[RPG] How to utilize overly-violent PCs for character development / progressing the story

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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.

Best Answer

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.

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