Fighting Amongst the Ranks
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Okay, so listen up “MMORPG” kids. I’m so tired of playing a game and getting very busy at attempting to kill an enemy and you jump in and steal it from me.
For example, one of the guys in the group I am a part of is a very big MMORPG guy, and in our campaign we were fighting our way through the Horned Hold. Now, my party decided to break into two sections. Four of them went into the big room and I went into the little room by myself.
Now with the new rules for 4.0 you can make any fighter a walking armor class. Between full plate mail and a heavy sheild, plus an amulet of protection, things were shaping up to my advantage. Truly, I didn’t deal a great deal of damage, but it took more than a twenty seven to hit my AC… so I was not worried about the fight. Before me I found a Druegar and a Gnoll to fight. Nothing I couldn’t handle.
In the next room, the group had to fight a few Druegar and a couple of non important minions. Our Ranger is a damage dynamo. No big deal, but his history of ganking kills was actually starting to get under some of the player’s skin including mine. The four that had separated made relatively quick work of the enemy in front of them. Then instead of just letting things happen, the ranger charged into the next room.
I gave him a chance to understand I did not want his help, by saying it three times before he started his next turn. I had already bloodied one of the enemies and the second one, I knew had little hit points, but he drew and fired and killed both in one round… then ran away. This marked the end of the combat.
Listen, I love role playing aspects of the game but I also thoroughly enjoy combat. When I am focused on an emeny, unless I truly ask for help, most of the players know to leave me alone. My party knows me for that. Beyond that there is usually an ‘unwritten’ rule to leave their kill alone.
Usually, I let these things go. I understand he doesn’t really get the whole, this is my kill philosophy, but after having warned him several times in game and out, I took this one a little more personally. I made it known I wanted to fight him, in which he said he just wanted to simply jump over my head. (Standing jump) in a room that has about a 9-10 foot ceiling, with a seven foot minotaur whom easily has up to a foot of horn on their head. So you’re telling me, a full grown elf character is going to fit through a hole Jackie Chan would turn down. Yeah… no.
So our GM laughed and told him, sure you can roll. So he did, and with a +5 to his dexterity rolls, he made the jump check, rolling a 26. The GM looked him dead in the eye with a frown on his face and said no you fail your roll and the character was surprised. How friggin’ ridiculous do you think that is? In addition to this, he was hurt when my character physically accosted him.
I tend to not allow outside game situation influence my personal decisions, but I have to say I was slightly hypocritical in this situation and requested from the GM and the character that an initiative roll be made. There was going to be a fight. After a small amount of damage, I reminded him that I could kill him before this fight was done and my character would still be fine. I don’t really like fighting amongst the ranks, but it’s a possibility and a likelihood when different types of people are thrown together.
Thanks for listening and give me your best shot!
Intra-player fighting is good in some systems, necessary in others (like Paranoia), but doesn’t work well in RPGs. Other forms of conflict (arguing IC, sabotaging bed rolls with lice, etc.) can be amusing… but it’s often character stretching to continue adventuring with someone who drew steel on you.
I don’t have a good solution– ignoring several attempts would upset me too. It just sounds like the problem’s bigger than can be solved in game.
I’d take issue with the idea that your player’s problem is to do with an MMO background. MMOs encourage teamwork in collective instances. If you’ve played enough WoW to do an instance or similar, then you’ll know what I mean, as well as how seriously people take kill stealing.
If I was GM’ing, I’d be more concerned with you not wanting the help of your party and causing the conflict. Unless of course, you’re role-playing an uneasy party.
As Scott says, interparty combat is good some of the time (and can be taken to extremes by the Keeper in games like Cthulhu). Good way to teach people combat basics as well.
I’m going to have to agree with Hammer – I don’t think this is entirely the other guy’s fault. It’s one thing if you’ve decided this specific character of yours has a “this is my kill” mentality, and you’re roleplaying that. That would be really cool. But if this is something all of your characters do, it sounds a little unreasonable.
It’s one thing if you’re playing an oldschool game where XP is an individual thing, and someone finishing off your opponent means you don’t get the full XP. But you haven’t said anything about your game being like that, so I don’t see why you’re territorial about opponents.
Usually, the goal of combat is for the party to kill the badguys. Unless your character has a specific vendetta against one of them, there’s no reason for your partymates not to help you kill them. If that weren’t normal, flanking wouldn’t be such a good strategy.
I think intra-party conflict can sometimes be a good thing. But generally only when it’s for roleplaying reasons. If good roleplaying grows out of this, that’s great. But this does sound like an out of character issue that should probably be tackled from that angle, as well.
Hey thanks for your opinions. I do appreciate them and see from your perspective as well. Now I hope all of you understand that this is my opinion. So at least thanks for reading! So keep on giving me those opinions cause I’ll keep giving mine.