Earlier today while at work I listened to the DM’s Round Table podcast (Episode 6) regarding (for the most part) bloodthirsty player’s. Often times, players become cold-blooded killers, allowing for no mercy, and no surrender. Even when they do keep a prisoner, that person tends to be killed to be sure they can not bring harm to the party later.
DM’s can be put in odd situations, for example when they can’t even allow an enemy to escape without a player arguing that the person simply could not have gotten away from them.
At least, this is what I hear about many people’s games. This is, however, not my experience (at least not in a long while) and I want to share with you why I think that is. The following is advice based on the assumption that your player’s characters are not evil characters in description, but rather are demonstrating actions (excessive killing, etc) that are more evil then they are making their characters out to be. In other words, if your players are playing intentionally evil characters, then you are all good.
I Talk To My Players Up Front
Before my campaigns start, I talk to the players about my style. What I expect, what I don’t like and how I avoid it, etc. Most recently, in the game I am currently running, I told my players that they should know running away is an option. That they needed to consider this method of survival if things looked tough. The same goes for enemies. There will be points in the midst of fighting where an enemy may decided his life is worth more than the measly amount of money he was being paid (if anything) to not let people enter a doorway. It does not make any sense for a group of bouncers to fight to the death to prevent someone from entering the back way into a bar. If they are getting beaten, odds are they will give up, or run.
This ‘realism’ (I guess) is something I told my players would play into combat, especially with reasonably intelligent creatures. When the players know this up front, you set the tone for encounters.
Of course, when you allow for enemies to surrender, you give the players multiple opportunities to interrogate their prisoner which can become a nuisance depending on the players and the regularity of their desire to access information – but I will address this separately later.
I Demonstrate The Benefits Of Good Behavior
During the course of the campaign, you need to remember that when the players take and release prisoners, or treat them well (or simply don’t kill them), this is the type of behavior you are looking for, and as such it should be rewarded. I’m not talking about XP rewards however – I level my players when I feel it’s time, so there is not handing out of XP anyway. Rather, I’m talking about showing them in the game that sometimes it pays to not kill.
To give you an example, the players in my current campaign were clearing a ‘Den of Theives’ essentially (an abandoned manor). Most of the theives there were paid very little (and nothing in most cases) and were surving on scraps. Many fled when fighting began, and many that stayed attempted to surrender or flee when they could.
The players kept one such boy and asked him some questions about the manor before telling him to leave the place. The next day (after clearing the manor), the group of thieves was hunting them and they needed to escape the city. They were hidden in a carriage in what would be an attempt to move through the city gates (and past guards who were part of said group). The carraige was stopped among others and they were being searched. The players remained silent, but finally the door to their hidden spot was opened… only it was by the boy they had let go the day before! He saw them, and then closed the door yelling out that it was “all clear” and essentially saving them in turn.
I Demonstrate The Consequences Of Poor Behavior
Fortunately, through 9 levels of play in this campaign, my players have shown great constraint when it comes to the respect of the lives of their enemies. I have not had many opportunities to show them the consequences of poor behavior, but if your players are killing everyone they encounter, there should be a reaction.
To give an example of something that happened recently, my players had been hunted by a man named Merrik – the ‘bad guy’ through the last portion of the Heroic tier. Merrik had killed his own brother Goris (who was a good friend of the PC’s) right in front of them. Needless to say, they had a hatred for this man.
The last few games of the Heroic tier was spent making their way to Merrik to face him, and stop him from “learning an important secret”. When they finally came to face him, he was nearly dead. They rushed him and made sure he did not get up. He did not fight them, or say anything to them other than “you should run”. He said this in an alarmed fashion, as if he was genuinely warning them they were not safe. One character in particular had taken the loss of Goris very badly and told Merrik he needed to explain himself – when he didn’t, the character finished him off – in a very brutal manner. Shortly thereafter the party was assaulted by a demon.
Eventually, the players came to face the king (father of Merrik and Goris) who was clearly upset they had killed his son. Their response was that Merrik had deserved what he had gotten, at which the king stormed off (he had no power to do anything to them in the location they were currently in). The people who ruled this area were initially nuetral about the death, but the more the players mentioned that Merrik deserved it, the more perturbed these people became. Eventually, one of them came out with it and told the players that Merrik had changed. He had discovered the “secret” and it had freed him of the will of a dark being (of which the demon they had faced was an aspect).
Essentially, I had provided a “Moral” (not Skill) challenge where the players had their enemy at his deathbed. They could save him, in what would be the gaining of a great ally, and potentially a great friend. Or, they could kill him and one day face (as they did) a father from whom they took a son. Either outcome was equally possible, but not ultimately detrimental to the game. It was a great moment revealing this truth to the players. They were told (by the NPC rulers there) that they did not blame the PC’s – that given what they had experienced, it was a forgivable event – but it was clear to the PC’s that he may not have ‘deserved it’ as much as they liked to believe.
I’m Not a Gotcha! DM
I think a lot of the behavior of players allowing no one to survive stems from their experiences with DM’s in the past who played the “gotcha” game. DM’s who took advantage of every mistake and mistep, and shoved it right up in their faces. What this does is make the players ultra paranoid and requires them to take those kinds of steps to assure they do not keep getting schooled.
A Few Tips
- Don’t play the gotcha game. Show them that there are many possible outcomes and you will see the players learn they no longer need to take such extreme measures.
- Let the players interrogate, but don’t let it go on forever. Once you feel they know what they are going to know, tell them “you can question him all day, but you are sure you have what you are going to get”. You don’t need to play out every question, or sit through long quite moments while players think of the next question. You know what they want to know – in some cases, once they capture someone, just cut to the chase… “you tie him up and question him… he tells you X and Y and Z”.
- Don’t just say an enemy surrenders – use the enemies words to convey the message. When you say, “okay, they surrender”, it’s very easy for a player to respond, “okay, we kill them”. Instead, tell the players, “the man drops to his knees releasing his weapon and begs, ‘please please stop! I have a daughter!”… that’s much harder to for a player to say “I kill him” to. The first option allows the player to see his decision from a distance where it’s very clean and far from the outcome – the second is in his face.
Anyway, that’s my relatively quick (well, quickly typed) take on the situation.
Again, you can catch the DM’s Round Table, Episode 6 here!
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