Question for you, Veeky Forums. Should PCs be allowed to kill each other?

>group is playing a bunch of thieves in Fantasy New York
>one player has a family he's attached to
>another player decides to kill his family as part of some plan
>insists it was for the better, the familial connections were making player 1 weak
>first player has his character murder the second character in a fit of rage
>the group is divided over this, some saying no matter what another PC does, that's no excuse to kill them because the game is for everyone
>others argue that directly fucking up another character's plotline is pretty much killing their purpose?

What do you think, Veeky Forums?

tl/dr is a player character justified in killing another player character, especially if that other one killed his family?

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Sure, but it's more fun to kill their wife and kids.

>another player decides to kill his family as part of some plan
I would not have allowed this in the first place

I like freedom of choice in my games. I would highly recommend not antagonizing their party but if they want to piss each other off or kill each other i wont stop them.

Players can nuke each other to death if they want.
I just create the settings, they fuck them up.

not without very good provocation, but in that case it was entirely justified

Yes, also tell the first half they're retarded for attempting to make such a blanket claim. Petty shit like stealing or pranks may fall under the no reason to kill a PC but doing something as extreme as murder another PCs family is. Also if the game is for everyone then the first PC has no excuse for murdering the family because the game is for everyone and that is something the second PC wanted.

Why should he not be allowed to kill the other PC?

If you are murdering another PC's family, their animal companion or familiar, or stealing from them when they're asleep, you're essentially agreeing to PvP. Those are all forms of aggression against another PC. Trying to hide behind "well it's a game so the social contract requires us to play nice" is basically trolling. That ship has already sailed.

It's like the kid on the playground who picks a fight, then runs and tells the teacher if anyone hits him back.

It has to be below the waist. Why does no one know this?
quints of common sense

The quints have spoken.

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>Should PCs be allowed to kill each other?
Yes
>first player has his character murder the second character in a fit of rage
>the group is divided over this, some saying no matter what another PC does, that's no excuse to kill them because the game is for everyone
He did the right thing with killing the other player.

The quints cannot be denied

He did what any man would have done.
I'd give him any benefits roleplaying can provide.

The quints tells the truth.

Quints.

But actually he's right; allowing players to do things like that is a monumentally bad idea.

If it's okay for one PC to kill another's family during a game, it's okay for PCs to seek revenge on one another. You shouldn't do that unless you know your players well and they're all cool with it and won't take it personally, but if it is allowed then revenge is a logical conclusion, especially if the characters are something other than paragons of heroism. In my regular group, infighting and PvP stuff is super common, but that's because we're all old friends and we think it's super fun to tell the story about how we all wound up killing one another over an expensive looking crate that didn't actually have anything inside it. In other groups that I play in, I stay away from PvP and it isn't generally allowed except in extreme circumstances or when everyone involved is cool with it long beforehand.


Also the first half of players is dumb as shit. The game is for everyone except apparently this one guy who got a brand new backstory and storyline attached to him without anyone asking.

The moment you start fucking up others' characters, they have the right to kill yours.

If you want to enjoy your meta-game diplomatic immunity, do not fuck with other players' characters.
It's that simple.

Yes, but you'd better have a good reason to do so because by killing off other PCs, you're effectively halting the story to deal with this and we only got so much time and so many players.

The most I will do to stop players attacking each other is to ask the player for an in-character reason why they are attacking another PC. If the player doesn't have a reason, then I'll stop it with "your character has no reason to do that, so he doesn't do it".

In the OP's example, killing the PCs family would get me to ask for an in-character reason.

Trying to get revenge is such an obvious motive that I'd allow it without question.

>If you are murdering another PC's family, their animal companion or familiar, or stealing from them when they're asleep, you're essentially agreeing to PvP

My thinking is that protecting a PC from the consequences of his own asshole decisions only encourages more asshole behaviour from PCs.

Having a group who is willing to remove a PC from the party* if said PC becomes a problem is necessary to encourage teamwork from everyone.

*Maybe lethally. Maybe by ditching him in the next town

>me and some friends
>playing Rocket Age
>space mafioso setting
>I am playing the dumb brute martian combat monkey
>dumb as fuck, no useful skills outside of being impervious to anything but weapons designed for ship-to-ship combat and fists that can topple skyscrapers
>fall in love with girl
>everything seems fine for a while
>suddenly planet is attacked, my character rushes to save his beloved first
>"Mastermind" of the group decides she is too much of a liability and distracts my character from doing the bouncing he is supposed to
>orders the two other players to assassinate her
>kill them both without any of them even scoring a hit
>take their car and drive to Godfather's place to pay him a visit too
>the minion system of the game means that even if he sends a billion mafioso NPC minions after me they will never manage to score a hit due to my munchkin retarded brute combat monkey character's build
>reach Godfather's office, cheesy hollywood cliche dialogue, throw him out of the window along with his entire desk
>mfw murdered my entire party and put an end to the campaign because they went after Monique
At least nobody was mad and we just went on to the next campaign.

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First is But if you decide to allow this sort of thing, the PC is justified in attacking the other PC.

This is correct. If a player is allowed to screw another character over so hard, its justifiable.

oh Ben your loved by your fans

I would forbid the killing of the family unless the character's player okayed it. It's just too disruptive. If the family was killed without this sort of "authorization", however, I think there's a very strong argument to be made to allow the killing of the character who did it. Some of it depends on how things played out at the table, and how aggressive and dickish the action was in the meta-context of the campaign, but if I were the player whose family got axed, and it was done very much against my wishes, then I would cold murder that fucker and claim just provocation.

I mean, unless it was understood that it was the sort of campaign where shit like that was okay. (Though in that case, murdering my character's family might not be a "thing" in a meta-sense, but then neither would me murdering the murderer.)

I'd forbid the killing of the family unless that player has an in-character reason for it. One that is consistent with how he has been playing his character so far.

If the player can give me one on the spot, then I'll let him make the attempt. How likely he is to succeed depends on what I throw in his way, which depends on the tone of the campaign.

Succeed or fail, I won't be shielding him from the consequences of his own decisions. Which means that, while I might have thrown in a complication that prevented him from killing another PCs family, I'm not going to stop that PC trying to get revenge.

qpbp

If the player is allowed to do this shit then it's ridiculous and implausble if the other PC can't kill his because MUH PLOT ARMOR, either extend that to prevent players doing autistic shit and pvping each other indirectly, or let them have complete freedom to fight each other. Allowing player 1's actions but not player 2's is frankly taking sides against player 2 and not consistent, logical or impartial.

I straight up ban PvP of any sort, except general mischief. It makes the party dysfunctional which ruins the point of the game, which is a player issue and not a character issue.

If the players work something out ahead of time, then sure. Those sorts of conflicts can be a great source of character growth.

Checked and it's the truth too.

PCs fucking with another PC should be avoided at all costs, because it only brings mean spirits into the group and probably make the GM experience game master burnout.

Nothing from stopping the other player from playing. They just have to roll up a new character, with none of the cool shit their old character had, no links to their old character, or any reason or motivation to attack or otherwise interfere with the character who did the killing. They still get to play, the PC whos family died gets his revenge. Then after that, work out whether the remaining group would be willing in character to work with the murderer, given the reasons behind it. If no, PC retires, they roll a new one, but the player can choose to give the shit from their old character to the new one if they can justify it being in character for them to do (wanting their crew to succeed without them, gesture of good will. etc;). If the group would be willing in character to keep the guy around, then the player can decide whether his character would retire (If his family was what he was stealing for) or carry on, work out his motivations if he stays, sort out any temporary penalties (sending some of their loot to the deceased team meber's family, having to be watched, etc;) and move on.

And make it -clear- that the players new characters cannot, under any circumstances have any reasons to antagonize, attack or otherwise interfere with eachother. No relatives wanting to get payback, no friends, no hired muscle. They got what was coming to them, now they have to accept that they probably lost that battle and move on

tl;dr: Always show preference to the reactive player, not the antagoniser. Eye for an eye doesn't necessarily work in the real world but as far as I'm concerned it's perfectly fair in the game world. Enforce your authority if complaints ensue and be sure to remind everyone that there are a lot more players in the world than their are GMs

Player two is an asshat that deserves to have his character fitted for a set of cement bunny slippers.

You don't get to kill a character's family and then claim immunity from PvP because it's 'disruptive.' Attacking a character's personal connections is already massively disruptive to start with.

Oh god, I think I've got a new fetish:

Women lactating jam like a jam filled donut.

I'm currently playing an evil character in a good party. My plan IS for another player character to kill me at some point. We're all foreign to the campaign setting so i can't exactly murder any of their families but if i did something like that i'd want them to take revenge on me, and in character coat it with a similar justification to
>the familial connections were making player 1 weak
I don't know what i'll do to show just how *evil* i am but when i do, i want the other players to either join me or kill me, and that's where i want to end that character's arc.
I'm a storyteller player, if i think my characters death is good for the story i don't care if i die.

Sure sure, the usual goes without saying. Don't rando pvp, don't push it too far etc. But a bit of drama can make some good role play once if you're good at it.

Checked, least wasted quints of all time unlike

Wish that would happen to me. I'd be so happy.