I recently read a post, in which a GM presented the following problem:
“The worst thing is a player who does nothing but killing, for example:
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Comes into the biggest city and attacks guards, who said something he/she didn’t like
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Starts a fight in a tavern because somebody jostled him.
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Attacks the leader of mercenaries, because he didn’t want to give him a quest.”
Basically, there are three major ways to solve this problem.
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Kill the characters. PCs are not likely to handle all the city guards themselves and, if they are, there should always be someone stronger waiting. Players should be aware that there is someone who is not afraid of them and will kick their asses. This usually works well. However, I don’t recommend this option. An epic archmage accidentally coming by and killing the naughty PCs is just unnatural. Moreover, what we want to do is make our players understand that what they are doing is wrong. When we kill them (or seriously hurt) they may always make new characters and continue on attacking peasants. Lastly, we want players to have fun – if we punish them too often, they they are likely to lose their will to play.
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Talk with the players. Tell them how you see the situation and suggest what they should not do, as it spoils the fun. You can say something like ‘OK, kill someone from time to time if you really want to, but do you have to do it that often’? If you are good friends, this will work. The drawback of this option is that… you decide for them in a way. They don’t do something, because they know you wouldn’t like it. Your talk outside the game, influences the in-game world. Personally, I don’t like such situations.
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Just let them do it. When you think about it, you will see it can make quite an interesting campaign. Destroying villages will make the characters ‘the bad guys’. The ‘heroes’ will be chasing them. Their pictures will be nailed to the city doors. Guards will patrol the roads looking for them. There will be no place for them in the taverns or, if there will, everyone may inform on them. Later on, they may try to make up for the bad things they have done. Or they may not. This way or another, they would understand they did wrong.
This used to be my favorite option.
There are other ways to deal with this problem, such as other members of the team punishing the one player that doesn’t ‘cooperate’. If you are a very skilled GM, you can place a relative of a person they killed on their way, who would tell them what a horrible thing happened to her (women are usually better at crying). The players should feel guilty after such situation.
However, those above are three best and most common options. You know other? Better? Write them in a comment.
By the way, starting a fight in a tavern is a cool thing. Who doesn’t like to fight in a tavern from time to time?
Solution the first is a bad idea. Why? The problem is that the player wants different things out of gaming than the GM (and possibly other players) want. This is an out-of-game problem. Fixing it inside the game will not work or at least not be pretty. So, either adapt your GMing style (solution three) or get the player to adapt theirs (solution two).
If there is a problem, face it. Don’t hide behind passive-aggressive character sniping. It will turn ugly or breed passive players who take little initiative and just wait for the next plot hook to hit them, so that they can swallow it (or maybe dodge it, just to be sure nothing bad will happen). Turtling is not a good player trait.
Good point Tommi. However, a straight talk does not always work. Just like in work - if a conversation with a boss was enough - everyone would perfectly do what they are suppose to.
Sure, communication doesn’t always work. But if the situation is one where it does not, lack of communication is unlikely to make the situation better. It might hide some problems for a while, but that often leads to mediocre or poor gaming. Better to have the problem clear and deal with it in some way. Maybe splitting the player group is the only chance, but usually it is not.
Option 3 can work, but assumes the players see things as you do. Many will feel persecuted if you bring real world consequences into their fantasy. In cases like your city guards, it’s pretty clear cut. But some players are disappointed when they kill the (obviously evil) Vampiric Mayor… and people rightly fear them also.
It’s a tough line to walk; communication as you, Tommi, and point 2 agree, is a good but not guaranteed successful way to deal with it.
In most of the cases stated above, the players should get killed, but they would be facing some problems in the future (unless the PC started killing NPC’s).
Take the guard example. If the PC got pissed at what Guard 1 said, think about what would be the reaction to the other guards
1. Attack the PC and possibly the other PC’s (note: Guards have a lot of reinforcements)
2. Agree with the PC and say the Guard 1 deserved what he got
3. Close the gate, preventing the PC’s access to the city
If the PC killed the guard, he should be charged with murder. The guards will try to take him alive, but accidents happen.
If the players know there will be consequences to their actions, then it will limit some of these outbursts. Also, if you know that some or all of them are just itching for a fight, give them one that will not adversely affect the plot (e.g., before they get to the gates, have a group of NPC attack the guards. If you have players that are itching for a fight, they’d probably help the guards.)
Thanks for the idea, Zelgar. It seems that players going around “killing everybody” may simply want to fight more. Give them the enemies, they should leave NPCs alive.