Player Versus Player

[Finarvyn]

I was struck by this...

crimhthanthegreat said:

...there is no reason that you couldn't run the game again as all bad guys (not our cup of tea) or with two competing groups of players with the ref as just a judge and maybe running all noncombatants.

Has anyone ever run a player-versus-player scenario? Did it actually work?

My experience is that when I have run these adventures, they always seem to degenerate into a rules debate. One side comes up with a clever idea and the other side is too competitive to lose gracefully (goes back to that "fight until you die rather than surrender" discussion on another thread) and frantically looks for a way to upend the other side's victory. Squabbles ensue.

For example, I ran one game where two characters were Princes vying for a throne. Each was given the quest of going out to find the lost crown and sceptre of their ancestors, and the one who returned with these items would be crowned king. Great, until one group took two days buying supplies while the other group hid outside the city and ambushed the supply group, killing the one brother. The other brother then claimed he could take as long as he wanted to find the loot, and clearly he had to be the winner.

You can imagine that the dead prince wasn't too happy with this solution. Of course, I could impose a lose-lose situation whereby the peasents wouldn't support a murdering Prince (assuming that somehow they found out) but it still wouldn't take away the fact that the one team felt cheated.

This sort of thing has happened often enough that I no longer enjoy running player v. player scenarios. Anyone else with similar experiences?

[coffee]

I haven't (except one time in a game of Champions that doesn't really count).

I also don't understand when players want to play evil. Doesn't make any sense to me. Ties in with the Alignment thread, really, but my idea is if you want to play the bad guys, set up your own game.

[Deleted]

I've never ran a PvP game, but I have ran a campaign where all the PC's are evil. It was fun for quite awhile until the town citizens lynched them...
I prefer a cooperative group of players, for pretty much the same reason coffee stated. Now I sure don't mind the alignment dynamic, but an all evil (or even Chaotic) party never lasts too long IMC (I make it very uncomfortable for them, as that situation truly should be).

[jdrakeh]

I played in an AD&D campaign that unintentionally turned out that way due to the mind-warping power of a few magic items. I'll post more on it later (I'm at work).

[crimhthanthegreat]

The posted descriptions of the early Dave Arneson games supports that they played both good and bad with the characters competing against one another. From what I have read the bad guys kept getting their butts kicked and Arneson started playing all of the bad guys when the players all decided to be on the same side and take good guys after a while. I think it would work better with mature players. Like I say we have never done it, not our cup of tea, but it seems workable to me, maybe I'll try it sometime.