What's with all the PvP lust?

steppenkat

trickshaw wrote: »

If you never PvP'd on table top then your DM sucks.

Menzoberranzan, Dark Sun, Ravenloft, Planescape & Birthright were 4 settings ripe for inter group turmoil. Those aside, if a member of your group was never cloned, enthralled, charmed or enticed into betraying his party... you're a terribad DM. If your party has never lost it's cool and just started wailing on one another from IRL anger or possibly IC rivalries (pally vs. rogue)... you're a terribad DM. If you never allowed a player to concoct his own henchman for the parties antagonist and allowed him to RP that character against his own group... you're a terribad DM.

I pity so many of you for not having DMs either experienced enough or clever enough to introduce you to the finer aspects of betrayal, intrigue or just plain ole raucous fun from player vs player competition.

ALL of that aside, this is an MMO and MMOs are known for having PvP elements. PvPers are a broad base of the MMO community. To not include them or work with them in maintaining a balanced PvP experience is folly. The last company that did that paid for it. You may have heard of them? BioWare. A little game called SWTOR. BW publicly apologized and stated flatly, "we grossly underestimated the popularity of PvP".

Look where that got them. They've been desperately trying to play catch up ever since.

A campaign or adventure doesn't need to include PvP to be good. Your argument is flawed in that regard.

Also, not every tabletop group is good to allow a PvP option in your campaign. It requires maturity from your playerbase to make sure that they make coherent decisions and it doesn't degenerate into petty OOC fights.

shadidio

I would argue that in DND you are always in PVP fights. Not with your own team of course, but all those monsters you fight are controlled by the DM, a real live intelligent person who can pull some nasty surprises you don't expect out of his/her bag.

halflingpaladin

I'll give you that shad, in the most simplest terms, you're right.

but there's a big difference between that and what mmorpg "pvp" is, by my reckoning.

sockmunkey

In that context it is not PVP, simply because a good DM ultimately wants the party to succeed. Sure, the DMs job is to challenge the players, slow them down, make them think, put up obstacles, ect. But the point is to provide something to overcome and not win at all costs.

Put simply, if the DM wanted to win. The DM has the tools to win every time. Hard to justify it as PVP with that type of one sided rule set.

kimonagi

Friendly fire is PvP, needing to be carefull where you place your AoE spell is PvP. Dont think anyone was talking about D&D being a group of people fighting each other.