Don't forget that the Mos Eisley Cantina is a very unusual place. Obi Wan Kenobi, who has travelled the galaxy widely, including hanging out with pirates, bounty hunters and so forth, says of Mos Eisley that "you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy". If Obi Wan has never seen a worse place then it's pretty awful. This is not your typical bar and actions within it should not be considered normal or appropriate elsewhere.

From a certain point of view.

I think the tendency for players to act up is related to how much agency their GM allows them.

In my experience players tend to engage in earnest roleplaying more frequently when the GM gives them the freedom to act as they will, but the more the GM tries to enforce characterization on them the more they act out--and often that acting out takes the form of senseless violence or slapstick villainy, because those are easy ways to have dramatic impacts on the story that the GM can't just roll their eyes and sweep under the rug. If you give them the rope to play their characters they will usually do so, but if you insist on tugging them a certain way they will almost always tug back, hard.

Seems childish. Why not just play tiddlywinks instead. Rules and expectations are clear cut, and you can always take your toys and go home.

I think the tendency for players to act up is related to how much agency their GM allows them.

In my experience players tend to engage in earnest roleplaying more frequently when the GM gives them the freedom to act as they will, but the more the GM tries to enforce characterization on them the more they act out--and often that acting out takes the form of senseless violence or slapstick villainy, because those are easy ways to have dramatic impacts on the story that the GM can't just roll their eyes and sweep under the rug. If you give them the rope to play their characters they will usually do so, but if you insist on tugging them a certain way they will almost always tug back, hard.

Seems childish. Why not just play tiddlywinks instead. Rules and expectations are clear cut, and you can always take your toys and go home.

Not really, since the players are just as important to the game as the GM. Did you get their input on what they expected out of the game? Did you adequately describe what the bar looks like as in was it a dive for scum or a high class joint for celebs and nobility? Failure to do both gives the impression that you as a GM do not care what the players can bring to the story and how they impact the world around them. Roll with what the player did and assign the appropriate penalty based upon the location of where the shooting happened. If it's a dive bar for scum a thousand credits makes the problem disappear when it comes to the owner. It doesn't mean that the problem is gone, but rather it heads up the chain to the npc's employer which most likely is the local crime boss. If it's a high class bar then the local authorities get involved.

The GM I'm training, listens to the players and what they want. No matter how crazy an idea sounds he rolls with it and alters the story as needed. Perfect example is the first mission the party was assigned to. He was expecting us to go through the front door of the bunker, but failed to expect a more subtle approach. We climbed onto the roof of the bunker and used the ventilation to enter it. We followed the vents to a clear area that allowed us to enter without being seen. He rolled with it because I taught him that no adventure survives contact with the players. Players will do everything in their power to derail a carefully laid out adventure and do unexpected things. A GM must plan for that contingency and be prepared to roll with it.

I'm not sure how going off the rails and being a murder hobo are in the same category.

I'm not sure how going off the rails and being a murder hobo are in the same category.

By going off the rails through being a murder hobo. I'm not making excuses for the player and what they did. I am stating that the GM can add in things like consequences to the action. The consequences must be appropriate to the circumstances of when the murder occurred.

I'm not sure how going off the rails and being a murder hobo are in the same category.

When the player feels as though his easiest option for escaping the rails is to murderhobo, it is.

I'm not defending players who flip the table just for the enjoyment of frustrating a GM--those guys are assholes who cannot into cooperative storytelling. But if you as the GM feel like you're having to herd cats to keep your players roughly on course for your game, to me that's a pretty clear sign that your players are frustrated and don't feel like their decisions or input matters...and if that's true, then why are they even playing?

Typically when faced with that same situation, I would advise going with some kind of Common Sense roll. Law, Core World Knowledge, Streetwise, either an Intelligence or Wisdom check, anything. Unless they critically fail, in which case I would simply tell this to one of their friends, explain the legal, criminal, and immediate consequences that their character might know may be coming. Then if they elect to proceed with their actions, I would advise to let the encounter run off the rails.

They didn't really need that job or those credits did they? Everyone should have 5-15 points of Obligation: Wanted by the Empire, shouldn't they? "Okay, I can't believe you actually made it off planet like that. Good job on that rushed Astrogation roll. Okay, so for next time, on top of the 10 Obligation per player for Wanted by the Empire, everyone receives another 5 Obligation for Ditching the Job. The group's Obligation has gone from 25 up to 100, so looks like we're dealing with the ramifications of your character's reckless decision for another entire session, and possibly beyond."

Though... perhaps just the first paragraph.

I think you are unfairly punishing your player. They clearly see their character as the kind who flies off the handle at these kind of insults. In their mind, they probably saw themselves as the badass old west archetype who doesn't take **** from any nameless bargoers. He probably thought shooting this guy down would be a really cool way to send a message to the establishment. Even if that's not the case, you still should let him have it. Apply the appropriate consequences, and continue the story.

Just because a player does something with the group's story that you don't want them to doesn't mean you should shut them down. It is everyone's story, after all. Let them guide it with ridiculous actions like this, and then provide them with the appropriate response in universe.

I've gotten bar fights wrong and right.

Oskara (EotE starter game Bounty Hunter, good all-round fighter) shot a guy when the GM had planned a bar fight because he said "You're approached by three Gamorreans" (we were there to intercept them) and - my brain getting ahead and filling in the details all by itself - I just pictured them brandishing Vibro-Axes. Well they weren't initially, but they were after that. Oops. I felt guilty as hell.

On the other hand Jin-Rio (AoR starter game Diplomat, zero fighting skills) launched into a brawl with great gusto, thoroughly getting into the spirit of things.

Maybe it's a matter of emphasis? In Jin-Rio's case it felt obvious that a brawl was coming (the bar had a reputation for it, for one). But how do you make it obvious that the "enemy" isn't out for blood? Especially in places where you can assume most people are armed?

Don't forget that the Mos Eisley Cantina is a very unusual place. Obi Wan Kenobi, who has travelled the galaxy widely, including hanging out with pirates, bounty hunters and so forth, says of Mos Eisley that "you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy". If Obi Wan has never seen a worse place then it's pretty awful. This is not your typical bar and actions within it should not be considered normal or appropriate elsewhere.

Well Obi-wan never went to the bar in Coruscant in the lower levels during The Clone Wars series. That bar would give Mos Eisley a run for its money as the most wretched hive of scum and villainy. The bar I'm thinking of is the one where the two bounty hunters are hired to kill someone by Darth Tyranus.

Ah, it depends on the bar, depends on the characters and the players and the game.

A certain Wild West lawlessness suits the theme of our EoE games. Frankly, if our Chiss walked into a cantina and only killed one person, the others would worry she was getting soft...

I think you are unfairly punishing your player. They clearly see their character as the kind who flies off the handle at these kind of insults. In their mind, they probably saw themselves as the badass old west archetype who doesn't take **** from any nameless bargoers. He probably thought shooting this guy down would be a really cool way to send a message to the establishment. Even if that's not the case, you still should let him have it. Apply the appropriate consequences, and continue the story.

Just because a player does something with the group's story that you don't want them to doesn't mean you should shut them down. It is everyone's story, after all. Let them guide it with ridiculous actions like this, and then provide them with the appropriate response in universe.

Yeah, that's the thing - without the context of the incident, I think it's unfair to brand the player a murderhobo. Was it a scuzzy bar? Is this character a Django/Man With No Name hardass? There's any number of factors coming into play other than "He's a nameless NPC and has no value".

Repercussions? Again, depending on the circumstances, certainly - but I wouldn't hit the player with a heavy hand. And at the very least I would talk with him first, away from the game, before dropping the hammer on him.

I'd like to take a break from the argument to say that this is my favourite thread title in some time.

You can go about your business, now. Move along.

Look, I don' care if the PC is the group gunny bunny tough. Shooting a nameless NPC "because game" is flat out stupid.

Here's the scene: Bothan PC is getting info from bartender -the easy way, by talking- when one of his blustery show-off comments elicits a chuckle from the guy at the end of the bar. PC asks asks what's so funny. NPC says " You, Kitty-Kitty."

Seem like a shooting offence?

I think I see the problem, here. The proper response is a derisive snort in the NPC's direction, then going back to the business at hand, dismissing the heckler as unimportant. The tough belittles the NPC, and either wins the social encounter there, or goads the NPC into further ill-considered drunken action. Force the NPC into making the first move, and then the over-escalation of force doesn't seem -AS- bad. To paraphrase the immortal words of a lovable scamp from the Firefly universe... "I'll kill a man in a fair fight. Or if he's fixin to start a fair fight."

I'm probably a little more tolerant of those types of shenanigans though. My bounty hunter is, after all, traveling with a droid that has a sizeable bounty out for it. I privately refer to him as my retirement fund.

Han Solo and Greedo

The result was a bit extreme, but this isn't the films or animated series, it's a 'living universe in a make believe setting (yes it is people, it's NOT REAL ).... actions and consequences...

which my son discovered after lobbing a stun grenade at 3 stormtroopers with no provocation!

I think the tendency for players to act up is related to how much agency their GM allows them.

In my experience players tend to engage in earnest roleplaying more frequently when the GM gives them the freedom to act as they will, but the more the GM tries to enforce characterization on them the more they act out--and often that acting out takes the form of senseless violence or slapstick villainy, because those are easy ways to have dramatic impacts on the story that the GM can't just roll their eyes and sweep under the rug. If you give them the rope to play their characters they will usually do so, but if you insist on tugging them a certain way they will almost always tug back, hard.

Seems childish. Why not just play tiddlywinks instead. Rules and expectations are clear cut, and you can always take your toys and go home.

I've found that moderation, as usual, works best -- neither railroading the players, nor acting as their pliant tour guide to the murderverse.

Han Solo and Greedo

Both worked for Jabba, so if one ventilated the other?

Jabba's problem.

Honestly alekzanter, I dont see why you made that thread. You are running a Edge of the Empire game where most characters are hardened criminals. What were you expecting when you made that NPC insult that player?

Honestly alekzanter, I dont see why you made that thread. You are running a Edge of the Empire game where most characters are hardened criminals. What were you expecting when you made that NPC insult that player?

A witty crack about the NPC's appearance, stone silence, or a Coercion check to be left alone?

Call me crazy, but in my games there's kind of a reasonable gap between "your mom" and cold blooded murder.

Honestly alekzanter, I dont see why you made that thread. You are running a Edge of the Empire game where most characters are hardened criminals. What were you expecting when you made that NPC insult that player?

I'd expect an actual hardass to not be all that impressed with such a weaksauce couple of "insults". A character that flips out and starts firing blasters when called "kittykitty" isn't a tough guy, he's a wannabe.

I'd expect an actual hardass to not be all that impressed with such a weaksauce couple of "insults". A character that flips out and starts firing blasters when called "kittykitty" isn't a tough guy, he's a wannabe.

Or he's a supreme hardass that tells the mortician to prepare three four coffins. . . .

I'd expect an actual hardass to not be all that impressed with such a weaksauce couple of "insults". A character that flips out and starts firing blasters when called "kittykitty" isn't a tough guy, he's a wannabe.

Or he's a supreme hardass that tells the mortician to prepare three four coffins. . . .

Unless "kittykitty" was shooting a blaster at the PC's feet to make him dance the two are really not comparable at all.

This is setting aside the fact that the Man With No Name would be a ******* terrible player character for any GM to have to deal with--he's more of a GMPC than anything else.

Many famous movie characters are really more GMPCs than PCs...

Many famous movie characters are really more GMPCs than PCs...

I see the whole "ignoring Jace" thing didn't last long. :V

senpai noticed meeeeee