In our Vampire the Masquerade LARP, which is full CvC, we have a rule that if you take an action that leads to the death of another character you owe the player dinner.
I am currently running a VtM on VTT and CvC is only a matter of time. But every session we have a organic discussion about how much we like playing with eachother and how cool all the characters are.
For her very first one-shot, my wife handed each of the players a note. For most of the players, it was some nonsense to make sure that everyone was reading for the same amount of time. But for one (randomly assigned) player, it informed them that they were secretly working for the villain and would reveal themselves (and turn into a giant bug) during the final battle. It was a blast.
I did something similar in one of my one-shots, the game was about looking for a magic sword so I gave everyone some info about the sword that could help them find it, but I also gave to one the fact that the sword was the cause of great evil. This lead to excelente CvC conflict during the game due to the different agendas of the characters in this persuit.
On the time and place issue, one common rule on pirate ships in the Age of Sail was that all disputes between the crew had to be resolved on shore (usually by blade). This ensured that conflicts between the crew didn't get in the way of anything important or dangerous. A rule like this makes a lot of in-world sense for adventurers, shadowrunners or similar freelance violence-producers.
Sometimes you get the opposite problem. My Paranoia games are never as fun because the characters all work together too well. Instead of backstabbing and betraying each other like proper Alpha Complex citizens.
Prior to a game of Paranoia I prepare a secret envelope for each player. Inside the envelope is a secret society card, a mutant power card, and a piece of paper with their secret society mission. The secret society mission should bring the character into conflict with the mission objective, another character's secret society mission, and/or Alpha Complex protocol. You should provide big incentives to loyal citizens to rat out traitors, such as extra Cold Fun, promotion to a higher clearance, or a big red foam hand with a number one on it that they must wear at all times (yes, I literally have such a prop that is awarded to the #1 troubleshooter). If all else fails, hand out prizes at the end of the mission for the troubleshooter who terminates the most traitors.
Ahh, but do they successfully thwart Friend Computer and/or pull off their Commie Mutant Treason? 'Cause I know *I'd* like to see that happen occasionally.
There are a few ways to fix this. The aforementioned secret society missions work wonders to inspire CvC, especially if you write them well. In Paranoia XP, there are the bonus mandatory duties that intentionally overlap (and can overlap even more if everyone is set to team lead. Remember, if you are team lead and others offer ideas that you use, you are a traitor!). If all else fails, just have an NPC point at one of the characters and shout "It's him! I'd stake my Cold Fun on it! He's the Commie Mutant Traitor who !" It's even better if you just read that word for word.
One of the best rivalries I had was when I played a photojournalist and another player played a live tv journalist, and we both set to disparage the others work, when both of us actually were jealous of the other because ‘they were the real journalist’ It was a great session.
My most spectacular campaign ended with two characters fighting. My players had all failed a (really low) save to avoid turning evil, and two of my players began biding their time until they cleared the throne of Hell from the final boss, then turned to each other and fought one another to the death. Loved every second.
Almost all the best games I have ever played involved some PVP... and almost all the worst games I have ever played involved some PVP. It is one of those horseshoe things. Either a sign a group really gets along well or that they are so dysfunctional it is time for a new one.
Seth you if you make the video you should call it "The Mini-Sub Incident" you could use the Resavore Dogs opening or something and have the Gang help you on it...
Yeah back in D&D 2E my group had a problem player that the DM just refused to deal with to the point where I just started DMing my own group and the entire group minus those two jumped over. He played a Wizard/Transmuted Specialist and once he got to Lv 9 learned the Stoneskin Spell which back then lasted forever until dispelled of chipped away (the spell absorbed and negated up to 10 physical blows that struck you weather a arrow, sword, or pebble didn't matter) He would cast it when awaking in the morning and keep 2 more mimoriesed and would pretty much us it to bully the party into doing whatever he wanted to do. We'd need to hit him 10 times before dealing damage all the while he's blasting us with lightning, magic missiles, and other combat spells we just couldn't beat him. Then 1 player joined and Wizard pulled his crap or her but unfortunately for him, she used to play a Wizard so she knew that spells weakness so when the duel started on her turn she kneels down grabs a hand full of pebbles and throws the whole handful at him......the look on that asshole's face was priceless
Take a handful of rubble, throw it at the player, instant stoneskin removal. Old trick but effective. There's a counter to pretty much any "overpowered" spell. All it takes is a bit of creativity.
Actually there was a "Pages from the Mages" question in the Dragon regarding that very item back in the 2e days. "Will a handful of sand negate Stoneskins" the answer was - No, the "hit" has to have the chance to cause damage. So.....the 'ole "I throw a bunch of pebbles at the 20th level mage" is a no-go. The REAL power of this spell is that it can be cast on OTHER people. Take few days prior to leaving on your adventure and cast it on the WHOLE PARTY. Now you have a group that can really withstand a beating. Or put in on scrolls, and keep everyone topped of. We have house ruled it can only be cast on Self.
I've recently been in a game where I worked with the game master to make a PC that was secretly working for the bad guys and honestly I had a ton of fun with it. One thing I stole from Matt Collville that I really think helped a lot is that when my character's villainy was revealed, I symbolically handed my character sheet over to the game master, basically saying "This isn't my character anymore"... because if you're going to make a character that is likely to turn against the party, you kind of have to accept that there's only one way for their story to end. It's not like the game master is going to suddenly start playing a separate, solo campaign with just your character, after all.
I mean if the player and GM want to continue to develop that villain together and they’ve got the time… why not? Have them just make a new character like they were planning to anyway if they also intend to continuing playing with the larger group… Flexibility is the main appeal of games like this to me. That can include copying ideas outright, but also bending them to suit your individual players wants and needs.
There are a lot of great PbtA games that are perfect for exploring dramatic CvC situations. For example, I just can’t imagine playing Pasion de las Pasiones or Cartel, without ever escalating CvC tension. In games like Urban Shadows or The Veil, there is a lot of potential for a conflict between characters, but if you don’t like this style of game, you can easily play these games as a more traditional ensemble or just simply explore different character arcs in one city. A game addressing tense group dynamics really well is Bite Marks. It’s about playing a pack of werewolves and most of the game procedures and mechanics examine power and belonging dynamics in their relationships - challenging the alpha, dominating others, provoking emotional spills in other characters). You have to build close connections to have access to amazing pack actions, but the systems of the game are always putting those bonds on the line… Outside of the PbtA family of games - Trophy Dark (more modern Gauntlet game) and Mountain Witch (more old school Forge game) are both great games about trust and betrayal between PC’s. And I know, I know - this channel is dedicated specifically to trad games and trad gaming, but I thought “hey, maybe somebody wants to check a different flavor of play and check those more indie solutions to “character conflict” at the table” :) Good content! Keep it up :)
You didn't consider the holodeck solution. Cross between duel and lethal combat. An opportunity for characters to duke it out in some illusionary setting, but using all their powers. Maybe they find a magic altar that allows two (or more) characters' minds to be transported to a dream arena, in which they must fight to the "death."
it sounds doable but a bit hard to pull off in every setting i had an idea involving the clone spell but the big thing seems to be a lot of the time its so resource extensive to justify it that more often then not its not worth it, barring certain exceptions and even then in system it gets hard to do in some game systems more then others.
Re: Mini-sub grenade time Everyone knew what the ending of Titanic was going to be, but still went to watch it in droves. As long as the story is fun I wouldn't mind knowing how it was going to turn out.
I was once playing in a game of D&D that had so many players the DM had to split the people up into Group A and Group B on a biweekly basis for each group. Our characters were enlisted into the army to face off against an incoming undead force as it desolated the countryside. Not too long after the DM split us up into Group A & B, the characters were asked "who wants to take charge of their group". One character, a Chaotic Nautral Sorcerer (we'll call him CN) immediately jumped up. As a player I volunteered to be his 2nd in command, with my Lawful Neutral old man ranger character grumbling about "I didn't want this responsibility, but, I guess I'll take it, for the good of the group". Not too long after this, CN player's work schedule got jumbled up and he couldn't make it to Group B nights, but the DM allowed him to playing during Group A nights when that was the case. Throughout the course of the game, he was only around for about 1/4 of Group B games. Finally, he and the DM agreed to formally switch him over to Group A since CN's player could make *those* nights with consistency. So during our next Group B game, CN begins announcing how he'll "be leaving to go help the other group". My old man gets up and says "NO. You don't get to keep running away. This is *a war* against undead horrors. These people we're leading; none of them are trained soldiers. Heck, some of them are terrified out of their minds right now. Now you *chose* to lead this group, and that means *responsibility* . I don't want their blood on my hands. I'm not going to abandon them, because you wanted me to be your 2nd in command, and I am making DAMN sure to look out for the people YOU put me in charge." I had stood up from the table as I poured my heart out. CN's player asked me "Dood...you good?" I replied "yeah, I'm good, why?" "Oh, I thought you were pissed off or something." "No, no, this is like a natural progression, the whole Lawful/Chaotic moral thing, of duty VS freedom. You good?" "Yeah yeah, I was just worried about you." I continued the scene. "Look...I'm not going to stop you. Just...whoever you decide to help, protect them *the best way you can* . Being a leader is a serious responsibility, and I know it's a lot for someone your age to pick up [CN was a kind of a snark, rebellious teenager]. But these people *need our help* and we have to do what's right by them, *for* them. Just promise me that. promise me you'll out for people." Cn nods, understanding the weight of my old man's inspirational speech. "Okay. I will. I promise." After the game, other players were asking me if I was OK, and honestly? It was the BEST moment I had ever had; it was serious conflict without bloodshed, it made sense for both of our characters...and it gave me a chance to act out what it feels like when a reserved character finally shows some emotion. I told the other players that I was cool, and I thanked CN's player many times for the opportunity.
Had a CoC game where I had sacrificed myself to trap the monster, but the other characters took so much sanity damage killing it they started attacking each other. It ended with a TPK, as our mad Scottish laird was reluctantly shot by his own manservant. It was perfect!
Call of Cthulhu is cool because sanity mechanics add fun modifiers to how you roleplay your characters, but it's not really even character vs character because they're literally insane.
A couple of times I have had CVC between myself and another player, after the conflict I made sure to check in with the other player to make sure everything is ok between us
I had a player rage quit a campaign on the spot after he lost a fight against another player. This was in a tournament setting that everyone agreed to ahead of time and there were no real stakes. Like, he didn't stand to suffer any consequences. Just the feeling of losing a fight to another player was enough to make him go off. Since then I haven't allowed any player vs player in any of my campaigns. I realized even if people believe they are mature enough to handle it they might not actually be able to handle losing to another player when the time comes. I guess it's possible to say that it was a single problem player, and the rest of us could all move past it, but it's tough to open back up the idea of PVP after something like that happened.
Honestly, it sounds like that tournament eliminated a potential problem player. If they can't handle the idea of losing within a friendly setting, where zero stakes are involved then it's unlikely they will be much better at handling a moment of real consequence at the table. Though I can certainly agree that pvp isn't for everyone, I nearly lost my temper at someone once because they kept siding with a cult yet tried to play their character as a good guy trying to talk me down, handing over a relic she needed e.t.c, to the extent I had to clear the air and said "look, you are literally siding with someone who is about to sacrifice me and start a unholy crusade against the galaxy, whether or not she's your character's grandmother really doesn't matter to me. If you continue to oppose me, I'm going to have no choice but to fight you." He continued to do so, so I defeated him and ultimately ended up having to retreat from the BBEG and leaving him behind. That lead to two people being salty, me for even trusting him when all he planned to do was serve the bad guy and talk me down at every turn, and me for grievously wounding their character and removed them as a PC. I've had a couple of other occasions which turned out more fun (one was a character *actually* trying to assassinate and ended up being a Jackie chan styled fist fight in the back of a futuristic ambulance, which actually was hilarious and memorable. The other I was literally playing a evil doppelganger of my character who I quickly made apparent wasn't going to be redeemable at all, basically cutting loose in a hectic and memorable battle which I was ultimately defeated, because I understood what my role was and leant into it whole hog) but it requires a certain maturity and ability to read the room and play a role that I'm not certain many groups can do. As a side note, I wasn't playing D&D. And sorry for the wall, I just kinda got caught up in the memories. XD
@@lordbiscuitthetossable5352 Agreed. If you have a good supply of players, using a PvP tourney to filter out the bad players might actually be a good idea to intentionally do.
@@lordbiscuitthetossable5352 How are you not a "problem player?" I honestly hate that term, and your stories, in my opinion, make you sound like a total dick, not the "mature" person you are trying to describe yourself as.
Even though the title spoils the ending I'd love to hear the betrayal filled war story, especially the reaction of the 2 players that weren't given tempting offers to go turncoat.
My yearly Halloween game revolves around CvC. I took your advice about hidden agendas from a Q&A about 2 years ago so every Halloween is a hidden agenda oneshot made to have strange or combative characters work together and against each other. It's been my players' favorite game I run each year so far and I love making them. This year everyone thought the Serpent Person was the serial killer and went after him even though he was just trying to have a good weekend. The real killer iced everyone after they all got in the getaway car.
The brilliant thing with this is it gives the group a regular outlet for their mischief and mayhem. No one wants to spoil a good betrayal on the regular campaign, they're saving their CvC A-game for Halloween. So if it does happen in the main campaign it's because it was story appropriate, as it should be.
I enjoy the rivalry between characters that involves one character on the verge of defeat, when suddenly, their rival intervenes saying something like, "Nobody kills them but me!" or "Their death will come by my hand alone!" It can set up a future showdown or gradually lead to a greater bond.
CvC seems like it was more common in OD&D/Chainmail. I can imagine with a larger stable of characters per player it would take some of that personal sting out of a potential loss (lethal or otherwise). I stumbled across pretty detailed rules for writing a character’s last will and testament, that included what to do if “the reports of my demise were greatly exaggerated” and an old character formerly declared dead, returns to reclaim what’s rightfully theirs. So two characters controlled by the same person (ostensibly, I mean who ever knows with OD&D) either fight over the inheritance or work it out. And every time the inheritance shifts ownership theirs some NPC lawyer taking a percentage. It’s all delightfully convoluted.
It did happen but not more so than nowadays. At least, not from my experience playing since the mid 80s. Of that, what I'd see the most of is players trying to gack other players then get butthurt if THEIR PC got killed. Saw that alot
In a few campaigns I’ve run, the final boss was played by a former player and it’s been awesome every time. The reaction at the table has always been excitement.
I played in a superhero game a few years at my local store. I convinced a friend to join us, and the game master introduced his character in such a way that my character thought that my friend's character was attacking him (that whole superhero "they meet, they fight, they team up to beat the bad guy" trope). Rather than actually fight, he and I just described a running battle across warehouse rooftops, crashing through skylights and scattering pigeons. There was a lot of movement and back-and-forth, but neither of us landed a blow until at last his Android punched a brick chimney, and the debris from that knocked my costumed Vigilante off of the roof. My friend's character reached out with an extending arm and grabbed my character's leg, saving him from the fall. We turned back to the game master who, after a pause, said "okay, so fight." "Aaah, we just did." I've never seen a GM look disappointed to see players NOT engage in PVP before. 😄
CvC is like BDSM - all parties must be informed, trusting and enthusiastic as well as communicative. When done right it can be amazing but if done wrong, it can end a campaign or even friendships. These are some helpful guidelines.
I think an in-character betrayal built up over multiple sessions can be brilliant. Some great moments can come from being stabbed in the back by someone who *literally* took an arrow for you. But for me as a GM the stipulation is the player has to privately discuss it with me beforehand, so it can't be forced, it can't usually be done easily, and the motivation for doing it must be greater than the general good of the party from that character's perspective.
Great video as always. I've tried a separate, but related, circumstance you might find interesting. We were starting a new campaign. There were 3 players that would be able to attend every session, unless there was some emergency, but there was a 4th player who would only be able to attend intermittently, perhaps less than half the time, and usually without being able to provide any advanced notice. I was going to have a recurring villain in the campaign, so I asked the fourth player if he would be interested in playing the villain. He agreed, and I informed the other players what was up. Then, whenever the 4th player was able to show up, so would the recurring villain. The campaign went well, though we never finished it (I forget why). The villain player would tell me his villainous plans, and I would have his underlings carry out his plans as best they could when he was not present. Then when he did show up his minions would fill him in on what had happened in his absence, and apologize to him for their failures, or brag to him about their successes (only happened once). He would then be in charge of the minions for that session. Since all the player's knew which PCs were friends and which were enemies, everything went smoothly. I've never had a chance to do that again, and I wonder if it would be workable if there was a full time villain PC.
@@NateArnoldVideos The villain player was an experienced GM himself, so he understood that the villain will probably loose, didn't take anything personally, and he played the dastardly villain perfectly. You need to have someone that can separate their own ego from the character's ego.
It's perfectly viable to just have a player play the villain, just as long as they aren't part of the hero group. You could ask a friend on a weekly basis what should the villain do?
I recently took part in a new series channel (Die Inspired) that started out with 80 players and forced them to compete to be a surviving 20% in the first session (four groups of twenty) via a lifeboat situation. It culminated in a split cash prize amongst the campaign survivors. So yeah, there was character fighting and even murder in that setting. I ended up being taken out by the GM for seeking alternative solutions and cooperating with other players to keep more of us alive.
I remember a Paranoia convention tournament where the first thing the GM did was pass out the proper color squirt guns... Lots of CvC and PvP it was a total blast.
One of my favorite moments from GMing was not only CvC but also a fight to the death. The party was split up about halfway through the campaign and the players ended up on different sides of the conflict. Resentment kept building until in the final session of the campaign they went one on one in the middle of a very chaotic scenario and one of them killed the other brutally. Now this only worked because it was the last session, and the resolution to the conflict. Both players knew this was likely to happen and it was great fun.
I find little out of character discussions about the game make roleplaying easier for me since it creates some distance between myself and my character which means i am more likely to have them act like them not like me
I made a oneshot once. It was called "Evilshot" amongst my players, when they played as an evil character. And the last encounter was a free for all fight for the possession of the magical spear. That was really fun for the players to smack each other for a change.
Only time I've considered CvC action was when we were playing Shadowrun and our first big contact meet-up was setup, two players rolled really high on their relevant knowledge and stuff, so we sent them forwards to meet the contact, who was going to be some really powerful member of a crime family. My character along with our fourth party member hung back as cover (within earshot, though). The GM had told us that we had to be ultra-respectful and polite to the crime family on contact. Our two ambassadors proceeded to lie and dissemble and antagonise the contact. My character was about to step in and try to smooth things over when the contact just drew down on the forward two. At this point, I checked in with the GM on their policy on CvC because my character was absolutely ready to take down her supposed team mates (in-story we'd just been thrown together by the person giving us the contact) to prevent going to war with the extremely powerful crime gang. As it happened, the other players were higher in the initiative order and rolled really well on their attacks, killed the contact, thus plunging us into war with the crime family and derailed the entire campaign - but set up a scenario where we were now desperately trying to space our skins from vengeance. So I never did shoot at the other player-characters. Instead there was a blazing row back at the team HQ over what went down.
The last part really hit home. We had a long pathfinder campaign which came to CvC blows at the end. Mine and a friends chatacter had loyalty to different nations and to solve who got an artifact at the end came to my character assassinating the local queen, which resulted in my friends character charging me and decapitating my character. It was an exhilariting end to the campaign as we both knew that something would happen.
What I did, when one of my players said their character would fight the party and then run, I said "Great! If someone is fighting the party, I'll control them. If you really want your character to backstab, then I, as the DM, will manage them from now on, and consult you about their behavior". This character went on to be a reocurring nemesis for the players. I like this rule because it allows for characters to live out their realistic goals, discourages CvC if people want to keep controlling their characters, and doesn't put players into conflict as the DM I'm expected to have characters who fight the party. This approach also facilitates evil characters, as if the character is just there for convienece, once the adventure is over, I can offer to have them turn fully murderous and have the player roll up a new character
As an interesting note, the DIE RPG by Kieron Gillen has a conflict between the players who want to stay in the fantasy world versus the ones who want to escape. In the RPG, it's sort of implied it's supposed to end with the PCs hugging it out, but usually they end up killing each other.
I agree with your approach on this. I did have a campaign ending CvC a couple of years back that was incredibly dramatic. The party defeated an ancient dragon to obtain the powerful item to restore order. The PCs had the choice of turning it over to the deities of good to restore the land or keep it and rule. The archer opted to take it and despite the warnings from the barbarian would not surrender. The barbarian player was not wanting to fight his friend (they were best buds in real life). The archer refused to comply and the barbarian, using a potion of fly, hovered over him declared that he had the high ground! The rest of us sat in silence as they line for line reenacted Ep 3 RotS Kenobi vs Anakin scene. The archer made his move, despite having single digit HP, and the barbarian beat him on initiative. The barbarian rolled, and NEVER have I heard a player so unhappy announce, natural 20. He did piles of damage, one shot the archer-- whose player cheered. The entire table cheered, save for the barbarian who mourned the fall of his friend. Best ending to any campaign, more epic than the dragon fight as it turned out.
Many years ago, I joined a group whoch fell apart due to character vs. character infighting in the first session. This was like thirty years ago, long before Session Zero was a concept. We were playing AD&D 2E, and part of the problem was opposing alignments. Half the group was Good and half the group was Evil. While the NPC Quest Giver was giving us the mission, a fight broke out. In the end, the group split in two, and after the session ended, no one seemed to have time for another. A good Session Zero and house rules could have prevented this chaos, but it was 1992, and we didn't have the tools to make it happen.
I love the idea of "group vs group" conflict. for context theres this incredibly ambitious style of pseudo MMO play talked about in old dnd editions, basically different groups run in the same campaign world, the DM keeps a record of the sessions timeline and each group can directly or indirectly affect each other. stuff like "Group B enters a dungeon to find group A took all the loot. they hire assasins to kill group A. Group A kills the assasins, finds out who sent them and their next session is spent raiding group B's Fortress they constructed with previous wealth." its so interesting and organic to me as a GM.
we once had a good cvc in mechwarrior, and yes, when 2 100T pilots diasgree, titans walk and city burn... and the repairguy (me) curse his lack of paranoïa for not putting killswitch in each cockpit, or directional charges under the armchair for that matter
Oh wow, a new video well before I thought I would get one - what a nice surprise! Thanks Seth. Now to watch while enjoying dinner. Our group handles character vs. character by not allowing it...full stop. This works great for us.
I ended up getting Covid last week. Took 3 years, but it finally caught me. You can hear it a little in my last video where my voice was a bit phlegmy. So being quarantined from my wife on our anniversary weekend I passed the time writing this video. I'm feeling much better, BTW. Finished my antivirals yesterday. Need to test to see if it's all gone, but my last couple were still coming up positive.
@@SSkorkowsky Take it slow and easy regardless. Lost too many people in the last few years already, four dead within my circle and one other with long COVID symptoms that have ruined her life.
@@SSkorkowsky hope you get better Seth and we always let it happen if it was explained first and there was a Valed reason for it.... Example: our casual and arsonist during a game of 3.5 decided to not help my PC Tatsuie (Hobgoblin Samurai) he died along with the amnesiaic Drow he was helping now our GM decided to roll and see if I could be brought back the other two decided to just keep on going now this all came to a head when the other two had become gods by taking all the power of the other pantheons in that world that ment that they controlled all magic, they forgot one thing in the Oriental Adventures Book (which we were using and they agreed to it) all of there "Magic" came from the Base Elements not anything else. They tried to say that they then take away all of the elements I pointed out that then they couldn't be alive either cause they were made completely out of them(at there own request to) and I got to kill both of them in three turns and restore order back to the Universe. I found out later that it had all been the arsonist's idea because he wanted to destroy the game so that he'd get to do whatever he wanted next game the GM made....
I remember a time in our super-villain game, one of our characters undercalculated the yield of cemtex he was using for a distraction, and it lead to the largest terror attack on US soil in the timeline. It led to the point that, even though we were playing villains, everyone else felt like they would not want to work with that character again after this (especially since the character showed no remorse about the miscalculation) and leaving him alive would be a loose end, so we were all talking about bumping the guy off. We were talking for maybe half an hour before we realised we should probably get the character's player into the chat. He was very understanding, and we prepped his next character pretty soon after. A good time was had by all, in the end.
This video came at the perfect time... I was wondering how I could tell my players to ease down a bit on the "negative" interaction among their characters (though sometimes it was more than justified in my opinion). I think this video is gonna help out perfectly, thanks Seth!
The only time I played in a game with a CvC conflict was one where I kinda instigated the fight. The party’s thief had stolen a jewel that a little boy was planning to use to pay us, but my character caught him and demanded he give the jewel back. The fight was brief, and the thief ended up surrendering the jewel before we began the quest. I was still a newbie trying to play a chaotic good elf Ranger at that time, and as far as I’m aware, none of the other players or the DM ever thought I had real beef with the guy playing the thief. This was probably one of those rare CvC moments where the game was hardly affected, but it still might’ve helped to have had these tips at the time
Great video, all though I have an anecdote that in my experience in Call of Cthulhu specifically, I find CvC happens a lot more frequently because losing sanity and bouts of madness can have people do some bad things. Definitely everything you said is true, but in CoC I play it not fast and loose, holding to the golden rules of making sure the two parties are in agreement that it’s ok
I am GMing a table where we have two good, two chaotic and one evil character. We have PvP on at all times, and so far there was only one moment when things got to the point they had to hit each other, and it was pretty smooth from our end because we always have a meta discussion at the end of each session.
I played with a DM that actually encouraged CvC - hands down best game ever. Your "loose cannon" is gana reign in when they know the DM is going laugh when you piss off another PC and get's bodied and has to roll up a new character.
I've been pretty lucky in that this has never been an issue in any of my campaigns. There's only ever been one time that the players have tried to kill each other, and it ended up being a climactic mage duel on the back of a flying dragon. Neither of the characters even died either, the fight ended with the evil druid repeatedly shouting "I can fix this" while desperately clinging to the side of the dragon.
Always great to get new content from you, Seth. I always recommend your RPG philosophy videos to friends and acquaintances whenever we talk about tabletop stuff. (and RPG reviews too, i had fun running a session of Missed Dues to new players recently) Keep up the great work !
For me the most traditional CvC was in one of our Shadowrun campaigns, and it was always the same character on the receiving end. That character had the flaw of hating one megacorporation. The first time he very much surprised us, when we met a random person of that corporation, and he suddenly attacked with the monofilament whip which was built into his cyberarm. After that we prepared... even before that incident, every other character but him also had a non-lethal weapon along. Being able to ask questions after a fight can be very useful, after all. After that incident, everybody also carried one dosage of Laés. (A drug which, depending on how it is applied, wipes several minutes up to a full day of the person exposed to it. ) The hacker learned the forgery skill to properly edit the characters cyberware recording and the mage learned the spell to give people some false memory. So whenever we encountered a situation where the character was about to rush ahead and attack somebody and would thus have gotten us into deep trouble again, he suddenly was hit by a taser or some sleep drug, got the memory wiped and an appropriate replacement created. The first time the player of that character was a bit grumpy, but later he proudly concluded that his character might be the only person in the world with a Laés addition... he just can't remember that. :D
It sometimes amazes me how people will change when playing RPGs. I had a group of real life friends and we had a very long D&D campaigns. One of the best groups I ever had. But for one stint one of the guys thought it would be hilarious to pickpocket the other PCs and steal their stuff. Of course the explanation was “it’s what my character would do.” It really causes some tension until I finally stepped in.
That Cyberpunk campaign ending sounds brilliant. I would love to hear the rest of that tale. Rpg warstories are always some of my personal favorites on this channel. Seth does such a great job of telling them.
I've had great experiences with limited CvC on more social type rolls/interations, such as having my character fully believe the bards lies after a contested deception roll up to casting suggestion to force another character to co-operate/be helpful. That said, it 100% has to be agreed upon in advance, and its best to check in and explain intent immediately prior to resolving the actions.
I had a CvC situation in my Dungeon Crawl Classics game that was pretty fun. One character, before falling to his death, tossed his family heirloom sword to another PC. Later, based on details to long to go into, that dead PC comes back to life and wants his sword back. The other character refuses - which we all found hilarious outside of the game. So I told them they can "take it outside" for non-lethal combat if that's what they want to do. Long story short, homeboy got an ass-whooping rather than his family sword back, but the characters have moved on. All told, it was a positive for the campaign.
The first really big, coherent campaign I ran over fifteen years ago with my friends went in a 'secret' CvC direction, with two of the characters actually scheming evilly while maintaining fake hero credentials. It worked out great; at the end, the good guys figured it out just in time and planned for the betrayal which ended in a dramatic standoff, a brief alliance to fight the greater threat, and a resentful "this isn't over" goodbye as the evil duo fled leaving the good guys in the ruins of their success. It led to a second campaign where they were forced together by circumstances and toward final closure of the wound. But every time I look back I remember how it all went down I am shocked at how we threaded the needle. I was such a green DM and they were such green players there was no carefully articulated plan to make sure no one hurt anyone else's feelings or ruined the game; it just sort of fell nicely together with a few gut calls. The ways it could have gone wrong are manifold; and future DM's who consider CvC elements in their game would do well to listen to advice like Seth's to minimize risk. We can't all be as lucky as I turned out to be!
As always a great video. I remember in my first year of playing with a High School Group (whoa 1986) - where me and another character got into conflict and we ended up killing each other. We still had some resentment towards each other. The GM (wasn't D&D), who was an old had, had us re-role another set of characters - he gave use the concept - we were not only to play the same race - but we would be brothers. So our previous conflict with each other, and any residual resentment from our fight was washed out and turned into typical sibling ribbing. Our conflict turned into playful brothers doing fun arguments and we even became friendly after the game. A good GM is worth their weight in platinum - remember players.
Excellent explanation. My dm put in a blanket "no pvp" rule for our campaign at the get-go because of a bad experience he had as a player. As he told it, session had ended, he'd packed up and left but the rest of the players and dm had stayed. One of the players was A Problem, and decided to get into a fight. After session ended. After a player had left. My dm shows up for the next session and finds out Problem's character outright killed another PC, to which my friend basically said "yo just because I was gone doesn't mean my character would allow that kind of thing." iirc eventually the death got retconned, and Problem turned out to be a shitter irl too.
This is such an important thing to cover and I'm glad someone is doing it. In my current group we have about 3 different CvC things going at once (with my character being the reason for 2 of those..), but we all understand that no player is upset with another. We've been playing for years since college, and we've always done our best to make sure the other player knows its not US that is having conflict it's the characters. For examples. One CvC conflicts is my character (Lucland) with my best friends (Kaseon); the parties goal was to stay in a city for a couple days to quick rest up from a recent major event and then travel to Kaseon's parents for some actual downtime and rest. My character took a job with his former guild (he's a former hired killer for a rouge guild) that requires the whole party that extended our city stay for a couple days for a huge payout but without asking literally anyone else in the party. Obviously that's caused some conflicts with everyone, but Kaseon was the most severely hurt, feels very betrayed and it's going to be a serious thing to cover at a later date post job. My best friend and I are still best friends and we game together almost every day without issue, because we communicate clealry its not him and I. It's Lucland and Kaseon. Second example: another friend who's character (Samira) is in a romantic situationship-thing with Lucland, is constantly getting into spats and arguments with Lucland because to be frank they're both toxic, broken people that are just trying to survive and used to being hurt by literally everyone. We, the 2 players fucking love it, we have fawned over these 2 dip shits and their complications for weeks because they're such a clusterfuck. The characters fight quite a bit, but we still fawn over them as players. The last example: our wizard bladesinger (Vannan) decided to fireball something completely irrelevant and uncessary as we (the entire party) were desperately trying to leave a bad and getting worse situation. The party is very pissed about it, the players thought it was hilarious. I ramble alot, but I like videos like this that address persistent issues in TTRPGs and potential ways to go about handling it. Too many stories end up on CritCrab (love that guy so much) because players couldn't separate game issues from real life.
What I would really enjoy seeing is some kind of campaign diary from the gamemaster point of view. Does not have to be extremely detailed, just the most important bits! From what I've seen you are often using modules for your campaigns and I would be really interested to see how you string them together to one coherent and interesting overarching plot or how you move from one to another so it feels seemless. Would you be up for something like that? I've been really interested in seeing something like that from you for ages! Thanks for all the great content you put out!
So one thing I noticed is when stakes are low and the players have some fuel left after an adventuring day is that if I say something like "We've got only 2 rooms left, but you should be able to squeeze your party of 4 in. The Innkeeper has the two keys in his outstretched arm." it can turn into a mini-brawl of players trying to get the keys and enter the room while trying to keep the other players outside. The players remembered the wizard who took one of the keys and then cast a wall of force as he started up the stairs.
I played a couple games of Warhammer40k Inquisition. My character (Psyker) did not like another PC (Mechanicus). It got to the point where the Psyker was using a demonic book to find the location of pirates. He didn't think that the Mechanicus would tattle on him. He did, (despite the cyborb now being melded into the ship, becoming the ship.). It ended with me blowing up the ship while everyone else either died before the incident or fled the scene. The one person who wasn't there during the session came next week and was shocked when this happened. But the Mecanichus and me kissed and made up with both of us saying that this was the most Imperial thing to happen.
I actually saw a fun CritCrab "Edgelord" video, where the RP Terrorist used that "But that's PVP" as a thing... When he was EXPLICTLY acting against the party.
Seth. I have watched many videos and read articles about player-driven conflicts in TTRPG, but you are the only content creator who got this topic right. I can't agree more on the contents of this video. Good job.
As for the topic, I had a few instances of CvC and quasi-CvC happen over the years. One such instance would be a Tabaxi monk b-slapping the group's warforged artificer for having had the audacity of setting her afire - twice. Each time with a nat-1 on his to-hit roll of his firebolt-cantrip. So she slapped him - once. She developed a bit of ..apprehension toward fire after that though...
Never had to face this problem at my table, but Alien RPG is kind of scary with that baked in theme. Usualy my players characters are more or less all on the same page, but with the Alien agendas (great concept btw), it can go south pretty fast. And since my players never fought each over, sometimes i fear they're not equiped to handle that kind of thing. So far so good, but i always keep my eyes wide open on this. Thanks for the video and your channel, Seth :)
I think the situation and your group are extremely important here. If people are being bullies or blowing up the game for chuckles that's no fun and PCs shouldn't be killing each other over nonsense. However sometimes when characters have their own goals and motivations and everyone is roleplaying to the nines there comes a point where (generally without anyone intending to take it in that direction) those characters objectives are utterly irreconcilable with each other to the point where there simply isn't a peaceful solution anymore and someone has to go. In my experience these moments can end up being some of the most memorable and exciting in roleplaying, not just for the drama but because these are moments when characters are forced to draw a line in the sand that they can't back down from even when confronted by an ally. I've had a couple moments like this at my table and they're some of my group's favorite stories from our campaign. Of course that doesn't mean I'm saying to go out looking to get in CvC conflicts on purpose or that CvC works for everyone, just that it can work in the right context.
Good vid Seth! One thing I'd like to add is that waiting for an appropriate moment to raise a grievance doesn't even have to be meta. I feel in a lot of scenarios it makes sense in character. You just found out something that makes your character really mad at another, however, while fighting the horde of enemies is not the time to start fighting. You can both see that your shared survival could depend on leaving this for now. I think it's perfectly reasonable to have your character grit their teeth and be like "Fine, now's not the time" and even save said character in a "We still need your sorry butt" sort of way but as soon as the dungeon is cleared and the danger subsided, the party's having a well deserved drink in the tavern when you stride over to the offender and be like "Now, what the heck was that about you worm!"
Towards the end of my last campaign, I had one player character that would constantly rib another, and it got to the point where it felt targeted and mean-spirited. My solution was to let it happen, but asked the one player to tone it down since it was making the other player slightly uncomfortable. As a side note, I love how whenever something comes up in my game, you release a video shortly after that covers said topic. Really fun coincidence imo. (To further clarify, I am also going to set a hard rule against this going forward in new campaigns by having the players make characters so that they knew each other for a long time and thus have no reason for unnecessary conflict.)
I've played many campaigns over the years, as a DM and as a player, and I think one of my favorite times as a player was when I was in control of an evil character in a party of mostly good or neutral players. We were brought together under a common goal, and I shown signs of me being not the best person, but they never questioned me or my goals, always assuming if I was truly evil, I would oppose their goals (which involved setting a nation built on classist systems and taking advantage of some races which is obviously bad, and I was a drow, one of the races often abused in the system) I never opposed their goal, but my character's goal was to flip the system and put drow on top, not to eliminate the system altogether. That was my character's main flaw was that selfish goal. We eventually set free many drow, some were capable fighters, and when the time came after we eliminated several high up figures in the class system, my character broke from the party, joined a group of drow who had amassed, and we staged a coup. There was a brief fight between myself and the party, but I retreated with many forces, and I stopped controlling that character. That character became a new primary antagonist in the campaign who the party knew they'd need to deal with before taking the final fight to the capital, otherwise my old character may show up to usurp power for himself. I made a new character who was not evil to then aid the party in taking down my old character. And my new wizard was even the one to prevent the escape of my old character with hold person so our paladin could land the final blow. The players trusted me, and I trusted them. Even though my character left and I made a new one, it became such a good little extra arc in the campaign defeating the drow who were ready to take power for themselves and I'm happy it went how it did. We all had a good time, and even though there was a little CvC, it was only for plot and no one went down or died. Blows were barely even exchanged, but it did work and it went super well. That was probably the only time I've ever seen CvC work in a game I was in, and it was all planned and not taken too far. Part of what made it work was the out of game discussion right as it started and during it.
Had a long running GURPS Call of Cthulhu game come to a bad end because the GM plotted with a player to kill the entire party. Everyone was pissed because we approached the game as a cooperative adventure, not a game of backstabbing and player killing, and necessarily made allowances and were supportive for the woman who made a demon pact several game sessions prior instead of, you know, quickdrawing and feeding her the barrel of a revolver as soon as her 'disadvantages' came to light. So really came out of left field. Considering the GM knew half of the players had emotional issues, I have no idea how he couldn't predict the outcome.
Yes, please make Player/Character clear. It takes the ambiguity out of if I need to call the police after hearing "And I got so frustrated I just killed the player."
As a player who started their DnD career long time ago in a full CvC-campaign and since then ran a lot of CvC and non-CvC events I have to say: CvC is great for a huge roleplaying games (we call them "hall-games" or "room-games" cuz they take place in one but very large location) where each player have their own agenda. This way it's essentially a oneshot free-for-all where you have to not only make enemies but also allies to score your goals. And, since only some of the goals are countered by one another, most of the time one alliance of several players emerges in the end, unraveling their schemes and achieving what they wanted. But even then I almost always hold such events with "if your character dies - you start playing someone affiliated with the deceased to further their goals". Unless it's in the very closing moments of course.
I like how your first example of searching someone's bag was non combat-related, but I think that it would have been good to emphasize that point a bit more. Character vs character conflict can happen even when no attack rolls are being made. A classic example is the social character who rolls against other PCs to try to manipulate their actions (which may be disallowed in some systems, though a lot of tables still allow it anyway with house rules). Or where you've got a thief who rolls against his party members. A great house rule that Matt Colville introduced me to is where the instigating player can make a roll, and the one being rolled against can decide what happens.
I've almost always played with no cvc conflicts. Stories where it's necessary, particularly one shots, can be really fun. But you need a group of players that separate character and player. then avoiding inappropriate moments. Really though, I completely agree with this video.
Geezer here... yes, talk and boot when necessary (none of us want to, we have too). Decades back I missed a climax session. Murder hobo and party backstabber. In character, the personality of the individual could best be summed up A stain. The party ended up all with reasons to want the offender dead, literally self defense for them. Turned his character in to the law and saw to it he was not escaping. Got a trial and everything. Collected a big reward, which was used to provide refreshments and such at the execution. He rage quit. Took us almost a month to chase him off. (Give me a break, we were early teens back then.) Gaming on.
Often my group starts off CvC scenes in session but then shifts to online RP once the stakes have been established. So we can get into the nitty gritty when we have more time.
I try to get the captionings up before a video goes live. Sometimes I'm a little slow and it takes a day or 2, but the last couple years Captioning my vids has been a regular thing I do. I'll even go back on older videos and add it in (finished captioning my old Pax Cthuliana review vid last night). It can be tiring and monotonous because even when I'm following a teleprompter script I regularly go so off script that it still requires manually going through it all. So it's actually better for me to let RUclips auto-caption it, then manually go in and correct the mistakes and add punctuation/capitalizations. It can take a long time. Sometimes I wonder if anyone even notices the Closed Captions, so thank you for letting me know.
If your more light hearted about it, think Robin Hood's duel with Little John or King Arthur vs. Lancelot then player vs player combat can make for a good introduction. But once those introductions are done there all part of the same team.
I got my own character killed off at one point with a very epic backstab on the entire group. It suited my character and i'd spent 6 months plotting and building up to it(with the GM's Knowledge). It worked in the story and made sense for my character. It worked so well that when the rest of the group figured out what was going on they all got up from the table and stood on the far side of the room. It did fail almost as hard as it surprised. My character ended up being blown up and then having a building dropped on them. the rest of the team got away....they still had to flee the city, but that was coming anyway. It was a TON of fun. it's become one of those epic character moments that is a regular story told to anyone who joins our group. I figure I need to wait at least another decade before i even try anything like that again. I still play with all those players, even if they were a bit questioning of my later characters motives for a while, but it didn't last long.
For me, I disallow PvP unless all involved parties consent before the first punch is thrown. I used to play in a campaign run by one of my players, and he let the party just choose to attack one another. One player was given gloves that shock people and used them on other players, who then retaliated. The Sorcerer decided that Chaos Bolt was a good way to retaliate and accidentally hit the Fighter. My Wizard was the only person in that party to have never attacked another party member. They fought each other so often it almost destroyed the whole game and we had to have a big intervention about it.
We had a Dresden files game in which one pc kept selling out the group. He played it well and we had a great time. My pc kept outing him and the rest of the party wrote it off to my hatred of vampires.
Played the "Descent into Avernus" campaign as a lawful evil Tiefling Rogue. He styled himself as a cultured man who was always true to his word, but never revealed his true agenda and made secret moves on the side. As part of the campaign, my character negotiated a deal with an archdevil. The lawful good paladin, who didn't speak infernal, decided from that point forward that my character was up to no good and couldn't be trusted (despite never lying once). So when the party had finished the campaign and was set to leave the Avernus, the paladin pointed his sword at mine and declared that my rogue wasn't coming back without going over his dead body. In reality, the player of the paladin had asked if this was ok over a month prior. It actually made the end of the campaign a lot more interesting than it normally would. An epic duel to determine the fate of 2 characters.
I have solved it with saying that all CvC is done without dice and without using the system. It has to be purely a narrative scene. This weeds out all the "I just want to force my will with my high combat score". Often it completely defuses the situation other times great character drama comes out of it.
Discussion in metagame which come to a consensus can always override table rules. One of the best campaigns I have ever been in was a Morrowind (Elder Scrolls) conversion campaign, and it ended with CvC where my character (the Nerevarine) turned on the others. This made a beautiful ending because it actually kinda fits the lore of Morrowind and ended the campaign in a bittersweet "you can't go home again," moment. CvC is hard to do well, but it can be done well.
Another great video with great advice. I recommended your channel to my brother who just started getting into RPGs and DMing and he's been having a blast. Can't wait for the next video on meta-rules. It's something I don't hear about often enough, and afaik I'm the only DM among my 2 groups of ~12 players who openly talks about meta rules and why PCvPC is banned etc. I had a similar rule banning PCvPC combat after my very first session as a DM ended with one of the two conscious party members drinking a potion of dragon's breath, killing the 2nd PC who was conscious, then murdering the rest of the downed party before taking all the loot for himself. Said player then quit when he realized the players might hold a grudge. I also have exceptions, as years later a different player was drunk and had his PC murder random survivors after the climatic final battle as he "lost trust in [the good guys] since they summoned the big bad[into a mortal form so he could be actually defeated instead of his true form coming into the world]". The rest of the party defended the survivors and it wasn't a fair fight.
I've had situations in both my Down Darker Trails and Cthulhu Dark Ages game that ended in character vs. character conflicts. The Dark Ages happened when the monk went mad and saw all the other investigators as demons, digging a hole to hide in. When the Dane tried to pull him out, the monk began chanting a spell the Dane knew might summon certain little people. He beat on the monk, killing him. The Down Darker Trails one saw one investigator make a citizen's arrest on another, tying him up. The third intervened with a shotgun and, when the first investigator continued to yell at the third, pushing him pretty hard and insulting him, the third blew him away with the shotgun. He was soon after arrested for murder. My own character left our 3.0/3.5 D&D group over a disagreement. I was moving away and my character was obviously going with me out-of-character. He held a piece of party treasure and two other players decided to demand the magic item, though there was no indication of the character leaving - and they had no good reason for asking for it from him. My character was young and had many trust issues, so he handed over the magic item and then left in the middle of the night and the middle of the game session. I had a backup character that soon joined but the other players were NOT happy about that. One reason I haven't played Alien at all is that every single scenario seems to have character betrayal, which rubs me the wrong way. Personally, I prefer when the characters are all comrades and preferably friends.
I'd like Alien a lot better if it weren't built around that trope myself. It's a horror game, leave it to the NPCs and setting to kill the characters. No reason to set the players against one another. The android in the first movie, the corporate weasel in the second, those were NPCs.
@@MaxWriter There are some exceptions for me, but not in the horror genre. Fiasco and Paranoia both have "mess with the other players" built into them, as well as mechanics that give them just enough reason to cooperate that things don't devolve into an immediate bloodbath. And Toon has such low-stakes violence that getting whaled on is part of the fun.
@@richmcgee434 You're correct. I've not played Fiasco but Paranoia is great stuff though I'm not sure how I'd do on the player's side of things. I've never played Toon either, though I wish I had.
For a happy CvC story, we did an evil campaign seeking to bring balance back to the world, slay some demi-gods, etc and we were more or less the four most powerful evil people in the world...with all that comes with that. We slay the final boss, victory is ours, my Lich Necromancer high fives the Warrior of Darkness and takes the sweet paralyzing touch win and throws down with the other two. Fun campaign, I rarely get to have a litter made from the bones of my enemies.
In our Vampire the Masquerade LARP, which is full CvC, we have a rule that if you take an action that leads to the death of another character you owe the player dinner.
"I died but scored some free pizza. 5/5"
That sounds like an awesome rule. GIB ME PIZZA.
If you kill my Malk with 20 personalities, does that mean I eat for free for the rest of the LARPing season?
Cue "those guys" targeting female players.
I am currently running a VtM on VTT and CvC is only a matter of time. But every session we have a organic discussion about how much we like playing with eachother and how cool all the characters are.
For her very first one-shot, my wife handed each of the players a note. For most of the players, it was some nonsense to make sure that everyone was reading for the same amount of time. But for one (randomly assigned) player, it informed them that they were secretly working for the villain and would reveal themselves (and turn into a giant bug) during the final battle. It was a blast.
She did good!
I did something similar in one of my one-shots, the game was about looking for a magic sword so I gave everyone some info about the sword that could help them find it, but I also gave to one the fact that the sword was the cause of great evil. This lead to excelente CvC conflict during the game due to the different agendas of the characters in this persuit.
Faith in D&D players restored.
On the time and place issue, one common rule on pirate ships in the Age of Sail was that all disputes between the crew had to be resolved on shore (usually by blade). This ensured that conflicts between the crew didn't get in the way of anything important or dangerous. A rule like this makes a lot of in-world sense for adventurers, shadowrunners or similar freelance violence-producers.
makes sense I can imagine lost guilds or the like in a setting might have a designated area or similar way of handling things
Sometimes you get the opposite problem. My Paranoia games are never as fun because the characters all work together too well. Instead of backstabbing and betraying each other like proper Alpha Complex citizens.
Its treasonous to state that Paranoia games are never as fun as other games.
Prior to a game of Paranoia I prepare a secret envelope for each player. Inside the envelope is a secret society card, a mutant power card, and a piece of paper with their secret society mission. The secret society mission should bring the character into conflict with the mission objective, another character's secret society mission, and/or Alpha Complex protocol. You should provide big incentives to loyal citizens to rat out traitors, such as extra Cold Fun, promotion to a higher clearance, or a big red foam hand with a number one on it that they must wear at all times (yes, I literally have such a prop that is awarded to the #1 troubleshooter).
If all else fails, hand out prizes at the end of the mission for the troubleshooter who terminates the most traitors.
Ahh, but do they successfully thwart Friend Computer and/or pull off their Commie Mutant Treason?
'Cause I know *I'd* like to see that happen occasionally.
Maybe they should try out call of ctuhullu or werewolf the apocalypse...
There are a few ways to fix this. The aforementioned secret society missions work wonders to inspire CvC, especially if you write them well. In Paranoia XP, there are the bonus mandatory duties that intentionally overlap (and can overlap even more if everyone is set to team lead. Remember, if you are team lead and others offer ideas that you use, you are a traitor!). If all else fails, just have an NPC point at one of the characters and shout "It's him! I'd stake my Cold Fun on it! He's the Commie Mutant Traitor who !" It's even better if you just read that word for word.
One of the best rivalries I had was when I played a photojournalist and another player played a live tv journalist, and we both set to disparage the others work, when both of us actually were jealous of the other because ‘they were the real journalist’
It was a great session.
My most spectacular campaign ended with two characters fighting. My players had all failed a (really low) save to avoid turning evil, and two of my players began biding their time until they cleared the throne of Hell from the final boss, then turned to each other and fought one another to the death. Loved every second.
If everyone is smiling and shaking hands after, sounds awesome. RPG is sport, not life. ❤
Almost all the best games I have ever played involved some PVP... and almost all the worst games I have ever played involved some PVP. It is one of those horseshoe things. Either a sign a group really gets along well or that they are so dysfunctional it is time for a new one.
Seth you if you make the video you should call it "The Mini-Sub Incident" you could use the Resavore Dogs opening or something and have the Gang help you on it...
I want to see this now
@@blazetheplaneswalker you and me both.
This story was talked about in one of his call of Cthulhu reviews I think.
YES! This exactly!
Definitely want to see it
Yeah back in D&D 2E my group had a problem player that the DM just refused to deal with to the point where I just started DMing my own group and the entire group minus those two jumped over. He played a Wizard/Transmuted Specialist and once he got to Lv 9 learned the Stoneskin Spell which back then lasted forever until dispelled of chipped away (the spell absorbed and negated up to 10 physical blows that struck you weather a arrow, sword, or pebble didn't matter) He would cast it when awaking in the morning and keep 2 more mimoriesed and would pretty much us it to bully the party into doing whatever he wanted to do. We'd need to hit him 10 times before dealing damage all the while he's blasting us with lightning, magic missiles, and other combat spells we just couldn't beat him. Then 1 player joined and Wizard pulled his crap or her but unfortunately for him, she used to play a Wizard so she knew that spells weakness so when the duel started on her turn she kneels down grabs a hand full of pebbles and throws the whole handful at him......the look on that asshole's face was priceless
That guy's think they are always smart abusing a special ability or spell only to get curb stomped by somebody who actually knows the rules.
Take a handful of rubble, throw it at the player, instant stoneskin removal. Old trick but effective.
There's a counter to pretty much any "overpowered" spell. All it takes is a bit of creativity.
Should have laid him out like the Private Pyle beating scene from Full Metal Jacket
Actually there was a "Pages from the Mages" question in the Dragon regarding that very item back in the 2e days. "Will a handful of sand negate Stoneskins" the answer was - No, the "hit" has to have the chance to cause damage. So.....the 'ole "I throw a bunch of pebbles at the 20th level mage" is a no-go.
The REAL power of this spell is that it can be cast on OTHER people. Take few days prior to leaving on your adventure and cast it on the WHOLE PARTY. Now you have a group that can really withstand a beating. Or put in on scrolls, and keep everyone topped of. We have house ruled it can only be cast on Self.
@@vernonator63 Sand will not, pebbles can actually cause damage if thrown with enough strength.
I've recently been in a game where I worked with the game master to make a PC that was secretly working for the bad guys and honestly I had a ton of fun with it. One thing I stole from Matt Collville that I really think helped a lot is that when my character's villainy was revealed, I symbolically handed my character sheet over to the game master, basically saying "This isn't my character anymore"... because if you're going to make a character that is likely to turn against the party, you kind of have to accept that there's only one way for their story to end. It's not like the game master is going to suddenly start playing a separate, solo campaign with just your character, after all.
That was probably the wisest move
I mean if the player and GM want to continue to develop that villain together and they’ve got the time… why not?
Have them just make a new character like they were planning to anyway if they also intend to continuing playing with the larger group… Flexibility is the main appeal of games like this to me. That can include copying ideas outright, but also bending them to suit your individual players wants and needs.
There are a lot of great PbtA games that are perfect for exploring dramatic CvC situations. For example, I just can’t imagine playing Pasion de las Pasiones or Cartel, without ever escalating CvC tension.
In games like Urban Shadows or The Veil, there is a lot of potential for a conflict between characters, but if you don’t like this style of game, you can easily play these games as a more traditional ensemble or just simply explore different character arcs in one city.
A game addressing tense group dynamics really well is Bite Marks. It’s about playing a pack of werewolves and most of the game procedures and mechanics examine power and belonging dynamics in their relationships - challenging the alpha, dominating others, provoking emotional spills in other characters). You have to build close connections to have access to amazing pack actions, but the systems of the game are always putting those bonds on the line…
Outside of the PbtA family of games - Trophy Dark (more modern Gauntlet game) and Mountain Witch (more old school Forge game) are both great games about trust and betrayal between PC’s.
And I know, I know - this channel is dedicated specifically to trad games and trad gaming, but I thought “hey, maybe somebody wants to check a different flavor of play and check those more indie solutions to “character conflict” at the table” :)
Good content! Keep it up :)
Title for the War Story, "Scuffle in a Submersible" doesn't give it away too much and alliteration even if you're cheating a bit is always nice
You didn't consider the holodeck solution. Cross between duel and lethal combat. An opportunity for characters to duke it out in some illusionary setting, but using all their powers. Maybe they find a magic altar that allows two (or more) characters' minds to be transported to a dream arena, in which they must fight to the "death."
it sounds doable but a bit hard to pull off in every setting i had an idea involving the clone spell but the big thing seems to be a lot of the time its so resource extensive to justify it that more often then not its not worth it, barring certain exceptions and even then in system it gets hard to do in some game systems more then others.
Re: Mini-sub grenade time
Everyone knew what the ending of Titanic was going to be, but still went to watch it in droves. As long as the story is fun I wouldn't mind knowing how it was going to turn out.
A Kult video and a RPG Philosophy video in less than a week? We don't deserve you Seth. =D
I agree 107%. Thank you for this comment.
I was once playing in a game of D&D that had so many players the DM had to split the people up into Group A and Group B on a biweekly basis for each group. Our characters were enlisted into the army to face off against an incoming undead force as it desolated the countryside. Not too long after the DM split us up into Group A & B, the characters were asked "who wants to take charge of their group". One character, a Chaotic Nautral Sorcerer (we'll call him CN) immediately jumped up. As a player I volunteered to be his 2nd in command, with my Lawful Neutral old man ranger character grumbling about "I didn't want this responsibility, but, I guess I'll take it, for the good of the group".
Not too long after this, CN player's work schedule got jumbled up and he couldn't make it to Group B nights, but the DM allowed him to playing during Group A nights when that was the case. Throughout the course of the game, he was only around for about 1/4 of Group B games. Finally, he and the DM agreed to formally switch him over to Group A since CN's player could make *those* nights with consistency.
So during our next Group B game, CN begins announcing how he'll "be leaving to go help the other group". My old man gets up and says "NO. You don't get to keep running away. This is *a war* against undead horrors. These people we're leading; none of them are trained soldiers. Heck, some of them are terrified out of their minds right now. Now you *chose* to lead this group, and that means *responsibility* . I don't want their blood on my hands. I'm not going to abandon them, because you wanted me to be your 2nd in command, and I am making DAMN sure to look out for the people YOU put me in charge."
I had stood up from the table as I poured my heart out.
CN's player asked me "Dood...you good?" I replied "yeah, I'm good, why?"
"Oh, I thought you were pissed off or something."
"No, no, this is like a natural progression, the whole Lawful/Chaotic moral thing, of duty VS freedom. You good?"
"Yeah yeah, I was just worried about you."
I continued the scene. "Look...I'm not going to stop you. Just...whoever you decide to help, protect them *the best way you can* . Being a leader is a serious responsibility, and I know it's a lot for someone your age to pick up [CN was a kind of a snark, rebellious teenager]. But these people *need our help* and we have to do what's right by them, *for* them. Just promise me that. promise me you'll out for people."
Cn nods, understanding the weight of my old man's inspirational speech. "Okay. I will. I promise."
After the game, other players were asking me if I was OK, and honestly? It was the BEST moment I had ever had; it was serious conflict without bloodshed, it made sense for both of our characters...and it gave me a chance to act out what it feels like when a reserved character finally shows some emotion. I told the other players that I was cool, and I thanked CN's player many times for the opportunity.
Had a CoC game where I had sacrificed myself to trap the monster, but the other characters took so much sanity damage killing it they started attacking each other. It ended with a TPK, as our mad Scottish laird was reluctantly shot by his own manservant. It was perfect!
Call of Cthulhu is cool because sanity mechanics add fun modifiers to how you roleplay your characters, but it's not really even character vs character because they're literally insane.
"why you don't use a grenade inside of a mini sub" has the same energy as "i didn't ask how big the room was, i said i cast fireball"
A couple of times I have had CVC between myself and another player, after the conflict I made sure to check in with the other player to make sure everything is ok between us
I had a player rage quit a campaign on the spot after he lost a fight against another player. This was in a tournament setting that everyone agreed to ahead of time and there were no real stakes. Like, he didn't stand to suffer any consequences. Just the feeling of losing a fight to another player was enough to make him go off. Since then I haven't allowed any player vs player in any of my campaigns. I realized even if people believe they are mature enough to handle it they might not actually be able to handle losing to another player when the time comes. I guess it's possible to say that it was a single problem player, and the rest of us could all move past it, but it's tough to open back up the idea of PVP after something like that happened.
Honestly, it sounds like that tournament eliminated a potential problem player. If they can't handle the idea of losing within a friendly setting, where zero stakes are involved then it's unlikely they will be much better at handling a moment of real consequence at the table.
Though I can certainly agree that pvp isn't for everyone, I nearly lost my temper at someone once because they kept siding with a cult yet tried to play their character as a good guy trying to talk me down, handing over a relic she needed e.t.c, to the extent I had to clear the air and said "look, you are literally siding with someone who is about to sacrifice me and start a unholy crusade against the galaxy, whether or not she's your character's grandmother really doesn't matter to me. If you continue to oppose me, I'm going to have no choice but to fight you." He continued to do so, so I defeated him and ultimately ended up having to retreat from the BBEG and leaving him behind. That lead to two people being salty, me for even trusting him when all he planned to do was serve the bad guy and talk me down at every turn, and me for grievously wounding their character and removed them as a PC.
I've had a couple of other occasions which turned out more fun (one was a character *actually* trying to assassinate and ended up being a Jackie chan styled fist fight in the back of a futuristic ambulance, which actually was hilarious and memorable. The other I was literally playing a evil doppelganger of my character who I quickly made apparent wasn't going to be redeemable at all, basically cutting loose in a hectic and memorable battle which I was ultimately defeated, because I understood what my role was and leant into it whole hog) but it requires a certain maturity and ability to read the room and play a role that I'm not certain many groups can do.
As a side note, I wasn't playing D&D. And sorry for the wall, I just kinda got caught up in the memories. XD
@@lordbiscuitthetossable5352 Agreed. If you have a good supply of players, using a PvP tourney to filter out the bad players might actually be a good idea to intentionally do.
And nothing of value was lost that day.
@@lordbiscuitthetossable5352 How are you not a "problem player?" I honestly hate that term, and your stories, in my opinion, make you sound like a total dick, not the "mature" person you are trying to describe yourself as.
Even though the title spoils the ending I'd love to hear the betrayal filled war story, especially the reaction of the 2 players that weren't given tempting offers to go turncoat.
My yearly Halloween game revolves around CvC. I took your advice about hidden agendas from a Q&A about 2 years ago so every Halloween is a hidden agenda oneshot made to have strange or combative characters work together and against each other. It's been my players' favorite game I run each year so far and I love making them. This year everyone thought the Serpent Person was the serial killer and went after him even though he was just trying to have a good weekend. The real killer iced everyone after they all got in the getaway car.
The brilliant thing with this is it gives the group a regular outlet for their mischief and mayhem. No one wants to spoil a good betrayal on the regular campaign, they're saving their CvC A-game for Halloween. So if it does happen in the main campaign it's because it was story appropriate, as it should be.
I enjoy the rivalry between characters that involves one character on the verge of defeat, when suddenly, their rival intervenes saying something like, "Nobody kills them but me!" or "Their death will come by my hand alone!" It can set up a future showdown or gradually lead to a greater bond.
CvC seems like it was more common in OD&D/Chainmail. I can imagine with a larger stable of characters per player it would take some of that personal sting out of a potential loss (lethal or otherwise).
I stumbled across pretty detailed rules for writing a character’s last will and testament, that included what to do if “the reports of my demise were greatly exaggerated” and an old character formerly declared dead, returns to reclaim what’s rightfully theirs. So two characters controlled by the same person (ostensibly, I mean who ever knows with OD&D) either fight over the inheritance or work it out. And every time the inheritance shifts ownership theirs some NPC lawyer taking a percentage. It’s all delightfully convoluted.
It did happen but not more so than nowadays. At least, not from my experience playing since the mid 80s. Of that, what I'd see the most of is players trying to gack other players then get butthurt if THEIR PC got killed. Saw that alot
In a few campaigns I’ve run, the final boss was played by a former player and it’s been awesome every time. The reaction at the table has always been excitement.
And in the role of... special guest star...
I played in a superhero game a few years at my local store. I convinced a friend to join us, and the game master introduced his character in such a way that my character thought that my friend's character was attacking him (that whole superhero "they meet, they fight, they team up to beat the bad guy" trope). Rather than actually fight, he and I just described a running battle across warehouse rooftops, crashing through skylights and scattering pigeons. There was a lot of movement and back-and-forth, but neither of us landed a blow until at last his Android punched a brick chimney, and the debris from that knocked my costumed Vigilante off of the roof. My friend's character reached out with an extending arm and grabbed my character's leg, saving him from the fall. We turned back to the game master who, after a pause, said "okay, so fight."
"Aaah, we just did."
I've never seen a GM look disappointed to see players NOT engage in PVP before. 😄
CvC is like BDSM - all parties must be informed, trusting and enthusiastic as well as communicative. When done right it can be amazing but if done wrong, it can end a campaign or even friendships. These are some helpful guidelines.
I think an in-character betrayal built up over multiple sessions can be brilliant. Some great moments can come from being stabbed in the back by someone who *literally* took an arrow for you. But for me as a GM the stipulation is the player has to privately discuss it with me beforehand, so it can't be forced, it can't usually be done easily, and the motivation for doing it must be greater than the general good of the party from that character's perspective.
Great video as always.
I've tried a separate, but related, circumstance you might find interesting.
We were starting a new campaign. There were 3 players that would be able to attend every session, unless there was some emergency, but there was a 4th player who would only be able to attend intermittently, perhaps less than half the time, and usually without being able to provide any advanced notice.
I was going to have a recurring villain in the campaign, so I asked the fourth player if he would be interested in playing the villain. He agreed, and I informed the other players what was up. Then, whenever the 4th player was able to show up, so would the recurring villain.
The campaign went well, though we never finished it (I forget why). The villain player would tell me his villainous plans, and I would have his underlings carry out his plans as best they could when he was not present. Then when he did show up his minions would fill him in on what had happened in his absence, and apologize to him for their failures, or brag to him about their successes (only happened once). He would then be in charge of the minions for that session.
Since all the player's knew which PCs were friends and which were enemies, everything went smoothly.
I've never had a chance to do that again, and I wonder if it would be workable if there was a full time villain PC.
That sounds fun. I'll have to give that a shot!
@@NateArnoldVideos The villain player was an experienced GM himself, so he understood that the villain will probably loose, didn't take anything personally, and he played the dastardly villain perfectly. You need to have someone that can separate their own ego from the character's ego.
It's perfectly viable to just have a player play the villain, just as long as they aren't part of the hero group.
You could ask a friend on a weekly basis what should the villain do?
I recently took part in a new series channel (Die Inspired) that started out with 80 players and forced them to compete to be a surviving 20% in the first session (four groups of twenty) via a lifeboat situation. It culminated in a split cash prize amongst the campaign survivors. So yeah, there was character fighting and even murder in that setting. I ended up being taken out by the GM for seeking alternative solutions and cooperating with other players to keep more of us alive.
I remember a Paranoia convention tournament where the first thing the GM did was pass out the proper color squirt guns... Lots of CvC and PvP it was a total blast.
One of my favorite moments from GMing was not only CvC but also a fight to the death. The party was split up about halfway through the campaign and the players ended up on different sides of the conflict. Resentment kept building until in the final session of the campaign they went one on one in the middle of a very chaotic scenario and one of them killed the other brutally.
Now this only worked because it was the last session, and the resolution to the conflict. Both players knew this was likely to happen and it was great fun.
I find little out of character discussions about the game make roleplaying easier for me since it creates some distance between myself and my character which means i am more likely to have them act like them not like me
I made a oneshot once. It was called "Evilshot" amongst my players, when they played as an evil character. And the last encounter was a free for all fight for the possession of the magical spear. That was really fun for the players to smack each other for a change.
Only time I've considered CvC action was when we were playing Shadowrun and our first big contact meet-up was setup, two players rolled really high on their relevant knowledge and stuff, so we sent them forwards to meet the contact, who was going to be some really powerful member of a crime family. My character along with our fourth party member hung back as cover (within earshot, though). The GM had told us that we had to be ultra-respectful and polite to the crime family on contact. Our two ambassadors proceeded to lie and dissemble and antagonise the contact. My character was about to step in and try to smooth things over when the contact just drew down on the forward two. At this point, I checked in with the GM on their policy on CvC because my character was absolutely ready to take down her supposed team mates (in-story we'd just been thrown together by the person giving us the contact) to prevent going to war with the extremely powerful crime gang. As it happened, the other players were higher in the initiative order and rolled really well on their attacks, killed the contact, thus plunging us into war with the crime family and derailed the entire campaign - but set up a scenario where we were now desperately trying to space our skins from vengeance. So I never did shoot at the other player-characters. Instead there was a blazing row back at the team HQ over what went down.
The last part really hit home. We had a long pathfinder campaign which came to CvC blows at the end. Mine and a friends chatacter had loyalty to different nations and to solve who got an artifact at the end came to my character assassinating the local queen, which resulted in my friends character charging me and decapitating my character. It was an exhilariting end to the campaign as we both knew that something would happen.
What I did, when one of my players said their character would fight the party and then run, I said "Great! If someone is fighting the party, I'll control them. If you really want your character to backstab, then I, as the DM, will manage them from now on, and consult you about their behavior". This character went on to be a reocurring nemesis for the players.
I like this rule because it allows for characters to live out their realistic goals, discourages CvC if people want to keep controlling their characters, and doesn't put players into conflict as the DM I'm expected to have characters who fight the party.
This approach also facilitates evil characters, as if the character is just there for convienece, once the adventure is over, I can offer to have them turn fully murderous and have the player roll up a new character
I kept wondering if Seth would bring up Paranoia, I'm glad Mike did.
Some of my most memorable and enjoyable adventures involved CvC!
As an interesting note, the DIE RPG by Kieron Gillen has a conflict between the players who want to stay in the fantasy world versus the ones who want to escape.
In the RPG, it's sort of implied it's supposed to end with the PCs hugging it out, but usually they end up killing each other.
I agree with your approach on this. I did have a campaign ending CvC a couple of years back that was incredibly dramatic. The party defeated an ancient dragon to obtain the powerful item to restore order. The PCs had the choice of turning it over to the deities of good to restore the land or keep it and rule. The archer opted to take it and despite the warnings from the barbarian would not surrender. The barbarian player was not wanting to fight his friend (they were best buds in real life). The archer refused to comply and the barbarian, using a potion of fly, hovered over him declared that he had the high ground!
The rest of us sat in silence as they line for line reenacted Ep 3 RotS Kenobi vs Anakin scene. The archer made his move, despite having single digit HP, and the barbarian beat him on initiative. The barbarian rolled, and NEVER have I heard a player so unhappy announce, natural 20. He did piles of damage, one shot the archer-- whose player cheered. The entire table cheered, save for the barbarian who mourned the fall of his friend.
Best ending to any campaign, more epic than the dragon fight as it turned out.
I enjoy all of Seth Skorkowsky videos
Many years ago, I joined a group whoch fell apart due to character vs. character infighting in the first session. This was like thirty years ago, long before Session Zero was a concept. We were playing AD&D 2E, and part of the problem was opposing alignments. Half the group was Good and half the group was Evil. While the NPC Quest Giver was giving us the mission, a fight broke out. In the end, the group split in two, and after the session ended, no one seemed to have time for another.
A good Session Zero and house rules could have prevented this chaos, but it was 1992, and we didn't have the tools to make it happen.
It’s Seth Sun- I mean Wednesday!
I love the idea of "group vs group" conflict. for context theres this incredibly ambitious style of pseudo MMO play talked about in old dnd editions, basically different groups run in the same campaign world, the DM keeps a record of the sessions timeline and each group can directly or indirectly affect each other. stuff like "Group B enters a dungeon to find group A took all the loot. they hire assasins to kill group A. Group A kills the assasins, finds out who sent them and their next session is spent raiding group B's Fortress they constructed with previous wealth."
its so interesting and organic to me as a GM.
Thank you very much for differentiating between "player" and "player character".
we once had a good cvc in mechwarrior, and yes, when 2 100T pilots diasgree, titans walk and city burn... and the repairguy (me) curse his lack of paranoïa for not putting killswitch in each cockpit, or directional charges under the armchair for that matter
Oh wow, a new video well before I thought I would get one - what a nice surprise! Thanks Seth. Now to watch while enjoying dinner.
Our group handles character vs. character by not allowing it...full stop. This works great for us.
I ended up getting Covid last week. Took 3 years, but it finally caught me. You can hear it a little in my last video where my voice was a bit phlegmy. So being quarantined from my wife on our anniversary weekend I passed the time writing this video.
I'm feeling much better, BTW. Finished my antivirals yesterday. Need to test to see if it's all gone, but my last couple were still coming up positive.
@@SSkorkowsky Take it slow and easy regardless. Lost too many people in the last few years already, four dead within my circle and one other with long COVID symptoms that have ruined her life.
@@SSkorkowsky hope you get better Seth and we always let it happen if it was explained first and there was a Valed reason for it....
Example: our casual and arsonist during a game of 3.5 decided to not help my PC Tatsuie (Hobgoblin Samurai) he died along with the amnesiaic Drow he was helping now our GM decided to roll and see if I could be brought back the other two decided to just keep on going now this all came to a head when the other two had become gods by taking all the power of the other pantheons in that world that ment that they controlled all magic, they forgot one thing in the Oriental Adventures Book (which we were using and they agreed to it) all of there "Magic" came from the Base Elements not anything else. They tried to say that they then take away all of the elements I pointed out that then they couldn't be alive either cause they were made completely out of them(at there own request to) and I got to kill both of them in three turns and restore order back to the Universe.
I found out later that it had all been the arsonist's idea because he wanted to destroy the game so that he'd get to do whatever he wanted next game the GM made....
@@SSkorkowsky Glad you are feeling better man.
@@SSkorkowsky Please take the time to recover.
I remember a time in our super-villain game, one of our characters undercalculated the yield of cemtex he was using for a distraction, and it lead to the largest terror attack on US soil in the timeline. It led to the point that, even though we were playing villains, everyone else felt like they would not want to work with that character again after this (especially since the character showed no remorse about the miscalculation) and leaving him alive would be a loose end, so we were all talking about bumping the guy off. We were talking for maybe half an hour before we realised we should probably get the character's player into the chat. He was very understanding, and we prepped his next character pretty soon after. A good time was had by all, in the end.
This video came at the perfect time... I was wondering how I could tell my players to ease down a bit on the "negative" interaction among their characters (though sometimes it was more than justified in my opinion). I think this video is gonna help out perfectly, thanks Seth!
CURSE YOUR SUDDEN BUT INEVITABLE BETRAYAL!
Did we just become best friends again? We should build bunk beds.
The "sudden but inevitable betrayal" comment just won you a new subscriber. Keep up the good work!
The only time I played in a game with a CvC conflict was one where I kinda instigated the fight. The party’s thief had stolen a jewel that a little boy was planning to use to pay us, but my character caught him and demanded he give the jewel back. The fight was brief, and the thief ended up surrendering the jewel before we began the quest.
I was still a newbie trying to play a chaotic good elf Ranger at that time, and as far as I’m aware, none of the other players or the DM ever thought I had real beef with the guy playing the thief. This was probably one of those rare CvC moments where the game was hardly affected, but it still might’ve helped to have had these tips at the time
Great video, all though I have an anecdote that in my experience in Call of Cthulhu specifically, I find CvC happens a lot more frequently because losing sanity and bouts of madness can have people do some bad things. Definitely everything you said is true, but in CoC I play it not fast and loose, holding to the golden rules of making sure the two parties are in agreement that it’s ok
I am GMing a table where we have two good, two chaotic and one evil character. We have PvP on at all times, and so far there was only one moment when things got to the point they had to hit each other, and it was pretty smooth from our end because we always have a meta discussion at the end of each session.
I played with a DM that actually encouraged CvC - hands down best game ever. Your "loose cannon" is gana reign in when they know the DM is going laugh when you piss off another PC and get's bodied and has to roll up a new character.
I've been pretty lucky in that this has never been an issue in any of my campaigns. There's only ever been one time that the players have tried to kill each other, and it ended up being a climactic mage duel on the back of a flying dragon. Neither of the characters even died either, the fight ended with the evil druid repeatedly shouting "I can fix this" while desperately clinging to the side of the dragon.
Always great to get new content from you, Seth. I always recommend your RPG philosophy videos to friends and acquaintances whenever we talk about tabletop stuff. (and RPG reviews too, i had fun running a session of Missed Dues to new players recently) Keep up the great work !
Wow! Thank you very much. I really appreciate it.
And always happy to hear my reviews helped GMs running them.
For me the most traditional CvC was in one of our Shadowrun campaigns, and it was always the same character on the receiving end. That character had the flaw of hating one megacorporation. The first time he very much surprised us, when we met a random person of that corporation, and he suddenly attacked with the monofilament whip which was built into his cyberarm.
After that we prepared... even before that incident, every other character but him also had a non-lethal weapon along. Being able to ask questions after a fight can be very useful, after all. After that incident, everybody also carried one dosage of Laés. (A drug which, depending on how it is applied, wipes several minutes up to a full day of the person exposed to it. ) The hacker learned the forgery skill to properly edit the characters cyberware recording and the mage learned the spell to give people some false memory.
So whenever we encountered a situation where the character was about to rush ahead and attack somebody and would thus have gotten us into deep trouble again, he suddenly was hit by a taser or some sleep drug, got the memory wiped and an appropriate replacement created.
The first time the player of that character was a bit grumpy, but later he proudly concluded that his character might be the only person in the world with a Laés addition... he just can't remember that. :D
It sometimes amazes me how people will change when playing RPGs. I had a group of real life friends and we had a very long D&D campaigns. One of the best groups I ever had. But for one stint one of the guys thought it would be hilarious to pickpocket the other PCs and steal their stuff. Of course the explanation was “it’s what my character would do.” It really causes some tension until I finally stepped in.
That Cyberpunk campaign ending sounds brilliant. I would love to hear the rest of that tale.
Rpg warstories are always some of my personal favorites on this channel. Seth does such a great job of telling them.
I've had great experiences with limited CvC on more social type rolls/interations, such as having my character fully believe the bards lies after a contested deception roll up to casting suggestion to force another character to co-operate/be helpful. That said, it 100% has to be agreed upon in advance, and its best to check in and explain intent immediately prior to resolving the actions.
I had a CvC situation in my Dungeon Crawl Classics game that was pretty fun. One character, before falling to his death, tossed his family heirloom sword to another PC. Later, based on details to long to go into, that dead PC comes back to life and wants his sword back. The other character refuses - which we all found hilarious outside of the game. So I told them they can "take it outside" for non-lethal combat if that's what they want to do. Long story short, homeboy got an ass-whooping rather than his family sword back, but the characters have moved on. All told, it was a positive for the campaign.
The first really big, coherent campaign I ran over fifteen years ago with my friends went in a 'secret' CvC direction, with two of the characters actually scheming evilly while maintaining fake hero credentials. It worked out great; at the end, the good guys figured it out just in time and planned for the betrayal which ended in a dramatic standoff, a brief alliance to fight the greater threat, and a resentful "this isn't over" goodbye as the evil duo fled leaving the good guys in the ruins of their success. It led to a second campaign where they were forced together by circumstances and toward final closure of the wound.
But every time I look back I remember how it all went down I am shocked at how we threaded the needle. I was such a green DM and they were such green players there was no carefully articulated plan to make sure no one hurt anyone else's feelings or ruined the game; it just sort of fell nicely together with a few gut calls. The ways it could have gone wrong are manifold; and future DM's who consider CvC elements in their game would do well to listen to advice like Seth's to minimize risk. We can't all be as lucky as I turned out to be!
As always a great video.
I remember in my first year of playing with a High School Group (whoa 1986) - where me and another character got into conflict and we ended up killing each other. We still had some resentment towards each other.
The GM (wasn't D&D), who was an old had, had us re-role another set of characters - he gave use the concept - we were not only to play the same race - but we would be brothers. So our previous conflict with each other, and any residual resentment from our fight was washed out and turned into typical sibling ribbing. Our conflict turned into playful brothers doing fun arguments and we even became friendly after the game.
A good GM is worth their weight in platinum - remember players.
Excellent explanation. My dm put in a blanket "no pvp" rule for our campaign at the get-go because of a bad experience he had as a player. As he told it, session had ended, he'd packed up and left but the rest of the players and dm had stayed. One of the players was A Problem, and decided to get into a fight. After session ended. After a player had left. My dm shows up for the next session and finds out Problem's character outright killed another PC, to which my friend basically said "yo just because I was gone doesn't mean my character would allow that kind of thing." iirc eventually the death got retconned, and Problem turned out to be a shitter irl too.
This is such an important thing to cover and I'm glad someone is doing it. In my current group we have about 3 different CvC things going at once (with my character being the reason for 2 of those..), but we all understand that no player is upset with another. We've been playing for years since college, and we've always done our best to make sure the other player knows its not US that is having conflict it's the characters.
For examples. One CvC conflicts is my character (Lucland) with my best friends (Kaseon); the parties goal was to stay in a city for a couple days to quick rest up from a recent major event and then travel to Kaseon's parents for some actual downtime and rest. My character took a job with his former guild (he's a former hired killer for a rouge guild) that requires the whole party that extended our city stay for a couple days for a huge payout but without asking literally anyone else in the party. Obviously that's caused some conflicts with everyone, but Kaseon was the most severely hurt, feels very betrayed and it's going to be a serious thing to cover at a later date post job. My best friend and I are still best friends and we game together almost every day without issue, because we communicate clealry its not him and I. It's Lucland and Kaseon.
Second example: another friend who's character (Samira) is in a romantic situationship-thing with Lucland, is constantly getting into spats and arguments with Lucland because to be frank they're both toxic, broken people that are just trying to survive and used to being hurt by literally everyone. We, the 2 players fucking love it, we have fawned over these 2 dip shits and their complications for weeks because they're such a clusterfuck. The characters fight quite a bit, but we still fawn over them as players.
The last example: our wizard bladesinger (Vannan) decided to fireball something completely irrelevant and uncessary as we (the entire party) were desperately trying to leave a bad and getting worse situation. The party is very pissed about it, the players thought it was hilarious.
I ramble alot, but I like videos like this that address persistent issues in TTRPGs and potential ways to go about handling it. Too many stories end up on CritCrab (love that guy so much) because players couldn't separate game issues from real life.
What I would really enjoy seeing is some kind of campaign diary from the gamemaster point of view. Does not have to be extremely detailed, just the most important bits! From what I've seen you are often using modules for your campaigns and I would be really interested to see how you string them together to one coherent and interesting overarching plot or how you move from one to another so it feels seemless. Would you be up for something like that? I've been really interested in seeing something like that from you for ages!
Thanks for all the great content you put out!
Same. Getting more recaps along with that connective campaign tissue would be prime too.
So one thing I noticed is when stakes are low and the players have some fuel left after an adventuring day is that if I say something like "We've got only 2 rooms left, but you should be able to squeeze your party of 4 in. The Innkeeper has the two keys in his outstretched arm." it can turn into a mini-brawl of players trying to get the keys and enter the room while trying to keep the other players outside. The players remembered the wizard who took one of the keys and then cast a wall of force as he started up the stairs.
I played a couple games of Warhammer40k Inquisition. My character (Psyker) did not like another PC (Mechanicus). It got to the point where the Psyker was using a demonic book to find the location of pirates. He didn't think that the Mechanicus would tattle on him. He did, (despite the cyborb now being melded into the ship, becoming the ship.). It ended with me blowing up the ship while everyone else either died before the incident or fled the scene. The one person who wasn't there during the session came next week and was shocked when this happened. But the Mecanichus and me kissed and made up with both of us saying that this was the most Imperial thing to happen.
I would love to see a similar video regarding character v character but with intrigue, politics, backstabby type of games (World of Darkness, etc.).
I actually saw a fun CritCrab "Edgelord" video, where the RP Terrorist used that "But that's PVP" as a thing...
When he was EXPLICTLY acting against the party.
Seth. I have watched many videos and read articles about player-driven conflicts in TTRPG, but you are the only content creator who got this topic right. I can't agree more on the contents of this video. Good job.
As for the topic, I had a few instances of CvC and quasi-CvC happen over the years. One such instance would be a Tabaxi monk b-slapping the group's warforged artificer for having had the audacity of setting her afire - twice. Each time with a nat-1 on his to-hit roll of his firebolt-cantrip. So she slapped him - once. She developed a bit of ..apprehension toward fire after that though...
Never had to face this problem at my table, but Alien RPG is kind of scary with that baked in theme.
Usualy my players characters are more or less all on the same page, but with the Alien agendas (great concept btw), it can go south pretty fast.
And since my players never fought each over, sometimes i fear they're not equiped to handle that kind of thing. So far so good, but i always keep my eyes wide open on this.
Thanks for the video and your channel, Seth :)
I think the situation and your group are extremely important here. If people are being bullies or blowing up the game for chuckles that's no fun and PCs shouldn't be killing each other over nonsense. However sometimes when characters have their own goals and motivations and everyone is roleplaying to the nines there comes a point where (generally without anyone intending to take it in that direction) those characters objectives are utterly irreconcilable with each other to the point where there simply isn't a peaceful solution anymore and someone has to go. In my experience these moments can end up being some of the most memorable and exciting in roleplaying, not just for the drama but because these are moments when characters are forced to draw a line in the sand that they can't back down from even when confronted by an ally. I've had a couple moments like this at my table and they're some of my group's favorite stories from our campaign. Of course that doesn't mean I'm saying to go out looking to get in CvC conflicts on purpose or that CvC works for everyone, just that it can work in the right context.
Good vid Seth! One thing I'd like to add is that waiting for an appropriate moment to raise a grievance doesn't even have to be meta. I feel in a lot of scenarios it makes sense in character. You just found out something that makes your character really mad at another, however, while fighting the horde of enemies is not the time to start fighting. You can both see that your shared survival could depend on leaving this for now. I think it's perfectly reasonable to have your character grit their teeth and be like "Fine, now's not the time" and even save said character in a "We still need your sorry butt" sort of way but as soon as the dungeon is cleared and the danger subsided, the party's having a well deserved drink in the tavern when you stride over to the offender and be like "Now, what the heck was that about you worm!"
Towards the end of my last campaign, I had one player character that would constantly rib another, and it got to the point where it felt targeted and mean-spirited.
My solution was to let it happen, but asked the one player to tone it down since it was making the other player slightly uncomfortable.
As a side note, I love how whenever something comes up in my game, you release a video shortly after that covers said topic. Really fun coincidence imo.
(To further clarify, I am also going to set a hard rule against this going forward in new campaigns by having the players make characters so that they knew each other for a long time and thus have no reason for unnecessary conflict.)
Always great to see more of these types of videos! Great job and thank you, Seth. :D
I've played many campaigns over the years, as a DM and as a player, and I think one of my favorite times as a player was when I was in control of an evil character in a party of mostly good or neutral players. We were brought together under a common goal, and I shown signs of me being not the best person, but they never questioned me or my goals, always assuming if I was truly evil, I would oppose their goals (which involved setting a nation built on classist systems and taking advantage of some races which is obviously bad, and I was a drow, one of the races often abused in the system) I never opposed their goal, but my character's goal was to flip the system and put drow on top, not to eliminate the system altogether. That was my character's main flaw was that selfish goal.
We eventually set free many drow, some were capable fighters, and when the time came after we eliminated several high up figures in the class system, my character broke from the party, joined a group of drow who had amassed, and we staged a coup. There was a brief fight between myself and the party, but I retreated with many forces, and I stopped controlling that character. That character became a new primary antagonist in the campaign who the party knew they'd need to deal with before taking the final fight to the capital, otherwise my old character may show up to usurp power for himself.
I made a new character who was not evil to then aid the party in taking down my old character. And my new wizard was even the one to prevent the escape of my old character with hold person so our paladin could land the final blow. The players trusted me, and I trusted them. Even though my character left and I made a new one, it became such a good little extra arc in the campaign defeating the drow who were ready to take power for themselves and I'm happy it went how it did. We all had a good time, and even though there was a little CvC, it was only for plot and no one went down or died. Blows were barely even exchanged, but it did work and it went super well. That was probably the only time I've ever seen CvC work in a game I was in, and it was all planned and not taken too far. Part of what made it work was the out of game discussion right as it started and during it.
Had a long running GURPS Call of Cthulhu game come to a bad end because the GM plotted with a player to kill the entire party. Everyone was pissed because we approached the game as a cooperative adventure, not a game of backstabbing and player killing, and necessarily made allowances and were supportive for the woman who made a demon pact several game sessions prior instead of, you know, quickdrawing and feeding her the barrel of a revolver as soon as her 'disadvantages' came to light. So really came out of left field. Considering the GM knew half of the players had emotional issues, I have no idea how he couldn't predict the outcome.
Yes, please make Player/Character clear. It takes the ambiguity out of if I need to call the police after hearing "And I got so frustrated I just killed the player."
Things just happen. No need to call the police, snitches get stitches after all.
I have done a double take on that phrasing before. "Why you should kill your players"
Wait, what? Please tell me this vid is about their characters...
As a player who started their DnD career long time ago in a full CvC-campaign and since then ran a lot of CvC and non-CvC events I have to say: CvC is great for a huge roleplaying games (we call them "hall-games" or "room-games" cuz they take place in one but very large location) where each player have their own agenda. This way it's essentially a oneshot free-for-all where you have to not only make enemies but also allies to score your goals. And, since only some of the goals are countered by one another, most of the time one alliance of several players emerges in the end, unraveling their schemes and achieving what they wanted.
But even then I almost always hold such events with "if your character dies - you start playing someone affiliated with the deceased to further their goals". Unless it's in the very closing moments of course.
I love these type of RPG philosophy videos! Keep up the good work Seth!
I like how your first example of searching someone's bag was non combat-related, but I think that it would have been good to emphasize that point a bit more.
Character vs character conflict can happen even when no attack rolls are being made. A classic example is the social character who rolls against other PCs to try to manipulate their actions (which may be disallowed in some systems, though a lot of tables still allow it anyway with house rules). Or where you've got a thief who rolls against his party members.
A great house rule that Matt Colville introduced me to is where the instigating player can make a roll, and the one being rolled against can decide what happens.
I've almost always played with no cvc conflicts. Stories where it's necessary, particularly one shots, can be really fun. But you need a group of players that separate character and player. then avoiding inappropriate moments. Really though, I completely agree with this video.
Geezer here... yes, talk and boot when necessary (none of us want to, we have too). Decades back I missed a climax session. Murder hobo and party backstabber. In character, the personality of the individual could best be summed up A stain. The party ended up all with reasons to want the offender dead, literally self defense for them. Turned his character in to the law and saw to it he was not escaping. Got a trial and everything. Collected a big reward, which was used to provide refreshments and such at the execution. He rage quit. Took us almost a month to chase him off. (Give me a break, we were early teens back then.) Gaming on.
Often my group starts off CvC scenes in session but then shifts to online RP once the stakes have been established. So we can get into the nitty gritty when we have more time.
I very much appreciate the added captions, helps ingest the info and sometimes the autogenerated subtitles are wayy off
I try to get the captionings up before a video goes live. Sometimes I'm a little slow and it takes a day or 2, but the last couple years Captioning my vids has been a regular thing I do. I'll even go back on older videos and add it in (finished captioning my old Pax Cthuliana review vid last night). It can be tiring and monotonous because even when I'm following a teleprompter script I regularly go so off script that it still requires manually going through it all. So it's actually better for me to let RUclips auto-caption it, then manually go in and correct the mistakes and add punctuation/capitalizations. It can take a long time. Sometimes I wonder if anyone even notices the Closed Captions, so thank you for letting me know.
If your more light hearted about it, think Robin Hood's duel with Little John or King Arthur vs. Lancelot then player vs player combat can make for a good introduction.
But once those introductions are done there all part of the same team.
I got my own character killed off at one point with a very epic backstab on the entire group. It suited my character and i'd spent 6 months plotting and building up to it(with the GM's Knowledge). It worked in the story and made sense for my character. It worked so well that when the rest of the group figured out what was going on they all got up from the table and stood on the far side of the room. It did fail almost as hard as it surprised. My character ended up being blown up and then having a building dropped on them. the rest of the team got away....they still had to flee the city, but that was coming anyway. It was a TON of fun.
it's become one of those epic character moments that is a regular story told to anyone who joins our group. I figure I need to wait at least another decade before i even try anything like that again. I still play with all those players, even if they were a bit questioning of my later characters motives for a while, but it didn't last long.
For me, I disallow PvP unless all involved parties consent before the first punch is thrown.
I used to play in a campaign run by one of my players, and he let the party just choose to attack one another. One player was given gloves that shock people and used them on other players, who then retaliated. The Sorcerer decided that Chaos Bolt was a good way to retaliate and accidentally hit the Fighter. My Wizard was the only person in that party to have never attacked another party member. They fought each other so often it almost destroyed the whole game and we had to have a big intervention about it.
That sounds like a very Aeon Flux ending for a Cyberpunk game, props.
We had a Dresden files game in which one pc kept selling out the group. He played it well and we had a great time. My pc kept outing him and the rest of the party wrote it off to my hatred of vampires.
Played the "Descent into Avernus" campaign as a lawful evil Tiefling Rogue. He styled himself as a cultured man who was always true to his word, but never revealed his true agenda and made secret moves on the side.
As part of the campaign, my character negotiated a deal with an archdevil. The lawful good paladin, who didn't speak infernal, decided from that point forward that my character was up to no good and couldn't be trusted (despite never lying once). So when the party had finished the campaign and was set to leave the Avernus, the paladin pointed his sword at mine and declared that my rogue wasn't coming back without going over his dead body.
In reality, the player of the paladin had asked if this was ok over a month prior. It actually made the end of the campaign a lot more interesting than it normally would. An epic duel to determine the fate of 2 characters.
I have solved it with saying that all CvC is done without dice and without using the system.
It has to be purely a narrative scene. This weeds out all the "I just want to force my will with my high combat score". Often it completely defuses the situation other times great character drama comes out of it.
Discussion in metagame which come to a consensus can always override table rules. One of the best campaigns I have ever been in was a Morrowind (Elder Scrolls) conversion campaign, and it ended with CvC where my character (the Nerevarine) turned on the others. This made a beautiful ending because it actually kinda fits the lore of Morrowind and ended the campaign in a bittersweet "you can't go home again," moment.
CvC is hard to do well, but it can be done well.
Another great video with great advice. I recommended your channel to my brother who just started getting into RPGs and DMing and he's been having a blast. Can't wait for the next video on meta-rules. It's something I don't hear about often enough, and afaik I'm the only DM among my 2 groups of ~12 players who openly talks about meta rules and why PCvPC is banned etc.
I had a similar rule banning PCvPC combat after my very first session as a DM ended with one of the two conscious party members drinking a potion of dragon's breath, killing the 2nd PC who was conscious, then murdering the rest of the downed party before taking all the loot for himself. Said player then quit when he realized the players might hold a grudge.
I also have exceptions, as years later a different player was drunk and had his PC murder random survivors after the climatic final battle as he "lost trust in [the good guys] since they summoned the big bad[into a mortal form so he could be actually defeated instead of his true form coming into the world]". The rest of the party defended the survivors and it wasn't a fair fight.
I've had situations in both my Down Darker Trails and Cthulhu Dark Ages game that ended in character vs. character conflicts.
The Dark Ages happened when the monk went mad and saw all the other investigators as demons, digging a hole to hide in. When the Dane tried to pull him out, the monk began chanting a spell the Dane knew might summon certain little people. He beat on the monk, killing him.
The Down Darker Trails one saw one investigator make a citizen's arrest on another, tying him up. The third intervened with a shotgun and, when the first investigator continued to yell at the third, pushing him pretty hard and insulting him, the third blew him away with the shotgun. He was soon after arrested for murder.
My own character left our 3.0/3.5 D&D group over a disagreement. I was moving away and my character was obviously going with me out-of-character. He held a piece of party treasure and two other players decided to demand the magic item, though there was no indication of the character leaving - and they had no good reason for asking for it from him. My character was young and had many trust issues, so he handed over the magic item and then left in the middle of the night and the middle of the game session. I had a backup character that soon joined but the other players were NOT happy about that.
One reason I haven't played Alien at all is that every single scenario seems to have character betrayal, which rubs me the wrong way. Personally, I prefer when the characters are all comrades and preferably friends.
I'd like Alien a lot better if it weren't built around that trope myself. It's a horror game, leave it to the NPCs and setting to kill the characters. No reason to set the players against one another. The android in the first movie, the corporate weasel in the second, those were NPCs.
@@richmcgee434 That's how I feel as well. When a game or scenario pits character vs. character out the gate, it has a lot less appeal to me.
@@MaxWriter There are some exceptions for me, but not in the horror genre. Fiasco and Paranoia both have "mess with the other players" built into them, as well as mechanics that give them just enough reason to cooperate that things don't devolve into an immediate bloodbath. And Toon has such low-stakes violence that getting whaled on is part of the fun.
@@richmcgee434 You're correct. I've not played Fiasco but Paranoia is great stuff though I'm not sure how I'd do on the player's side of things. I've never played Toon either, though I wish I had.
Yeah, 'bout time for another War Story video! My friends that are now regular viewers were hooked when I sent them the Bug and the Scott Brown videos.
For a happy CvC story, we did an evil campaign seeking to bring balance back to the world, slay some demi-gods, etc and we were more or less the four most powerful evil people in the world...with all that comes with that. We slay the final boss, victory is ours, my Lich Necromancer high fives the Warrior of Darkness and takes the sweet paralyzing touch win and throws down with the other two. Fun campaign, I rarely get to have a litter made from the bones of my enemies.