Satcher's page

I'm an Ol'Fart RP'r back from a 20+ year hiatus.

Pulling a punch or two is fine. Pulling 20 just kills the trust us players want in our GMs.(IMHO)

I really think if you're pulling 20 punches a fight either your players are making horrible decisions or maybe you need to tone down the monsters/ villains.

I actually had a character die in my last session. His character was a bard who was a story getter. He LOVED making the parties actions into songs and epics. The thing was the character was completely ok with dying if it would be in an epic (obviously going to be well spread through the cities) fashion. What wound up happening was the now new villain (Demi God in strength) was hovering over the main city killing people and just plainly wreaking havoc because of his newly established powers. The bard took a lighting javelin and hurled it at the villain knowing it would probably cause him to die. It cut the villains face and he pulled the player into the sky and plainly asked

"Why did you do that to me?"

The bard replied "I'm a mercenary, and i never recieved payment."
(Making a reference to a comment made before the villain became a villain)

The Villain then caused the character to literally explode into a cloud across the city.

I had killed a party member (even without dice rolls). The player was happy with his story and i was happy with how strongly he RP'ed.

I find this to be a great way, it helped the story and was right along with the actual actions of everything. When it comes to killing off players, i think at this point in editions and play style, you need to be very cautious. It takes FOREVER to make a great character with backstory, style and great stats. I guess as a player for many years i understand that want to keep your character alive and keep his story going. I am honestly more interested with my characters interaction to the overall story then the actual overall story. If your character sits in the back never rping and never attacking just watching from the sidelines, its going to be a very boring campaign. But if your character is the conduit of the gods and is meant to take down the new evil in the world, all the while you ARE destroying monsters, I believe you'll LOVE it more.

I think a character death (No revive) is a giant stopper in my mind to a campaign. I have to create a whole new character with ideals and new values and figure out how he'd look at all of this.

Essentially how i feel about it is you're almost pressing delete on all the tie ins you have to a plot so far, To that i am no fan.

I ADORE one on one campaigns. The second campaign I ever played was run by a close friend when we were young and we grew that from lvl 1 to 18 before other people joined in.

I definitely recommed doing both DMPCs and letting her go off on her own. There is nothing against having her helpers come and go as needed. If she wants to sneak off (if she's a rogue) she can just tell the NPCs to wait.

Also i feel that a 1 on 1 session makes it much more easier for the player to become relaxed with roleplay. Because they know you want them to, and there isn't anyone there to judge them.

For me in that 1 on 1 campaign it was like singing in the shower with role play.