.[edit: Damn, no BBCodes in poll questions...]
Full Version: PC Infighting...
Just out of curiosity, how much infighting is there in your games? This is mostly to the GMs, but I'd like to hear from players too...and while you're at it, if you've got any interesting 'war stories' on the subject, here's the place to post 'em .
[edit: Damn, no BBCodes in poll questions...]
.[edit: Damn, no BBCodes in poll questions...]
Not in a long time, but in the distant past, yes, it tended to be ooc problems coming across
My group's generally pretty cooperative, but there's definite intraparty intrigue. We do quite a bit of note passing, and two people stepping out for private conversations, but no real bloodshed, for the most part. I usually make a point of giving people most of the metaplot stuff seperately, so as to go for the make it clear after the fact effect.
One of my players didn't want to do SR at all (d20 enthusiast that he is) until I told him he could play a bad guy. He is currently under long term contract from a Corp to keep an eye on a couple of the other PCs in the party whose parents died as a result of the corps experiments.
We've only had one instance as I can recall. Someone stabbed their BBB with a pencil and is stuck in the cover. That was kind of funny actually.
When the characters are new and are finding their position in the PC food chain, there has been some minor scrapping, but nothing serious. No fatalities... so far. They're just roleplaying what their characters would do in the situation, so I can't really complain.
There has only been one instance of infighting (that wasn't caused by possession, domination, etc.) in my group. I was playing an Elven mage in Rolemaster, and the other guy was playing a lesser orc scout. A fight didn't actually happen, but it would have if he'd kept wearing his necklace made of fingers after I told him that sort of thing wasn't allowed around me.
There is a big difference between PC infighting and player infighting. One is good and fun roleplaying if done properly; the other is dangerous and should not be tollerated.
Once I had one PC go and try to snipe out another.
Come to think of it, we had a couple of PCs that really didn't like each other for the longest time, until they started trying to kill one another, at which point the players resolved not to run them both in the same campaign.
Ultimately, it's very simple: if you play a serious, character driven game, have all the infighting you like. Devote yourself to the character. If you're playing that sort of game, you should be more than mature enough to not let a fictional game interfere with real life, and the same holds true in the opposite direction.
If, however, you're playing a casual game for fun, this sort of thing has no place in it.
If, however, you're playing a casual game for fun, this sort of thing has no place in it.
Unless you think that PvP games are casual fun, in which case you should avoid a serious, character driven game. 
If it's an explicitly PvP casual game, sure. Not really the default case, however.
It is for Paranoia…
~J
~J
Character infighting can be really amusing if it is played creatively. There was a great run where two characters were like the odd couple (it wasn't planned that way from the start). I was playing a straightlaced wagemage named Sparrow with a dayjob shadowrunning on the side for extra nuyen. My friend was playing a scummy, none too bright, combat adept named Slash with a long rap sheet. We had some great spots without actaully comming into combat. Some of my favorites were:
1) Slash stealing all the funiture out of Sparrow's apartment and arranging a "meet" to pick it back up at the same parking lot and the same time he was arranging to meet a Mr. Johnson for a run he wanted Sparrow one.
2) Paying hookers to ring Sparrow up on his dayjob to get him fired so he would have more spare time for shadowrunning.
3) Sparrow, in revenge for losing his dayjob, sent watchers to follow Slash around and sing "I'm Henery the 8th I am" and "Hey lonestar, I've got an outstanding warrent!"
I think the GM ran out of patience after a while, however... we never seemed to get very far along in the module.
1) Slash stealing all the funiture out of Sparrow's apartment and arranging a "meet" to pick it back up at the same parking lot and the same time he was arranging to meet a Mr. Johnson for a run he wanted Sparrow one.
2) Paying hookers to ring Sparrow up on his dayjob to get him fired so he would have more spare time for shadowrunning.
3) Sparrow, in revenge for losing his dayjob, sent watchers to follow Slash around and sing "I'm Henery the 8th I am" and "Hey lonestar, I've got an outstanding warrent!"
I think the GM ran out of patience after a while, however... we never seemed to get very far along in the module.
Some infighting is okay-after all the players are generally criminals of some sort. when the infighting becomes a "not fun" is when I step in. So far we've never reached that point.
But yeah players in my game have raped, murdered, disfigured, cheated and even killed each other. Its not a regularly occuring thing, but it has happened from time to time.
But yeah players in my game have raped, murdered, disfigured, cheated and even killed each other. Its not a regularly occuring thing, but it has happened from time to time.
We don't have all that much, though what we do have is mostly caused by the one player.
His first character decided to have dolls made of the other shadowrunners in the group, complete with stupid voices. The GM at the time (me) put an end to any schemes he had of mass distrubution, as it probably would have caused most of the group to have to make new characters due to the publicity.
(THen again, all they probably had to do is to sue the company making said dolls, then retire. Again, requiring new characters ...)
His current character is a merc scout. We're in the middle of scouting out a slaughter house (we ran out of time in the last session). Said character decided to go ahead of the group, while my character was making sure that there wasn't anything behind us. I think its partly because he was bored and wanted the GM to deal with what his character was doing.
His first character decided to have dolls made of the other shadowrunners in the group, complete with stupid voices. The GM at the time (me) put an end to any schemes he had of mass distrubution, as it probably would have caused most of the group to have to make new characters due to the publicity.
(THen again, all they probably had to do is to sue the company making said dolls, then retire. Again, requiring new characters ...)
His current character is a merc scout. We're in the middle of scouting out a slaughter house (we ran out of time in the last session). Said character decided to go ahead of the group, while my character was making sure that there wasn't anything behind us. I think its partly because he was bored and wanted the GM to deal with what his character was doing.
| QUOTE (Paul) |
| But yeah players in my game have raped, murdered, disfigured, cheated and even killed each other. Its not a regularly occuring thing, but it has happened from time to time. |
Players???!!!!!
Well in the sense that they used their characters to do this, yeah. 
Heh. I forget sometimes to add a line here and there, neh?
Although that'd make the game a little weird at times.
Heh. I forget sometimes to add a line here and there, neh?Although that'd make the game a little weird at times.
The teams I have been with, for the most part, have worked well together, but kept secrets from each other. Some have shared the loot equally, some haven't. I have never been in a party where members have fragged each other, but a pacifistic shaman once refused to heal my character because he was a deranged killer. In some cases, such as the aforementioned pacifist not wanting to work with a psycho, this intraparty conflict is just good roleplaying. I have never been in a party where infighting got out of hand. I save that for Paranoia games.
Sadly, on my end, any PC infighting is likely part of a larger player infighting issue.
It's constant and I love it. It really adds to the game. They fight all time time at home, shopping, at the bar, doesn't matter.
Except when they're on a job or a meet. Then they're all pro.
Except when they're on a job or a meet. Then they're all pro.
| QUOTE (Paul) |
| But yeah players in my game have raped, murdered, disfigured, cheated and even killed each other. Its not a regularly occuring thing, but it has happened from time to time. |
Have you been playing with the inmates again Paul?
We have PC infighting. Some of our player go the nth degree on their character persona's so when a Yokuza underling is disgraced by another player, he not only remembers it, he starts the revenge/honor clock.
Its the easiest way to get the players characters dead!
| QUOTE (BGMFH) |
| Its the easiest way to get the players characters dead! |
Doing a quick count, I believe that more PCs have died form infighting than from NPCs. Usually over money or honor is what gets them killed.
There was this one time.......
| QUOTE (iPad) |
| There was this one time....... |
... At band camp?
Actually, in my experience most of the time PC Infighting has been good-natured roleplaying that everyone's enjoyed, but in the past we've had some players that weren't getting along that week (a long-time conflict between another player and I who were both running long-time humans with upwards of 15 karma pool apiece blew wide open a little less than a year ago, and quite messily, I'll add). The problem of taking it personally is always present, but I think as long it's kept good-natured and the other player can see you smiling, it can be a very excellent roleplaying device. We had one time when a fight between two PCs seriously affected the outcome of a run we were on, which nearly cost the life of an NPC (as well as dragging Lone Star into the fray).
My vindictive character once tricked a teammate who had pissed him off into drinking a small bottle of rubbing alcohol from his first aid kit. Not nearly enough to be fatal, but enough to make him pretty sick.
| QUOTE (FlakJacket) |
| Have you been playing with the inmates again Paul? |
Ironically they were just playing D&D the other day in the day room. A convicted murderer, a car jacker, a baby raper and a arsonist. They apparently had a little problem dividing treasure, and aparently some PC infighting resulted. As well as a little loud shouting,which is what got my attention.
| QUOTE (Fortune) | ||
... At band camp? |
Well it was by a women, it was from behind
If by camp you mean Elven forest base, then yes.
If we wernt trying to sneak in my character would have probably got medievil on her arse.
It hasn't happened a ton of times, but I am an EVIL GM. I notice whenever the campaign's Paranoia levels get ramped up a notch or the payday just get's a little bit sweeter when there is one less person to split it with something bad usually happens. The best instance I can remember is when I ran one of the runs out of Shadowrun Missions where they had to uncover the Cydonia Mars Landing cover up. They made it as a group all the way to the abandoned Missile Silo without too much hassle. Once the MIB's showed up it became pretty hairy. Only one character had any electronics skill to speak of to get them from room to room. If it wasn't for him they probably all would have died. Out of the 8 runners that entered the site, 2 were dead and one was badly wounded by the time they got out. While they guy that basically got their hoops through the fire was using biotech on his wounded comrade, 2 of the PC's who had been conspiring behind his back decided to make the cut a larger for themselves. They unloaded on the poor sot with burst fire shot guns. He couldn't help but die horribly and then the guy he was working on casts invisibility and runs away fearing his life is gonna end soon as well. At this point the murderers have to try and convince the others of some lame justification of what they did, all the while the MIB backup team was heading their way. The ironic bit is if they had not whacked the extra firepower and scared off the Shaman, they might have made it through the last bit of MIB's. That was pretty damn funny.
| QUOTE (iPad) | ||||
Well it was by a women, it was from behind If by camp you mean Elven forest base, then yes. If we wernt trying to sneak in my character would have probably got medievil on her arse. |
| QUOTE |
| Well it was by a women |
Was your PC a woman as well!?!?!?!?
| QUOTE |
| it was from behind |
oh oh oh!!! were you the man and the other was a woman and she was comming from behind with toys and......
Please. Stop. You aren't funny.
Keep it in your pants, buddy.
Keep it in your pants, buddy.
| QUOTE (U_Fester) | ||||
Was your PC a woman as well!?!?!?!?
oh oh oh!!! were you the man and the other was a woman and she was comming from behind with toys and...... |
No
and
No
Stealth mission, no vibrators :E
Yeah my group just stopped with infighting usually it was whenever I would roleplay. The GM in question was a major jerk who didn't like me so he gave the players who didn't like me permission to go after me in game without a reason. Even though I was actually roleplaying my character they weren't. They went after me and tried to pk me which in turn ended up in a lot of needless pc deaths because they thought because I have never ran a character before that I would be a pushover. Aftwerwards the sessions degraded into three hour sessions of arguing rules that had already been defined but because of the ass of the gm had been broken and unbalanced. I took matters into my own hands and left taking all of the non-agrumentative players with me. That in turn ripped that assholes sessions to pieces as he had no main characters or intelligent players left. Soon the group of jerks disbanded and never gamed again. I on the otherhand am running a group regularly everyday saturday with no ending in sight.
I once, as I was reminded by iPad, made my players cross dress and extract a target from an S&M club. Well actually it was their choice, I just made it the only oen worth doing.
Things were pretty much on the up and up, no ala 13 year old gamer stuff, untl I had a gay ork hitting on one of my players-an elf actually. As I played out the role of the Ork, my buddy freaked out and started whipping him to death with a "toy". Needless to say things degenerated from there. They failed to get their target out.
Now every time I play GTA, I laugh.
Things were pretty much on the up and up, no ala 13 year old gamer stuff, untl I had a gay ork hitting on one of my players-an elf actually. As I played out the role of the Ork, my buddy freaked out and started whipping him to death with a "toy". Needless to say things degenerated from there. They failed to get their target out.
Now every time I play GTA, I laugh.
good gods, but i love this stuff. all of the recent campaigns i have played in have involved infighting to the degree of fatalities. i've planned to kill people, only to have them killed by the gm instead. i've sold people out to enemies, corps, governments, etc. and yes, both the truly ruthless characters involved with these actions were killed. in my opinion it was the gm's way of throwing a bone to the other players who lost their characters. as both campaigns were at their end.
| QUOTE (iPad) |
| Stealth mission, no vibrators :E |
aaaaahhhhhh,
the old stealth mission routine...
Most of the games i've played, the infighting has just roleplaying personaliity conflicts and things like that. There were a few times where minor punches/slaps where traded, and only time was was a character killed due to infighting. However, it didnt bother anyone because that character was going to be retired anyway.
It is just another part of the game. If you screw up bad enough the group might decide to eliminate a liablity.
| QUOTE (Striker) |
| Just out of curiosity, how much infighting is there in your games? This is mostly to the GMs, but I'd like to hear from players too...and while you're at it, if you've got any interesting 'war stories' on the subject, here's the place to post 'em . |
It doesn't happen often, but it does happen. As a GM, so long as the combat's for good, in-character reasons, I don't care.
The most recent example wasn't in Shadowrun, but a Marvel-setting game using d20 Mutants & Masterminds.
My PC had two dependents, two distantly related 11-year old kids (last of my immortal PC's bloodline), who were non-superhuman geniuses. They had great potential...for Good or Evil.
One visiting player was running a mutant PC with, among other things, a telepathic power and a sort of fate-sensing power. My PC's dependents ran up to meet this new PC, this superhero, and shake his hand.
With the touch of the kid's hands, the visiting player's PC learned that one of the kids was destined to make Lex Luthor, Adolf Hitler, and Dr. Doom look like limp-wristed wannabe world dictators. I pointed out that the future wasn't set in stone (my PC being from an alternate timeline) and that kids could be reformed, but the visiting player decided "better safe than sorry," and had his PC rip the heart out of an 11-year old boy.
I was proven correct: the other kid, the one destined to be Mr. Goodie Two Shoes who liberates the world from his Evil Twin Brother, had his destiny changed by watching his brother's heart ripped out. Because of this trauma, he became so twisted, evil and ambitious that he was going to conquer the galaxy.
Naturally, he had to have his heart ripped out, too, for the good of the galaxy.
So, there was some inter-party mayhem at that point that ended with the death of a certain visiting PC. The kids were saved (let's hear it for mutant healing powers), thrown in stasis tubes, and a large search begun for really, really good child psychologists. The rest of the superhero team decided this divisive issue was put behind them with a super mutant pub crawl. The players agreed the whole adventure was a helluva lot of fun with a lot of great roleplaying.
| QUOTE (algcs) |
| It is just another part of the game. |
This is exactly right!
Discounting out-of-game differences, you have a group of diverse personalities banding together for different reasons, each with their own motives and agenda. They work together because they have to, not necessarily because they like each other.
Even in D&D, my groups have always role-played their personality clashes, and if it led to actual conflict, then so be it. Shadowrun is even more disposed to this type of thing, as the emphasis is less on goody-goody-kill-the-evil-ones adventures, and more self-centered in its outlook.
| QUOTE (Paul @ Jan 18 2005, 12:40 AM) |
| I once, as I was reminded by iPad, made my players cross dress and extract a target from an S&M club. |
I wore a bra once as a dare man! You cant proove anything.
Fortune, I knew someone a few years ago who would brag about their group's ADnD campaign and the insane level of self centered trust no one stuff that went on. It just didnt sound like fun (its not Parania ffs) and why the characters ever spent any time together is beyond me. Come to think of it he tried the same in our ED group, he was the only one who did this and found his shinanigans didnt work. He left swifty.
Note that I didn't mention insane levels of anything. I said, in essence, that PC infighting is a part of the game. So is legwork, actual shadowruns, down-time, consequences for actions, and everything else that tends to make a world live and breathe. Hopefully in the right ratios in relation to each other.
We (usually) dont bring OOC fights to the game, but theres lots and lots of IC infighting (voted regular occurance). Doesn´t have to mean anybody gets hurt. At best the infighting is more subtle and aimed at preventing the "enemy" (whomever the PC´s see as their enemies in the group) from reaching his goals.
Also most of the PC´s are rather proud and dont take insults easy (and insult quite freely). This leads to lots of hurt feelings (IC usually not OOC) and coresponding feelings of enmity.
Also most of the PC´s are rather proud and dont take insults easy (and insult quite freely). This leads to lots of hurt feelings (IC usually not OOC) and coresponding feelings of enmity.
enmity
PCs fighting is not a real problem for me. I had a 3rd level initiate Dog shaman who got his head lopped off by the party's physad (monowhip) because he was going to attack the turncoat that split from our group (the GM's old character) and set us up. I felt it was perfectly reasonable due to pack mentality of a dog shaman, but the physad assumed we had to hear him out because we used to run together. So, from behind, as I am about to put the guy to sleep, the physad outinits me and lops off my head.
I can't say I wasn't upset, and I tried to argue my case for my actions, but it was a done deal...
PCs fighting is not a real problem for me. I had a 3rd level initiate Dog shaman who got his head lopped off by the party's physad (monowhip) because he was going to attack the turncoat that split from our group (the GM's old character) and set us up. I felt it was perfectly reasonable due to pack mentality of a dog shaman, but the physad assumed we had to hear him out because we used to run together. So, from behind, as I am about to put the guy to sleep, the physad outinits me and lops off my head.
I can't say I wasn't upset, and I tried to argue my case for my actions, but it was a done deal...
My campaigns dont generally turn into to intraPC rivalries but I've had some funny stuff happen.
One time when on of my PC's was strapped for cash he removed all his cyber and implanted 200 kg (this was a troll) of C12 and containers of White Phosphorous connected to a panic button system and a detonation switch.
One of my other players wanted to spice things up as the walking bomb entered the arcology (this was at the Proteus Arcoblock). He promptly used his AK97 carbine with incendiary rounds to light the other PC up.... He also brought marshmallows... to bad he didn't get to eat them... hehehehehe
Another time there was some serious competition for a hot chick and so one of my characters took C12 and rubbed it into the other guys hair while he was sleeping. The next day the runner was using an electric curling iron for his extra long hair and.....
Oh yeah, and he didn't tell me about what exactly he did until the guy used the iron.b
One time when on of my PC's was strapped for cash he removed all his cyber and implanted 200 kg (this was a troll) of C12 and containers of White Phosphorous connected to a panic button system and a detonation switch.
One of my other players wanted to spice things up as the walking bomb entered the arcology (this was at the Proteus Arcoblock). He promptly used his AK97 carbine with incendiary rounds to light the other PC up.... He also brought marshmallows... to bad he didn't get to eat them... hehehehehe
Another time there was some serious competition for a hot chick and so one of my characters took C12 and rubbed it into the other guys hair while he was sleeping. The next day the runner was using an electric curling iron for his extra long hair and.....
Oh yeah, and he didn't tell me about what exactly he did until the guy used the iron.b
PC in-fighting is okay if everyone has the same expectations. It's not fair if one player goes in expecting the group to be loyal to each other, and another player is playing a backstabber. Betraying other PCs is pretty easy, and cheesy, to do, if they trust you. So it's only cool if everyone is on the same page.
Also, I don't mind PC infighting that is in-character, unless the PC seems to be designed for that purpose. Some players seem to get their kicks from trying to "win" the game at the expense of the other players, and are quick to attack other PCs to get their stuff or prove how tough they are. You know the kind, the one who has the Vindictive Flaw and uses it to excuse attacking other PCs at the slightest provocation, then claims it's "roleplaying".
Also, I don't mind PC infighting that is in-character, unless the PC seems to be designed for that purpose. Some players seem to get their kicks from trying to "win" the game at the expense of the other players, and are quick to attack other PCs to get their stuff or prove how tough they are. You know the kind, the one who has the Vindictive Flaw and uses it to excuse attacking other PCs at the slightest provocation, then claims it's "roleplaying".
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