3 hours ago, Edgehawk said:

This is an OOC, player threat, and not cool. In character threats would be more appropriate, and perhaps expected, under these circumstances.

As well such an IC threat would call for action. Lightsabers don't help you at all if the other guy just shoots in the back after you made that threat. So it is not only dumb to mix up OOC and IC and act like a jerk or noob, but it would be as well super stupid to make such a threat within the group and not expecting some form of violence to erupt soon.

And don't get me wrong if the group goes the sith way it should be expected to see some struggle about dominance within the group and as well violence erupting, but if the group or just certain players are failing at one of the most fundamental levels with separating IC talk from OOC talk it really talks to some OOC talk about players perspective on their characters and how they want to play out this little master and servant game which comes along with the Sith. ;-)

Or the whole remark was just light hearted ooc silly talk and can be ignored totally, which I kind of doubt, because the past stories about the group make them look all like unlikely to use this kind of humor. °_^

So better keep an eye on it and clear some social contract stuff up. Like how inter group conflict is wished for and safe words and such ;-)

42 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

safe words

"Hey everyone, glad you all made it, today's safe word is 'Duinuogwuin.' Now then, last time we left off..."

There be dragons …

Always look at your GMing and adjust as needed. Be a fan of the characters and give them opportunities to shine. Also, does the character not have an ancient sword? If not, why not? They have the requisite specialization, correct? Again, make sure they have the chance to shine. If they choose to putter in the dark, that's an away-from-the-table talk.

Also, have them read this: http://lookrobot.co.uk/2013/06/20/11-ways-to-be-a-better-roleplayer/

10 hours ago, Krodarklorr said:

So, I need further assistance on this matter. The PC in the spotlight here has been handeling things well. Even with his ancient sword he is doing negligible damage at best and still gets 2 shot by most things. I've add options for him to do his thing, such as talking the main contact out of ambushing them, meeting him alone in a cantina, and poisoning his drink.

However, last night there was a very in depth conversation on whether to join the Sith or the Jedi. Everyone was on the Sith train save for one player, solely for the reason of "money". However, the player left out not only has to go along with it, even when he doesn't feel good about the situation, but he also received threats upon his life from the PC in the spotlight if he messed this opportunity up in any way.

While I'm okay with them choosing Sith (when my story calls for them being good guys, but they'll soon realize how big of jerks the Sith really are), and I'm okay with the RP discussion the players had about their options, I'm not okay with this PC threatening other party members, and don't know how to prevent bad things happening.

Any advice?

OK so here is what I would do at your next session:

Before you start the game, have a talk with the Players about what is and what is not OK at the game table. Every player at the table is there to have fun, and that includes the GM. Clearly the player who openly threatened to kill another PC for 'not going along with the plan' was over the top for you, and impacted your fun at the table. It would also be a good opportunity to tell the players that your theme for the campaign is for the PCs and to let them know your limits.

While it is great to give players choices and options, this does not mean they get to just do anything they want, whenever they want. Its not railroading to put some level of control over what happens. Otherwise the plot will just diverge into meaningless arcs as each player sort of keeps pushing things along in unexpected directions at their whims.

Finally, don't let "It is what my character would do" or "Its in keeping with my character" EVER justify douchebag behavior. For every 'in character' reason to be a D-bag, there are 10 more to not be a 'D-bag'. Taking the above example to the extreme, consider a party of PCs in real life. One of them now threatens to kill you. Why would you even consider adventuring with that person ever again? If you are skilled in combat, and armed, why wouldn't you just eliminate that threat at the soonest possible option? I mean, it sure would be 'in keeping with character'.

When using the above advice never assume that anyone shares your personal definitions of douchebag behavior. What you consider to be perfectly normal or totally unacceptable might be quite different from that of anyone else at the table (or on the planet). Talk it out and be prepared to compromise or walk away, depending on the differences in question.

As an example, we had a player that was so intolerant of polyamorous relationships that another player's portrayal of a Sullustan male Smuggler with a wife at home (that he shared with several other Sullistan males and only really visited for breeding cycles) along with non-Sullustan girlfriends in every starport, was a sore spot. I never would have figured it was going to be such a big deal, especially as this was all background stuff, but the one player couldn't let it go and kept preaching to the other player that "marriage was sacred" and he was offended by such a portrayal, etc. After two sessions and a direct talk that failed to correct the behavior, the offended player was ejected from my game.

4 hours ago, Magnus Arcanus said:

While it is great to give players choices and options, this does not mean they get to just do anything they want, whenever they want. Its not railroading to put some level of control over what happens. Otherwise the plot will just diverge into meaningless arcs as each player sort of keeps pushing things along in unexpected directions at their whims.

Honestly, if that's what your players do when given the chance, you need new players anyways.

13 hours ago, Magnus Arcanus said:

OK so here is what I would do at your next session:

Before you start the game, have a talk with the Players about what is and what is not OK at the game table. Every player at the table is there to have fun, and that includes the GM. Clearly the player who openly threatened to kill another PC for 'not going along with the plan' was over the top for you, and impacted your fun at the table. It would also be a good opportunity to tell the players that your theme for the campaign is for the PCs and to let them know your limits.

While it is great to give players choices and options, this does not mean they get to just do anything they want, whenever they want. Its not railroading to put some level of control over what happens. Otherwise the plot will just diverge into meaningless arcs as each player sort of keeps pushing things along in unexpected directions at their whims.

Finally, don't let "It is what my character would do" or "Its in keeping with my character" EVER justify douchebag behavior. For every 'in character' reason to be a D-bag, there are 10 more to not be a 'D-bag'. Taking the above example to the extreme, consider a party of PCs in real life. One of them now threatens to kill you. Why would you even consider adventuring with that person ever again? If you are skilled in combat, and armed, why wouldn't you just eliminate that threat at the soonest possible option? I mean, it sure would be 'in keeping with character'.

Sorry for the late reply everyone, got caught up in life. Pffft.

I don't actually remember what his motivations are, exactly.

Unfortunately this PC has a habit of staying in character (for good or ill), which never ends well regardless. I ran a star wars d20 game years ago, my first game, and he made a Twilek crime lackey who worked for the Exchange. He made this character knowing he would be in a party with 2 Jedi, essentially the glorified police of that time period. Needless to say things got heated and it ended with a Jedi PC killing his character and him getting pissy.

I've considered fighting fire with fire, and turning the other team members against him, perhaps killing him. He did even say at the beginning of the campaign that he wanted to test my ability and resolve regarding killing players.

9 hours ago, Benjan Meruna said:

Honestly, if that's what your players do when given the chance, you need new players anyways.

Then I guess I need to not play tabletop rpgs. Every group I've ever played with usually tends to end up being murder hobos sooner or later, and they always try to do dumb stuff to test my limits.

Well I guess thats just it really. the Rim is a rough place which forces everyone to get together. The fact that everyone is joining the sith, one player is erring on throwing a spanner in the works and threats issued is probably about right for a party associated with the Edge side of the force. That being said, I prefer to keep OOC threats to a minimun, "I have a lightsaber and I could easily kill you" is just asking to be murdered when they least expect it. At least that's what my PC would do if one of his comrades went cold blooded like that; though on the flipside he has been fighting the inquisition for most of his adult life so maybe he is a touch imbalanced. Even so, he wouldn't threaten to kill someone unless he meant it; the word and favours mean a lot on the rim. Thus far he's only meant it once; and that was when the party droid decided to murder a Inquistor despite the fact we were completely stranded in some foreign land.

The other thing is even though they are chosing to assist the sith doesn't mean they actually are; make that very apparent when that inevitable betrayal comes when the Sith need some "mooks" to distract the Jedi from their greatest raid yet.

I certainly hope that PCs stay in character … though breaking the 4th wall like deadpool or she-hulk sounds like a cool character concept too

If he is expressly doing this to test your "ability and resolve regarding killing players" (hopefully meaning player characters ), then you might be failing the test by not drawing your line immediately. He's telling you that he's going to drag this game to a place you are telling us you don't want to go, so stop enabling his thought experiment if you don't likewise want to see it continue.

2 hours ago, Krodarklorr said:

Then I guess I need to not play tabletop rpgs. Every group I've ever played with usually tends to end up being murder hobos sooner or later, and they always try to do dumb stuff to test my limits.

Man, that sucks. Murderhobos are manageable in small numbers, but when they're the majority of the group things tend to become just a hack'n'slash fest where the GM is reduced to the role of number cruncher to satisfy their desire to essentially play a narrated video game. I understand a bit more why you're railroading them; murderhobos tend not to give a **** so long as they have stuff to kill.

And on the other end of the spectrum, you have the guy like your Duelist, who pick a character type and roleplay it very rigidly, even (or especially) if they know that it will bring them into conflict with the rest of the group, instead of being more flexible or picking a different flavor of RP that would fit in better.

Sorry you have to deal with all that, best I can do is to try to give them chances to do interesting things besides just killkillkill and see if you can get them to branch out a little. As for the other guy, tell him that you didn't have any trouble letting the group kill his last character, so you're not sure why he feels the need to test you again.

1 hour ago, HappyDaze said:

If he is expressly doing this to test your "ability and resolve regarding killing players" (hopefully meaning player characters ), then you might be failing the test by not drawing your line immediately. He's telling you that he's going to drag this game to a place you are telling us you don't want to go, so stop enabling his thought experiment if you don't likewise want to see it continue.

This really. Being an utter arsehole OOC is not in the spirit of this game; setting up a character "with the express intention of challenging the DM" is stupid. We used to have that problem ourselves until we grew up and stopped doing that because we weren't getting very far with our campaigns, most ending in what should have been the opening crawl.

Because do you know why he would always lose the game of testing patience? By being told directly, out of character to knock it off or leave this table. Do not use the game as a platform to hand out punishments as the DM is meant to build a world in response to the characters actions, not to punish the players.

On 3/15/2017 at 6:35 AM, Krodarklorr said:

I've considered fighting fire with fire, and turning the other team members against him, perhaps killing him. He did even say at the beginning of the campaign that he wanted to test my ability and resolve regarding killing players.

I would not use in game mechanics to try to solve what is at its root an out of game issue. I would flat out tell this player "I am not interested in playing a game where you want to test my ability and resolve regarding killing players. You can change your attitude or you can change your game table."

Now this advice is of course assuming you're not interested in this player 'testing your ability and resolve...". If you it is something you actually want to do, and all sides will find it mutually satisfying as a RP'ing experience, then more power to you. However, I suspect you are not OK with it, which is why you are reaching out to this forum for advice.

Its never easy to have these discussions, especially over something that is supposed to be fun and a hobby. But I think it could really go a long way towards resolving what sounds like some ongoing issues.

9 minutes ago, LordBritish said:

Do not use the game as a platform to hand out punishments as the DM is meant to build a world in response to the characters actions, not to punish the players.

This really can't be overstated. When problems and problem PLAYERS arise, it's always tempting to use the game (over which the GM has great influence) as a vehicle to deliver punishment in a really kind of passive-aggressive way. However, doing that is generally poison to the enjoyment of everyone elseat the table, so it's important to really just talk it out directly and either come to a resolution or kick the disruptive player from the group. It sucks to do the latter sometimes, but as the GM it sort of your responsibility.

There is a simple solution to that problem. Play with people interested in the game and switch to a system which handles combat purely narrative, some nice little diceless system.

On 3/14/2017 at 4:32 AM, Krodarklorr said:

While I'm okay with them choosing Sith (when my story calls for them being good guys, but they'll soon realize how big of jerks the Sith really are), and I'm okay with the RP discussion the players had about their options, I'm not okay with this PC threatening other party members, and don't know how to prevent bad things happening.

You could adopt my rule: no PVP, ever*. Period. Full stop. I don't care if "that's what my character would do!" - too many real life feelings will be hurt that way, and I would set all my game books on fire and walk away than risk losing real life friends. If that's what your character would do, then you need to rewrite the character.

*Unless we're playing Toon. Then the PVP best be funny!

5 minutes ago, Desslok said:

You could adopt my rule: no PVP, ever*. Period. Full stop. I don't care if "that's what my character would do!" - too many real life feelings will be hurt that way, and I would set all my game books on fire and walk away than risk losing real life friends. If that's what your character would do, then you need to rewrite the character.

*Unless we're playing Toon. Then the PVP best be funny!

In a game about Conflict, I would find an absolute rule like yours to be too confining. Of course, in the absence of maturity and moderation (I'm not staying that this is why you use it, just that it tends to be a reason such rules originate), such a rule might be more needed, but I would probably find the game that required such safety features a slog for various reasons beyond just PvP.

You're right - I should have prefaced it with that it depends on the game and the group, really - I haven't ever had to invoke that rule in forever now. My current group, we did have characters come to blows once - one was in a very bad headspace and went off to commit "suicide by stormtrooper" and the other Force Moved him against the wall to stop him, and it went downhill from there - but that was an organic development from the story and both players were cool with how things resolved.

I should amend my post with: This game, as presented, I would invoke my no PVP rule, especially when out of character threats started getting handed around. That's uncool and you need nip that in the bud straight away.

18 minutes ago, Desslok said:

*Unless we're playing Toon. Then the PVP best be funny!

Or Paranoia, but I think the general intent is the same.

The Smallville RPG is built on conflict between PCs, and handles it beautifully. Interestingly, one of its rules is that a PC can only die with the consent of its player.

2 minutes ago, Stan Fresh said:

The Smallville RPG is built on conflict between PCs, and handles it beautifully. Interestingly, one of its rules is that a PC can only die with the consent of its player.

Well then it's a good thing that OOC threats can be used to coerce the player into that consent.

Okay, after fully reading all 6-ish pages, it sounds like you guys really need another Session Zero (you did have an initial Session Zero, right?) to get on the same page. Step away from the table, lay out all the problems you are having - the players testing you, the PVP, the game heading in directions you are not thrilled with - and hash all that out and get a consensus.

Find out if they're okay with PVP and inter-party conflict, that a character stiffing the others out of credits (or whatever) wont cause bad player feelings. Find out what they want to see in the game, where they want it to go and what they'd like for an endgame. Tell them your plans - that you're okay with them joining the Sith, but you'd like to explore the idea that doing so isn't the best life choice.

Make it clear that everyone - every one - is here to have fun, and things that inhibit that will not be allowed. And after all that, if there's any dissent in the game - well, I hope you have fun with your next group.

Also now that you've got a couple of games under your collective belt, this is the point where you can offer them the one-time respec, that if they're not happy the way their class and/or trees are shaping up, they can swap out and reorganize stats (which gives the Super Specialist a chance to tweak his character from being a one-trick pony).

15 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

Well then it's a good thing that OOC threats can be used to coerce the player into that consent.

If you use coercion it's not consent.