Forums » RP Discussion » Escalating the situation & why it can be a problem

I've noticed something that happens quite a lot during RPs in general, and I'd like to see what others think about it. I think a lot of people do it without even realizing that it's a problem.

I'm not talking about anybody specific on this site, but some players, both here and n other RP sites, have a tendency to wildly overreact or mistreat NPCs to get what they want. It might just be because most players don't really think of minor NPCs as people or even real characters, but rather objects to forward plot or conversation. However, it's important to keep in mind that relative to your character, this person you're talking to is as real as any other.

What this can do is quickly escalate a situation far beyond what is reasonable. For example, a character might be asked to show ID to the guard at the door to get into a building, and instead of complying, will threaten or even physically assault the guard, even if there's no reason to respond to a situation with violence. A character might open fire on police officers or even random people just to escape capture or forward their own goals.

Not only can things like this cast the character as a violent, unhinged psychopath when they're not supposed to be, it is also very unrealistic and can even create serious consistency problems later on if there aren't consequences. (It's also worth noting that if you threaten a guard to get in, the first thing they're going to do when you're gone is call for security or the police. If you kill a cop to escape, you are going to be on the lam for the rest of the game.)

Players and GMs should keep in mind that in the real world, violence is something very serious. If characters dish out death threats over the tiniest things, it cheapens the impact of real violence and creates unrealistic and inconsistent characters. Violence can disrupt the story and escalate it when it shouldn't be escalated.

Before attacking or threatening to attack another character, even if they're just a lowly NPC, think about whether a real person would attack a real other person for the same reason.

What are other people's thoughts on this?

Two thumb I don't get it does it cause arguments?

I figure it could. I personally though try avoiding confronting the person, but that's just the way I am, unless it is particularly erroneous. And un fortunately, I don't think I haven't done this before . If I do though, it doesn't stick out in memory.

It certainly can, depending on who you're playing with. But there are plenty of other problems with it as well.

The main issue I have with it is that it's not very realistic. On another site I once had a player casually mention that they wanted one of my NPCs to murder one of his henchmen for a completely insignificant reason. Obviously that's not going to happen, and it made this character who was supposed to be a normal, if morally misguided, person look like a total psychopath.

On another case, a character who up until this point was being played as a friendly, bubbly, person suddenly went full out crazy and threatened to torture and murder an NPC for not instantly complying with what they wanted them to do.

That's an extreme example, but I've seen plenty of smaller cases where threats, intimidation, and violence crop up in places that they shouldn't, and it is disruptive to the RP and to the characters themselves.

I know I've been guilty of it as well - I used to have a bad habit of making a protagonist in a story use casual death threats to quickly resolve otherwise mundane conflicts when I wanted to move the plot along.

I do my best to keep things in mind. Actually, I've had a few NPCs that became full characters. Sure, there are plenty of faceless casualties in some things, but I try to keep it to only when it fits.

To me, characterization is key.

There are two things that are a part of roleplays:

Action followed by Reaction

Action can be: a NPC punching your character, an NPC pointing their gun at your character, an NPC throwing something at your character.

Reaction can be: your character blocking the punch or punching back, your character returning fire on their attacker, your character catching/throwing something back.

What happens is that some people do the reaction part without there being an action. Does it make sense for a character to shoot someone for no reason? Does it make sense for them to punch someone without being provoked? Unless your character is insane and triggered by something specific, it doesn't make sense. That makes it really hard for other players involved to take the character seriously and enjoy the roleplay.

It's important for many players that a character follows the basic principle of Action causes Reaction, and when this principle is ignored, people tend to stop having fun.

I love my npcs and usually end up being pcs or have been pcs in another story. but I stay true to my characters personality over reacting or over powering can take it to an irritating level and un balance the whole scene.

It's on GMs to rein that kind of behaviour in when necessary. Players going bananas on a well-crafted encounter is a problem as old as gaming, and a lot of game systems have built-in roleplay/gameplay rules (D&D's alignments, Vampire's humanity and masquerade, etc) to try and keep players in their lanes, but even without those a bit of due diligence is enough: remind players ahead of time the consequences of behaving badly, and when in doubt in the moment, a simple "Are you sure?" can go a long way.

You're probably right that most people don't realize what they're doing -- so enlighten them, and always remember that you're the boss.

If nothing else works, enforcing realistic consequences throughout a game is a GREAT teaching tool to get players to make more considered choices for the next game!

There's a video on this topic in regards to D&D... Video here

The gist being, it's both the DM's job to enforce IC consequences for jumping to a high aggression level, and a player's job to think of things realistically.

EDIT now I have more time to discuss:

This is actually a pet peeve of mine, and I could call it a symptom of Action Movie Syndrome. Players who do things like unprovokedly kill, threaten or assault NPCs (on characters who are supposed to be non-villainous, functioning members of society!) or play off serious wounds as minor, who emphasize power(s) over character, are quick to hit my shit list. This is more a problem in campaign-style games than 1x1s, and more a problem in 1x1s than chat-group RPs, but they occur in all three.

I honestly blame action movies and anime for making this absurd 'jump to level 72 of violence escalation' thing so common, as in action movies and anime characters often don't have to face consequences for their over-the-top actions, so you get the cool ICA and none of the ICC. (For example, when was the last time you saw an action hero answering for all the destroyed property from the explosive chase/fight scene?) This is fine in a movie or anime because there's effectively only one 'voice' -- the writing of the show may technically have multiple contributors, but they're all working to one goal. In any RP, no matter how friendly, there is a bouncing-off nature, a 'versus' if you will -- whether it's the DM trying to get the players into the plot, a PC having conflict with an NPC or another PC, or even just players trying to show how neat their characters are, which makes this escalation of violence a real problem.