pc fighting and manipulation

I'm still gearing up for our first session and I've been wondering about the experiences of other groups when it comes to PCs fighting, seducing, and manipulating. How often does it happen in your groups?

Coming from a more traditional fantasy rpg background, characters trying to manipulate or even harm each other is an alien concept.

What are your experiences?

Had the hardholder try to kill the battlebabe in the first session of our most recent campaign, resulting in a debility. Granted the battlebabe was asking for it pretty hard (killing an NPC for fairly trivial reasons after being specifically informed that doing so would result in execution).

First campaign had lots of PC-on-PC manipulation culminating in a massive accidentally-on-purpose clusterfuck of a shootout after six sessions or so. Again spurred on by certain characters acting chaotic neutral. I believe debilities were involved here, as well.

We all had a great deal of fun, though.

In my first game ever, at Go Play NW, our game degerated rather suddenly into a PVP confrontation which didn't result in any deaths. The Touchstone killed the Quarantine's fellow (she had it coming), and the Quarantine wanted an explanation.

It felt natural though and fit with what we'd been going through. Intense though, even though my character wasn't in the middle of it.

Man, PC-on-PC fighting is THE BEST.  As the MC you just get to sit back and watch the show, cause that shit is *always* interesting.  I've found PCs love to get hit by the other PCs cause then it gives them +Hx with the person who hit them FOR EVERY SEGMENT OF HARM.  Shoot somebody with a shotgun? It's almost like giving them a free experience point!  Also, you really don't want to give your rival too much Hx with you, cause then they can interfere with you when you need to do shit the most...

Also, there's a HUGE incentive to fuck with each other as PCs because most inter-PC moves don't force the 'losing' PC to do much, but they *do* mark experience if they get forced to do something.  Between the xp and the consolation prize of Hx, intra-party conflict is hilarious, fun, and enjoyable even for those who take a bullet to the face.

Every game I've ever played in has had quite a bit of PvP. And we've always regretted it. And yet, we never learn.

Like life.

Every game I've ever played in has had quite a bit of PvP. And we've always regretted it. And yet, we never learn.

Like life.

Hot.

Also, I have a player who loves PvP and a player who hates PvP. 10 years of GMing has taught me that it's better (in general) to accommodate what people absolutely do not want to see in a game, rather than to bring said thing into play to get one person off at the cost of possibly turning other players sour. Another example of this type of thing is sex. One of my players is very uncomfortable with explicit sex scenes, so we always fade to black whenever something sexual is going on.

I think the most important thing is to establish everyone's expectations from the outset. That way, if one player suddenly goes aggro on another, no one can say they weren't given fair warning, and there won't be any such thing as one player 'accidentally' killing another.

Our AW game, as you might've read, is pretty low on direct PvP.  Heck, we only successfully used Hx: interfere moves in our 16th session!  That doesn't mean that there hasn't been a lot of manipulation and maneuvering up until that point though.  The strength of the AW system is that it gives you story rewards if you go ahead and stick together OR if you all tear each other's throats out.  You're not really "penalized" either way – debilities kinda suck for your character in the interim, but make for great story-telling in the long haul.

I think initiative is the important part. Usually manipulation is done straight (often with interfere by counter arguing or just being a tight ass). I imagine I'd solve deadly violence in which both parties are prepared as mutual going aggro (with interfere) for delicious duels in which both die.