|
...Just pointing out that you aren't making a very sympathetic case for yourself, and if the moderation style is not to your liking, the only thing you can do is stop posting here.
I'm not trying to appeal to anyone's sense of sympathy.
It's a simple matter of right versus wrong. Kirth tried to start a flame war by changing the topic from relative merits/disadvantages of lethal DMing to the relative merits of me as a person. So I pointed out that it was a classless, heavy-handed tactic that makes him look desperate.
Then Ross deletes my post calling Kirth out, while leaving up Kirth's attack on me. Which is not fair. It's an injustice. A small injustice, but an injustice all the same.
Ross is in the wrong here. It's a cowardly and craven way to moderate. That's my position, and I'm never going to change that position. I believe in fairness and justice very strongly, and I also believing in freely and openly criticizing authority figures when they are in the wrong.
If paizo wants to ban me permanently from their forums for thinking their moderation policies are easily manipulated to unjust ends, or for thinking that being a moderator is not protection from criticism (in fact, it's the OPPOSITE of protection, it's an INVITATION to criticism), that's their right. They'll lose me as a customer forever (and I buy pretty much everything they release), they'll lose my respect entirely, and I won't learn anything from the experience (because I already know that the vast majority of internet moderators are less interested in doing the right thing than doing the convenient and expedient thing, and getting banned for expressing my opinion that deleting my response to Kirth flamebait but not Kirth's flamebait would only reinforce what I already know), and Kirth will walk away thinking that flame-baiting people into a hostile response and then tattling on them is an effective way to control who gets to post on these forums and to silence people whose opinion he disagrees with.
and Kirth will walk away thinking that flame-baiting people into a hostile response and then tattling on them is an effective way to control who gets to post on these forums and to...
... says the guy (gal?) who started his interaction with me calling me a bad GM because he disagreed with me in an entirely different thread...
Thats not the way it read to me Gail.
I reckon you might want to have a look at how you may have come across to a few posters in abruptly 'correcting' them, and then take a look at where the 'flaming' then kicked off - cause and effect.
Things sort of slid away at THAT point.
You have to develop a feel for the involvement of your players.
So it's not ok to have someone die if the players aren't involved, but it's also not ok to have someone die if they're very involved (per your epic history example)?
Again, trying to get a handle on things.
See, me, if everyone were burnt or uninvolved like they are in your scenario, I would have suggested skipping the session for the night in favour of something more mindless and without consequences -- whether it was running a fake gauntlet, generating characters and having a fake duel/tournament, breaking out the alts and playing something that happened off-camera with the cohorts, or even playing something other than PF for the evening.... because, again, to me (and my players), there's no point playing the real campaign if "everyone knows it doesn't matter" -- because it cheapens the actual drama and plotlines.
If people played anyway, well, then, it's a session - and it counts. If you don't pay attention to where you move and put yourself in a square to be swarmed - then I personally don't give you a pass because you decided to go pee or fetch pie at the end of your turn. You put your character in danger, so be it.
Now, in terms of avoiding useless encounters -- one way I try to avoid this is by having more than one plotline going so I can keep a few "canned" encounters (and/or sidequests) relating to the other plots if I ever get swamped and can't finish the next step of the current one (work stress, teleporting party, whatever)....
I find it odd that we both seem to want to protect the sense of drama (though I'm thinking that my sense is a bit more gritty than yours) - and yet want to essentially do the exact opposite thing for nominally the same goal.
I don't think I've ever played in a campaign that didn't TPK or near-TPK at some point.
...Unfortunately, right and wrong here is what Ross and the rest of the mods say it is.
Or, rather, fortunately.
|
|
Just pointing out that you aren't making a very sympathetic case for yourself,Especially the posting of 'qualifications', what was THAT in aid of?
To demonstrate that I have actually studied storytelling in a formal setting, which means that -- and I know fragile egos will have trouble coping with this -- I do actually know more about the creation of dramatic narrative than most of the people posting in this thread, who have not ever made a formal study of the craft of storytelling.
I have expertise. I have the documentation to prove it, unless you want to join brassbaboon on the train to lunaticville and assume that in the span of a few minutes I created a fake certificate, framed it, and then posted it.
Do you have expertise? If you don't, then you can make a choice. You can be smart and defer to my expertise and learn something from my experience, or you can choose the dumbass option and argue from a position of ignorance with someone who is painfully aware of your ignorance, hoping that the witness to the argument will be as ignorant as you and not realize how foolish you're being (maybe you can distract them by digging up off-topic posts from years ago and poisoning the well!).
This is not a argument between equals. This is an argument between someone who actually knows a lot about crafting a dramatic narrative (because he went to highly respected school and learned about the craft from a published and respected author in an award-winning program) and a handful of people who are thrashing around in the dark, grasping at straws, and digging themselves into holes because their egos won't let them admit that someone, somewhere, might actually know more about something than they do.
Seriously. If Stephan King showed up in this thread and started arguing with me, you better believe I'd shut up and start listening, rather than flame him (as Kirth did), dismiss the value of education and experience (as Hama did), or just try to BS my way through the argument (as Lilith did).
Brass, most of the time when I "reset" it is because I made a mistake and the players paid the penalty. I'm not advocating a system of save points where the players can just go back to the last time that they were pleased with the way the campaign looked, but rather if I throw something at them without reading the stat block fully because I am in a rush that week and didn't have time to prepare and it turns out that this encounter which was supposed to be easy because "hey, this guy looks fun and flavorful and doesn't have too much HP" becomes "oh crap... DR 10/material my players don't have"
Or in the case of a spell mis-read (I accidentally killed a player with darkness/blindfight because I didn't fully understand what the spell did once), I'll ask if they want to rewind and correct the mistake, or keep going.
I removed more posts.
Don't make it personal. Don't post angry. Don't be a jerk.
Really. Walk away. Take a nap. Go make a snack. Whatever you need to do.
Wait, what? Are you serious Ross? You delete my posts responding to Kirth's clear and obvious flame-baiting, but you don't remove the flame-baiting?
Kirth's reposting of a three year old comment from the politics forum in this thread is pretty blatant and obvious violation of the "Do not defame, abuse, stalk, harass, or threaten others;" policy, and you're just going to let that stand?
Can you at least PRETEND to be fair?
If you would like an explanation for why material was removed (or why other material was not removed), please feel free to email me. My email address is listed on the "Contact Us" page, or on my profile.
Oh right, I always forget that forums totally favor the kind of creep who throws mud on someone and then runs for an authority figure when they fight back. I kind of hate that about forums.
Tattling isn't really my style. I don't need moderators to protect me from the consequences of my posts the way some people in this thread apparently do.
As opposed to the people who throw mud, and then keep throwing mud when someone fights back? Yelling back and forth is not going to solve anything.
Really, the worst case is that someone is wrong on the Internet.
In one campaign I ran I was a little worried about the players not being ready for some "real world" encounters so I introduced a gnome illusionist who ran a "training program" for adventurers and the first two encounters the party went through were illusionary encounters with no real deaths.
After that I felt I knew the party's abilities well enough to be able to design some challenging but not overpowering encounters.
Since I create everything in my campaigns from scratch, I have total control over the encounters, so I can fine tune the challenges to a pretty fine degree.
The only exception to this was when our group was test-driving 4e and I didn't want to rebuild my whole world, so I ran the "Keep on the Shadowfell" module. I think Irontooth eventually killed three of the party members, but not all in one fight.
I think Irontooth was just insanely overpowered for that module... But again, the party did not TPK because they knew to run.
Seriously. If Stephan King showed up in this thread and started arguing with me, you better believe I'd shut up and start listening, rather than flame him (as Kirth did), dismiss the value of education and experience (as Hama did), or just try to BS my way through the argument (as Lilith did).
Heh, well, if we are going to invoke famous authors you could learn from, I'd start with Dale Carnegie...
Brass, most of the time when I "reset" it is because I made a mistake and the players paid the penalty. I'm not advocating a system of save points where the players can just go back to the last time that they were pleased with the way the campaign looked, but rather if I throw something at them without reading the stat block fully because I am in a rush that week and didn't have time to prepare and it turns out that this encounter which was supposed to be easy because "hey, this guy looks fun and flavorful and doesn't have too much HP" becomes "oh crap... DR 10/material my players don't have"
Or in the case of a spell mis-read (I accidentally killed a player with darkness/blindfight because I didn't fully understand what the spell did once), I'll ask if they want to rewind and correct the mistake, or keep going.
Yeah, that's understandable. The one time a GM offered to intervene to restore a dead character of mine, I declined because I considered the event to be done and over with. I like creating new characters anyway. Right now I'm at a place in my 4e game where I have considered swapping to a new character but the rest of the party argued that I needed to keep playing the same character for the good of the party. I've become somewhat less cautious since then and I'm frankly secretly hoping for a glorious sacrificial opportunity for him. I've got another PC all ready to go. :)
I have been very lucky in my GMing career that I have not yet put anything in front of the party that I have said "OMG! THAT'S what it does!?" That day may come, and I may think back to this thread, but so far, so good. I'll keep my fingers crossed.
But then again, if anything I am one of those nutcase over-prepared GMs....
I have expertise. I have the documentation to prove it, unless you want to join brassbaboon on the train to lunaticville and assume that in the span of a few minutes I created a fake certificate, framed it, and then posted it.
Do you have expertise? If you don't, then you can make a choice. You can be smart and defer to my expertise and learn something from my experience, or you can choose the dumbass option and argue from a position of ignorance with someone who is painfully aware of your ignorance, hoping that the witness to the argument will be as ignorant as you and not realize how foolish you're being (maybe you can distract them by digging up off-topic posts from years ago and poisoning the well!).
This is not a argument between equals.
A few comments, here - and I realize this is off-topic.
a) In order to make such a claim, you would need to know what the background of everyone else on this forum is. I assume that you don't -- for all you know you *are* arguing with Stephen King, for instance.
b) You assume that your take (or that of your professors) on this aspect of your field of study is more correct than that of others who may have differing opinions.
c) You assume that your particular field of study (and the interpretation therein) is the only one that's applicable -- for instance, perhaps one of the people you're dismissing has a Doctorate in Literature, or Mythology or to be appropriate to the Star Wars discussion, Film Studies.
d) You assume that your understanding of your field of study automatically extends from what you studied to tabletop RPGs -- and does so in a way that trumps untold and countless hours of experience that others may possess.
e) All of these premises are (at best) unsupported, if not fallacious or outright false - and so all you're doing by repeating them is annoying people who are actually here to discuss things other than how good and how much of an expert you are claiming to be (and believe yourself to be, I imagine).
Just a bit of food for thought. This isn't an attack by any means.
|
De-gree fights ! De-gree fights !
...
IMHO, the DM is the writer of his story. Players are at the same time the protagonists, the collaborative family members giving ideas, the active readers and the flashes of madness in the writer's mind who create whole universe parts, character development plots and can suddenly change things in their world, just because, and hell, why not. I think any person here appreciating writting will understand the feeling of characters as "children" you want to give life or even death to through their story if necessary, and if it could create special feelings to you and the readers. DMing is pretty much the same. Seek your pleasure and your player's.
If your campaign is deeply using character's backgrounds as an element of the scenario, then dying is horrible for everyone's pleasure. It doesn't mean that dying is or should look impossible - on the contrary, any little menace will look terrifying to a the player of a deep and beloved character. Death is a tool for drama and showing how a world can be harsh, but it's better to allow a player to have the "right" to kill him off. Just by knowing if he prepared himself a character just in case, if he hoped to see something specific happen to him before dying, if he wouldn't mind dying but only in a specific way making him look f&!%ing heroic... so, to the OP's original question : DM saves and no TPK ? Yes, you need them. Maybe not in a sandbox world with generic characters though...
Now, of course, there will be times when the dice just aren't with the party. When that happens we pause for a bit and come back to see if there is a way out. Sometimes that way out is a rewind, sometimes it is the character dying. Sometimes it is something totally different.
For example, in one recent fight a character, Marcus, who is a diplomat and none too handy in a fight, wound up being killed by two daemons who grabbed his body and gated back to their home plane, leaving the party no way to follow them. It wasn't the plan, he was not supposed to die there, but it was the only true way to play the daemons. I miscalculated, the dice were against the party, it happens. So to the entire party, Marcus died, and that was several months ago. The player rolled up a new character and has been happily playing as him ever since.
On the side, though, it turns out that the daemons (at first just a random encounter) were emissaries of a higher lord who needed a mortal diplomat to help him resolve a dispute. The player and I have been playing that via email ever since, and I have been constantly looking forward to the moment when the triumphant Marcus rises from the dead (much harder than just a "raise dead" spell, which doesn't exist in my campaign) to rejoin his party, now with an underworld lord in his debt.
Meaningless character death thus turned into great plot point and character moment...
I have no problem with this -- after all, the daemons took the corpse for a reason. Now, to be fair, I'm mean so I'd probably half-fiend the guy and have a daemon ridding saddle "in" him until the party figured out how to get it out -- but do you think that's fudging? To me, that's plot advancement. He died, and then something happened. In a "boring" campaign, he would have died and the corpse would have been left there or devoured or something. (And, really, even then I've had people sifting the ruins for enough of a dead guy to reincarnate -- and I tend to give them a chance of making just such a find - rolled in front of them, of course.
Oh. And I removed more posts.
Please don't ruin an otherwise thoughtful post with a jab at other community members. Please stick to the constructive parts.
And "it's my opinion that you're an idiot" is every bit as insulting as "you're an idiot."
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
omg this is hilarious.
Well I have a degree in Physics from a crappy university and I just started GMing.
I had to fudge a bit in the 2nd session I ever ran. Those gargoyles had 4 attacks and I rolled behind a screen and ignored some hits, and reduced damage on some hits.
I figure as long as I am still learning the craft of GMing, I won't be too harsh on them if they choose not to run.
But eventually, the TPK will be in play.
but do you think that's fudging? To me, that's plot advancement.
This. This right here. Yes, yes! A thousand times, yes!
Is it fudging? Absolutely. Is it also plot advancement? Also absolutely.
The way it played out, which I guess needs more illustration, is the encounter happened, when Marcus was 1 hit from dead and his allies had all been distracted by something else and couldn't help (this, btw, was the same encounter as the aforementioned DR fiasco), I put it on pause.
Marcus's player and I went aside and we talked about what was going to happen. I told him I had made a mistake and Marcus was not supposed to die here. If he wanted to roll back the clock then we could. He said no, he didn't want Marcus to die, but also he was a bit curious to try out the gunslinger, so he'd take the death anyways. I said alright.
Then we played a boardgame (maybe Dominion? I don't remember. Something short and totally not Pathfinder). After the game I figured out that of course these weren't just random daemons wandering around but rather the emmisaries of a lord trying to find a human diplomat. I went back to the player and asked if there was a way to keep Marcus alive but sidelined and let him do a gunslinger in the meantime, would he want that. He asked where to sign.
So, yes, it was a total fudge of the situation and absolutely DM ex machina at the end. My point is that those need not be detrimental to the drama of the game. If you want to play a different style game, then absolutely, don't let me stop you. As was pointed out above, everyone is arguing in favor of drama. Nobody is saying "drama is stupid and I want my players to basically be playing an MMO!" This is just my method of getting to drama, and it works for my table.
Edit: Fixed missing sentence
I have expertise. I have the documentation to prove it,Do you have expertise? If you don't, then you can make a choice. You can be smart and defer to my expertise and learn something from my experience, ... ignorant as you and not realize how foolish you're being .
This is not a argument between equals. This is an argument between someone who actually knows a lot about crafting a dramatic narrative ... and a handful of people who are thrashing around in the dark, grasping at straws...
Wow,
Just Wow.
I will begin with simply accepting on face value your posted qualifications. I don't believe they were 'faked', as that would just be such a dingy act I couldn't contemplate someone being so low rent.
If you see yourself as a wordsmith, then perhaps you might want to go up and have a look at the words you have chosen and what reactions they will evoke in the readers to whom you are aiming them at.
Where I saw people take umbrage with you was when you started correcting them in a condescending manner. Now you might feel that you are coming from a position of expertise, but frankly, thats certainly not going to be very helpful for those upon whom you are seeking to impart the benefits of your insight and share the gift of knowledge (which I also take on face value that you are trying to do, not to simply self-aggrandize).
When you club people over the head in the way that you do, all it displays is a lot of 'ego', and similary suggests that you feel you know all there is to learn.
As a parralell, I have been in martial arts for just coming on three decades, I am highly accomplished at my craft, and yes I spend a lot of time teaching and developing others. I could walk around the Dojo or Dojang (yes I have a few styles) sporting my black belts (see? I have to wear my qualification!) and simply asserting my authority, but NOOOOO I still take the time to listen to beginners, because I still find I can learn things from them - they have had many and varied EXPERIENCES (not quals, there is a difference) and I can benefit from that. They will similarly be more open to what I have to say if I am supportive and work WITH them. Similarly I still compete; I win some, I lose some, but I learn always.
If you want to take the position of authority, then please consider taking the humility that goes with it, or find that people quickly disregard what you have to say.
|
|
So it's not ok to have someone die if the players aren't involved, but it's also not ok to have someone die if they're very involved (per your epic history example)?
Like I said, its a judgement call. There is no hard rule that you can apply. You have to rely on intuition, and its not a decision you can flowchart out. A computer cannot make this kind of decision. It's a gut thing, not a brain thing.
It's something I had to run a dozen campaigns to learn, and I wouldn't even begin to call myself a master at it. Sometimes I make the wrong call. But relying on the dice to make the call for you, that could be construed as relying on a crutch rather than risking failure and trying to up your game.
See, me, if everyone were burnt or uninvolved like they are in your scenario, I would have suggested skipping the session for the night in favour of something more mindless and without consequences --
An entirely valid option. Sometimes, for various reasons, it ends up not being the option you go with. The point of the scenario I gave you was to illustrate how you might go about making the decision. Questioning the scenario itself misses the point.
If people played anyway, well, then, it's a session - and it counts. If you don't pay attention to where you move and put yourself in a square to be swarmed - then I personally don't give you a pass because you decided to go pee or fetch pie at the end of your turn. You put your character in danger, so be it.
While that is an option, many player will perceive that as being unfair, needlessly harsh, etc. If you don't mind hurt feelings and disgruntled players, then so be it. I prefer to not piss off my players by punishing them because the group wasn't in the right frame of mind.
I've ran games the way you suggest, back when I was in high school. It didn't lead to more fun, it lead to a lot of b%!#+ing and moaning about how harsh I was, and how its just a game, and people just want to relax and have some fun. I've also played with DMs who were unforgiving, and I've never found those games fun. Stressful, sure. Exhausting, yes. But not fun.
Also, it becomes REALLY unfair if -- like me -- you usually play the fighter and are constantly getting killed because the cleric's player can't be bothered to memorize healing spells, or because the other players only tactics amount to "I cast dimension door now that the fighter is dead." and other things like that. Getting killed because you did something stupid is one thing. Getting killed because the other players view you as a disposable meat-shield and don't give a rat's ass if you're having fun, or getting killed because the other players are being stupid because their stupidity only hurts you, is a different kettle of fish entirely.
but do you think that's fudging? To me, that's plot advancement.This. This right here. Yes, yes! A thousand times, yes!
Is it fudging? Absolutely. Is it also plot advancement? Also absolutely.
The way it played out, which I guess needs more illustration, is the encounter happened, when Marcus was 1 hit from dead and his allies had all been distracted by something else and couldn't help (this, btw, was the same encounter as the aforementioned DR fiasco), I put it on pause.
Marcus's player and I went aside and we talked about what was going to happen. I told him I had made a mistake and Marcus was not supposed to die here. If he wanted to roll back the clock then we could. He said no, he didn't want Marcus to die, but also he was a bit curious to try out the gunslinger, so he'd take the death anyways. I said alright.
Then we played a boardgame (maybe Dominion? I don't remember. Something short and totally not Pathfinder). After the game I figured out that of course these weren't just random daemons wandering around but rather the emmisaries of a lord trying to find a human diplomat.
So, yes, it was a total fudge of the situation and absolutely DM ex machina at the end. My point is that those need not be detrimental to the drama of the game. If you want to play a different style game, then absolutely, don't let me stop you. As was pointed out above, everyone is arguing in favor of drama. Nobody is saying "drama is stupid and I want my players to basically be playing an MMO!" This is just my method of getting to drama, and it works for my table.
I can totally see situations where DM fudging and fiat to save a character makes dramatic sense. I just haven't had that happen that much in my games. It's generally been the reverse and the drama has been increased, not decreased, by the death. Generally.
When I was a young player I once lost a beloved character and I was very upset about it. The GM refused to reconsider the situation and nothing my other character in that campaign did to raise the dead character worked. This was in 1e when death was a pretty serious consequence. Eventually that experience taught me a very valuable personal lesson about my own behavior, and I grew up quite a bit over the situation. I then turned that death into a dramatic and life-altering event for the other character and that opened up a richness of role playing that I have felt very lucky to have ever experienced.
There's no "right" answer to this, but I do think there's more than playstyle involved. In some cases gaming can become a valuable life lesson, as it was for me.
Also, it becomes REALLY unfair if -- like me -- you usually play the fighter and are constantly getting killed because the cleric's player can't be bothered to memorize healing spells, or because the other players only tactics amount to "I cast dimension door now that the fighter is dead." and other things like that. Getting killed because you did something stupid is one thing. Getting killed because the other players view you as a disposable meat-shield and don't give a rat's ass if you're having fun, or getting killed because the other players are being stupid because their stupidity only hurts you, is a different kettle of fish entirely.
And this comes back to what I have been trying to get across, and what TOZ put so eloquently way back about 75 posts ago, and what I think most everyone else here would agree with.
The game is all about communication between players. Not between characters, but between players (and the DM is a player in this regard). Don't get mad at people, don't refuse to play a fighter anymore. If fighter is the style you like, then by all means do it, but let people know how you feel and what you are looking for. Don't tell them how to play their characters, but just try and communicate and be open and honest. Maybe the cleric never prepares healing spells because they are boring (and he can swap out his more fun spells for them anyways, but then he loses the more fun spells)! Have you tried buying him a wand of cure <level appropriate> wounds so that he never has to lose his "fun" but can also help you help the party by being the front line?
but do you think that's fudging? To me, that's plot advancement.This. This right here. Yes, yes! A thousand times, yes!
Is it fudging? Absolutely. Is it also plot advancement? Also absolutely.
The way it played out, which I guess needs more illustration, is the encounter happened, when Marcus was 1 hit from dead and his allies had all been distracted by something else and couldn't help (this, btw, was the same encounter as the aforementioned DR fiasco), I put it on pause.
Ah, fair enough. However, I would argue that had you just killed him done nothing else, there'd be less interesting things -- I suppose that this saves the party 5,000gp, but other than that I don't see it as remarkable (since the alternative was to just leave the corpse).
I sure wouldn't do that to make this the only survivor if the daemons had killed everyone else for instance, just to avoid a TPK. :)
|
|
To all my fellow DM's... TPK and DM saves is it something you allow and if so how often and under what circumstances so as to not break the "suspension of reality"? Just curious how other DM's handle theses situations.
I adhear to the 1st rule of Gaming - "Have Fun"
As a DM we have a chat before a campaign or with new players to get the lay of the land on this.Some peeps are really into the gameing side of it and love a good dice game - "Let the dice fall where they may".
Some peeps are more into the long term life of their characters (Maybe they read too many comics), and we have a lot of professional actors in our group and that tends to be their pref.
As a DM I'm big on the ambiguous death where the body is lost etc just in case I need to bring them back as undead (which can be fun) or they want to pick up the character again at a later date.
Also before killing a PC I'll say to most players "How do you want to handle this?" and they'll usually say wether they are ready to retire the character.
Note that I don't fudge dice rolls as a rule but I do mess around with the intentions of the foes. My baddies love running away, capturing and taunting/torturing PCs and some smarter ones are not above kidnap and ransom as a way of getting more gold (that's what being a bad guy's all about aint it?). It's ALWAYS about the story and the fun.
The odd death and TPK is a part of that.
|
In 20+ years of gaming I've never seen running away WORK as a tactic. Almost every character death I've experienced was the truly of either a) being punished by the em for trying something heroic, b) pure em maliciousness or c) getting killed while trying to run away.
I was going to ask how in 20+ years you never managed to have even one of your characters catch a break when they were outmatched. Then I read the rest of this thread.
It seems like all of your characters died whether they were doing something heroic (a) or not doing something heroic--aka "not committing vainglorious suicide" (c). Or the GM just had it in for you.
It's like no matter what you do, everyone wants your character dead. Maybe there's some other problem not related at all to their place on the "Dice Are Sacred/PC's As Captive Audience" scale.
but do you think that's fudging? To me, that's plot advancement.This. This right here. Yes, yes! A thousand times, yes!
Is it fudging? Absolutely. Is it also plot advancement? Also absolutely.
The way it played out, which I guess needs more illustration, is the encounter happened, when Marcus was 1 hit from dead and his allies had all been distracted by something else and couldn't help (this, btw, was the same encounter as the aforementioned DR fiasco), I put it on pause.
Ah, fair enough. However, I would argue that had you just killed him done nothing else, there'd be less interesting things -- I suppose that this saves the party 5,000gp, but other than that I don't see it as remarkable (since the alternative was to just leave the corpse).
I sure wouldn't do that to make this the only survivor if the daemons had killed everyone else for instance, just to avoid a TPK. :)
The issue is that death and resurrection work slightly different in my games. It isn't as simple a matter as a 5000gp spell, because no resurrection magic exists. It's a system designed by Jason Alexander (thealexandrian.net), and I really like it, but, long story short, if the party is out of healing and has no scrolls of gentle repose on hand then death is pretty irreversible. So having the body wouldn't help them much. It was the only way to keep the character alive (and conveniently avoided the inevitable TPK the daemons would have laid down).
EDIT: edited for clarity
"TPK" does not mean everyone dies, they maybe stripped of possessions, they maybe sold into slavery they may wake up in a tube of ice, missing a kidney......
Or just regain consciousness on the battlefield, or be found by scavengers etc.
You are right, there's a LONG LIST of what could happen.
|
|
I was going to ask how in 20+ years you never managed to have even one of your characters catch a break when they were outmatched. Then I read the rest of this thread.
It seems like all of your characters died whether they were doing something heroic (a) or not doing something heroic--aka "not committing vainglorious suicide" (c). Or the GM just had it in for you.
It's like no matter what you do, everyone wants your character dead. Maybe there's some other problem not related at all to their place on the "Dice Are Sacred/PC's As Captive Audience" scale.
It's worth noting that (not counting con games) I've only had character die at the hands of three GMs.
The first one is also the only DM I've had try to rape my character, and ran a GM PC that was several levels higher than the party as well as being the party leader, so that should give you an idea of what kind of person he was. If the attempted rape didn't make that clear. This was the same DM who killed one of my character's wardogs by tricking me into feeding it a potion of speed (his GM PC told me it was a healing potion), rolling for bad potion reaction (it was interacting with an actual healing potion, which normally causes no roll), and claimed he rolled "Instant Death" (which was NOT on the table).
The second one is the one who wiped out a first level party with the equivalent of a CR 12 encounter. We were on an open road, there was nowhere to hide (we checked!), and my attempt to scare off the hippogriffs with an illusion of a griffon was declared an automatic failure by the DM. After I pointed out how ridiculously unfair this TPK was, he had a snit and refused to ever DM again.
The third one killed six of my characters in Expedition to Castle Greyhawk. In every single case he made escape impossible by moving monsters into our escape route as soon as anyone at the table suggested we should retreat. If you want to dig up the thread ("Worst Published Modules") you can find me complaining about how brutal that adventure was, only to have others inform me that the GM was cheating like crazy, making ALL of the encounters two or three CRs more difficult. That DM was also a player in my campaigns, and was the most flagrant cheater I've ever played with, as well as one of the more obnoxious power gamers.
Now, as a GM, I've seen players use the run away tactic. And it has worked. Because I let it work. But I can't recall a single encounter my players ran away from where I couldn't have killed them all if I wanted to.
If a DM wants to kill players, it's easy. He has all the advantages. All of his pawns (the monsters) have a telepathic link to each other that allows them to act in perfect concert (because they all have one player), he has perfect access to the opposing team's plans (since they have to run them by him to make sure they're feasible), and he has the benefit of a knowledge gap (he knows what the players and the monsters are capable of, the players only know what they are capable of).
And because it's so easy to kill PCs, the only time PCs die is because the GM wants them to.
|
After I pointed out how ridiculously unfair this TPK was, he had a snit and refused to ever DM again.
And the world is a better place for it. :)
I do take issue with your last statement however. I have killed PCs accidentally before, mostly because I was not aware of their current HP totals, and having already announced the attack damage, could not quietly fudge it away.
I still mourn Lorimir, and what he could have been.
*Waits for someone to brand TOZ a baddie coz he didn't know his players HP* :P
However, it was nice of this thread to speed off on a tangent and answer a question I've had since my last gaming session.
I was left wondering how people felt about player characters, whether or not they were heroes. I was going to start a thread but instead this thread got hijacked way off track and started answering my query. Essentially, from what I've seen argued on both sides of the fence:
1) the GM's who TPK based on dice do not believe the characters are the heroes. Instead, they believe the characters could have been heroes if the players played better to turn the dice in their favour.
2) the GM's who only TPK when the party deserves it believe the characters are the heroes and without them the world will end or something.
So I guess there's no right or wrong answer to whether or not player characters are heroes. To both types of GM's player characters can be heroes. In GM (1)'s case, the player character is a hero ONLY IF the player plays well enough (depends on player). In GM (2)'s case, the player character is a hero because that is what is in his nature/destiny (depends on character).
Uh, so long and thanks for all the fish?
*sneezes, depositing dripping goo over everyone that didn't duck*
What!? I have a COLD.
I have killed PCs accidentally before, mostly because I was not aware of their current HP totals, and having already announced the attack damage, could not quietly fudge it away.
You are such a baddie for not knowing everything about your PC's down to how many toothpicks and the number of individual M&M's they were carrying.
|
|
And because it's so easy to kill PCs, the only time PCs die is because the GM wants them to.
I don't think that is a correct statement. I have been GMing for over 30 years and although I admit I do love to kill me some PC's from time to time most of the times they die it is not because I want them to, its because it should realistically happen.
Example, running into areas where they are severely over matched and know it and refuse to run because the whole "heroes should not have to run" attitude. One of my last games ended because of this very reason.The group had a encounter with a fountain that continually spawned skeletons as long as good aligned people were in the room and after a long drawn out fight where they had to retreat or die the cleric ended up sacrificing himself so the party could run. The rest of the group was severely injured with no healing and very depleted resources decided that they would go back into the room to claim the clerics body which I had the skeletons and their masters haul off. So they then proceed deeper into the dungeon still injured and low on resources to a area where I gave the description of a evilly glowing red rune at the end of a long hallway and that they were getting very uncomfortable feeling or dread and despair from said rune. Well they figured it was good idea to go and examine this rune and suffice it to say there was a TPK, the only one I actually believe in my 30 years of GMing.
So no, it was not because I wanted them to die, it was because thats what should have happened.
I don't think that is a correct statement. I have been GMing for over 30 years and although I admit I do love to kill me some PC's from time to time most of the times they die it is not because I want them to, its because it should realistically happen.
A good point.
I had a PC die a while back, and frankly it was because he kept going off on his own trying to be all Ninja, and wandered into an ambush that was ironically set for the party Paladin (who was expected to be in company) and as a result got ganked.
Now presuming the oppositions Assassins knew their trade, it was pretty unlikely that they were going to just 'leave him napping' or magically become incompetent, so he was offed.
It would have been pretty hard to handwave away the beatdown he got.
|
|
I have killed PCs accidentally before, mostly because I was not aware of their current HP totals, and having already announced the attack damage, could not quietly fudge it away.You are such a baddie for not knowing everything about your PC's down to how many toothpicks and the number of individual M&M's they were carrying.
Indeed, and I flagellate myself nightly in repentance for it!
|
|
And because it's so easy to kill PCs, the only time PCs die is because the GM wants them to.I don't think that is a correct statement. I have been GMing for over 30 years and although I admit I do love to kill me some PC's from time to time most of the times they die it is not because I want them to, its because it should realistically happen.
I'll grant TZO's point that sometimes a GM can kill players through lack of attention/accident, but this is a self-deluding argument you're presenting.
You're the DM. Anything that happens as a result of your decisions is under your control. That includes the decision that something should "realistically" happen. You decide what is reality, so you can't claim that your hands were tied and it was out of your control.
Example, running into areas where they are severely over matched and know it and refuse to run because the whole "heroes should not have to run" attitude. One of my last games ended because of this very reason.The group had a encounter with a fountain that continually spawned skeletons as long as good aligned people were in the room and after a long drawn out fight where they had to retreat or die the cleric ended up sacrificing himself so the party could run.
And right there is where you decided they would all die. You can't claim that it would be realistic for the fountain to run out of skeletons, because there's no such thing as a skeleton spawning fountain, and the particulars of how it functions are entirely under your control.
You could have decided that the fountain simply ran out of skeletons. That was entirely within your power.
The rest of the group was severely injured with no healing and very depleted resources decided that they would go back into the room to claim the clerics body which I had the skeletons and their masters haul off.
And here again, you could have just left the body there for them to recover. It was probably buried under an avalanche of bones anyways.
So they then proceed deeper into the dungeon still injured and low on resources to a area where I gave the description of a evilly glowing red rune at the end of a long hallway and that they were getting very uncomfortable feeling or dread and despair from said rune. Well they figured it was good idea to go and examine this rune and suffice it to say there was a TPK, the only one I actually believe in my 30 years of GMing.
Because that was the only realistic outcome, right? Because as we all know, in the real world, glowing magic runes are totally fatal. I mean, there's no way the rune could have just paralyzed them all, leaving them prisoners of the evil master. And it couldn't possibly have teleported them miles away. It had to kill them, because that's what evil magic runes do in the real world.
Is that enough sarcasm, or should I keep laying it on until my point is made?
So no, it was not because I wanted them to die, it was because thats what should have happened.
Its because you wanted them to die. Don't deny your own agency as the DM. They died because you decided that was the only possible outcome, and didn't try to come up with an option that allowed them to live.
You are such a baddie for not knowing everything about your PC's down to how many toothpicks and the number of individual M&M's they were carrying.
Thanks for not letting me down, Shifty, and I'd totally overlooked he hadn't mentioned the M&M's! ^_^
|
|
I had a PC die a while back, and frankly it was because he kept going off on his own trying to be all Ninja, and wandered into an ambush that was ironically set for the party Paladin (who was expected to be in company) and as a result got ganked.
Now presuming the oppositions Assassins knew their trade, it was pretty unlikely that they were going to just 'leave him napping' or magically become incompetent, so he was offed.
It would have been pretty hard to handwave away the beatdown he got.
But it would have been simplicity itself to simply not have the encounter happen.
Was there even a chance he could have survived? At all? If not, or only if you and he rolled way outside of probability, then you decided to kill him when you decided to spring the encounter on him anyways.
|
|
But it would have been simplicity itself to simply not have the encounter happen.Was there even a chance he could have survived? At all? If not, or only if you and he rolled way outside of probability, then you decided to kill him when you decided to spring the encounter on him anyways.
Very true.
In my first Shackled City games, I had two examples of TPKs. One that didn't happen, and one that did.
First, the Kopru Ruins. The party decided to rest in the ruins, after having a skirmish with the Alleybashers. I chose to have the rest of the complex descend on them, pinning them in from both exits.
When it became obvious that they were not going to be able to pull it off on their own, I hinted strongly about the wand of control water they had. Some DM Fiat later, they washed an escape route clear.
This was me choosing not to kill the party.
The second time, they were tipped off to the new hideout the Alleybashers were using. They decided to case the place in preparation for assaulting it.
By walking in the front door.
I shrugged, rolled the dice, and the hideout burned to the ground with every party member in attendance dead. Luckily, the bard was absent.
This was me choosing to kill the party.
The mentioned time I killed PCs without intending to was later, in Bhal-tamugn. Wounded from their battle with Zenith, they were ambushed by Aushanna.
One surprise and first round later, the cleric and wizard were dead without a chance to act.
This was me accidentally killing the PCs.