From: BJP108@psuvm.psu.edu (Brian Panulla)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp
Subject: Re: Inter-Party Conflicts
Date: 17 Apr 92 13:35:06 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Penn State University

In my defese, first of all, I'd like to describe my old group af players: they
were all pretty much munchkins. I WAS the DM for almost all of my playing days,
so I was in charge of keeping them in line. To this day, I have a hard time
letting go of the AD&D rules as I interpreted them, because long ago I decided
which ones I was going to use, and which ones I wasn't. I had to keep the party
 "out of trouble," since every time someone played an evil character, somebody
else got knifed. So,I rigidly defined my concept of the game to keep the player
 s from trying to take advantage of the rules.

The only reason we had an all-evil campaign in the first place was because I wa
nted to get out from behind the screen for a little while. One player who'd had
 the second most GMing experience took over the reign. Because most of the othe
r party members were evil, I decided to play along. As I said, I was a LE Cleri
c. Since most of the other characters were Chaotic, or rarely NE, I had my cler
ic sweep in to take control of the group, since none of the other characters ha
d any "leadership potential". I refused to allow any of the more chaotic charac
ters to "screw around" (read: rape and pillage the local towns...this was their
concept of "evil"- perhaps it was justified to play CE...).

The aforementioned CE mage couldn't take the fact that I was in charge. I was
powerful enough that I could whip the snot out of anyone who crossed me, except
 for the warrior, who I kept under control with the threat of withholding heali
ng. So, one day, the mage led a coup by bribing the other PC's to gang up on
 me. After some seriously intense negotiations, I resigned as party leader. My
character thought to himself "If that's what these little babies want to do, so
 be it."

Shortly thereafter, two party members where dead and one imprisoned after run i
ns with the local constabulary. I half-heartedly tried to help, after all, why
should I waste my time and speels to save a bunch of ungrateful whelps. We even
tually freed the prisoner, and got on with the quest. Along the way, the player
with the mage kept rubbing my face in the fact that my character was no longer
in charge. I ignored it, since it wasn't his character doing it, it was him.

Finally, I just couldn't take it anymore, so I led the party into a trap that I
 knew full well was there. The trap (yellow mold) whiped out half the party...
unfortunately, not the mage. We promptly began a spell duel, which he won (with
Sleep) and he proceeded to kill my incapacitated character.

Upon further examining the above situation (this was quite a few years ago), we
all played our characters reasonably in alignment. But the downfall of the game
 was to immaturity of the players. Thus perhaps, I was a bit harsh in denouncin
g all evil games. Perhaps they are possible with mature players. However, I sti
ll can't see how evil characters as defined in AD&D can posibly work together
and succeed without greed or power-lust crippling their interraction.

                                                      Just my 54 cents...
                                                        Brian "Telperion"
                                                               Panulla
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp