Have you ever killed another player's character? What was the situation? Do you believe its okay to ever kill another player's character? Why or why not?
It's a team game
CCS wrote:
Have you ever killed another player's character?
Yes. More than once, even.
What was the situation?
One situation was that an evil intelligent magical item asked my character to and promised more power if I did so.
Another situation was the character had discovered my character's secret plans (i was playing both sides of a war for profit) and had to be slienced.
Another situation involved a player portraying his character as extremely antagonistic to mine (on purpose - the guy was actually intent on ruining the whole campaign because he didn't want to play that campaign, and wasn't mature enough to simply sit out and let the rest of us have fun).
Do you believe its okay to ever kill another player's character?
It is very situational, but yes, it is okay at times.
Why or why not?
I believe it is only okay for player vs. player actions (even those that are less than killing, such as a PC thief stealing from other PCs) when the group has come to an agreement that such things are going to be a fun addition to this campaign in particular.
Excluding the time I mention killing another PC because the player was antagonizing mine (he was insisting that my character was his slave, and kept refusing to do anything except sit in my character's wagon and make demands of my character) all of the scenarios in which my character killed the character of another player at the table, the result was a good laugh, introduction of a new character for that player, and the continuation of shared enjoyment - even one session in particular during which the same player had his character killed multiple times (I think it was 4 times, for a total of 5 characters played in as many hours).
As for that time I had my character kill another PC for reasons both in- and out-of-character, I should not have done anything more than tell the disruptive player out-of-character to stop playing - but I was agitated at the time, and not thinking of what should be done to handle the situation, but what would be the most brutally effecient way to get my point across with zero confusion.
Chandraraj wrote:
Never in 4e.
In 3.x my gnome sorcerer accepted a deal with a devil and the party tried to kill him, so he tried to kill them back.
I've seen it happen once I think when a dominated barbarian crit a bloodied wizard with a fully-specced charge, but that doesn't really count...
So to answer properly, no, it's a team game, the characters work together, not against one another.
Have you ever killed another player's character?
Yes, on more than one occasion I have been forced to kill another player's character. However, there was a time where it was done voluntarily.
What was the situation?
The situations in the first instances were either (a) that PC was a direct threat to the party's goals (self-preservation), or (b) they were an OOC D-Bag and I wanted to prove a point/force them to leave the game.
Considering the group remained (other than the player(s) in instance B) I would consider it "totally worth it".
Do you believe its okay to ever kill another player's character?
Yes - self-defense, preservation of the group or in an effort to forcefully educate those PCs who have continued to ignored the OOC pleas for normal, non-sociopathic behaviors are all reasonable explanations for killing another PC.
Why or why not?
Because the number of players in my area are very few and I've worked very hard to preserve the gaming groups that I have (in some cases) built from the ground up via cold calls, advertising and internet groups.
Additionally, I refuse to allow others to bully characters or people and if given the opportunity I would make an example of every one of them.
Three words: Cloak of Incineration..... We had a retarded bard that we dooley named Ar Tard the Retarded Bard, he didnt have an int score high enough to speak. Anyway, we mostly killed him because he was stupid out side of the game and not paying attention to the game or being helpful in any way. Even so, he did all be it accidentally, help us out of a tight spot. He took disguise ranks and managedto successfuly decise our gnome as a goblin and sneak him into one of their above ground fortresses with a pack of goblin wolves that our Druid trained and befriended..... Any way, we killed him because why not? He was really no use after all.
GoddessKairos wrote:
Grammar aside, I at least agree with you here.
"we killed him because why not?" - Some Jerk that deserves to have their PC killed.
I've been in a party where one player killed the other. Later we found out a rogue can't backstab another rogue... but at the time this Half-snake thing (not listed in the books, so not 100% sure how he got it allowed, but he was there... the DM changed the rules so you had to be from a 4E book after this) had managed to get all his daily/encounter bonuses into this singular backstab dealing just over the required HP to get them to -1.
The ending result, the character who attacked the other "robbed" the uncouncious dwarf and left the dungeon. - they've never been in a game with the Dwarf player since, to the point he's had to start DM'ing his own D&D as he can't get into any groups the normal way whilst being at the club.
We've got another person who for some reason has made it his mission to injure all allies at some point. He has managed this, for no reason other to say he has annoyed everyone at some point. He's pink now, I love my pixie hair dye.
and I've tagged my Kender SUPER BEST FRAND accidently, missing them for half their HP, but killing the entire room of zombies. It balanced out, I learned a lesson from that... find nicer AoE's or play more agressively away from the Kender xD
Do I think it's okay to kill a player as a player? Not really. If it's plot related, required, the person's purposely screwing the party for no reason other than to see someone get killed... then you talk it through first. If they continue, the GM steps in. If that fails, the choice is simply removed. One of the characters will have to be killed off or told they aren't playing anymore.
Now... if it's Arena mode or you are playing a respawn mode; that's a different pot altogether. But generally killing a character off means someone's going to be spending 30minutes to a month designing a whole new character to play - I don't find that fun when the character they had meant something truely important to them. I myself, will dread my little Fey's death, it will likely happen though... and when it does, I'll have to try a whole new class - but I can't see myself forcing this on someone else without just cause.
Tsulia wrote:
Zathris wrote:
So why would you have to be a race from a 4e book?
If the "half-snake" thing was one of the yuan-ti versions from 3.5, some of them weren't really suitable for PCs, particularly if they ported it straight into a 4E game...
It was 4th edition. But, the room was well lit and had witnesses; knew the snake guy was around, the only "suprise" was being attacked at all.
and yes, Yuan-Ti does bring back some memories; he had way too many rules for a standard 4E character to be balanced - something I've noticed of most 'special' 3.5 races. Even the sprite is stupidly over powered to the 4th's Pixie.
Would like to know though if you more experienced players have had some amusing or detrimental pvp happenings.
One of my early D&D experiences was playing with a guy who's character worshipped Set. Every time we played he'd kill off all the younger player's characters while they slept or whenever there were no witnesses. I must've lost half a dozen characters to this guy, and I never attacked him first with out of character knowledge he was a player character killer, so I always got killed again. The DM allowed this, and yes, I should have left that group for good, but I was just a kid, and I wanted to play with the adults in the social group I belonged to.
I've never forgotten how rotten that made me feel. You spend the whole week getting excited about playing and some jerk kills you off to get his personal kicks and you end up sitting around watching the rest of the evening 'cause the DM doesn't want to interupt the game to let you bring in a new character. Since then I've always been leery of people who play evil characters. I know many of them just want to blow off steam and run amok harmlessly in a fantasy game, and are great guys and gals. But there are some sickos out there who use the game and other players to act out sick fantasies, and that kind I will never sit at a table with again.
Chandraraj wrote:
I backstabbed/killed a character once, with assistance from another of our team, and the other two just sorta watching him get koed. This happened in an Online 4E game.
For the story, basicly the char that got stabbed was being a jerk, he found 5 +3shortswords in some loot, and 2 people, my rogue included, could use them ... instead of selling the other 3 swords and splitting the gold, he sold them and kept that gold to himself...and i managed to miss that part, and as the party's money tender(after each treasure haul, I'd figure out what the treasure amount we each got was, basicly treasure divided by players) so while the rest of us didn't end up shorted, he got a lot more than expected...
After a tough fight with a flying creature, he, being a monk, used his encounter power to monk fly up to where the monster had come from, and found some loot(our dm used a wishlist system, for things we wanted to find in treasure).. Upon finding serveral items, he kept calling for the ONE bag of holding to be tossed to him... Now normally this wouldn't be an issue...except he was on a ledge hanging out over a ravine that went further on in the darkness below us, and the ledge was about 10 feet above us.. I argued I wasn't going to throw it, cause I couldn't be sure he could catch it, and if not, we'd lose the bag. He asked me to attach it to a crossbow, and shoot it at him. I said that wouldn't work cause I couldn't get a good line of fire(the ledge was on the side we were, so I'd haveta CURVE the bolt to get it to him, or hang out over the ravine, one was impossible, the other extreamly risky) and if I missed, again, lost bag.
His idea then, was to put on all he could, toss what he couldn't(I managed a dex check to catch the two pairs of magic boots he tossed) then flew down(out of combat encounters were ruled to recharge in 5 mins) and then said he wasn't going to hand over anything he put on, since we didn't toss the bag up. Needless to say we were angry, the cleric and swordmage started arguing with him. I got behind him, and stealthily slid out my +3 shortsword when I realized he wasn't going to hand over the other player's gear(we each had a wishlist item or two in the loot) and right when it seemed he was going to run off, I backstabbed him with a daily, doing most of his life total in damage. When he tried to run, both me and the swordmage(who had drawn his sword to threaten the mage) did AoO attacks, and Koed him.
At this point, he ragequit out of Skype, and we looted our gear, then as a group, decided to kick him out of the game, figuring his next character, or even that one, would then try and kill us in our sleep. GM then, after we made our final decition, did tell us that yes, he was going to do just that. So we tied up his character, and I kicked him down the ravine...where he landed with a splish in water, who knows how far down.
And so ends the tale of the only time in a D&D game that I've backstabbed another player.
Edit- He had also stopped giving his character sheet updates to the GM, so all we got offa him was the stuff he had found in that loot pile(our wishlist items.)
As for the question is it ok? Mostly, no it is not. Aside from the rare situations with that character, where he could not seperate IC/OOC at all.(Which is why we knew he'd come try and kill us all with his next character.)
I don't see a point in it. This isn't player versus player.
Have you ever killed another player's character? Yes.
What was the situation? There was an argument between my Wizard (Tamara) and a Fighter (Jenna). Basically we were fighting a small gang of goblins led by a
a Bugbear (which are no joke now in 5e) that popped up as a random encounter between legs of the adventure we were on. Jenna was battling the Bugbear and Tamara, who was previously brough below zero in a single attack from a Bugbear, decided not to take chances and cast Ray of Enfeeblement on it and turned the heavy hitter into a useless flailing fuucktard. After the battle she approached me and rudely stated that she had it under control and demanded that Tamara refrain from interfering in her personal battles in the future. Tamara made it clear that she wasn't going to put the group in jeopardy over Jenna's pride. There was some back and forth, the group consesus was basically that she needed to get over it. Jenna decided to leave the group and, since she was in possession of the map we were using, we'd be left screwed. As she headed for her horse Tamara downed her with a lvl 2 sleep spell and the group relieved her of the map and we set off. Jenna found our campsite since she knew which way we were heading all she had to do was look for a campfire. When Tamara was on watch Jenna snuck up, pointed a bow at her and demanded the map back. A brief firefight ensued, Tamara took an arrow but was able to down her with Scorching Ray and Magic Missle. Tarmara didn't want to murder her but the group agreed to leave her to her fate after what she pulled and she ended up failing 3 rolls.
Do you believe its okay to ever kill another player's character? Ever? Yes, but normally no. This particular player in our group is know for having these having these "botom lines" that he's perfectly willing to disrupt the game for (and of course he's always "just playing his character".) Even still I didn't enjoy killing his character. It pretty much put the final nail in the coffin of that night. I would never kill another players character for any reason short of self defense. Even on the occasion that I've played evil characters that is just one line I prefer not to cross for OOC reasons.
I ran a monster campaign where everyone played evil. I made it clear at the start of the campaign that it should be expected that eventually the players might turn on each other, but that that is not the goal. In other words, they might be evil, but they are also willng to work together towards a common evil goal, for the time being. Eventually two characters got axed, in very memorable and justified ways. The players were perfectly fine with it, since eventually your number comes up. One player literally betrayed another player, and he was overwhelmed with no chance of escape. This was the first time I think that a player ever died in one of my campaigns.
In the games I've run, the rule has always been "When one PC makes aggressive moves against another PC, the target's player decides whether it works or not. If the target's player wants to use dice to decide whether the aggression works or not, then s/he may choose to do so."
PVP can make the game more exciting for players who agree that it adds depth to their characters' dynamic, but it makes the game more frustrating to players who'd expected to be playing a team game. Putting PVP in control of the "victim's" player ensures that it only happens when both players agree that it makes the game more fun.
During an LFR BI, I slammed shut a portal to the Abyss, right in the face of an oncoming demon horde. I rolled a crit ! I was so proud of myself !
And then I realized that two of the other PCs were on the other side of that portal. (The characters played by the two kids at the table, no less.)
The rest of the table watched me visibly deflate as I realized what I had done...
Kill em and use the death for roleplaying the after life. 
I once played a cloak-and-dagger game where the PCs were an evil party that banded together to steal treasure, conquer city-states and fight off other adventuring parties, but also frequently infought. Alliances were made and broken, and small fights occasionally erupted amongst the group, but this is the only game in which I've purposefully killed another member of my party... And I killed three (rogues' stealth versus anyone else's passive perception and a vial of poison, eventually the fighter and wizard made a small alliance and left me to the zealots of the god of the sun.)
I ran a birthright campaign, and one of the PCs with a bloodline was knocked unconscious. There was some urgency, and so another of the PCs encouraged the others to go on ahead while he healed the unconscious PC. He then used that opportunity to kill his character for the bloodline, and then replace him with a doppleganger. Extremely memorable, and the player of the victim did a pretty good job playing the doppleganger version of his old character...