How can I utilize overly-violent PCs for character development / progressing the story?

Question

I'm fairly new to D&D and especially DMing. I've started a new campaign with 2-3 people and more may be joining soon, which might make this question entirely useless to ask if the new players behave differently. The current players are more prone to violence than I was expecting. Two of the three choose violence over all other options most of the time.

I home brewed an open-world map with some complex characters and motives for them to explore, as well as an ongoing civil war, all wrapped into a post-magic-apocalyptic environment. What this means is that violence isn't necessarily NOT the answer, it just makes the game boring as a DM to have all your NPCs hacked and slashed to bits by a goliath and barbarian who are more interested in combat than storytelling.

One example is they tried to attack a shop keeper to steal his flintlock pistol that they can't afford to purchase. Luckily the bard of our group had just joined the game, and since I had already explained that this shop keeper was an ex-member of a mercenary group, he held his own until the bard could cast a spell to befriend the shopkeeper and stop the fighting. Luckily the bard player has DM'd for previous campaigns and has more experience with D&D, so he knows to not attack shopkeepers and perhaps takes the game more seriously.

Violence seems to be the option they're most prone to choosing. While I don't want to power-game them into a corner by making guards constantly spot them, or make the shop keepers over-powered warriors, how can I help guide them towards choosing alternative solutions to problems that don't involve killing everything in their path?

1. Should I have a discussion with them out of game about their characters actions (not ideal)?

2. What type of scenarios can I place them in to potentially develop their characters away from that?

3. Or, is this all a non-issue and I should just let them make their mistakes and get slaughtered / outlawed?

   I told them they could do whatever they want and this would be an open-world campaign.

Answer 1

Punish them!

Not as players, but as characters. They want to murder random shopkeepers in a fleshed out world, go for it! Don't just have your guards "spot them", they should be actively looking for a hulking monster and his pet psycho that are murdering good people.

These people are not heroes. They are murderhobos, and they deserved to be treated as such. Murderhobos can easily be utilized for good, as long as they're actually willing to have a good outlet for their bloodthirsty habits.

They can:

• Get arrested, then get hired by the king.
• Be "drafted" into a mercenary army against the undead.
• Be put in a prison of murderous cretins, for them to exercise their rights as terrible people.
• Cause the local "corrupt" lord to send out soldiers to take them down, creating a temporary obstacle for them to focus on.

If you want to tug at the heartstrings a bit, maybe the locals are terrified of their presence and have formed ragtag militias to stop the pair. They might murder a shopkeeper, but would they murder teenagers and women?

DnD is a game of consequence.

You didn't pick featherfall that day after sleeping in a sky fortress. You decided to use your last Barbarian Rage before the big boss fight. That shopkeeper was wearing more magical stuff than he was selling, and you decided to try and rob him.

Don't coddle them. These people made their beds, and now they have to sleep in them.

You should give them the chance to learn from their mistakes, but they first have to learn that they are making mistakes.

After they have learned from their punishment

Your players are a bit like a semi going 70. Before, they were driving the wrong way and destroying everything in their path.

Now that they are going on the right side of the road, you can giving them directions to go. If they won't stop or slow down, you can at least give them appropriate options to plow through.

Maybe once they have some respect as the most dangerous pair in the land, NPCs will recognize that they're only in it to murder things, and give choices that reflect as such.

An NPC could tell them of the evil necromancer is far to the northeast. They suggest going through Goblin Forest to the north, or Giant's Pass to the east. They have choice now, and those choices will influence the world in slight ways, like if they have cleared up Giant's Pass (which was once a trade route, or something).

Consider who in your world would utilize such a resource for the greater good, and give them the means to "push" the players in the right direction.

Answer 2

Zastoupil's answer is 100% the way to go. Using this as an opportunity to create a plausible civil society will pay dividends: your players may tone down their violence when they discover it has costs, and they may take your world more seriously if it feels a little more real.

That's the correct answer. But here's a fun one: redcaps!
From Volo's Guide:

In the Feywild, or where that plane touches the world at a fey crossing, if a sentient creature acts on an intense desire for bloodshed, one or more redcaps might appear where the blood of a slain person soaks the ground. At first, new redcaps look like tiny bloodstained mushrooms just pushing their caps out of the soil. When moonlight shines on one of these caps, a creature that looks like a wizened and undersized gnome with a hunched back and a sinewy frame springs from the earth. The creature has a pointed leather cap, pants of similar material, heavy iron boots, and a heavy bladed weapon. From the moment it awakens, a redcap desires only murder and carnage, and it sets out to satisfy these cravings.

If your PCs are on a killing spree, perhaps they cause an epidemic of these lil guys. It's not as rewarding, probably not even as effective as using your player's behavior as a rich worldbuilding opportunity (as Zastoupil recommends), but it is a whole lot easier. Have fun!

Answer 3

Ask them what sort of game they want, and tell them what sort of game you want.

Some people just want to play a hack and slash game. It's very relaxing to murder things, and that's a perfectly reasonable type of game. You don't, and spent time crafting personalities for your NPCs. That takes time and effort.

As such, you should talk to them. Ask them what sort of game they want, and tell them what you want. If they just murder all your work then a lot of your time is wasted, so you should know whether they are willing to play nice.

Talking about morality is also important. It's a common house rule in many games that you don't wantonly murder civilians for petty cash. It's worth talking about that.

You could impose IC punishments as others have suggested, but going to the source is a more reliable solution.

Answer 4

Disclaimer: This might be less in line with other answers, as I come from a way more hack'n'slayish game style and role play is only done sparse - much like right from the KoDT pages :)

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First and most usual way: the solar cannon - or in your case guards, well trained shopkeepers and accordingly equipped shops. There's a reason that pawn shops and gas stations in some areas and other focal points do feature heavy security.

Then there's a more urgent question you may want to ask yourself:

• Is this really a playable setting?
• Is it a world my players want to play/live in?
• Are they interacting with the proper part of your world?

Worldbuilding is often handled as making up a fairy tale story with a way more trusty and positive assumed structure than in real life (happily ever after already built in). While such a fantasy may be enjoyable when describing it, it's easy to forget all the mechanics that are needed to keep a world like that running.

That's why I like when players come in.

Essentially they are code testers, looking for bugs - or in this case plot holes. A shop without any security will draw thieves - at least as soon as real (and independent thinking) humans are involved. Part of role playing, from a players perspective, is to try other behaviours out than they do in every day life. It is their urge to try your setting. They are not actors following a script.

The same way you got an image about the world you create, the players have an image about the world they want to live in. A real game world will always be a combination of both: it is shaped by the background you set plus the actions the player take. Many of their actions were not imagined by you in the first place. To me that's part of the fun DMing - after all, if one just wants people to enjoy his view, he should rather write a book (or game material), but not run a game.

One lesson here could be selecting only players that adhere to your world view and play along. The other is adapting the world to your players needs (and actions). It needs reaction appropriate to the setting. If they rob a squash stand at a farm house, the farmer will be helpless. If they try the same even at a small village, the villagers will react less than friendly - if they got proper information. In the End, even just a few villagers are a good force.

Unless the PCs go all out war, they will end up send away at least, but usually well beaten up, maybe even including tar and feathers. In a large village, even going berserk won't help much. It's often forgotten, that simple weapon stats are mostly meaningless when confronted with a mob or a well coordinated guard force in a confined space.

Then there's the question about if the part of your world, the PC are in, is the appropriate one. Letting a bunch of high-maintenance low-manners mercenaries into a well off low-security upper class neighborhood may be good for some laughs, but almost never works out as intended. They miss knowledge of the inherent rules (and the smell) of that environment. In some ways it's the same question as about having hired the 'right' players. Adapt the setting or change the players.

In some way your comment about sending them to the woods already shows how to move them into a more appropriate location :))

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As always, it comes down to communication which depends a lot on your playing style.

One doing a strict DM vs. Player and everything has to be done in character will of course have a harder time to communicate flawed in-character handling by the player. This is much like in real life, when action and words are not the way they are intended - it's hard for the one acting to spot the flaw. Much like someone believing to be a generous and lovable paladin, while voiceing him more like an arrogant jerk. While this may as well be like in RL, it's more often than not unintended and based on the players poor play of a character's traits. Long story short, a roleplay-targeted style makes it next to impossible to communicate on a meta level about how characters are played. This leaves two alternatives:

1. Go along and accept a killing spree by not opening a meta level
2. Do it like a director handling his actors between takes. Pause the game and tell exactly what's wrong and needs to be changed.

In the end, it comes down to what has been said about who rules the play. The players due to their actions, or the world builder by definition. With many interrupts and corrections the world builder's fantasy will come thru and players are just actors - sans the money and fame motivating them to comply.

In a more relaxed play style, where metalevel between players and play of characters are intervened, a DM may as well point out flawed handling and give players a direct choice to think again. In my experience, that will lead in the long run to a better handling and understanding of the players about their characters, even including changes in their characters traits without being forced by the DM. Even more, since the meta part is handled with all (or at least the involved) present, players will start to look closer on all characters, help each other and improve the way the characters are played.

This doesn't stop characters from going on a killing spree - just now they will be way more serious about the implications - and accepting reasonable in context reactions by the DM. If they are playing low life, their city environment will be much like above mentioned pawn shops, pre payed pubs and fenced off shop keepers. Not to mention the many nice ways alignmental magic and change of alignment offers.

Bottom line, PCs are not ruining a setting, but improve its design and features.

Answer 5

Tell them they have options

I keep a Discord server for mine that allows me to communicate house rules, corrections, out-of-game RP sessions for development or non-combat stuff*, and to communicate with them in a dedicated place for things like this. I won't force them to do things in certain ways, but pointing out that they may have other options open to them helps to lead to them actually using those options. As they hear of interesting paths I may have set up for those options, they are more interested to look for alternative ways of doing things. Last session of 5 hours only saw two real fights I think and one of them they were clearly losing!

Online RP sessions

The asterisk above mentions this. Using a discord server, slack channel, or similar, can allow you to have your players wander about town and interact with NPCs, the town, downtime, etc, in a way that is not condusive to combat.

A couple campaigns ago I used this to great effect and ended up creating NPCs based on their interactions with the world that entirely changed the course of a PC or two's paths.

Unbeatable Encounters

Some number of your encounters are supposed to be essentially impossible. If you sprinkle these in every once in awhile you will end up with a chase scene, a new quest, interactions with NPCs to defeat The Thing, or similar.

By putting your players on the back foot you are engaging their other game-senses to figure out how to get around this new problem. If your players aren't the most powerful thing in the world, it's time to introduce a villain that shows them they have a long ways to go. By the villain occasionally making a mockery of them or introducing obstacles; you also make that villain visible, important, and give the players a goal of "Someday we're going to be powerful enough to take that on!"

Puzzles

You can't kill a puzzle.. most of the time. This is a great way to encourage exploration, thinking outside of the box, and similar. Puzzles in this case can include conundrums like "how do we scale this cliff with those archers shooting at us?" "How do we get passed this pit?" "What do the Runes on this door mean, and how can we use that information to open it?"

If you do these well they will feel as fun as a battle without you basically doing any work. My most memorable was a low-level pit trap someone fell in, which they needed to be lifted out of in their heavy armor, and then people rigged a rope system to get them across and whatnot; entertaining and probably an absurd hour or so of effort for what I thought was a throw-away trap.

This is your job

Your players interact with the world based on your lead, in some sense. If you want them to do more than kill everything you need to put them in situations where killing things is not an option.

Terrain, traps, puzzles, unbeatable enemies, characters who interact with yours while clearly not being a threat. Consider the thief who gains their trust and requires checks to figure out he's slowly pilfering their stuff.

Answer 6

I could suggest opposite than others are suggesting. Instead of punishing the players, enable them. Try building a world where all people have same mentality as the players. In such world, people would have hard time trusting each other. In such a world, finding peaceful place to rest would be difficult. And staying in one place will quickly invite different and stronger group to rob or kill the players. Same with trade. Merchants will avoid players, unless they know them very well.

There might be cities where people don't immediately kill each other. But those cities will have strong defenses and won't allow just anyone to enter. You first need to gain trust of the townsfolk and even then, you can only enter if you dissarm yourself and put on "magic limiters". But outside those cities, there won't be anyone to help the players or provide shelter.

This will have effect of players as they won't be properly rested and constantly on edge of hunger.

Answer 7

I'm guessing none of your PCs picked chaotic assassins, and you don't want to be negative over the fact that they keep whacking every NPC that crosses their path...

1. Literally beat them to the punch.
   Example: black blah you're about to sneak behind the shopkeeper when a disgruntled elf slithers from the alley plunging a dirk into his back. He falls into your arms, his comrade steals the item your PCS wanted and to make matters worse a woman fom the inn has just chucked two drunks out and has only seen said shopkeeper flop dead from your arms...
   Then they can get run out of town or tossed in jail.
2. Let them attack the NPC.
   They could even get that knife they wanted, only to find out the coveted item is actually cursed. Now they have to spend every other day being the opposite sex or that they find out the NPC is a trickster God, who curses them, until they perform some act of contrition. The curse can be any gold they touch turns to ash. Every time they're going to bash an NPC they don't need to bash about, as the DM, roll any dice you want behind the screen and announce they made their Perception or Intelligence roll - then announce an alternative action.
   Example: it strikes you, before you're about to strike the shopkeeper, that he might be a more valuable ally in the long run because of his various market contacts. So PC's Name, you want to offer to buy him a drink, and win that knife in a card game and have a good contact, or chance him recognising you're the thug that robbed him?

Answer 8

Seems like the kind of bloodthirsty thugs that a band of adventurers might be hired to go deal with

One idea is to write up a band of adventurers a couple levels higher than the group, using full PC stats, and have them attack the party. Maybe run a one-shot with some expert players you know against the PC's sheets to get the 'balance' right, and have the group of fully good-aligned adventurers confront them with an eye to take them dead or alive, with full descriptions of their capabilities and the tactics of a well-organized and tactically savvy bunch of PCs. These good guys might refrain from killing, and thus you'd end up with that trial and imprisonment situation mentioned in @Daniel Zastoupil's answer.

Or, go ahead and make this an 'evil' campaign, since that's how the PCs are acting anyway

Any number of evil scheming bastards would have a lot of use for brutal thuggish murderhoboes who draw weapons first and ask questions never. Perfect catspaws to take out that do-gooder guard captain who won't take a bribe, or assassinate a rival nobleman, or protect a cargo of evil artifacts being sent to a lich in the mountains, or just to deliver a wagonload of potions to a field hospital in a box labeled 'healing potions' but which really release CloudKill when opened or broken.

Either the players will notice that their missions are getting 'eviler' and their allies getting sketchier and sketchier or they'll have a great time being monsters, at least until their big confrontation with some good guys sent to stop them.

Either way, explain to them that their actions were more and more evil, so more and more evil took notice of them. If you're lucky, you might get a redemption arc out of it.

Answer 9

So many options...

The innocent victim
Play it for tears. Let the PCs stumble upon a survivor of such a slaughter - a survivor that you can sympathize with (helpless ones work well, particularly if they are clearly otherwise competent).
Have the survivor send them on a revenge quest.
It may turn out that they're sent after themselves, which can be hilarious but might be too heavy-handed (this really depends on how much social smarts your kill-happy players are - they might notice and start playing the GM instead of the game world, so it's usually better to send them after a killer group that's even worse than them).

Establish social norms
If players talk to somebody in a non-conflict situation (bar talk or whatever), indiscriminate killing is mentioned as, well, really, it's not likeable.
Again, playing the "oh that was about ourselves" card may be helpful or unhelpful.

Have stronger NPCs around
If the PCs are level 4, have a level-12 power figure (crime lord, ex-police officer who tries to establish some semblance of order, whatever) with a few level-8 guards. Suddenly it matters what kind of norms that lords upholds.
There are multiple options for what kind of figure that lord is:
- Somebody who's trying to make the world a bit better.
- A crime lord who's looking at the PCs as tools. He might even want people with a killer instince, but only if they're controllable. PCs can be controlled by distraction, payment (or nonpayment if they misbehave), or direct threat.
- A crime lord who's being friendly in his direct social sphere. This is actually pretty normal, they behave like normal, lovable humans in direct interaction, and order atrocities in out-of-sight places. And they have rationalizations, of course. Anyway, such a lord doesn't want killer types in his direct environment.

Send the killer PCs to their doom
Have somebody send them on a mission where they're set up to commit all kinds of atrocities, until they run into a deathtrap, where they all meet their well-deserved ends.
Have the players create new PCs. Let them investigate what happened. Turns out the whole things was set up; somebody wanted them to first kill, then get killed. Maybe a police officer needed a spectacular success; maybe some background figure wanted to distract the public with a spectacular story; maybe a lord wanted to remind the populace that without his power machinery they're defenseless against killers; maybe a criminal merely wanted a distraction from the real atrocity, and the PCs conveniently dead so no loose ends were left.
Most players detest being used as a mere pawn. They will look for ways to prevent this - and suddenly it becomes important to get integrated into the local power structure, preferrably tieds to a lord that isn't being a total asshole to them.

Answer 10

Make an NPC that's stronger than them and give the players a chance to get to know them. (The main NPC for my current campaign is a level 20 wizard so one of my more murderous players can't kill her. I made it clear to them that she could easily kill them.) But have their actions cause something bad to happen to the NPC. This can also work if you make a fun and quirky NPC.

For forcing my players to develop their characters, I make it so their characters have to be better people in order for them do the things they want to.

Example: The character of one of my players is a womanizer, but in order for them to get with important NPCs they need to actually be a better person to have a chance.