ITT: Overcoming the bad-ass lone-wolf PC archetype

ITT: Overcoming the bad-ass lone-wolf PC archetype
>my character has no family, no friends, no connections, no past
>my character is an unstoppable badass
>my character interacts with no one
>so badass
>believes in nothing
>withdraws from every conversation
>so very badass

I think you're missing the incentive structure that leads to these characters.

In D&D having friends has no upside at all. In other games, social connections often cost considerable amounts of points for what you get. And then DMs find excuses to sideline your NPCs or at least prevent them from solving plot obstacles for you (because it's an "exploit" unlike using other things you spent points on like stats and powers).

OTOH, social liabilities get played up far more often. The DM thinks, "ok, what will make my BBEG that much more horrible? Oh, oh, I know! I'll have it kidnap/threaten/kill a PC's family or dependents! I'll have the ally be bitchy and demanding." IE he'll use the character's backstory to fuck with him.

Worse, DMs often have players RP an encounter, and then use the player's real-life social skill use (the potency of their arguments and their eloquence) instead of the player character's social ability score. Again, you've spent points into a black hole.

So players respond by reducing their target silhouette. No extraneous point expenditures on "fluff" or social powers that they'd get cock blocked from using anyway. No vulnerabilities that a DM can exploit.

It also reduces the PC's investment in his character, if his DM is fond of killing PCs off, and minimizes the amount of RP and backstory creation expected of the player.

Bad ass lone wolf characters are a cliche mostly because players are responding to the incentives the DM gives them.

This user gets it.

Having a family is not an excuse for your DM to have them killed off or used as a weapon against you, and I'm glad my DM doesn't do this.

This kind of DMing doesn't just result in lone wolves, but murderhobos in general. Players start to realize, "anything I value should be something I can carry at all times".

Stop playing with bad DMs.

Bad DMs forge bad players. Not saying every lone wolf is born through the other user's path, of course. There are people who come fresh into the hobby wanting to be pastless killers with no suicidal skills.

But playing with bad DMs even once, especially for your first game, can warp your expectations for future games. Just like a DM that bans certain archetypes because of shitty players, some players will default to a certain style of play to guard against getting dicked by their DM.

This, very much.
Gave my gnome cleric a sister, she owned a bakery, mixed magic and sweets to make fun Harry Potter style candies and pastries, she had to have a hand amputated as a child (part of what made him become a healbot) so she had snap-on baking tools for the metal cap that covered the stump, he'd send her letters about his adventures, she'd send him new experimental sweets.

Fucking DM had her framed for treason against the crown and executed, weeping and terrified, with him in the crowd to see it.
It was only by reason of "i don't want to fuck over the party" that i didn't have him declare a one-man crusade right there.

>he'll use the character's backstory to fuck with him.

>"Come to my room tonight, and we'll all play an adventure rpg together. It'll be fun."
>"Sure, user."
>make an untouchable badass who sits alone in a bar
>so badass
>such adventure we're having.

You two should think really, really hard about the precedent you set by "keeping the DM from fucking with you", in a game where you are supposed to get involved in THINGS THAT ARE HAPPENING

Ah. While looking for a suitable pic for this post, I found this damn Lannister and thought he'd make an excellent illustration of my argument.

As a viewer, is Jaime more or less interesting because he got his good hand chopped off?

see, I like making them with backgrounds that explain these traits.

but I can't do it reasonably without ending up with a whoremonger with drug problems

Things are supposed to happen but they're not necessarily supposed to happen in such a drastic and backstory-ruining way. A lot of this comes from DMs and players not communicating about the tone and the style of the game that they want to be playing. If it's supposed to be dramatic and soul-crushing, then it's okay if a sister or two gets strung up for treason. If the DM promises a more laid-back game and then goes around killing player characters' loved ones off just to give plot hooks, then it's kind of dumb.

I mean, some of the best character moments I've had have involved the character's family or other connections to the world around them. One of the most notable ones was a character's uncle that I had worked on setting up with the DM and the uncle ended up screwing over the party in a business deal because that was what the uncle was prone to do. The dramatic tension when the party caught up with them and my character pleading with them to save the uncle's life is something I don't think I'll ever forget. However, that was discussed and set up in advance. It was in a campaign where all the players and the DM understood what each person wanted from the game.

I personally feel it's somewhat lazy to just kill off connections. It's almost better to introduce other complications to them in ways that will affect the players. Both positively and negatively. For example, the players are looking for a place to set up shop, and one of the character's family is living in the area. Suddenly that character's family needs to move, like a father getting a better job in another city. So, they're able to sell the party the house they live in for cheaper than they would have had to pay for another house. That would create an interesting thread where they are tied to this character's family and could even spend time checking in on them or sending little thank yous when they get extra money or goods from adventuring.

>THINGS THAT ARE HAPPENING
Yeah but it's almost always one thing.
They all get killed off screen with no way for the player to save them.
So no "GO GIT DAT REVENGE AND SHIET"
It gets old after the first time.

>Roleplay as a character in a world where there's essentially a vindictive god threatening to destroy everything you love. No real incentives to having connections.

>"You're SUPPOSED to be a tragic shell of a person who is fueled by loss, user!"

I see the dichotomy. But a good game (ie. almost none that exist) would make real mechanical upsides to having a healthy personal life IN ORDER TO SET UP POTENTIAL DISASTER, this motivating the player, who has real incentives to keep them safe.

>and then goes around killing player characters' loved ones off just to give plot hooks, then it's kind of dumb.
I like your thorough and detailed answer. (Yes, I read it all).

That's a fair assessment. We talk around and around certain points on Veeky Forums when we make "Taht DM" or "That Player" threads, and the most common crime imho is the use of cheap methods to hook players or make things work when players are faffing about.

So...i've got a new game going, and it's not necessarily a fantasy adventure (don't want to say what it is, because player reads this forum). Said player is playing a lone wolf badass....he doesn't want anything. He doesn't talk to the other characters. Suggestions?

You have no family, no friends, no connection to any past? Then how do we know that you are in fact who you claim you are? Your nobility could very-well prove a lie, as could all else you claimed of your person.

GUARDS, SEIZE THIS MAN! Escort him to the dungeon and throw him in a cell until his compatriots can verify his fantastical accounts.

Do what I did. Insert NPCs that will interest the character and the player.

>two sisters at my table
>younger sister playing hobgoblin barbarian (any humanoid was considered normal fare in my campaign, not looked at funny or made complicated)
>doesn't do much outside of combat
>suddenly perks up when a couple of poor, seemingly homeless goblins are around and distraught at the cheap train's food car being shut down (now they don't get any more food)
>takes them under her wing, buys them new clothes, food, and has them as underlings now

tldr: Just throw stuff around until the player actually seems interested in something, then run with it.

For the players that are more mechanically focused, I like using systems that have mechanics where I can reward them with things like free rerolls for good roleplaying. Not every group is suited for that however, as I shy away from using those kind of rules with players that just can't roleplay their way out of a bucket. (e.g. my literally autistic little brother)

One of the rules I've instituted in every game I run now from the beginning is that "Your character needs a motivation to work with the party". If they want to lonewolf it up, then we can set up one on one games instead of ruining everyone else's time.

Another thing to talk to the player and ask him what he wants to get out of playing games with the group. He's got to have a reason that he's there. If he wants to edgelord, then there are ways to please him without him having to be Drizzt Do'Urden who needs no help. I don't know what they are because I'm a bit drunker than I thought I was, but they do exist.

Have you considered that some people just want to play a tactical game?

As in "I'm just here to kill things."

That applies just as well to any traveling adventurer.

This.

My players are big on the roleplaying side of things, so they're constantly networking with NPCs in major cities they come back to frequently.

One example is a shady arms-dealer/conspiracy theorist who also serves as the group's go-to guy for the city's rumor mill. Uncannily accurate every time he gets speculating, and well-connected as far as the city weapons market goes, but he's always send the party out to go knock over rival arms-dealers in the city in exchange for his intel. They fucking love the guy, and the one most die-hard lone wolf badass archetype player eventually broke down and went out for drinks with him.

If they come in with no connections pre-made? Force them to make them.

This is why I always remind my players that they are role playing their characters and often make them resolve dispute with their persuasion\intimidation skills with a d20 against each other, no matter the strength of their argument. It will be there for the party to decide a better course of action but the roll will keep the players egos in check.

Works pretty well with me. Keep the pcs growing and reminds them they can use it with npcs.

No. Competently made and well written PC's should very well have family histories they can attest to, along with coats of arms that would be familiar to a town's mayor if noble.

it's not just that. players dont want the focus on family life. they want to do adventuring and shit. most campaigns are about friendship between party members, not about your god-damn, long lost, asshole brother.

Plus, if other players are big on interaction, see if you can get them to do some heavy lifting for you.
Won't work for all players of lone wolves, obviously, but if their big worry is being dicked over by the DM through NPC ties, maybe getting some ties to other PCs deeper than 'it's my turn to keep watch' will help bring out rp-ness in them.

>heh. p-ness.

>play on his weakness of identity and "name"
I like this. He needs to forge a reputation and a name for himself. He can't do this sitting in the corner.
>insert interesting npcs
I like this too. Others may want to form bonds with him, or become liabilities
>rewards for good rp
Good idea. The game mechanics allow for it too. I'll explore this.
not this guy. he's actually quite into his characters, but i know the type you mean
>players don't care about that
This is actually a good point to remember as GMs. We can get caught up in our epic dramas and plot hooks, but we need to remember the player experience at the table. Keep the adventure coming in.

Thanks for the replies, everyone.

user got it in one. Good show.

Along with the reputation thing, if the group is getting jobs, their reputation should very much effect what's offered. If they're nobodies, they'll either get shit jobs or clients who turn on them to tie up loose ends. Nobody misses the pastless merc.

I wouldn't toss them in jail. At that point, you should talk to the player and sort out the issue instead of punishing them. If they really can't fit in the group, ask them to leave. Don't just make them miserable until they leave themselves.

Forcing people not to do this never works. They have to want it.

I tend to have my PC's family be dead or absent but not in a tragic manner. Parents that died peacefully of old age, childhood wasn't that bad, have some siblings but aren't close to them.

I just hate when players bore everyone else by acting out their home life or phone calls. It may be bad form, but I play for the adventure, not murderhobo style, but certainly not the domestic adventure.

There's always Diablo

>Then how do we know that you are in fact who you claim you are?

unless he is claiming to be something important, who the fuck gives a shit about who he claims to be? No one will care what name a traveler of no importance calls himself.

There aren't any IDs in medieval settings m8. Once you were more than 2 days from your home city no one would ever know who you are.

No, people in the middle ages make use of "surnames" to identify themselves, although not as how we know them. If you lived in Blois and your name is Charles, you are Charles de Blois. While people several towns away might not know you, they'll know where you came from and somebody in their network will probably know that you are lying if you are not really from Blois. Wandering freemen, that is unemployed travelers, vagrants, and all others who are not 'owned' by something are highly suspicious. If a crime is committed and a reputable man of the town/city/village can vouch for you, everybody will automatically assume you are the guilty party and lynch you.

Sounds like you're just trying to fuck this person instead of telling them you aren't okay with their backstory.

There's a reason that being banished was an actually serious punishment. Nobody trusts "a traveler of no importance." Unless you're in a relatively populous city, most people in most places all know each other, and if they don't know you they don't like you.

If a player is strongly drawn to a particular archetype, even if it's very cliche or a little hard to work with, I tend to encourage them and just look for ways to make it more interesting, find the situations that best express their character's badassity and tie that into the game.

For instance if I have a silent badass I'll throw mook NPCs that them, have people try to goad or bully him, so he can smack them down and look cool and then go back to being silent.

Why would you work against your player on something like this?

> and somebody in their network will probably know that you are lying
At no point in this thread it was said that the character was lying. He simply has no family or friends, which isn't particularly strange for a traveler.

>If a crime is committed
IF a crime is committed. That's a reason. Not like the post I quoted, where he said he should arrest him for being a loner, which is ridiculous.

also
you absolutely overestimate how connected villages and towns were in the middle ages.

>Nobody trusts "a traveler of no importance."
in fantasy worlds where adventurers are a thing that exist, they do. That's the whole point of hiring adventurers.

>in fantasy worlds where adventurers are a thing that exist, they do. That's the whole point of hiring adventurers.

Sure, if you're running some high fantasy D&D setting. Not everybody does.

Alternative words for "adventurer"

Mercenary. Sellsword. Bandit. Brigand.

>Sure, if you're running some high fantasy D&D setting. Not everybody does.
I'm just going by the thread m8.

Either way, you're not going to arrest one guy in a band of mercenaries that just arrived in town just because he says he has no family or hometown.

If he came alone the guard might deny him entrance if he looks too suspicious, but anything else is ridiculous.

I do think the arrest guy was being a bit silly, but I do think suspicion is a valid way to deal with 'lone wolf' types, and being a prime target if a scapegoat is ever needed.

Hell, looking at OP pic, Strider is a good example. People in Bree didn't trust him, even though he was a good dude, because he sat alone in shady corners and vanished for extended periods of time.

Play a system that encourages PCs having relationships.

>get XP when you interact with another character (PbtA systems do this between PCs)
>get bonuses to rolls when doing something that an NPC could help with (Fate mechanises this with Aspects)

The second one you could do with GM fiat in any system but that's obviously going to lead to inconsistent results.

Suspicion is very fair. You'll want to let the player know what to expect beforehand, as that might influence their decision to make a lone wolf.

>I do think the arrest guy was being a bit silly, but I do think suspicion is a valid way to deal with 'lone wolf' types

yes that is exactly what I was trying to say. Arresting him is just too out there. And I agree that a suspicious mysterious man should attract suspicion, and to be honest, it sounds like that's what those players want to be (they want to be like strider/drizzt/geralt/etc).

Him being accused of a crime just because he's weird sounds like a fun plot hook assuming the players can play along and help.

Rolled 18 (1d20)

Now hold the message-pidgeon just a moment: no need to be hasty my friend!

I have plenty of aquaintances who can testify of my goodwill.
>hand him over a little pouch, with some thirty gold in there...

I mean, you said you didn't remember where my realm even lies, right? It's pretty far away after all, and I am in exile: it would mean the world to me if I could just spend the night in an inn than an unwelcoming cell. No offense, of course.
>roll for diplomacy

>Trying to corrupt a servant of the King
You dun goofed son

*daughter

I have a player that simultaneously wants to be the Captain America, Hawkeye, and Thor of the group at all times and plays a Ranger.

> Bold Leader
> Edgy Loner
> Battle & Brew hungry warrior who fights for glory.

Wtf man.

It's always players who've been exposed to D&D that have this problem and basically no one else, though. Yet again, the solution is to try playing something that isn't D&D.

first two are batman, plus he's the team thinker.

Not sure what your /actual/ complaint is, because each of those characters are several things. You took characters with multiple aspects, threw out all but one from each character, and then complained, why? Because one of your players had multiple traits?

You're kinda in the wrong here, mad at the player for his character not being one-dimensional.

Edgy loner does have no place in group efforts like party RPGs, though.

That's why I always play a craftsman, scholar or merchant.

Mercenaries weren't arrested on sight though - the tended to spend a lot of money in town and leave soon afterwards. No-one cared.

Not true. Many players in shadowrun don't buy any contacts and play edgy mercenaries. WoD is usually better, due to the emphasis on social interaction, but at least one autist will play an edgy loner. The solution is to play with people who are interested in creating an interesting character, rather than people who just want to kill shit. D&D doesn't create this kind of player, it just attracts them because of all the killing.

This is accurate.

Although if you don't buy any contacts in Shadowrun, you're a fucking moron.

Since shadowrun contacts have been mentioned, what's your experience with them, Veeky Forums? Have you ever played a campaign with contacts who are family members? Has your GM ever killed off one of your contacts during a suitably important story arc? How does one best handled Shadowrunner contacts in terms of their relationship to the PCs in question?

And can you use contacts to trigger story arcs, by having them come to you with a problem, basically using you as a contact like you use them?

D&D trains people very, very badly. It encourages pretty much exclusively bad habits in players and does not refine any actually useful roleplaying skills.

Literally any other game will make people into both better roleplayers and gamers than D&D.

I'm not sure why people use Aragorn as the example of the edgy loner cliche while the edgy loner is actually an almost reverse Aragorn

See? Black hole social skills. Perfect That DM here.

This.
To fix lone wolves, first fix your gming.
If you ever killed a characters family, you deserve lone wolves

>Having an NPC that takes offense to bribery is black hole social skills

Not everyone's a corrupt shit, user.

>all my characters have had living parents/are married and have families
>GM hasn't fucked with them ever

It'll happen one day, right? I'm scared, Veeky Forums. He's waiting for the right moment, I know it.

gnome cleric guy here
Yeah and i kind of wanted his sister to be a character in his life, sending letters back and forth, maybe stop in to visit at some point, or at least something to give him a sense of normalcy and connection to home while sloging through orc lands, not a one time use "NOOOOOOOO!!!!!"
Also she was a fucking baker with minor magic, does that sound like "rebel against the kingdom" to you?

>Said player is playing a lone wolf badass....he doesn't want anything. He doesn't talk to the other characters. Suggestions?

Kick and replace.

You deserve a hell of a lot worse for playing a gnome.

Same reason Conan appears as the archetypal musclebound and stupid barbarian in pop culture.

just roll them with crazy low cha. so they stay quiet to avoid fucking up their social interactions and embarrassing theirself.
to this day, my favorite character i've made was the first one i've made - a low cha fighter who had to let his best friend / bard do all the talking for him.

>tfw you tend to play lone wolves
>no family/friends/connections is silly, you just don't travel with them and might have lost quite a few, so you keep the others mostly at arm's length
>Interact with people, but be bad at small talk, diplomacy and grandstanding. Talk shop, don't flower your language, don't be excessively polite nor disrespectful. Easier to give a kneel and clearly not mean it than stand and be stabbed by guards.
>Don't try to push your weight around using your personality. Give your two cents and back the fuck off.
>Start off distant from the other PCs, then let one find some way to draw you in. Make up a reason to feel comfortable around one if they don't get proactive. Once you're closer to that one start opening up to the others, but keep the primary contact as your best companion.
>Don't be afraid to give your input, but don't give more than that. If they don't like your plans that's fine, but be ready to resort to your solo act backup plan if their group plan backfires.

Why do so many people have trouble with this archetype?

not necessarily. Back when I co-DM'd, I would have comfy-ass side sessions with folks where I'd bring in their family to see how they were doing and shit. It was super nice and nobody died. Lots of folks would actually send letters to their families and ask about their comrades' families. It was really nice. There were some people without family, but it was seldom edgy. More "shit happens" than "you can't understand my darkness."

I'm alright with GM's using family members as bait.

I like stories with conflict and loss. If everything is rosey and your family lives in a dangerproof cage, it sort of detracts from the game imo.

because people suck at life and games.

I just don't see it as a useful tool. Killing family seems less effective than kidnapping family. Depending on where your family lives, they shouldn't actually be in danger. This also heavily depends on your setting, I suppose. Living in a fairly populous city usually means relative safety. If they're living in a shack in the woods, yeah. You might have a problem.

BBEG killing your family is just so blah. It has no real practical use for them. It is just meant to motivate the player with anger, but it does so at the cost of potential RP and such. You're making them a lone wolf by cutting their connections. Showing your power through kidnapping or imprisonment, then trying to turn a PC is probably more reasonable. That can have the same effect while still offering the player a way to reclaim their comfy family time.

>I'm gonna make a bad-ass lone wolf who's parents died when they were small.

"Okay user, so you grew up in an orphanage? Maybe we could have some Blues Brothers-esque shenanigans further down the line?"

>useful roleplaying skills.
kek

you do realize RPGs are just a game right, not a job?

>detracts from the game
How? Nothing detracts from the game more than a characters family being removed from it. The amount of roleplaying opportunities lost far outweighs whatever cheap drama points you might get from it.

>I like stories with conflict and loss.
Not every single character needs to have a tragic backstory for a game to have conflict
it's like people on Veeky Forums can't fathom the idea that there are other types of motivation beyond "avenge/rescue muh loved ones"

>Okay user, so you grew up in an orphanage
nah, he grew up a street urchin on a city that was destroyed by a natural disaster

problem solved
you can't force a player to have connections if he doesn't want to.

I know, I was just suggesting a hip-and-happening pop culture reference to entice them to branch out

>Okay user, so you grew up in an orphanage? Well my bbeg just burned it down! And all the caretakers who were nice to you are dead! Now you're motivated, right?

What a DM would actually do.

>hip-and-happening
granpa go home you're drunk

That's why you only play games run by GMs.

This makes me sad

Fuck off my lawn sonny-jim!

GMs too, not like I haven't had an Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen pulled on me before.

Having any NPC I get attached to marked for death also makes me sad.

Naw lad, I'm sad cause GMs killing off backstory npcs for the drama is apparently common
I mean in situations were it's jarring and done for shock value, instead of both the player and the GM being on board

>my character has commoner NPC family
>became professional murder-hobo because the profit margins on being a farmer suck
>send stipend and letters home regularly about my adventures
>mom worries, dad is happy I have work I enjoy... all in all family is proud
>dm gives me updates occasionally about harvests, new farm animals, who got hitched to who... it's nice

>Not everyone's a corrupt shit, user.
True. But you also had a starving mugger, against whom I had rolled a 20 on my diplomacy check try to shank me and steal my stuff, Kevin. And I even offered him some of my own rations!

If this is how you make every "non-combat" encounter go, I'm going to have to ask you to leave.

>holy fuck

So, how weird is it that my last two characters have family connections that encourage their family to come KILL THEM?

Though old friends and colleagues are left untouched by my GMs, one even had two of them show up are assistants for parts of a campaign.

>My character has commoner NPC family
>Become enamoured with a traveling Bard's tales of adventure
>Despite family's protests, leave to join the Bard and his party
>Make a decent living while doing some good in the world
>Send stipend and letters home regularly about my adventures
>Mom worries, dad is proud I'm making a respectable name for the family, kid brother loves my letters
>DM slaughters my village to introduce the red dragon making a new lair in the nearby mountains

Can I join your group?

This. This, this, a thousand times this. While some people either just aren't confident enough to apply their roleplaying skills to creating a whole "supporting cast" (and some just aren't good at it), most "lone wolves" are doing so in response to the traditions of DM vs Player gameplay handed down from the earliest editions of D&D. If more DMs had gotten the message that "D&D isn't Chainmail; you're not supposed to be making this a competition with the PCs' lives on the line", this behavior would be less common.

I suppose Call of Cthulhu shares some of the blame, too, but in my experience, Killer DMing originated mostly as a D&D thing.

Motherfucker, that's a tiny issue. Most people don't give a shit about that kind of stuff when making characters -- roleplay-able characters.

People make these kinds of PCs because they're edgy, they think they're cool, and they want to be the cool guy.

It's not complicated.

Remember the line from Casablanca "Go arrest the usual suspects" -- in corrupt towns, the "usual suspects" are those men who are easy to pin blame on so that the constable looks like he's doing his job. It's one reason I don't get tattoos or travel to third world countries.

Aykroyd looks like a kid in that pic
>feels old, man

Lots of people here agree with . Did you read the thread or just the first reply?

>lots of people agree with X
>therefore X is correct
Jesus.

as opposed to your own unsubstantiated claims about "most people"?

nice arguing

Yes. A fallacy's a fallacy, user.

Lots of people are fixated on the "lol why don't you have connections?" part, which is only one small aspect.

If we're talking about something that results from personal experiences and other people agree because they have similar personal experiences, maybe there's some truth and you shouldn't disregard everything being discussed in favor of your narrow and uncompromising presumptions. We're not talking about hard science here.

the point being that your own argument has just as little merit.

>We're not talking about hard science here.
No. We're not.
>If we're talking about something that results from personal experiences and other people agree because they have similar personal experiences, maybe there's some truth and you shouldn't disregard everything being discussed in favor of your narrow and uncompromising presumptions
Why do you assume I did?

I read the thread. I disagreed with the comment, and the comments which agreed with the guy I replied to. I'm not the only one, either, as you'd know if you read the thread.

The fact is, those people are talking about one narrow part of the "bad-ass lone wolf Strider stereotype", which often has nothing to do with it.
Or, on the other hand, that my own argument has just as much merit.

Things I have done to a PC's family as a DM
>Had them show up unexpectedly at the guildhouse, on vacation. "Your father wanted to meet all your adventuring friends!"
>Had a PC's father ask what happened to the character's starting sword. "You know, the one my grandfather forged for my father?" On learning the PC had taken to use a greatsword instead of a longsword, he commissioned a greatsword and sent it to him with the note 'If you're going to toss away an heirloom, at least start a new one'
>Had them use their former adventuring contacts to give the PC's fake identities more credibility when they tried to infiltrate a shady mercenary town. "This makes us even on that cask I stole from your father. The beer wasn't even that good."

What I have not done;
>Killed any of them

What I don't plan on doing
>Having the BBEG kill any of them

What I might do
>Have one of the PC's father die of old age in his sleep. The PC is 40+ himself.

Oh boy, you're one of those people who nitpicks a fallacy over every argument you disagree with as an excuse to completely disregard the substance of the argument while ignoring your the fallacies of your own conjectures.
Can you just go if you're not going to contribute anything?

Nice strawman.

:^)

I bet you think GoT is well written.