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Had a discussion about this the other day about players attacking, either overtly or covertly, other players. Personally I am fine with disagreements between players, but unless it is a special situation (like an evil campaign) I generally am not a fan of allowing players to actually try to kill their fellow party members. It just seems like it would cause to much tension within a gaming group if it isn't handled delicately; there is to much room for to much to wrong to easily. There also seems to be a problem of escalation from other stories I know of in which when it happens it becomes more about getting back at each other and less focus on the campaign. I'm not saying I think it should never be done, but that as a general rule it should be avoided. What do you think?

Avoid it like the plague, unless its a one-off type of game.
I had a similar situation that broke a good campaign permanently. The situation was similar to the one in the "Why I hate my players" thread. Short version is that A long time player has been away at college and wanted to get into the game over holiday break. Existing party is 3 dwarves and a human apprentice wizard. The player in question just has to play a skaven assasin. Reasoning with him did not work. As soon as the game session began and he located the party, already in combat since last session, he attacked and killed most of the party.
This really sucked all of the fun out of the evening as well as prematurly ending what had been an ongoing campaign and group.
Had I been more firm in not allowing the character type or the PvP the game could still be going on.

In my experience, there are 4 ways a great playgroup can break up:

1) A new addition or new game causes a split in who wants to play what. Only way to avoid this is if they players value sticking together over the game itself.

2) The DM's mentality shifts to a view of "It's me vs the players" rather than focusing on creating a great story. This quickly alienates the players from the DM and makes the game loose all fun.

3) People move, get married, or have kids. No way to avoid this, just a sad fact of life.

4) A PC attacks another PC. This can quickly escalate into constant revenge attacks and will ruin friendships. Only allow if your players are all mature enough and know each other well enough not to take anything personally.

Grakmar wrote:
4) A PC attacks another PC. This can quickly escalate into constant revenge attacks and will ruin friendships. Only allow if your players are all mature enough and know each other well enough not to take anything personally.

This gets really ugly if, for example, Alice's character attacks and kills Bob's character. Bob's new character is then built with the pure focus of killing Alice's character, and has other purpose or utility in life. lather, rinse, repeat.

I'd say avoid PvP in PnP unless the campaign unless it is explicitly and publicly allowed (and agreed upon) by the players prior to the campaign's start. I've had it happen when twice in my campaigns when the same player just got pissy with another player for no real in game reason and it just lead to real life friction including the disolution of one of the campaigns. It adds nothing to the group experience unless expected (and prepared for) from the getgo.

Warboss is right, IME. If PvP isn't causing the trouble, it may be that the trouble is causing the PvP. I've seen both.

I did on one occasion in my DH game have to goad some rather reluctant players to fight each other - they'd split the party, were in various disguises (each unknown to the other group), failed their perception tests to recognise each other and their assorted "allies" had started up a fight, so they were instructed to react as their characters would (i.e. not knowing who they were fighting).

There were a great many desperate prayers to the dice gods (DICE FOR THE DICE GOD!) for the subsequent perception tests to realise what was going on, which they did manage to pass quickly enough that there were no PC deaths (there was a nasty hellgun wound though). In the end, only three NPC mercenaries bought it, knifed and shoved in a hive disposal chute to stop them blowing the PC's cover.

I wouldn't really recommend allowing PvP most of the time though. Too many possibilities for wrecking up games and introducing unfriendly rivalry between players.
That said, I can foresee the possibility of a brawl in our Rogue Trader game if my Arch-Militant finds out that the Navigator is contentedly raping people - it'd be perfectly in character (she's got a strong heroic/noble streak) and she wouldn't actually be trying to kill him, but I'll need to discuss it with the GM and the other player as and when it comes up.

Of course, if you really want PvP, you could always play Paranoia.