Quote from: Ravenswing;880632Eeesh, no.  Did that exactly once. 2nd edition GURPS pushed the concept of an Adversary, and one of my players from my 2nd group volunteered to be the test bed for the 1st group.  He knew nothing about the characters, and all he was running was the senior sergeant in charge of the mook guardsmen tasked to capture the group.  No magic, no nothing, five sword-and-board 50 pters, five crossbowmen.

Came within a whisper of a TPK.  He was ruthless, he played smart, and he sure as hell took no chances.  He had one of his men put a crossbow bolt in the belly of the party mage after he surrendered, just to demonstrate what he'd do to the other three who were captured alive if they so much as hinted at resistance.

It was a good bit nastier than the heroic swashbuckling paradigm I was doing with that group could sustain, and I didn't repeat the experiment.

Well, if that's not what you want, then sure, don't do that. If it's interesting but seems too deadly for the PC's, short-term or one-off scenarios can be used. Also the GM can assign NPCs to adversaries who have reasons not to kill and maim the PCs if it can be avoided.

I find that kind of thing potentially very interesting though. The group got to see what it's like to face actual dangerous unpredictable opponents who aren't attached to their survival, and got a very memorable experience (assuming you were playing 2nd Edition GURPS when it was current, like 1990).

It can be particularly interesting when you get good roleplayers as adversaries, and give them interesting characters with their own motives and situations. Adversary players can shake/wake up players and GM's, and give fresh perspectives and ideas, for example of how the GM might play NPCs, too, more as real characters with their own perspectives and agendas and strategies.

GURPS also makes it more interesting to me, with all of its lethality and tactical options and unpredictability. To me, all these things can make for very immersive  and challenging (often frightening) situations.

In H+I I frequently have a player whose character is not present run some of the NPCs. It frees up me to focus on a smaller set of NPCs and it usually gives the combat a different flavor than if I ran all the NPCs. But as Ravenswing pointed it, it is not without its perils.

Oh, I don't deny the merit of fresh perspectives that don't come from my own head, and I've tried various gambits over the years to get them ... from having associate GMs, giving out "extra credit" XP to players willing to help me out with worldbuilding, that sort of thing.

In the end, though, I contemplate comfort zones.  People who play in my campaign long-term do so, I fancy, because they like what I bring to the table: that they don't mind GURPS, that they like high RP/low mortality rate games, that they appreciate dense settings, that verisimilitude's important, that it's okay to explore romantic or political storylines, that I put enough work into acting that they can ID a couple dozen key NPCs from my voice alone, that I run a pretty sandboxy game, and that you're not offended if character creation or a line battle takes more than five minutes.  The degree I want to be changing the paradigm and being Not Me at the table is, perhaps, not what my players seek.

I'm fine with them killing each other, since choice is choice. Happened for a session or two n the curren campaign.  But then two of the players put the kabosh on that, threatening to quit, so it's just been boring ass conformity down the line since then.Don't get me wrong, the alternative can suck, too. But part of me still feels the two players are, well, sorta wimpy. Some of these players were playing bad fucking people. But, Group went along with the two who hated it (though their characters were unaffected by it directly), so there it is.

Quote from: cranebump;881191I'm fine with them killing each other, since choice is choice. Happened for a session or two n the curren campaign.  But then two of the players put the kabosh on that, threatening to quit, so it's just been boring ass conformity down the line since then.Don't get me wrong, the alternative can suck, too. But part of me still feels the two players are, well, sorta wimpy. Some of these players were playing bad fucking people. But, Group went along with the two who hated it (though their characters were unaffected by it directly), so there it is.

I've had that scenario before. You can discuss expectations but then there's a split.

That said I feel like becoming desensitized to it and being able to play out what happens anyway is part of becoming a good RPer.

As I've noted before. I picked up a group recovering from a pretty bad DM. Recently I learned it wasnt just one, but a series of the worst types of DMs imaginable. The players learned about every bad habit from this.

So I lay down up front a few rules of conduct and explain my own playstyle. And it helps let new players know what is ok and what isnt at this table. I expect players from previous DMs to have possibly been playing under very different rules of conduct and playstyle than I do.

Quote from: Omega;881285As I've noted before. I picked up a group recovering from a pretty bad DM. Recently I learned it wasnt just one, but a series of the worst types of DMs imaginable. The players learned about every bad habit from this.

So I lay down up front a few rules of conduct and explain my own playstyle. And it helps let new players know what is ok and what isnt at this table. I expect players from previous DMs to have possibly been playing under very different rules of conduct and playstyle than I do.

What kind of rules?

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;881287What kind of rules?

Fairly simple stuff overall and some of it is basic setting reminders.

"Dont attack other players characters without good reason."
or
"Dont indiscriminantly fuck with the NPCs. Because the local law and/or populace will come after you if they find out." That second one is an important reminder. Some players are used to having no repercussions to offing citizens. I like to emphasize that these are people. Not EXP on legs. Especially in a game like for example Call of Cthulhu.
or
"Please tone down the foulmouthery at the table." or if there are kids present "NO foulmouthery or esplicitly adult stuff at the table. Some players arent used to having kids at the table and a little reminder can help.

Situational of course. One Gamma World campaign I ran was essentially "Anything goes." and sat back and watched all hell break loose. One player quit after a bit. Not because anything happened to his character. It just was not appealing after giving it a try. He knew the situation going in because I'd laid out what was possible.

And as noted. The players impose their own rules of conduct sometimes.

It totally depends on the campaign.  In my Dark Albion campaign I've had less pvp conflict than I expected, because mostly the party has generally stayed on the same side of the Rose War conflict most of the time.  There was two big exceptions: a character that by random determination ended up being part of the Woodville family, and thus stayed loyal to the Woodvilles & King Edward of York when Warwick the Kingmaker turned on them (the rest of the PCs sided with Warwick and fucking despise the Woodvilles), and another character who started a peasant revolt in Nottingham, unifying the "Merry Men" bandits of Sherwood under his three-color banner. The other PCs were sent to take him in, and eventually had to watch Richard Crookback kill him.