behavior is not corrected by more asshole behavior.  Asshole behavior is corrected by telling somebody to stop being an asshole followed by refusing to play with them if they don't stop.

Life's too short for cheap beer or gaming with assholes.

No, it's not. Don't get mad because the pro-PvP crowd in this thead has more backing behind it than your POV and then try to refocus what has already been supported as valid attitude or means of dealing with an asshole successfully in a way that's chastizing. That's lecturing and English as fuck (although there's a surprising amount of us in this thread!).

Also, telling someone to stop and then don't play with them? Come on, that's real hippie. Nobody does that -- especially RPG gamers/nerds who are notorious for being quiet and non-confrontational.

Quote from: Sommerjon;805637In a traditional game life and death is all around the PCs.  Why in the flying fuck would you want to hitch your life to someone you can't trust?

Keep it simple: got no other choice.

Hell, crime syndicates thrive and prosper all the time all around us and ain't nobody trusting anyone inside those arenas.

There's plenty more reasons but it's uncommon to see a ride-or-die situation until a PC group is well established. Hunter is such a fucking awesome game for exploring this concept.

Quote from: Kiero;805630Emphasis mine. That right there is fucking boring, I play RPGs to explore a world and the stuff going on in it, not scheme against the other people sitting at the table.

No need to "force" anything when there's mutual agreement between the players that we aren't going to waste everyone's time with PvP bullshit.

I can't see that working on the large scale. In fact, I KNOW that doesn't work on a large scale. I've had too many players across different games and different environments that, despite being well-meaning and cool about other stuff, will have and have had their PCs showdown impromptu with other PCs because an in-game line got crossed. Didn't have to get violent but it weren't passive in any way shape or form.

Quote from: Old Geezer;805619I'm glad it works for you.  Anything other than "story is what happened to happen" has sucked for me consistently.

The problem is not styles, the problem is when styles collide.  Not all people can have a fun game together.  This is neither good nor bad, it simply is.

It is when it starts making its way into gamebooks, even implicitly, as an attitude or mindset or protocol or whatever.

Quote from: estar;805620It negative, what you been describing is a bunch of prohibitions. Don't PvP, etc, etc. What I find works better is to get the players enlightened self-interest going. They don't PvP because group cooperation is clearly worth more in my campaigns than the reverse. And it for the same reason as it works in real life, people acting together as group are able to do more and get more.

And the little things I do to keep things in-line are because the Adventuring Party is at its heart a gang of thugs even if they are a bunch of Lawful Good Paladins. And without a sense of in-game society they will eventually end up acting like thugs.

I do what I do in my games because I assume the worst of my players. I live in a rural area and do not always have the best when it comes to players. So I have to come with ways that allow everybody to have fun without resorting to metagaming and least common denominator out of game rules.

Yeah I allow PvP in my campaigns, but last month was the first PvP fight in years. For a variety of reason fucking with other PCs is way down the list of my players even they are notorious for it in other campaigns.

It's all about the benjamins.

This exactly why metagaming, prohibitions, whatevarthafuck just ain't good large-scale, long-term. So far in this thread, I haven't seen any real arguments as to why PvP shouldn't be allowed unrestricted (although I def agree new players should get the 4-1-1 before entering but it should be coming from a place of PvP is expected first).

Quote from: jibbajibba;805629No.
This is only the case if you believe that only the npcs are allowed  motivation and goals. I have run fantastic games where pvp became the whole of the game.
I ran amber at GenCon and the game ended with one PC bound and gagged being tortured by the other PCs because of his part in a coup. I felt it was a particularly  successful game and the players were embarassingly glowing with praise about it.
The gms job is to create a believable world populated with believable people. You don't get to force the PC's through your maze like lab rats. They are free agents and that means they are entirely allowed to plot scheme and kill each other.

Absolutely 100% agree. This is in part what keeps all my players in all my games coming back and it's what they get pissed off about when I'm not able to GM because they 9/10 times genuinely don't get those "worlds" where they're truly free to act and actually get tangible feedback back that takes their choices into account anywhere else. Sad but true.

Quote from: Bren;805632I found the juxtaposition of rules are the method people use to check violence and rules shouldn't be used to check violence ironic.


I also think most people commenting either have a very extreme experience with immature assholes in mind and or they approach this issue wrong - or should we say less than effectively.

Step 1 should be a discussion about the players' levels of comfort with PCs with opposed goals, intraparty bickering, intraparty threats, and PvP violence. Almost all the problem stories occur because the players don't agree on these points combined with a too rapid escalation to deadly force. (Some groups, especially mature or long running groups can skip step 1 or do it during play and go straight to step 2.)

Step 2 should be an agreement that everyone is there to have fun so some agreement about how conflict should be handled works best. One tactic I have found successful is for players to escalate conflict gradually rather than immediately jumping to poisoning food or daggering fellow PCs in their sleep.

Example: A difference of opinion about what to do with prisoners. Here one player is at odds with some or all of the party.

• Start with "I don't think we should kill the prisoners."
• If that doesn't work, escalate "Killing prisoners is dishonorable and I won't stand for it."
• If necessary make it clear your PC is serious and willing to do what it takes to defend his point (and honor). "Over my dead body." Draw sword and stand between would be killer and prisoners.
• Hope your comrades will back down and rediiscuss if they know you are serious. Try not to kill them. "Stay back. I don't want to hurt you." Fight defensively.
• At a certain point, if nothing else has worked you are at full out PvP. "OK then. You've been warned." Fight offensively.

Obviously different systems and styles of play may either facilitate this or make it more difficult. But a staged approach of escalation is more likely to resolve conflict without killing. Probably why police forces use a staged  approach to violence.

Step 3 follow two simple further rules (1) don't be an asshole and (2) don't continue to play with assholes.

I'm curious whether people who are extremely anti PvP never have serious conflicts amongst their PCs or if they do, what method they use to resolve those serious conflicts.

Respect the list but most responders on here don't seem to have had an extreme set of experiences with PvP gone wrong as much as their own responses and attitude to PvP is extreme or biased or potentially hypocritical.

Staged approach is so they don't get sued or thrown in jail themselves. Wouldn't know it in the UK though 'cause you can't sue the police (policy decision by the government, same with the NHS even if they leave a scapel in your body during surgery). Also wouldn't know it from the Eric Garner and Michael Brown shootings, though.

(Digressing...)

Quote from: jibbajibba;805638But the players loved it.
In all my years roleplaying I find Amber gives the deepest roleplaying experience and the deepest level of immersion and Amber is the most PvP game out there. Even Chargen is constructed round PvP....

The other PCs are part of that world. Ragar the Bold is just as much a part of the world in motion as Count "Obvious Antagonist" and making the PCs only focus on GM constructed threats and oposition is a false premise that restricts role-play.

I can site multiple examples from the CoC game where one of the PCs was, unbeknownst to the rest of the party, a serial killer and whose crimes became the centre of their investigation, to an incident where one PC was sent to kill another in her appartment in 1920s NY, to an Amber PC with multiple personality syndrome and advanced shapeshift who was his own arch nemesis, to a bunch of Holy knights working with some Camerilla Vampires in Texas to eliminate a Sabbat threat, and hundreds of others where the PvP stuff became more than just a petty arguement betweeen asshole PCs but where it became the entire focus of the game and a created the sort of RPG moments that are talked about in reverential tones 30 years later down the pub.

It comes down to a few things
i) do you want to simulate a world in motion or a set adventure path for the Players
ii) Are PCs supposed to be fully realised people with complex motivations and objectives or just complex playing pieces in a board game
iii) Are the only obstacles that are valid GM constructed obstacles because the GM is the only valid generator of content

See, that's what I'm talking about. That sounds fun as fuck but yet some of the responders in this thread see this as absolutely fucking awful (or "boring") when it seems that the wider RPG playerbase has a taste for it. These prohibitions, as estar puts em', seem to require compromise for all players in a group that might be undue and/or unfair to some of them, usually because the prohibiting side had a bad experience or two and is applying to other people or groups. For these guys who are also advocating that it might "suck" or that its bullshit in view to the presumed greater good of the game (or however you wanna phrase it), it does seem dangerously hypocritical.

Quote from: jibbajibba;805639Idealism
Ego
Money
Power
Sex
Envy
Sloth
self preservation

The usual reasons Kids join street gangs, people join the army and folk sign up to join the circus

Add security and a sense of belonging in there, too. Real feelings and motivations: the kind that really lend a sense of authenticity to a character and enrich the story as a result.

Quote from: Ravenswing;805641Catching up with a few comments, I'm in complete agreement with this.  The notion that PvP is somehow the antidote to the asshole is farcical: it's the medium in which the assholes swim.  For every group where PvP is used to "autocorrect" assholes, I've seen a half-dozen where the assholes justify themselves through waving the PvP card.  The way to deal with assholes isn't to allow other players to kill their characters; the way to deal with assholes is for GMs and groups to have the basic maturity it takes to confront and deal with them, OOC, and to eject them from groups if they don't shape up.

Well aren't you just special.  So you've never before in your life encountered someone with a strong opinion on something?  I get to have a mad on for the things I have a mad on for, I'm unlikely to ask your permission, and I don't feel the need to justify that to smarmy assholes or anyone else.

I think you're missing the problem.  It's not that gamers can't ID assholes.  It's that so many gamers are GSK prisoners who'll go to huge lengths -- up to and including watching their groups disintegrate around them -- to do anything about them.

As long as there are people hung up on colloquialisms and slang, yeah.  I really don't feel the need to defend my word choices, either.  If you're hellbent on ascribing hidden meanings to simple words in an Internet discussion, yeah, whatever, knock yourself out.

I wasn't saying you can't have a hard-on for whatever pisses you of. I just was like, "what the fuck, he's acting like I took a dump on his favourite gamebook by simply making this thread".

I agree with the notion of gamers of putting up with bullshit rather than doing something about it or not having backbone when it would really come in handy. Luckily, a fair amount of my players don't have this problem and those that showed signs quickly lose that problem. For the very few that don't, they err... don't make it.

Quote from: CRKrueger;805643I wasn't expecting "we don't", but that sure answers my question.



Don't have a problem with that, just a little surprised that iconic cultures, tropes, genres, scenarios are off the table because of the belief that PvP always leads to Knights of the Dinner Table behavior, when it really doesn't have to.

 I don't think PvP or rules against PvP do anything against an asshole player.  You kick 'em out, then go ahead and play with non-assholes.  If someone's not an asshole, the mere option of the freedom to attack another PC isn't going to turn them into an asshole anymore then it turns you into a workplace shooter.

Right. The sentiment from the anti-PvP crowd starts to sound unreasonable past a certain point. At leasr, as far as I've seen in this thread.

Quote from: Old Geezer;805644The vast majority of players, honestly, don't give a shit about cultures, tropes, genres, scenarios, or anything else besides goofing around and maybe throwing some dice.

Sure, I'd be interested in a Samurai or Viking type game, and you bet your nuts I'd be careful about what I said in character.

Just like I'd love to play a Pendragon game.  But most gamers aren't interested in anything as detailed or involved as Pendragon.

90% of everything is crap, and that includes the population of RPG tabletop players.  And PvP becomes just another tool for them to express their crapitude.

The mere fact we're talking about this makes us part of a small minority, just like those of us model railroaders who actually try to run our basement empires like a real railroad are in the small majority.

There is a reason WoW is the way it is, and makes as much money as it does.  "The game that knows what you want, and gives it to you."

See, it's defeatist wank like this that just sours anything resembling not giving into bullshit and sours healthy discussion. Come on man.

You really just made it out like people got into RPGs because "Oooh! Funny-shaped dice!". Now that's just weak. If that were true, Pendragon, L5R, Kult, Earthdawn, Eclipse Phase and all those kinds of games wouldn't exist. No market for that, right? RPG's wouldn't exist past D&D -- like early D&D -- and I most likely would have never have heard of P'n'P as would genuinely most RPG gamers today.

Quote from: MonsterSlayer;805657It absolutely answered the question. Those are reel life things I see in the world everyday for the reasons why people are in relationships, endeavors, and business with people that would absolutely stab them in the back.

You could add:
Laziness
Hero complexes
Faith
Allegiance
And many others... but it doesn't mean that in the end you should expect characters vested in their goals will not do everything possible to achieve their goals for good or bad.

And why not let the players play it out if they want
Maybe the cleric is called to bring that nasty necromancer back to the light. Maybe the necromancer doesn't take kindly to that. The fighter just wants to keep the party together long enough to avenge his dead parents and doesn't care from there. But the thief needs the necromancer and priest to work together to beat the lich he knows is in this dungeon but the thief hasn't told anyone because he expects them all to die and he will keep all the loot.

Or something.

Realism theory. I like it. I'm not sure some of the other responders see it like that though, which makes me think they got a pretty good lot in life or have been playing with the same group for a VERY long time.

Quote from: jibbajibba;805660Yup ....

I trust you to cover me when I draw my nine and wipe the guy on the corner because we were both sent by Lizard to toast the dude. Doesn't mean that you haven't been told to then stick a couple in the back of my head and leave me in a burned out car wreck because I've been banging his girlfriend.

I mean these people have you know like read books, watched Movies and TV and live in the real world ....???

That is almost exactly one of the cliques in my Mage game's Cabal roleplayed out. Now THAT was tense once all was said and done. Replace girlfriend with a suitcase full of Artifacts, though, and a pissed off NPC merc cabal, oh and a powerful mage street boss. Gritty as shit.

Quote from: Sommerjon;805686There is a slight difference in Billy stabbing you in the back to get the corner office and Billy literally stabbing you in the back.

Strange that you two are willing to use; Idealism, Ego, Money, Power, Sex, Envy, Sloth, self preservation, Laziness, Hero complexes, Faith, Allegiance as reasons to justify hooking up with someone you absolutely loathe when the easiest thing for you to do is say "Nope, bye"
I have little interest in games where David Duke is hanging with Al Sharpton cuz Conflict!

Why would your players do rapes murders and pillages in front of the city guard?  Do they also radio ahead to the local dungeon that they are coming?

How would they find out so easily?

Now you're just being disingenous.

Seriously, "cuz Conflict"? Get outta here.

You can't honestly believe that not one of those things motivates a PC -- and player behind them, by extension -- to act in the game and that these motivations won't at some point end up in a potentially violent conflict realistically.

Quote from: jibbajibba;805688Um don't know if we can be any clearer on this...
Start with the list I guess....
Idealism - You see the best in everyone and believe then can be persuaded to do right simply by seeing others charting that course
Ego - you know that anyone one they meet you will be won over by your charisma and charm. They simply wouldn't be able to imagine doing you harm.
Money - there is a huge pile of loot down in this dungeon somewhere and anyone that is prepared to help you get a share of it is in
Power - you need to recover the Lost crown of Ages and with it you will be able to rule the world. You will of course need some help any bunch of proles will do
Sex - you so want to shag this guy that you will put up with him coming along on a quest just if it gives you the chance to bang him later, even if it means you have to put up with his whining and moaning
etc
etc

I mean 90% of D&D parties form up ad hoc in a tavern cos some old geezer asked if any one there would be interested in going to a really dangerous place and bringing back a McGuffin  Do you really think they are all going to instantly be willing to lay down their lives for each other on the basis of a shared pint?

This is true. And funny as shit, too! Hah hah!

Who are these people who randomly go on quests just because some tosser told em' "riches, bitches!" And that there be no other motivating factor apart from, "'cause it's the game dude, 'cause it's like for the story yeahhhhh..."

Quote from: chirine ba kal;805702I'm looking forward to going to Gary Con this year, simply for the chance to actually play for once... :)

You'll get that in spades.  Last year playing DGUTS with Bill Hoyt, Mike Carr, and Dave Wesley was a riot.

And if you get into Mike Reese's TRACTICS game, I'm going to show up with a lawn chair, a big bucket of popcorn, and a cooler full of beer.  It will be a wonder to behold.

A lot of posts since I last looked.

Quote from: Old Geezer;805644The mere fact we're talking about this makes us part of a small minority, just like those of us model railroaders who actually try to run our basement empires like a real railroad are in the small majority.

Who buys the tickets and ships the freight? ;)

Quote from: Old Geezer;805658Is that "PvP" or "players have their own agendas?"

I tend more towards the latter interpretation myself, and it's what I prefer; I HATE this notion of "the player characters are ONE BAND OF HEROES TRIED AND TRUE."

I love the idea.

As a goal. As an ideal. As something certain characters want. As something other characters take advantage of.

I hate a game that enforces it as the only reality.

And by “hate” I mean, I don't care for it as anything other than an occasional change of pace since a steady diet is dull and puerile.

Quote from: tuypo1;805675i have to disagree geographic isolation is a bitch some people dont even live in what you could call a village some people live or far out farms and rarely interact with other people it can be really important to maintain friendships

Telephone, Internet, Skype, Google.

Quote from: Old Geezer;805685I'll consider that a challenge.

Maybe the players should have to steal the Lampshade of Obviousness?

Be sure to include a scroll with Detect Obvious on it. ;)

Quote from: Old Geezer;805695What kind of clown doesn't know the difference between their and there?

Their, their, don't fret. His moniker is typo for a reason.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;805706Respect the list but most responders on here don't seem to have had an extreme set of experiences with PvP gone wrong as much as their own responses and attitude to PvP is extreme or biased or potentially hypocritical.

No need to quote the entire thread just to make a few short comments.

But in reference to objections to PvP. One objection I can agree with is that PvP doesn't effectively deter assholes. Fortunately there are very effective deterents that do work.

Quote from: Bren;805717But in reference to objections to PvP. One objection I can agree with is that PvP doesn't effectively deter assholes. Fortunately there are very effective deterents that do work.

Yes PvP in and of itself will not deter assholes.
However, complex well realised games with consistent motivation, genuinely applied laws and so on, go over time deter assholes because they promote and reward active participation in the game world. The majority of assholes are looking for An Old Geezer game where they can turn up roll dice and not worry about the internal consistency of the world and so on. In this world they can be an asshole with no consequence and even PC death is a minor and expected outcome so no biggie.
In a more RP focused world the PC with the power tend to be the ones who's players commit more to the world because an alliance with the High Priest or a favour owed by the local Prince are more valuable than this feat/stat combo. Now this won't exclude all asshole types, shit some of them will love to wallow in such games, but it does get rid of the casual drive by asshole who is just there to fuck up a game and move on.

Quote from: jibbajibba;805722However, complex well realised games with consistent motivation, genuinely applied laws and so on, go over time deter assholes because they promote and reward active participation in the game world. The majority of assholes are looking for An Old Geezer game where they can turn up roll dice and not worry about the internal consistency of the world and so on. In this world they can be an asshole with no consequence and even PC death is a minor and expected outcome so no biggie.

While I agree with you that a complex, active world tends to reward engaged players (and assholes tend not to be engaged in the setting) I think OG was clear (and I believe him) that he doesn't favor no consequence play either as a GM or as a player.

The only way to discourage people from acting like assholes is to ask them not to act like assholes and then to boot them if they don't stop. Anything else that seems to work only does so because the method used indirectly asks them not to act like assholes. I believe in being direct.

Wow, one wonders how "PvP does not deter assholes" turned into "no consequence play."

* goalposts emit blue pseudoCherenkov radiation as they approach c *

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;805706We are men! Manly men!

So, in other words, you're saying escapism takes precedent over how stuff works in real life? Even if that would mess with the core concepts of a given RPG?

Manly men in tights!

As for escapism, depends on the game.  I could run D&D using actual medieval concepts of government and justice and most people would hate it.  Been there done that.

Superheros live in a world of automobiles and stuff, yet fly around in spandex tights.  Realism?  Bah.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;805706No, it's not. Don't get mad because the pro-PvP crowd in this thead has more backing behind it than your POV and then try to refocus what has already been supported as valid attitude or means of dealing with an asshole successfully in a way that's chastizing. That's lecturing and English as fuck (although there's a surprising amount of us in this thread!).

As near as I can tell, the previous paragraph quoted is from some other thread.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;805706Also, telling someone to stop and then don't play with them? Come on, that's real hippie. Nobody does that -- especially RPG gamers/nerds who are notorious for being quiet and non-confrontational.

Fuck that shit.

Life is too short for bad gaming.  If you wish to argue that too many gamers are addicted to Geek Social Fallacies I'd be first to agree.

On the other hand, I've been telling people "I don't run a game like that" since 1976 and continue to do so.  Yet my games are always full.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;805706I can't see that working on the large scale. In fact, I KNOW that doesn't work on a large scale. I've had too many players across different games and different environments that, despite being well-meaning and cool about other stuff, will have and have had their PCs showdown impromptu with other PCs because an in-game line got crossed. Didn't have to get violent but it weren't passive in any way shape or form.

And in 42 years my experience is that the vast majority of players do NOT want PvP.

My irrelevant anecdote parries your irrelevant anecdote.  Neener.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;805706You really just made it out like people got into RPGs because "Oooh! Funny-shaped dice!". Now that's just weak. If that were true, Pendragon, L5R, Kult, Earthdawn, Eclipse Phase and all those kinds of games wouldn't exist. No market for that, right? RPG's wouldn't exist past D&D -- like early D&D -- and I most likely would have never have heard of P'n'P as would genuinely most RPG gamers today.

Okay, this one is just funny.  Not intentionally, I think, but frickin' hilarious.

The tabletop market is "D&D" and "other stuff," just like our solar system is "the Sun, Jupiter, Saturn, and assorted debris."  It's worse in the online world; to millions of people "gaming" is "World of Warcraft," which CATERS to the "goof off and throw funny electronic dice" gamer.  All those other games mentioned are a drop of piss in the ocean compared to D&D.

Go work for a game company and spend a few years going to conventions.  Most gamers are idiots.  Sturgeon's second law.

The University of Minnesota gaming club had 30 to 40 members attending for the better part of 15 years.  Most of them wanted to goof around and throw dice.  Same with every game shop and convention I've ever been to.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;805706Realism theory. I like it.

Realism theory?  HAR!  I MIGHT give you "verisimilitude."  But I'm playing a guy in a bathrobe who can jump twenty feet and waves around a sword made of light and travels in a ship that goes faster than light.  Realism my ass.

Quote from: Old Geezer;805781Realism theory?  HAR!  I MIGHT give you "verisimilitude."  But I'm playing a guy in a bathrobe who can jump twenty feet and waves around a sword made of light and travels in a ship that goes faster than light.  Realism my ass.

Dude, buy some Jedi pants to go with that robe. Nobody wants to see your PC junk dangling in the breeze everytime he jumps around.

I wonder if it makes that light saber shwoon sound when it flops about.

Quote from: Bren;805734While I agree with you that a complex, active world tends to reward engaged players (and assholes tend not to be engaged in the setting) I think OG was clear (and I believe him) that he doesn't favor no consequence play either as a GM or as a player.

The only way to discourage people from acting like assholes is to ask them not to act like assholes and then to boot them if they don't stop. Anything else that seems to work only does so because the method used indirectly asks them not to act like assholes. I believe in being direct.

I agree the direct method works better, also, I think the direct method addresses the true issue: the player/GM in question.

Pick a pet peeve, table rule, behavior that causes the end of all gaming as we know it and it usually follows a pattern...

1. Disruptive player acts disruptively
2. Here is where the trouble starts - Disruption is attributed to a mechanic/situation/playstyle/gaming behavior instead of the player in question.
3. New mechanics/table rules/avoidance of situation is created to disallow/prevent/ban or otherwise curtail it from happening again.
4. Because whatever the original player did is no longer allowed, by definition it can't happen again, and so the "cure" come up with in #3 reinforces the incorrect belief in #2.  As a result, you get "in 40 years it's always this way" when in fact it was two or three times, then the over-reactive correction took place and has been in place since.

If you ban PvP, you will indeed not have to deal with PvP from assholes, you'll have to deal with other behavior from assholes.

If you ban PvP, you will indeed not have to deal with an "unfun" or "boring" situation that develops, you will also miss out on any excitement, character growth, or anything else that someone might find "fun" or at least rewarding coming out of PvP.

One of my friends had a weird string of luck where significant others coming to the table led to bad experiences, so he banned them, including players who wanted to come as couples, they had to attend at least once individually each.  Are couples problems in an of themselves or was it those specific couples?  

He definitely no longer runs into any couple related problems, but I highly doubt people would think the problem was couples, period.

Eh, its been covered.

Quote from: jibbajibba;805722Yes PvP in and of itself will not deter assholes.
However, complex well realised games with consistent motivation, genuinely applied laws and so on, go over time deter assholes because they promote and reward active participation in the game world...

In a more RP focused world the PC with the power tend to be the ones who's players commit more to the world because an alliance with the High Priest or a favour owed by the local Prince are more valuable than this feat/stat combo.

I have found this attitude towards running a game decreases PvP to nil. Once players realize that there is an active, complex world to play in they have a lot less interest in screwing around with each other.

To answer the original question, I allow PvP but it is discouraged. The majority of the time, when one PC has been violent towards another it is something between the people, not roles. Now that I think of it, my discouragement is little more than telling the players "if you aren't a team the monsters will eat you."

That said, the style of the game, known at the outset, changes my attitude a lot. D&D always seemed to be a team sport. Now, when I played Vampire the milieu is different. There may have been excursions where people worked together, but it was allways allies of the moment. You were free agents when you got back in the city.

Quote from: Nexus;805792Sorry for the snark, but that post came across as incredibly condescending.

OG said the same thing pretty much, but then he read my response.  Dunno if you have yet.

I'm not saying you're a little whiny girly man, I'm asking how do you stay true to a Samurai setting if a Samurai cannot avenge a slight by another PC through violence?  Same with gunfighters, gang members, norseman, whatever.  It's not me who is saying if you don't fight you're not a whatever, it's the culture of the PC that's saying it.  I'm just wondering how you deal with it?  

Conan says "I've killed better men for lesser insults" a lot and lets it slide for other "party members", but he doesn't let it slide every time.  Does the barbarian player just say "C'mon guys, we've agreed to no PvP, so obviously my barbarian is not going to use his culturally appropriate response, so how about you guys let up a little on your culturally appropriate insults"?  

If so, that's fine, works for you, for me it looks like now we're starting to stack more and more behavioral metagaming modifications to "fix" something that has always seem to be handled well by "Don't be/Stop being a Dick."

As I mentioned upthread, if we decide we're gonna stick together and be a united family in Borgia-era Italy are we gonna go with an equal inheritance for all male and females no matter how historically inappropriate it may be?

Or do you just not play campaigns where it comes up?

I don't particularly *enjoy* PvP, and I certainly don't like PvP death anymore then I like death to a monster, a failed saving throw, or random encounters with Rocs.

If you're playing a Mafia game, though, and you eliminate the chance of getting whacked by those next to you...it's an...interesting variation of a Mafia game.

I'm not a "LOVES ME SOME PVP" guy, I'm a "you're banning a type of character behavior the character certainly is capable of doing and in fact may be perfectly logical under the circumstances?  Huh, how odd." guy.

Quote from: Natty Bodak;805682Not all women don't not have dicks.

Sheesh.

Google Futanari. It will change your life (and possibly drain your SAN).

QuoteDon't have a problem with that, just a little surprised that iconic cultures, tropes, genres, scenarios are off the table because of the belief that PvP always leads to Knights of the Dinner Table behavior, when it really doesn't have to.

I've played in Feudal Japanese settings and "honor" based societies without there being PvP violence It takes the players agreeing to moderate their own behavior. And not every trope has to be played absolutely hardcore, no allowance balls out style that every slight, real or imagined, must be avenged in an immediate blood duel. Even in the eras emulated every gathering didn't end in a bloodbath because of some minor faux pas or imagined insult.

Quote from: Opaopajr;805428The corollary to that is you also probably do not find yourself attracted to Machiavellian schemer, Byzantine politics, games, yes?

Between the PCs or in the overall game?

QuoteI've noticed it as a pattern among those who tend to dislike oWoD or IN SJG internal friction campaigns. I'm guessing, but trying to place a pattern.

Players that like a PvP seem to enjoy more open ended, sandbox style games in my observation.

Quote from: Sommerjon;805516Nah, you sound 15.

I think you are being too generous there.

Quote from: Baron Opal;805798I have found this attitude towards running a game decreases PvP to nil. Once players realize that there is an active, complex world to play in they have a lot less interest in screwing around with each other.

To answer the original question, I allow PvP but it is discouraged. The majority of the time, when one PC has been violent towards another it is something between the people, not roles. Now that I think of it, my discouragement is little more than telling the players "if you aren't a team the monsters will eat you."

That said, the style of the game, known at the outset, changes my attitude a lot. D&D always seemed to be a team sport. Now, when I played Vampire the milieu is different. There may have been excursions where people worked together, but it was allways allies of the moment. You were free agents when you got back in the city.

Again play Amber.

It scores at the top end of

• Players fully engaged in the game - to the point where they will meet up independently to role play scenes with no GM
• PCs fully integrated into the game world - everyone has allies, political links, ties, affiliations etc
• Role play
• PVP - both political subtle and marginal and outright face to face battle to the death

Now that isn't the game system that is the setting.
You play a D&D game based round a theives guild, the establishment of a new non-good cult, the establishment of a new city, etc basically anything political and you will get an Amber level of response with the right players.

Imagine a Game of Thrones setting without PvP or a Blade Itself setting or a Firefly setting or a Battlestar Galactica Setting or a Breaking Bad Setting or a Godfather Setting.... in fact name a setting based on a popular film, TV show or book that has no risk of PvP and you end up with the Carebears or the Smurfs and even Smurfette started off an an enemy agent working for Gargamel.....

There is a spectrum between "Backstab Extravaganza" and "The Carebears meet the Ponies for Hugfest 2015" especially in rpgs. Hell, some people complain about the level of duplicity, backstabbing and "Awful people being awful" in Game of Thrones, BSG, The Walking Dead, etc. Everyone doesn't like the same things.

Quote from: Bren;805734The only way to discourage people from acting like assholes is to ask them not to act like assholes and then to boot them if they don't stop. Anything else that seems to work only does so because the method used indirectly asks them not to act like assholes. I believe in being direct.

Don't invite assholes to your game. If they show up later then talk to them about their behavior, boot them if they don't conform. Sound nice in theory, but it not that simple when it comes to actual people.

What happens when the asshole is two of your players ride to the game? What happens when there is only four players in your town? What if the asshole is another player's girlfriend or boyfriend? The list goes on?

What Old Geezer said is A solution not THE solution.

My view is this. Playing a session of tabletop RPG is an experience. Just like going white water rafting, playing paint ball, or climbing Mount Everest. If the experience is brief then people with "difficult" personalities can be accommodated, to a point. Sometime they have to be accommodated or the whole thing doesn't happen.

For some the answer is that it is better not to have it happen. Just walk away from the game. But like many things with human interaction it on a sliding scale. Everybody has a different tipping point where the hobby itself is not enough to put up with difficult people.

So you haven't reached the tipping point but you need everybody you have to make the game happen. So how you setup things so that tipping point isn't reach. How do you make it happen is spite of the difficult personalities.

My personal answer involves a lot of things I learned over thirty years. I rather not have to work with difficult people but as I live in a rural area, I don't have a wide range of choices. Especially considering the systems I am most interested in, classic D&D, GURPS, etc are not exactly the popular ones in terms of numbers.

I start out with requiring people to speak as their character in first person. I don't let them treat their character or the other player's character as playing pieces in a wargame. Mind you they don't have to act, they just have to play as if they are there as their character even if it just a version of their own personality. If that happens everything else will start to follow.

I don't make a big deal out of the daily life of my setting. But it is there. When the character wake up for a game I will spend a few sentences on describing what goes around them. The same when they meet somebody.

I gotten good at handling split parties over the year and even stepped it up a notch when I started running a game store campaign. I can handle up to eight players all doing their own thing now. With ten or more, then I have to start doing callers and some of the really old school techniques to keep everybody engaged and interested.

What this does produce very little down time in terms of play even outside of combat. I found that there is a type of player that when they get bored starts instigating things. By learning to handle split parties, they not as bored.

The downside of my methods is that they are a result of experience. Half the time I can't explain why some of the of the stuff works, it just feels right, and the feedback more often than not confirms that.

Another downside is that it is complicated. I am juggling a lot of balls to make it happen. To make more fun, I am half deaf from nerve damage. While I have hearing aids to fits the sounds coming through my ears, what they don't fix is the damage inside that causes delays in understanding what I just heard was speech. Very disconcerting at times.

Honestly if you are tired of assholes in the hobby and you reading this. Learn how to use Virtual Tabletops. The fact you are reading this means you have internet access. And unlike MMORPGS VTTs don't need any better hard than what it takes to open a webpage. With a VTTs you have a pick of the entire on-line RPG universe. Even some of the off-line sometime through a friend of a friend type of introduction.

Anyway, the Monday Night group that I am a part of is the single best group I ever gamed with. It started with me and my two best friends from high school. But over the years as we talked to others we found a few others to invite and it been great.

So why I still involved with a game store campaign? Well one reason, among others, is that I like the challenge. The challenge is that can I run a fun game for everybody who steps up to my table. Can I get the dickhead treasure grabbing, backstabber to have fun in the same game as the guy who impressive himself in a character, or the guys who spend hours asking question about the relationship between the noble houses and their secrets.

I have quite a bit of failures but for the most part I been successful. The most simplistic answer is that I make them feel as if they been transported to a new world. That they really are there as their characters. Because a lot of the problems are minimized when the players stop looking at it as a game but rather as something to experience. That it is a place with a life of it own.

Quote from: CRKrueger;805788y
2. Here is where the trouble starts - Disruption is attributed to a mechanic/situation/playstyle/gaming behavior instead of the player in question.

This.

It's not "we need a new rule," it's "fuck you asshole."

Quote from: estar;805831Don't invite assholes to your game. If they show up later then talk to them about their behavior, boot them if they don't conform. Sound nice in theory, but it not that simple when it comes to actual people.

It is exactly that simple.

You just have to decide what you are willing to give up so you don't have to play with assholes. If you are willing to put up with assholes just so you can have 4 players instead of 2 players, well that is your choice. Now it is not what I would choose, but don't act like you didn't have a choice not to play with the asshole.

Quote from: jibbajibba;805722Yes PvP in and of itself will not deter assholes.
However, complex well realised games with consistent motivation, genuinely applied laws and so on, go over time deter assholes because they promote and reward active participation in the game world.

There are two types of assholes:

(1) There are the people being assholes because they want to be assholes; they get a thrill out of screwing over or annoying other people.

(2) There are the people being assholes because it works.

The only thing you can do with the former is say "don't be an asshole" to them and then boot them to the curb if they're still being assholes.

The latter group is a problem that a lot of GMs create for themselves, often because they're trying to preserve the railroad they've envisioned in their head: They don't want their plot disrupted, so when the PCs do disruptive things they work hard to minimize that disruption. They give the PCs literal or de facto script immunity and then can't figure out why the PCs never run away from danger. They mandate that the PCs have to stick together and that the PCs can't kill each other. All kinds of stuff that removes consequences from the game world... and then they wonder why the PCs behave as if there were no consequences.

I've literally had the experience of having a player come into my game, try to steal loot from another party member, and then get a dagger driven through his eye while he slept. This player wasn't an asshole. He stole the loot because it had always worked for him in his previous games. He never did it again because he'd discovered there were consequences for it.

Ditto the group who tried to solve their problems by going on an indiscriminate murder spree. They were shocked when the SWAT teams showed up and even though they were able to escape, their tactics in future sessions toned down.

Quote from: jibbajibba;805638But the players loved it.
In all my years roleplaying I find Amber gives the deepest roleplaying experience and the deepest level of immersion and Amber is the most PvP game out there. Even Chargen is constructed round PvP....

The other PCs are part of that world. Ragar the Bold is just as much a part of the world in motion as Count "Obvious Antagonist" and making the PCs only focus on GM constructed threats and oposition is a false premise that restricts role-play.

I can site multiple examples from the CoC game where one of the PCs was, unbeknownst to the rest of the party, a serial killer and whose crimes became the centre of their investigation, to an incident where one PC was sent to kill another in her appartment in 1920s NY, to an Amber PC with multiple personality syndrome and advanced shapeshift who was his own arch nemesis, to a bunch of Holy knights working with some Camerilla Vampires in Texas to eliminate a Sabbat threat, and hundreds of others where the PvP stuff became more than just a petty arguement betweeen asshole PCs but where it became the entire focus of the game and a created the sort of RPG moments that are talked about in reverential tones 30 years later down the pub.

You've mentioned three games I have no interest in playing. PvP might be appropriate for those games, but not as a general principle.

Quote from: jibbajibba;805638It comes down to a few things
i) do you want to simulate a world in motion or a set adventure path for the Players
ii) Are PCs supposed to be fully realised people with complex motivations and objectives or just complex playing pieces in a board game
iii) Are the only obstacles that are valid GM constructed obstacles because the GM is the only valid generator of content

False dichotomy. It's perfectly possible to have a pretty credible, realistic-seeming world, without the PCs at each other's throats. More to the point, it makes sense not to treat your closest allies and comrades-in-arms like rivals.

None of which precludes all the scheming against people outside the party, of which our games have a lot.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;805706That's not my experience at all. In fact, complete opposite, it intensifies the gameplay experience for all involved.

What exactly made it slow in your case? Any prominent examples come to mind?

Time spent pissing around scheming against the other players is time not spent engaging with everything else going on outside the player-group. I don't need "intensification", I need getting on with playing the game.

It makes it slow because it's wasting time on a pointless activity that detracts from other stuff.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;805706I can't see that working on the large scale. In fact, I KNOW that doesn't work on a large scale. I've had too many players across different games and different environments that, despite being well-meaning and cool about other stuff, will have and have had their PCs showdown impromptu with other PCs because an in-game line got crossed. Didn't have to get violent but it weren't passive in any way shape or form.

Bullshit. In nearly seven years of near-weekly play with my current group, across almost a dozen different games, we've never had a PC kill or attack another PC. You don't have to take my word for it, you can listen to any of our games since 2011 on our site (http://insanitywetrust.wordpress.com/).

The only time something like that did happen was when a PC was temporarily mind-controlled during a fight. It's really easy, by mutual agreement, to avoid all of that nonsense.

Quote from: jibbajibba;805693All of these are totally fine reasons why a PC might align them selves with a group of neardowells who seem on the surface to be entirely untrustworthy.

Like I said; caricatures.  I find it boring.
Next you'll say is something about a dark wizard type who secretly works for the bad guys is in a group with a paladin...

Quote from: jibbajibba;805693I said 90% of D&D games... I don't run all the D&D games in the world do I ?

I figured you did since you seem to have a firm grasp on the number of games that start in taverns.

Quote from: jibbajibba;805693In my current campaign we have
A Paladin knight Justicar sent by the order of the Stone to a village being plagued by goblin attacks and his servant.
A representative of the Sidhe Court sent to the same place for ostensibly similar reasons but in reality because the Fairy Queen has felt the rumblings of a dark force from ages past and needs to know the details.
A Warlock who actually works for said dark force and has been attached to the group through said forces machinations of the Order of the Stones higher ranking politicos
A local man who has been the one leading the local defense (local hero Background)
They were joined briefly by a professional dualist who was just passing through and has since passed through taking the Paladin's warhorse with them.

Oh look there's that dark wizard type who secretly works for the bad guys is in a group with a paladin.
W00T! for Caricatures.
Yeah, never seen this set-up before. :rolleyes:

Quote from: jibbajibba;805693However I am fully aware that most D&D groups meet in taverns and similar locations as I am sure you are :)

Define similar.  
No I haven't met up nor have I run games where the group met up in a tavern in 20 years.
You know why?  I grew tired of seeing the same tropes over and over and over again.  The games ended up being the same shit, same plans, same tactics, same, same, same.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;805706We are men! Manly men!

So, in other words, you're saying escapism takes precedent over how stuff works in real life? Even if that would mess with the core concepts of a given RPG?

Yes. These are games and/or telling stories. They're supposed to be fun so people will focus on things that are fun for them at the table and skip the things they don't like including brushing over things that aren't fun for them. People have to regularly shit in real life but few games make you track how your character's BMs  and fiber intake.

For a less off putting example mention handling sex and relationships in rpgs and see how many gamers look askance and generally hooking up and fucking isn't just something happens in real life but something most people enjoy. But not many people want to handle it at their tables. Same with backstabbing and other forms of "realistic interpersonal conflict" between PCs.

Cultures in rpgs are, quite often, boiled down to simplified stereotypes that are more fun and colorful to play instead of the intricate and diverse thins they are in real life, including the modern world. Because they are entertainment, not education or academics. Rpgs are supposed to be enjoyable or why do them and why play out things that aren't fun for you or your group?

QuoteThat's not my experience at all. In fact, complete opposite, it intensifies the gameplay experience for all involved.

I find most PvP dull personally. It takes the focus off the world and turns it inward, narrowing everything down to inter PC plotting and growing OOC grudges as characters are bumped off and replaced by new characters that all mysteriously have vendettas against the guy/girl that ganked their predecessor. As a gm I feel like I'm just there to watch the players roll dice against each other and as a player I'm bored. I want to go out and see the world and the game as the GM has set. In character I start to wonder why I'm hanging out with this group of contentious borderline psychos.

I know and acknowledge the playstyle works for others but its not my cuppa tea.

QuoteYou're closer to doing that so far than most others in this thread from what I can see. "Fun" is a relative term in RPG context and you are practically saying "I don't care, other types of gameplay satisfaction don't matter, story over characters everyday and anyday". A lot of anti-PvP responders seem to feel that way here or at least partially.

I don't think its "story over characters". Its "Fun game over game the players don't find fun." Players in rpgs make concessions to the fact its a game a great deal sometimes without even thinking about it. We agree to have our characters at least make a passing attempt to stay together ("Don't split the party!") and have goals and motivations somewhat in line with the game/setting, etc. Agreeing not to attack each other (at least past a certain point) just doesn't seem that difficult or that limiting.

QuoteI can't see that working on the large scale. In fact, I KNOW that doesn't work on a large scale. I've had too many players across different games and different environments that, despite being well-meaning and cool about other stuff, will have and have had their PCs showdown impromptu with other PCs because an in-game line got crossed. Didn't have to get violent but it weren't passive in any way shape or form.

Its worked for me for 30+ years of running games. Most of the people I've played with have no interest in attacking or undermining the other PCs to begin with. Perhaps its the genres or play style I use but it rarely even comes up and I find the concept of entire groups that are really eager to throw each other under the bus odd.

QuoteSo far in this thread, I haven't seen any real arguments as to why PvP shouldn't be allowed unrestricted.

What's wrong with "Because the group in question doesn't find it any fun or that it improves their play experience"?

Quote from: Bren;805838It is exactly that simple.

You just have to decide what you are willing to give up so you don't have to play with assholes. If you are willing to put up with assholes just so you can have 4 players instead of 2 players, well that is your choice. Now it is not what I would choose, but don't act like you didn't have a choice not to play with the asshole.

I am glad that you are so wise you see all situations, and thanks for your insight that the world is filled with assholes and not assholes. Heaven forbid people should exhibit variants, nuances, and shades of grey.

Estar does raise a good point here. Online we speak in terms of ideal game groups, and while many people like to say they weed out all by behavior by pruning players, in practice it is more complicated. Not all bad behavior comes from total assholes. Even great players who everyone likes can have bad habits. And like Rob says, sometimes you put up with one ssshole because they are there with someone who isn't one. You can also have situations where complete non assholes clash because their personalities don't jive. I think a GM having tools for reducing the impact of bad behavior at the table is fine and understandable.

Quote from: Nexus;805869I find most PvP dull personally. It takes the focus off the world and turns it inward, narrowing everything down to inter PC plotting and growing OOC grudges as characters are bumped off and replaced by new characters that all mysteriously have vendettas against the guy/girl that ganked their predecessor. As a gm I feel like I'm just there to watch the players roll dice against each other and as a player I'm bored. I want to go out and see the world and the game as the GM has set. In character I start to wonder why I'm hanging out with this group of contentious borderline psychos.

I know and acknowledge the playstyle works for others but its not my cuppa tea.

I agree entirely. Waste of everyone's time, and a diversion from the real game, as far as I'm concerned.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;805879Estar does raise a good point here. Online we speak in terms of ideal game groups, and while many people like to say they weed out all by behavior by pruning players, in practice it is more complicated. Not all bad behavior comes from total assholes. Even great players who everyone likes can have bad habits. And like Rob says, sometimes you put up with one ssshole because they are there with someone who isn't one. You can also have situations where complete non assholes clash because their personalities don't jive. I think a GM having tools for reducing the impact of bad behavior at the table is fine and understandable.

He does indeed - these days I swear, getting a game together with people who a) have time to play regularly, b) like each other (a lot of my mates dislike another of my mates over various perceived slights of different degrees) and c) I want to play with them is more of a challenge than actually planning the game.

That all said - I had several instances of PvP in my games. I have myself killed at least 2 other PCs as a player - one was a necromancer in Warhammer game that got too many occupational diseases, the other time it was a one - shot game where we were thieves.

And in none of these instances, there were any hurt feelings. But, I can also tell why to a degree - because it made sense, both in character and to the story per se. Everyone agreed that it was just a climatic ending to an adventure/character's career. Of course, not always will it be such, but I think that the golden rule to PvP in RPGs is simple - if you can see some of the players don't have fun in the conflict to the point they might leave the group, mediate it. I've seen many squabbles over treasures where Asshole Mode activated, which I have mediated, because I knew there'd be sour feelings over something that's very, very silly. On the other hand, if the characters start waving weapons over an important decision - it's not my point to intervene. I've had one CoC game where, to this day, one of the players does not know the other shot him.

And as Kruger pointed out - sometimes, PvP is the game. When I ran my (sadly aborted) quasi - Viking setting, I made a very clear point - it's a culture of strength. You are free to challenge another character to a duel at any point (though the duels were almost always not to the death but to the first wound, as per the culture's rules) if they disagree with you. If you can't buy into such a setting, it's not for you.

The great irony? The party consisted of a skald, priest and goat herder. Not exactly a team that'd be challenging each other to martial combat anytime soon.

Actually, I did PvP once, but it was retconned.

Players were assholes, decided they were bored and their characters would shoot our commanding officer, because they didn't want to be ordered around by an NPC.

I and the GM were just agape, so I shrugged and say 'well, I guess I shoot them.'

But we adjourned and worked it out.


Now that I'm a parent, I'm realizing how often parenting small children applies to gamers. USE YOUR WORDS.

Assholes.

(They were friends of the GM, and later screwed him over in RL.)

Quote from: Kiero;805865You've mentioned three games I have no interest in playing. PvP might be appropriate for those games, but not as a general principle.



False dichotomy. It's perfectly possible to have a pretty credible, realistic-seeming world, without the PCs at each other's throats. More to the point, it makes sense not to treat your closest allies and comrades-in-arms like rivals.

Oh definitely in most games we don't have PvP. Insisting on PvP is as narrowing as banning PvP.
Basically anything that narrows the roleplay and character options for the players is something I try to avoid.
I want fully fleshed realistic believable PCs who occupy a well realised internally consistent world.
Saying you can't do this or you have to be like this is to be the thin end of the railroad, like maybe a sidings or one of those stations that is only open on Thursday afternoons or something.

QuoteNone of which precludes all the scheming against people outside the party, of which our games have a lot.

Time spent pissing around scheming against the other players is time not spent engaging with everything else going on outside the player-group. I don't need "intensification", I need getting on with playing the game.

It makes it slow because it's wasting time on a pointless activity that detracts from other stuff.


The only time something like that did happen was when a PC was temporarily mind-controlled during a fight. It's really easy, by mutual agreement, to avoid all of that nonsense.

See I don't differentiate between PCs and NPCs in terms of the way the world works for them they are all actors in a world in motion. Plots against PCs and plots against NPCs same same.

Casting pvp as pointless when we are playing games where we pretend to be elves ... I mean you are being ironic right?
Anything the players as a group enjoy and that increases everyone's fun is a good thing and should be encouraged. The whole thing is pointless of course but I love roleplay it's great the more of that the players do the more immersed they get in the shared world the better.

Quote from: Sommerjon;805866Like I said; caricatures.  I find it boring.
Next you'll say is something about a dark wizard type who secretly works for the bad guys is in a group with a paladin...

So what motivations do you give your PCs? I mean I have tired to answer the question and give a list of motivations that may result in PCs working with others they do not entirely trust.
How do you rationalise your groups of fully cohesive PCs what is the backstory what is the motivation of the PCs ?

QuoteI figured you did since you seem to have a firm grasp on the number of games that start in taverns.

Ah the irony meter is broken again

QuoteOh look there's that dark wizard type who secretly works for the bad guys is in a group with a paladin.
W00T! for Caricatures.
Yeah, never seen this set-up before. :rolleyes:

Yeah it's actually going to be a really interesting issue to see how it develops. The guy playing the Warlock this is his first ever roleplaying game of any type. The guy playing the paladin has been in my gaming group for about 2 years-ish but before that no RPGs so I know the entire exposure he has had to RPGs. He played a rogue like strontium Dog he played a Dragon that ran a diner and he played an alien superhero who was incredibly strong and could fly really fast.
The Dragon role went all PvP as it was a Fables game using the amber engine and it kind of was bound to but the Super hero game was very different as the PCs were well super heroes so very limited scope for PvP. In the Stront game the PCs were so oppressed by everyone outside of themselves that they naturally bonded.
I set up a standard RPG cliche exposing it to brand new players to see how it develops. We needed hooks as to why the warlock would be there and the options the player chose meant that I had fewer options. Should be intriguing. Remember cliched old cheese is only cliched and old if you have seen it before.

QuoteDefine similar.  
No I haven't met up nor have I run games where the group met up in a tavern in 20 years.
You know why?  I grew tired of seeing the same tropes over and over and over again.  The games ended up being the same shit, same plans, same tactics, same, same, same.

hehehe its a standard convention which is why you can laugh at it.

My standard party recruitment tactic is having one PC hire a party for a particular thing. I find it works in pretty much any genre from the Thief hiring some muscle for a bank job to a guy that just bought a old wreck of a spaceship hiring a mechanic and renting their spare shuttle out to a prostitute...
My other favoured option of course is having the PC start half way up a tower being shot at by guys on the ground and one guy asking how did we get into this mess.... but i am also a fan of flash backs and non linear time lines so ...meh :)

The whole of this debates comes down to taste for sure but as I said up post to me it's a bit more than that. Banning PvP restricts player agency. I go out of my way not to restrict player agency to the point where my standard Xp model requires the players to set objectives for their PCs that exist outside of lets raid the castle/rescue the princess/retrieve the McGuffin. Increased player agency leads to deeper roleplay which leads to increased immersion that is why I play rpgs, not to have my guy roll 6d10 damage and kill the giant but too do the roleplay.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;805879Estar does raise a good point here. Online we speak in terms of ideal game groups, and while many people like to say they weed out all by behavior by pruning players, in practice it is more complicated. Not all bad behavior comes from total assholes. Even great players who everyone likes can have bad habits. And like Rob says, sometimes you put up with one ssshole because they are there with someone who isn't one. You can also have situations where complete non assholes clash because their personalities don't jive. I think a GM having tools for reducing the impact of bad behavior at the table is fine and understandable.

Or you just say "I'm not interested, thanks."  There are a good number of my friends I just won't game with because our tastes are too different.  Asshole/nonasshole has nothing to do with it.

Not gaming is better than bad gaming, and if I don't enjoy the game more than I enjoy it, it's bad gaming for whatever reason.

I was going to reply (very late to the party), but Nexus said everything I'd have said.  I don't mind some character conflicts and conflicting goals, but I as a player have no desire to deal with PvP/backstabbing/etc at the table and I can't imagine playing a character that would travel with a group of people where that was the norm.

Quote from: Nexus;805869I find most PvP dull personally. It takes the focus off the world and turns it inward, narrowing everything down to inter PC plotting and growing OOC grudges as characters are bumped off and replaced by new characters that all mysteriously have vendettas against the guy/girl that ganked their predecessor. As a gm I feel like I'm just there to watch the players roll dice against each other and as a player I'm bored. I want to go out and see the world and the game as the GM has set. In character I start to wonder why I'm hanging out with this group of contentious borderline psychos.

I know and acknowledge the playstyle works for others but its not my cuppa tea.

See here is where you are being way more condescending then anything I said (although probably without realizing it), basically your entire paragraph is one entire gross logical fallacy.  Let's break it down.

Quote from: Nexus;805869It takes the focus off the world and turns it inward, narrowing everything down to inter PC plotting and growing OOC grudges as characters are bumped off and replaced by new characters that all mysteriously have vendettas against the guy/girl that ganked their predecessor.

This is a player problem, not a PvP problem.  Allowing PvP does not make the game suddenly all about PvP.  Period.Full.Stop.  If it does, that's your players, and that's it.  So I'm not trying to be condescending or "manly" but it's not a case of "We don't like it" but, quite literally "We descend to high school level with it, so we have to ban it to have fun."

Quote from: Nexus;805869As a gm I feel like I'm just there to watch the players roll dice against each other and as a player I'm bored.

Again, player problem.  If the institution of PvP turns your group into KoDT without the humor, then yeah, you probably do need to ban it.

Quote from: Nexus;805869I want to go out and see the world and the game as the GM has set.

That's what all my games are about as player and GM, how odd that a metagaming behavioral rule wasn't needed to achieve it.

Quote from: Nexus;805869In character I start to wonder why I'm hanging out with this group of contentious borderline psychos.

You realize that in real life, there is nothing external stopping you from buying a shotgun, taking it to work and unloading it into your coworkers right?  Yet somehow you don't.  PvP does not turn characters into contentious borderline psychos, the players do.

Quote from: Nexus;805869I know and acknowledge the playstyle works for others but its not my cuppa tea.

Not sure if you even mean it, but here is where the condescension becomes so thick you need a chainsaw to cut it, and this is the core of your gross logical fallacy.  Allowing PvP does not mean liking PvP any more then allowing Character Death means you like it when your character dies.  Since we don't have all the problems your group does with PvP, not banning PvP doesn't mean we like all the problems you've seen at the table, it means we just don't have them.

I don't ban PvP for the same reason I don't play Tenro Bansho Zero, I find it ridiculous that I can't die unless there is a box on my sheet I've checked to allow the GM to kill me.  Similarly, I find it ridiculous to say I can never attack a player character except if he's under magical compulsion.  Not "Your character has taken an oath not to", but "it's a table rule".  It makes as much sense as sitting down at a SJW's table and hearing "Characters will not have heterosexual sex, indeed male PCs will not touch a female PC or NPC at all under any circumstances oh, and killing orcs is murder."

Why do I find it so weird?  Again, not because I get off on psychotic play, it's because for decades now I've never seen psychotic play erupt as a cause of PvP.  Disruptive players show up now and again, sometimes they use PvP, sometimes they don't, but they leave and everyone else gets back to playing.

Now, all that having been said, there is NOTHING wrong with you not liking PvP.  However...

Realize that the reason you don't like it isn't because it turns players and characters into psychos - because it doesn't have to, if it does, it's because your players want to act like psychos.  Mine don't.

Realize that the reason you don't like it isn't because then the campaign becomes all about PvP - because it doesn't have to, if it does, it's because your players go there.  Mine don't.

Realize that the real reason you don't like it is because of purely personal preference based mainly on the fact that as a GM you want the players to interact with what you spent time preparing for them to interact with and not decide to do their own thing, and as a player you do the same.  Which is 100% fine, I get disappointed when characters decide to miss out on stuff I thought would be really cool, too, but...them's the breaks.  Leave the other stuff aside, or admit it's a problem with your players, not the playstyle itself, because there's a whole lot of people here who aren't seeing what your seeing.  

If lots of people eat peanuts without having a problem, but you can't, the problem isn't peanuts it's you (your players, in this case).

tl;dr - I don't have a problem with you saying you don't like it, I have a problem with everything else you're saying which insinuates gross incorrect assumptions about why I don't ban it.

Quote from: Callous;805934I was going to reply (very late to the party), but Nexus said everything I'd have said.  I don't mind some character conflicts and conflicting goals, but I as a player have no desire to deal with PvP/backstabbing/etc at the table and I can't imagine playing a character that would travel with a group of people where that was the norm.

Outlined your faulty logic for you.  Of course you wouldn't travel with a group of psychos who are going to off you at any opportunity...unless you're playing Paranoia.

The thing you're missing is, not banning PvP doesn't mean that becomes the norm.

Not liking PvP =/= banning PvP.
any more then
Not liking character death =/= banning character death.

Quote from: CRKrueger;805935See here is where you are being way more condescending then anything I said (although probably without realizing it), basically your entire paragraph is one entire gross logical fallacy.

I think you've taken my post in completely the wrong way. I'm not trying to present a logical argument for why my way of playing Let's Pretend is objectively superior to yours or anyone else's. I'm stating the opinions I've formed from experience but they are just that: opinions and preferences not objective facts.

Like I said, I'm not saying PvP heavy games can't work, shouldn't exist or anything of the sort. But that they don't work for me and I've explained why. If your experiences are different and its more fun for you. Then that's great.  Keep on playing how you like. I can't "logically" disprove your opinions or preferences anymore than you can mine. And I don't think you're hallucinating or lying about your experiences. Different people like different things.

I'm not sure how saying "Its not my style but I don't think its badwrongfun." is condescending? I haven't said people that engage in PvP games are all assholes or immature or the like just that have different tastes than me. I'm not sure that is more condescending that veiled insults and implications of being immature or even "unmanly" if you restrict PvP actions.

I've never, not once in 30+ years of role playing been in a game what I described didn't happen to some extent or another or that heavy violent PvP didn't sour the mood of the game. Not once, not once across countless games and many groups so it's not just a problem with a single group.

You've had different experiences. I'm not going to deny that but I base my choices on my experiences as I'm sure you do.

And please don't decide what my reasons are. The reason why I make it explicit that it is banned as that isn't worked for me. It's got nothing to with my players wanting to act like psychos but it find it best to make sure the game's expectations are laid out up front and clearly so potential players can make an informed choice if they want to participate or not. I have large player base with frequent new members and I don't assume they all share my tastes. PvP has never added anything to any game I've been in and is usually an active problem so I restrict it the way some restrict other activities and I don't play in games where its allowed.

Wait. I think I see where some of the hostility might be coming from. I think there's misunderstanding of terms going on

When I say someone "like PvP" mean that they actively and constantly seek out and engage in it deliberately and inappropriately but they find it a positive element that can add enjoyment to role playing.

Quote from: Callous;805934I was going to reply (very late to the party), but Nexus said everything I'd have said.  I don't mind some character conflicts and conflicting goals, but I as a player have no desire to deal with PvP/backstabbing/etc at the table and I can't imagine playing a character that would travel with a group of people where that was the norm.

I don't even like the general mood open PvP brings to the game. I find it detracts from my enjoyment a great deal without really adding anything. I don't find avoiding it to be unduly restrictive, not anymore than any other OOC restriction (No serial killers, no race X, no one that absoluately hates Race X, etx).

PCs can have conflicts with each other and often do in my games but it doesn't have to come to violence, particularly lethal force or heavy levels of backstabbing.

Quote from: Nexus;805943Wait. I think I see where some of the hostility might be coming from. I think there's misunderstanding of terms going on

When I say someone "like PvP" mean that they actively and constantly seek out and engage in it deliberately and inappropriately but they find it a positive element that can add enjoyment to role playing.

Well, unfortunately, the style of argument goes something like this in true geek passive/aggressive style.  "In X years I've never found anyone who likes Y to be worth playing with because I'd rather have a mouthful of shit then do Y.  Now some people might enjoy a mouthful of shit, more power to them."  I'm not saying you did that, but when you make statements like.

I find myself wondering why I'm traveling with murdering psychos.
And
I understand that works for some people...

It's not exactly clear that what you meant is that you understand that PvP doesn't mean they travel with murdering psychos.

It's really weird how people can have such extremely different events doing roughly the same thing.  It ends up sounding like this.

One guy: "Every time I've placed my hand in fire, it burns my hand, so if you like that kind of thing..."
Another guy: " I use fire all the time, I hardly ever burn my hand.  It's not that I like getting my hand burnt, it's that it doesn't happen"
It's obvious there's a massive disconnect somewhere in there, but not sure it can be sussed out through written communication.

Quote from: CRKrueger;805945Well, unfortunately, the style of argument goes something like this in true geek passive/aggressive style.  "In X years I've never found anyone who likes Y to be worth playing with because I'd rather have a mouthful of shit then do Y.  Now some people might enjoy a mouthful of shit, more power to them."  I'm not saying you did that, but when you make statements like.

That's reading quite a bit into: "This aspect of play is not my cup of tea."  I've played with people that enjoy PvP style games, never said I wouldn't just that I don't like playing in games where its on the table. I think I went out of my way to say that its not wrong or a sin just not my thing.

Quote from: Nexus;805947That's reading quite a bit into "It's not my cup of tea." It seems a little thin skinned.

Eh, as I said, that style of argument usually predicates itself on the definition of "It", which is never defined, but insinuated.  Look at the thread, "immature", "psychos", "focused on pvp".

The anti-pvp group is saying "PvP makes these events happen."  If you like to experience those events, good for you.

The anti-ban group is saying "PvP does not make these events happen, your players do.  We know this because these events you speak of do not happen in our campaigns."

It's not that we experience the same events differently, it's that we have different events happen.

You don't enjoy PvP.  Most of the time, I don't either, just like I don't enjoy character death, but you either have Roleplaying freedom and don't be assholes...or not.

I'm only okay with character vs. character, not player vs. player. But my games seldom have that sort of conflict.

I guess that is another reason for the difference in perspective. There's always been restrictions and limits on what you could play and what you could be in the games I've participated in. Genre expectations, premise, setting, player or gm preferences, etc. Playing with a group required finding something in those limits that you could enjoy, otherwise you find another group.  So figurative freedom hasn't really been a priority in my gaming. Either I like (or can live with) the restrictions implied or explicit or I don't play. I think I mentioned earlier that I haven't been in any totally open "Go anywhere, do anything" sandbox style games.

I'll give one specific example of a campaign that allowed PvP to maybe show where I'm coming from.

We're playing in a roughly historically accurate Western, circa 1868.  One guy, who is black, wants to play a black ex-union soldier.  No problem, but the GM tells us all before the game starts, that people aren't necessarily going to accept us because we are PCs and that Racial, Religious and Political hatreds are a reality.  We all agree.

Ok, so this game has random chargen and Perks and Flaws, some of which are personality based (I generally loathe these, but rolled with it).  Anyway, I ended up with a Chinese guy who had two flaws Lecherous, and Clingy.  Well, we all were laughing uproariously because we could see what was gonna happen.  Being lecherous, he was going to try and get with whores, and being Clingy, was going to hang around them too much and/or piss them off.  Since he was Chinese, this was most likely going to get him killed.  So, the GM said "You can accurately play the character through to his death, or just roll up another guy."  I decided to roll up another guy just because I wasn't really in a comedic mood.  I'm bringing this up because here we have sexist and racist elements combining, and instead of turning the setting into a farce by pretending what we all knew would really happen doesn't happen, I made up a new character.

That same campaign... One new player, who was kind of a weaselly fuck, we hadn't decided to kick him out yet, but it wasn't looking good, made up a character who later referred to the black guy's character a "dirty nigger" when talking about him to another character while the soldier could hear him.  The soldier called him out on it, and told him to apologize.  The player was actually cool about it staying totally IC and saying something like "I may be a nigger, but I sure ain't dirty, and I'm not taking that from someone who didn't fight for his country."  The jackass player drew, and the soldier gunned him down.  Of course the asshole player asked why none of our characters did anything, and one guy said "He killed plenty of white folk for the North, no reason why he can't kill one for himself now and again."  I said "You just learned an important lesson, don't insult anyone you don't know is slower then you.  Your character can't make good use of that information, but you can with your next character."  He decided not to play again, and we were happy he didn't.

Yeah we could have spent all this time coming up with table rules so that none of that could ever possibly happen, or we just played it out, the asshole left, and the rest of the non assholes never drew on each other.  We argued sure, sometimes heatedly, and once or twice, arguments escalated to the point where 1.) Both sides came to an agreement or 2.) Someone's gonna die.  There was no characters backing down then killing someone in their sleep, or somehow engineering their death.  Just like guys probably did in those days, the characters worked it out, found out where each other's lines were and didn't cross em after that.  When one character died (not from PvP) there was no carrying over of grudges.

I'd rather spend time talking about how to help players immerse and roleplay then talk about various handcuffs placed on their actions.  I truly think a lot of the "facts" that people accept or even what they think as a preference comes from never getting with a certain group that did things differently.

Quote from: CRKrueger;805948You don't enjoy PvP.  Most of the time, I don't either, just like I don't enjoy character death, but you either have Roleplaying freedom and don't be assholes...or not.

I support this message.

Quote from: PrometheanVigilI can't see that working on the large scale. In fact, I KNOW that doesn't work on a large scale. I've had too many players across different games and different environments that, despite being well-meaning and cool about other stuff, will have and have had their PCs showdown impromptu with other PCs because an in-game line got crossed. Didn't have to get violent but it weren't passive in any way shape or form.

Then you know absolutely nothing.
I have been DMing and playing across the decades and for various groups. Some in campaigns spanning a decade. And out of those the PCs have never come to blows over differences unless it was an honour duel and doing subdual. And that was on Oriental Adventures. To date as a DM I have never had a PC kill another PC.

I have though had a PC turned temporarily NPC due to madness kill off another character during the moment. But in that case it was me the DM running the character.

Which is not to say the group is a well oiled mesh of camaraderie. Oft its anything other than. But that is not PvP. That is role playing.

I probably have little new to add, but when has that ever stopped anyone from posting?

In my view,

• PvP as such is toxic; it's player versus player, not character versus character, and that has already ruined any roleplaying advantage it might confer.
• Conflict between player characters often works poorly because the rules generally don't support reasonably equitable combats when one player has gone all out on planning the ambush -- high level characters in D&D usually have too many ways of killing a target before the target can respond. (5e seems to have reduced this tendency, but I haven't played enough or at high enough level to say for sure.) PC vs NPC conflict doesn't usually suffer as much from this, because the GM can rule out the more unfair strategies on both sides.
• Most conflict in real life doesn't involve killing or maiming people you disagree with; there's plenty of room for disagreements to occur without going to violence.
• If the disagreements are really significant enough to lead to violence from the point of view of the characters involved, and all of the players accept where it's going, then I'm mostly OK with it, although I prefer campaigns where that is less likely to occur; usually PvP involves player preferences and not character preferences. I once killed one of my own player characters because that's where the role-playing went.
• The natural game world consequences of being tracked down and hanged or whatever might discourage some disruptive players, but why go that far if you can just make an agreement not to murder each other's characters? View it as a game abstraction if you like; psycho killers don't make it to being player characters.
• Not every unpleasant player is easily spotted or dealt with; I played in a campaign where one player was primarily interested in showing up other players, under the pretense that he was role-playing better, but by coincidence always in a way that conferred advantage on his characters. He was also good at manipulating some of the DMs in the multiverse. Eventually this fragmented the gaming group.
• A lot of the descriptions of dealing with unpleasant players involve the other players killing that character and the unpleasant player either reforming or leaving the game. In my experience, unpleasant players are more likely to be good at tactics and to be minmaxers and so on, and do not try to confront multiple player characters at one time (or even one player character unless it's a sure thing). The other players are more likely to accept disadvantages that actually matter or not to focus solely on abilities that support PvP.

i can not remember when it was the last time i had a new player in my group. pvp and other, less problematic, interactions are different when you game with the same people for a decade and a half.

Quote from: jibbajibba;805909So what motivations do you give your PCs? I mean I have tired to answer the question and give a list of motivations that may result in PCs working with others they do not entirely trust.
How do you rationalise your groups of fully cohesive PCs what is the backstory what is the motivation of the PCs ?

So what motivations do you give your PCs?
My last character was a Human Bodyguard(EotE) who was tasked to guard a Duros Archeologist(PC).  My motivation was to keep him alive.  If he died, I failed.  
I mean I have tired to answer the question and give a list of motivations that may result in PCs working with others they do not entirely trust.
I find them to be thin at best "Ego - you know that anyone one they meet you will be won over by your charisma and charm. They simply wouldn't be able to imagine doing you harm." I see no motivation in that.
How do you rationalize your groups of fully cohesive PCs
I don't.  I start the game after they have become fully cohesive PCs.
what is the backstory
For them to decide more often than not.  I give the past X history(depending on the ages of the PCs).  They then come up with how they became a group of fully cohesive PCs.
what is the motivation of the PCs?
That would depend on setting/game/genre/etc.

Quote from: jibbajibba;805909Remember cliched old cheese is only cliched and old if you have seen it before.

This person hasn't read a book, watched a movie, like, ever?
 

Quote from: jibbajibba;805909The whole of this debates comes down to taste for sure but as I said up post to me it's a bit more than that. Banning PvP restricts player agency. I go out of my way not to restrict player agency to the point where my standard Xp model requires the players to set objectives for their PCs that exist outside of lets raid the castle/rescue the princess/retrieve the McGuffin. Increased player agency leads to deeper roleplay which leads to increased immersion that is why I play rpgs, not to have my guy roll 6d10 damage and kill the giant but too do the roleplay.

I don't agree.

Another typical miscommunication that appears to be plaguing this thread is that several of the posters are assuming that anyone that doesn't agree with them is promoting the extreme alternative. That and there are few personal definitions of what PvP is floating around but its assumed everyone is talking about the same thing.

Quote from: Nexus;806011Another typical miscommunication that appears to be plaguing this thread is that several of the posters are assuming that anyone that doesn't agree with them is promoting the extreme alternative. That and there are few personal definitions of what PvP is floating around but its assumed everyone is talking about the same thing.

Entirely agree. Its like the non-pvp Crowd think that not banning PvP means you are playing a game where the PCs are all gladiators facing each other in the arena.

the reality is that mostly it never comes up. Allowing PvP is just like not imposing rules on how treasure is split.
Kruger has said it a few times in the thread. Not banning PvP doesn't mean that all your players turn into arseholes and PCs start slaughtering each other. In this regard its just like real life.

Quote from: jibbajibba;806019Entirely agree. Its like the non-pvp Crowd think that not banning PvP means you are playing a game where the PCs are all gladiators facing each other in the arena.

the reality is that mostly it never comes up. Allowing PvP is just like not imposing rules on how treasure is split.
Kruger has said it a few times in the thread. Not banning PvP doesn't mean that all your players turn into arseholes and PCs start slaughtering each other. In this regard its just like real life.

The fuck it doesn't.  If I don't Ban PvP Everywhere every motherfucking gamer is at each other's proverbial throats in a nanosecond.  God damn gamers.
My bad, I thought we were doing hyperbole hour.

Quote from: jibbajibba;806019Entirely agree. Its like the non-pvp Crowd think that not banning PvP means you are playing a game where the PCs are all gladiators facing each other in the arena.

Or that if you restrict it you're playing Carebears Adventures meets the Superfriends and the PCs aren't allowed to exchange so much as harsh looks without the nanny gm smacking them on the back of the hand with a ruler.

Edit: To make sure my point is clear. There's been allot of exxagerated claims coming from all sides of the issue.

Quote from: ostap bender;806000i can not remember when it was the last time i had a new player in my group. pvp and other, less problematic, interactions are different when you game with the same people for a decade and a half.

A long term steady group does make things much smoother. I'm more willing to take risks with my long term players and friends, for one thing. I know them, they know me and we've all built up allot of trust and cred with each other so even if things go wrong they don't blow up.

Quote from: Nexus;806037Or that if you restrict it you're playing Carebears Adventures meets the Superfriends and the PCs aren't allowed to exchange so much as harsh looks without the nanny gm smacking them on the back of the hand with a ruler.

Of course no one actually said the Carebears thing, while on the other side we have had everything from "murdering psychos" to the mating call of the terminally hyperbolic, "toxic", if you can believe that.

Quote from: Nexus;806038A long term steady group does make things much smoother. I'm more willing to take risks with my long term players and friends, for one thing. I know them, they know me and we've all built up allot of trust and cred with each other so even if things go wrong they don't blow up.

If I had to play weekly with a random assortment of Juggalos I could scrounge from the game store, or players who act like they're in a WoW battleground, then maybe I'd view things differently.

The idea of a long-term, stable player group of friends who are experienced roleplayers needing a table rule to keep things from descending into KoDT is just so alien to my experience it is mind-boggling.  It's like having my best friend and his wife over for dinner and making sure they agree not to steal the silverware before I let them in the door.  It's just...Bizarro world...literally.

Take your regular group of players and they're Frodo and Sam, remove the ban and it becomes Varys and Littlefinger, or fuck that, from the way you guys make it sound it becomes Gregor and Sandor Clegane or Driz'zt and Entreri.  Really, really, hard to believe.  If you don't have a regular group of players, fine, I'd handle it differently, but at least the behavior you claim actually has a possibility to exist in a random changing group.

Quote from: CRKrueger;806058Of course no one actually said the Carebears thing, while on the other side we have had everything from "murdering psychos" to the mating call of the terminally hyperbolic, "toxic", if you can believe that.

No one actually said "If you don't like PvP You're a worthless piece of shit that isn't worth gaming with." either. Some seemed to feel it was implied. There was certainly enough implied "lack of manliness" or whatever being thrown about early in the thread along with implication that if you don't allow PvP there is no conflict at all allowed and your PCs must all be "True Shining Heroes United"

But yes, you're correct no one said those exact words but they were sure as Hell implied along with a good amount of snark and condescension, that only the only people that banned PvP were those that were "mature" enough to handle it. Not everyone that enjoys it everyone that didn't allow PvP didn't refer to murdering bands of psychos either.

There's been hyperbole thrown around on both sides (Hell, even the idea there are just two sides is an exaggeration). This "my side (or people I mostly agree with) are persecuted innocents being picked on by those mean other guys is crock that doesn't contribute anything constructive just internet tribalism and a poor middle left to die alone and unmentioned.

Quote from: CRKrueger;806058The idea of a long-term, stable player group of friends who are experienced roleplayers needing a table rule to keep things from descending into KoDT is just so alien to my experience it is mind-boggling.  It's like having my best friend and his wife over for dinner and making sure they agree not to steal the silverware before I let them in the door.  It's just...Bizarro world...literally.

Speaking for myself, we have a large group of players. Some of them enjoy PvP type conflicts, others don't. So its best to get the ground rule straight up front.

I don't allow a PvP as it pretty quickly snowballs into something unpleasant even it starts minor. Grudges built up, people get mad or hurt and it doesn't contribute anything to the game that I find worth the trouble.

QuoteTake your regular group of players and they're Frodo and Sam, remove the ban and it becomes Varys and Littlefinger, or fuck that, from the way you guys make it sound it becomes Gregor and Sandor Clegane or Driz'zt and Entreri.  Really, really, hard to believe.  If you don't have a regular group of players, fine, I'd handle it differently, but at least the behavior you claim actually has a possibility to exist in a random changing group.

What the fuck are you talking about? Seriously. I never said that. I said IME, it never ends well and creates ongoing issues over time and that I don't like the tone PvP conflict creates around the table. Being charitable, I'll assume your either mixing what I've said up with other people (maybe from an argument you've had before) or just assuming that because I don't agree with you that I must think some pretty specific things so you can get your rage on.

Quote from: jibbajibba;805820Imagine a Game of Thrones setting without PvP or a Blade Itself setting or a Firefly setting or a Battlestar Galactica Setting or a Breaking Bad Setting or a Godfather Setting.... in fact name a setting based on a popular film, TV show or book that has no risk of PvP and you end up with the Carebears or the Smurfs and even Smurfette started off an an enemy agent working for Gargamel.....

I wouldn't say no one said it. I'll say that Krueger didn't say it though.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;806062I wouldn't say no one said it. I'll say that Krueger didn't say it though.

Well, damn. Someone did say those exact words. But I didn't claim Krueger said it but there has been allot of this kind of thing thrown around here. I apologize if I've contributed it. I have to admit now I don't think there is much of a discussion left though.

Quote from: jibbajibba;805820Again play Amber.

I did, ran a game for a while... 9 months maybe? I think that plays into my point, however, that there are games where PvP is baked in rather than being a possibility.

Heh, haven't thought about that group for a while.... :)

They never really threw down against each other for a couple of reasons, I think. All real world reasons.

Player A was never sure he could take out Player B. And, since he was intimidated by Player B (since he was everything A was not), Player A was waiting for the Sure Win.  He also wanted to get into the pants of Players C or D.

Player C was hot for B (and getting it), so she would start some shit with him (B) from time to time, but only to be mischevous. When Player A got too big for his britches, she would psi-strike him down a peg.

Player D was indifferent to A, liked B (but not that much, certainly not enough to tangle with C), and got along with C.

Player B was a badass, and his self-confidence was sufficient that he didn't have anything to prove. He also knew that the whole group could take him down, but not A alone.

Then there were the characters... Amber was the only game that I have found mentally exhausting to run.

As I think on it;

A - Strength 1st, Endurance ranked
B - Warfare 1st, Endurance ranked
C - Psychic 1st, Warfare ranked
D - Ranked in all (?), advanced pattern, legion of followers in shadow

Quote from: Nexus;806061Seriously. I never said that. I said IME, it never ends well and creates ongoing issues over time and that I don't like the tone PvP conflict creates around the table.

I did say "you guys", so was lumping in the more hyperbolic Kiero, Sommerjon, Rawma et al.  However you did just say...

Quote from: Nexus;806061I don't allow a PvP as it pretty quickly snowballs into something unpleasant even it starts minor. Grudges built up, people get mad or hurt.

"Quickly snowballs" is kind of going from Frodo and Sam to Driz'zt and Entreri, isn't it?  In any case, you're clearly saying if you allow PvP, with your group, it gets out of control, and people don't keep it confined to characters.  You just said that.

I never said carebear or anything, what I did do was ask how do you deal with settings, scenarios, whatever, that as a natural and accepted by-product, may include PvP.  Couple of people like you and Ravenswing have answered, they just don't go there, or just don't instigate what might kick off PvP.  Ok, asked and answered.

I almost feel like Rob, Jibba and myself should PodCast some sessions, because apparently it's in doubt (again maybe not by you) that the mere existence of PvP as a natural option doesn't turn the game into the WWE any more then allowing players to break the law turns them into terrorists. I allow characters to kick puppies and rape nuns too, no one's ever done it.

Anyway Merry Christmas to Serial Killers and CareBears alike!

Quote from: Nexus;806064Well, damn. Someone did say those exact words. But I didn't claim Krueger said it but there has been allot of this kind of thing thrown around here. I apologize if I've contributed it. I have to admit now I don't think there is much of a discussion left though.

Well not quite those exact words :)

I said if you look for a setting where there is no PVP in popular culture you would probably have to look at the carebears :) I was kind of taking the piss though right , you know using hyperbole to make a rhetorical point.

You are right the discussion seems to have played out.

There might be one thing I wonder about if there any correlation between imposing a PvP ban and other RP restrictions, such as no evil PCs.
The restrictions on certain classes and races are not the same at all as they are determined by the setting. If a setting has no elves then you can't plan an elf that isn't a restriction on roleplay that is just a setting feature like you can't play superman in a game of Boot Hill.
I would also be curious to look at Sandbox versus railroad and other types of play.

Quote from: CRKrueger;806070I did say "you guys", so was lumping in the more hyperbolic Kiero, Sommerjon, Rawma et al.  However you did just say...

"Quickly snowballs" is kind of going from Frodo and Sam to Driz'zt and Entreri, isn't it?  

No, its not.

Its certainly not the same as turns instantly (or was it nanoseconds) into Game of Thrones of whatever.  My experience has been that it just builds grudges, OOC vendettas and hard feelings around the table. Even if starts off reasonable or unobtrusive.

That's quite a bit different than claiming it immediately turns things into an arena or the adventures of The Mountain and the Hound.


Also I believe that quote from after your assertion about what I think.  

QuoteIn any case, you're clearly saying if you allow PvP, with your group, it gets out of control, and people don't keep it confined to characters.  You just said that.

Less out of control than it gets personal, really personal at times That is still different from you're claiming I said: that it always is like that for everyone, everywhere. I've never said that. Hell I've heard of it working for others (here for example). It does not work for me or for most of the people in my gaming circle so we avoid it.

That's the sum total of what I feel about it. If other people find it a positive element in their games I have nothing to say about it.

Quote from: Nexus;806061Speaking for myself, we have a large group of players. Some of them enjoy PvP type conflicts, others don't. So its best to get the ground rule straight up front.

Whatever you think of PvP along the spectrum this is something we can all agree is a good thing.

Quote from: Nexus;806061I don't allow a PvP as it pretty quickly snowballs into something unpleasant even it starts minor. Grudges built up, people get mad or hurt and it doesn't contribute anything to the game that I find worth the trouble.

Quote from: Nexus;806074Its certainly not the same as turns instantly (or was it nanoseconds) into Game of Thrones of whatever.  My experience has been that it just builds grudges, OOC vendettas and hard feelings around the table. Even if starts off reasonable or unobtrusive.

...

Less out of control than it gets personal, really personal at times That is still different from you're claiming I said: that it always is like that for everyone, everywhere. I've never said that. Hell I've heard of it working for others (here for example). It does not work for me or for most of the people in my gaming circle so we avoid it.

That's the sum total of what I feel about it. If other people find it a positive element in their games I have nothing to say about it.

This is yet another very clear rebuttal (not like we needed any more, but what the hell) to our teen bravo OP (who eats GMs for breakfast, and gets off on taking down assholes, etc.) that you can navigate a crowd of players, and have done so, without having to GLOCK A BITCH, DAWG.

In my experience direct PvP combat (or PCvPC to be more precise) certainly can cause RL friction, even when seemingly grounded entirely in-character, but it's rarely a big escalation. For me and mine, the experience outside of the PvP activities are made richer for possibility and few occasions of PvP.  These things are true of PvP of the non-combat variety as well.  

And this is where I side with CRKrueger in that it's clear that others navigate PvP without it escalating to mutually assured destruction (or long-standing irritation, to be less hyperbolic), so it's not entirely the PvP switch in the game, it's the people & preferences as well.

Quote from: CRKrueger;806058Of course no one actually said the Carebears thing, while on the other side we have had everything from "murdering psychos" to the mating call of the terminally hyperbolic, "toxic", if you can believe that.

Quote from: CRKrueger;806070I did say "you guys", so was lumping in the more hyperbolic Kiero, Sommerjon, Rawma et al.

I'm surprised that you find my saying "toxic" more hyperbolic than someone's earlier "sin", to the point of describing it as the "mating call of the terminally hyperbolic", which isn't itself at all hyperbolic.

But all I said about something being toxic was:

Quote from: rawma;805996PvP as such is toxic; it's player versus player, not character versus character, and that has already ruined any roleplaying advantage it might confer.

I distinguish PvP from PCvPC here, hence the "as such"; the resulting bad feelings from the former bleed over onto other characters of the same players, or even into conflict between the same players in entirely different games. This OOC conflict ends up ruining the role-playing advantages you might get from the natural conflict between two characters.

(I also later said I was mostly OK with the conflict between characters if the players involved accepted it. When somebody doesn't like it, then it's a bad idea. I do ban evil player characters in games I run, because they generally are not fun; I don't ban PCvPC conflict outright but I do try to defuse it before it ruins the fun for the players who don't like it.)

I have no problem with PvP if it makes sense in the context of the world/genre, and it makes sense for the PC in question.  

I also have no problem with the rest of my players asking me to kick out an asshole from the group. Those two things are sometimes related, sometimes not.

Quote from: RPGPundit;806974I have no problem with PvP if it makes sense in the context of the world/genre, and it makes sense for the PC in question.  

I also have no problem with the rest of my players asking me to kick out an asshole from the group. Those two things are sometimes related, sometimes not.

This.