DMs, if a player challenged another to a duel to the death would you let them do it or would you intervene somehow?

DMs, if a player challenged another to a duel to the death would you let them do it or would you intervene somehow?

Let them play it out

>player
>not player's character

Well I'd start by maybe calling the cops?

But won't that kill the group?

I cannot see the player who loses keeping playing.

Then why would he accept the challenge?

Because both players hate each other and want to sort it out in my game, instead of beating each other outside of it.

Yes I very much would and I have.

So the issue is less about player characters dueling and more about a dysfunctional player group.

Their issues go far deeper than this and you need to do something about it.

why should someone killing someone else's character kill the group

In one campaign I ran 5 out of the 7 PC deaths we had were caused by IC PvP conflicts, the game carried on

Wait, he meant duel among characters? I fought it meant players would fight. Trhe loser can just start playing different character so that's not supposed to be a problem.

>I cannot see the player who loses keeping playing.
I would be very disturbed if he did.

>If player
beat them over the head with a slipper
>If player character
Depends on the game, in my runequest campaign I wouldn't allow it. But in things I have ran in the past I would

Depends on why, really.
I wouldn't mind if the pcs had a strong reason and a base of actions taken to prompt that kind of resolution, along with attempts to mediate it without violence.
I've been in both situations, being the type that if my pc is having an problem with another, and it escalates, they will be called out if the other guy is of the sort. I wouldn't call a clearly inferior warrior or noncombatant to the field because you aren't settling differences with the sword, you are looking to stroke your ego/genitals.
The last time I did this, I challenged a guy I had butted heads with literally since day 1, and circumstances had left my pc with both a chip on his shoulder and a lot to prove to himself, so after a bad argument, he called him out.
The other guy was either as good or better than my guy, and the fight came down to a single exchange of blows to first blood.
Afterwards, we shook hands and were good.

I wouldn't, because that would create a very bad blood between them. Like 'lalala I killed you xD'.

I've let it happen in the past. Mind you all my players are friends and don't take their grudges away from the table.
The one time that was pretty funny came from an instance where the one guy playing more or less a dickass thief covered the saddle of the uppity stick in the mud Cavalier's horse. He slipped off, pulled the "you've insulted my honor, I challenge you to a duel" card, thief accepted it. Granted, it didn't start as a duel to the death, but the Cavalier rolled some insanely high rolls and more or less ruined the thief in 2 rounds of combat.
The other major time I remember it happening that it did cause a little butthurt was when one player found a Chime of the Vampire or some shit, which was a cursed item (I wasn't the DM here) that if you failed a roll to resist it, you were compelled to run and bite the closest person to you. Well that player failed that roll and deemed that his character would go right for the minotaur barbarian he seemed to always have a problem with; mostly cause he always called him a big dumb cow. All the other players told him there were people closer to him, but he insisted he'd go for the minotaur. So he ran at him, rolled to hit, GM gave him a bonus on the roll cause he said the minotaur wouldn't be expecting it, and he did a little bit of damage.
The Minotaur's reaction was to immediately go berserk due to an unexpected attack, and hack into whatever bit him until not even it's mother would recognize it. Nobody attempted to stop it, so that was that. The player who bit the minotaur said he didn't expect him to chop him to bits, and was a little pissed but didn't make that much of a fuss about it. I guess that also wasn't a challenged duel per se, but those are the two experiences I can pick out.

if you play with complete pricks then yes

If it's in character and the players are friends, fucking go for it. I've had my groups do several different inter party conflicts in a friendly sense, that is to say, the characters were opposed moral or politically, so they killed one another. Game and group carried on just fine.

Also had some abberants who attacked other players because lol randum. Those are usually met swiftly from the rest of the party, often killing the aggressor. A good example was a decent sized fight, guy just spent an hour building a character (In a homebrew system in which character creation takes ten to twenty minutes) essentially making a character from league of legends, who used a fuck ton of buffs. Fight starts, he spends the entire time buffing, gets ready to fight literally as the last enemy is killed, and doesn't want to 'let it go to waste' so he hits the player who dealt the last blow on the last enemy. So the party immediately turned on him and killed him. He didn't last long in the group.

Anyways, if the source of the disagreement is bad blood between the players, then the duel is a symptom, not the cause. Them fighting each other won't help the underlying problems, and will only make it worse with the loser feeling cheated and the winner probably rubbing it in the other's face. /the answer there is make them talk to each other like functional adults and sort out the problems, and if that proves impossible, one or both of them may have to leave the group.

Most RPGs are not designed with PVP in mind and it's almost always an unbalanced mess. Turn-based combat is fine when it's the party as a group against a level-appropriate encounter, but 1 on 1 it's just gonna be an unsatisfying mess. Not even getting into class balance or the party's own dynamic, if the people fighting aren't on even fooring power-wise it's even more a dumb idea.

>>roll for initiative
>>Okay, I go first. Quickened Slashing Dispel, Power Word Kill.

Wow what a fun and interactive bout of game play that was.

>Well I'd start by maybe calling the cops?

Snitches get stitches......

If two of your players hate each other that much they shouldn't be in a group in the first place. You shouldn't let bad blood taint your game.

I've had players whom are good friends fight to the death in-character during D&D games. There was never any bad blood, and both found the whole thing to be quite thrilling and a shitload of fun, and look back upon it fondly. If your players are genuinely out to have a good time, they can stab each other in the back in-character over and over and laugh about it later.

No, this is why I keep a pair of functional 1800's Derringer pistols. Their unreliability is a nice chaos element in the duel.

All of my players are both mature and trustworthy friends of mine, so if they had their characters challenge each other to a life and death duel, it would probably be appropriate to the game.

If it weren't, I wouldn't allow it.

>functional 1800's Derringer pistols.

>Not making your players duel with common kitchen items
>Why do you hate fun?