Atrocities? yeah, right

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Post originally by Kyle Schuant at 2003-03-13 06:17:24
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A most interesting article, and one I can certainly empathise with. I do remember many such an occasion... "hang on, they charged us... five armed and metal-armoured guys... and they had clubs and leather armour... and there were three of them... and they fought to the death when asked to surrender...? umm..."

When I GM, I try not to include "suicidal stupidity" among the character types of my NPCs. And as for the player-characters committing atrocities...
It simply rarely happens, in real life. I wrote an essay entitled "On Killing" for Millenium's End, talking about how unusual it is for people to be bloodthirsty sadistic maniacs.
http://www.millenniumsend.com/download.php?op=viewdownloaddetails&lid=2&ttitle=On%20Killing
In my games, I do not attack the PCs with hordes of suicidal maniacs, so I don't give them cause to be sadistic lunatics. But if anyone shows sadistic lunatic tendencies, I start making them make Confidence/Willpower/game equivalent rolls to bring themselves to do this heinous thing... most people could not bring themselves to wring the neck of an animal if they were starving to death, they're certainly not going to crucify a person, even if it is an orc... they roll, and if they fail... "You got the nails out, then looked into his eyes and couldn't bring yourself to do it."

Anyway, it sounds like you were crucfying the wrong people. The bad guys were innocent, you should have nailed up the GM for being an unimaginative dolt.

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Post originally by Sandy Antunes at 2003-03-13 16:06:33
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Hi,

Related to this, in a set of LARP rules I helped with, I suggested that 'killing blow' (killing an unconscious character, e.g. the mafia-esque extra bullet to the head or slitting throats) should have been a skill, and if you didn't have it, you simply wouldn't do it. This reflected that only trained killers have the presence and cold-bloodedness to 'finish off' someone that really appears dead already.

The other 2 writers agreed entirely with the concept, but nixed the rule, saying "players would be annoyed that their characters were restricted by this, even if it's realistic."

It always did amaze me, the number of simple professors or schoolmarms that suddenly display Delta Force attitude in a combat.

Cheers,
Sandy
sandy@rpg.net
freelance

[RPGnet Columns]

Post originally by Kyle Schuant at 2003-03-13 20:47:59
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Sandy wrote that other GMs have said, "players would be annoyed by this, because it restricts their characters."

I daresay players are also annoyed when they can't leap tall buildings in a single bound, hold up steaming locomotives, and overtake speeding jets... oh, that's right, your character isn't Superman (with apologies to the superhero genre fans). There are limits to what your character can do. This is just another limit, and one which can add something to roleplaying.

I don't think it's desperately appropriate to dungeon crawls, but it's certainly appropriate to, say, a modern, Mission Impossible style game, or something like that.