I have asked that question before and have the player still keep plan A. Oh well, there is only so much a GM can do.
Haha. I have a player who dies. A lot. Settings and system alike do not matter. His excuse is always the same: "It's what my character would do."
I continually ask him to stop rolling complete morons, but it is to no avail.
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I have asked that question before and have the player still keep plan A. Oh well, there is only so much a GM can do.Haha. I have a player who dies. A lot. Settings and system alike do not matter. His excuse is always the same: "It's what my character would do."
I continually ask him to stop rolling complete morons, but it is to no avail.
Many many years ago... had a fellow player in a Cyberpunk game who was like that for a little while. Best thing of all-- he kept rolling up characters, who would have mob ties, which would lean on him to betray the other PCs-- and instead of coming to us for help, he'd keep trying to betray us, we'd keep catching him at it-- and, this being Cyberpunk (and yes, that sort of campaign), we kept killing him for it, because we were better at catching his attempts at betrayal than he was at pulling any of them off (GM decided it was perfectly okay for us to off our fellow PC if he kept trying to sell us out). He went through 3 characters before the GM and the 'Alpha' players in the group (two of us, one of which was me) spelled it out to him and explained some other options he could take if he really wanted to play a 'Fixer' with shady ties that wouldn't get him killed.
As I recall, the final death score for this poor guy's PCs was 1 to me (decapitation with a monokatana), 1 to the other 'alpha' player (.50 caliber nostril surgery), and 1 we shared credit for (a literal defenestration from the upper floors of a very tall skyscraper). I should add, that this player's continued attempts at betraying his party did cross the line into "doing something really stupid that could get you killed" (meets the 'dying because you screwed something up' standard); also, that 'Cyberpunk' is inherently (at least, if it's played much like the SF stories it's based on) one of those 'high-lethality' games.
I'm not a particularly bloodthirsty GM so I don't set to kill my PCs and will fudge some damage instances that spike higher than I want to dish out in one go. But I'm not afraid of killing them either. I managed to gat an effective TPK in Council of Thieves thanks to a series of blown saves vs a gaze attack. I gave them plenty of opportunities for most of them to escape, refit, and return too. Fortunately one PC had formed a "partnership" with someone able to do something about it who wasn't ready to see her investment in him wasted so soon. So, she arranged to have him (and the others) fied up.
With respect to encounter challenges, I don't try to micromanage it too much. If I try to make the fight a skin-of-your-teeth challenge, events and luck will probably push it to too easy or too tough anyway. Better, I think, to provide a variety of challenge levels throughout the game and let the players come to their own conclusions which ones were really challenges, which were really satisfying, and so on.
This (I feel) is one of the biggest struggles as a DM.
Where do you draw the line of "That was a great battle and was the perfect level of challenge."
I always seem to be one way or the other when running scenarios. Either it feels like the party got through the fight with reasonably minimal stress, or a few rounds in i have to rip the enemy back a little bit for fear of demolishing the party.
How do you prevent/deal with this?
You're right, this is the GM's most important job. My personal approach is to aim for one encounter per session where the PCs almost die. That's during prep. During play, I try to remain completely impartial — or rather, only partial to a good story. I let my players know out-of-game that PC death is a distinct possibility and nobody is safe. Most importantly, impartiality is a promise to myself so that I'll go through with it when the time comes.
I use correct cr for my parties. And i do realize people feel differently about the balance of how much challenge.
But when is it ok in your campaign to just kill off party members?
Or are you like me in that you're afraid to kill off a party member for the effects it will have on the story?
The players sit down at every session with no idea of how the game is going to go, or what's going to happen to their investment in their character. The GM is a player too, it's just that his PC is the campaign. The reason we roll dice in this hobby is that no one, not even the GM is absolutely sure how things are going to turn out.
A lot of plot prep from the GM can be a good thing, but an unwillingness to deviate from plans is an indication of some weak GMing habits. If you're afraid that a PC will die because of the effect on the story, that's good dramatic tension. If the PC dies, let them die, and explore the consequences. Try to plan your game notes so that you don't lose too much prep in this manner.
Personally, I've come to realize that PC death generally has a positive effect on the story, if it is done impartially. We've had many awesome scenes in tribute to dead PCs. PCs have completed quests for dead PCs, or simply noted that "...he would have loved to see this." Action scenes and combat carry so much more dramatic punch if no one is safe. Nobody likes it when their PC dies at that moment, but if you check back in after a few months with the replacement PC, you'll find that many players will consider it positive in hindsight.
I want to know from players and DMs where do you feel the line is for deaths/challenge?
The line is impartiality. I loathe GMs who kill PCs vindictively, punitively, or for any other reason than their duty. Also, it can be fun to ambush the PCs with an unexpected challenge once in a great while, but for the most part I try to give the PCs a realistic assessment of what they're getting into, using the context, NPCs, scenery, whatever. Enough PCs have died in my campaign that the players will generally look into things before storming off guns-blazing. And when a little footwork allows the players to overcome an otherwise deadly challenge, that's the best feeling of accomplishment in the game.
I want to know from players and DMs where do you feel the line is for deaths/challenge?When it stops being fun, you've crossed the line.
-ish.
That's a noble sentiment, TOZ, but if your players are very mature people you can put them through momentary discomfort (unfun) for a greater payout. This requires prior consent.
When you join a game where you know your PCs might die, it still sucks and is unfun when it actually happens. But, over the campaign as a whole, you have more fun, I think. Probably only true for a specific type of gamer.
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Players often say they want something, when what they actually want is completely different.
But seriously, this is true. A GM has to be willing to administer tough-love. They just need to be willing to look inward and be certain that they're being impartial, and that it's for the players' sake and not their own.
Such a thin line between GM aggression and a good challenge. Communication is key. Maybe the game needs a "safe word"?
I'll be quiet now.
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Thank you for the kind words-- much appreciated.
I think Finn K said it "better"
NP. :)
As a side note, I don't think an adventure killing off 80 some PC's is being very realistic at all... If I joined an adventuring crew, who said I was number 81 (or even 7 for that matter) to join their group of 5 in the last month... I think I'd bow out and look for a different group of folks to hang out with. (and that's coming from an infantryman, FYI).-Woof.
Heh. You and me both-- and I also used to be an infantryman, along with 4 other MOS's I held during my career. Although-- can you imagine being one of the replacements going into the 8th Air Force in WW2, circa 1943 (flying the B-17s and B-24s on bombing raids over Germany), hearing about the horrendous losses the bomber crews were taking at the time, and "oh by the way, you're on the board for tomorrow's mission"?
I picture a character (for whatever reason you're still joining the game, and your character, in-game, isn't being given a choice) joining that "high casualty group" having a similar reaction to new guys joining those bomber crews.
Absolutely agreed.
As far as permanent character death == drama (or even dramatic Tension); this is part of the false dichotomy that I was talking about. Dramatic tension is created when there is a real "sense" of failure. Failure =/= Death.
Now, do I think that this involves play-style preference, absolutely. In a game that showcases character build and optimization there is a tendency to see ones characters death as a "well... I didn't do a good enough build, I'll just have to try again." and this is good, no less of a valid play style than any other (and of course there are many levels between "pure story driven" (I use this phrase to say DM's who totally "coddle" their players as has been deemed by this thread) rp and the aforementioned style... (I'm not even saying that you can't have both styles in the same game) again because of that alone we can see the emergence of the false dichotomy that I'm referring to.
You see, failure can come in many forms, thus creating dramatic tension. and the fact that we have so much history (we (humanity) are really good at story-telling, and have been doing it for many thousands of years, so we instinctively react to these dramatic queues, to an almost psychological predictability.
Stick a character in a prison where his comrades have to bail him out, and see if he likes the threat of that happening again. Ask a comic book (American superhero) fan, why they still read their favorite series, despite the fact that it's now even an internal joke, that no one ever dies for real or permanently. But still there are some excellent stories that come out of that genre.
Good Will Hunting. I love that movie... it's a drama.. It's intensely dialogue driven... I can't think of any death being threatened during the entire film. I do believe it's even called a "drama" (RPG's don't hold captive the definition of "drama").
I guess you could say I think that character death "should" (boy, I'm not even sure about putting that word on there, as I don't want to preach to anyone about how they should be playing the game) be "possible" just not quite "probable."
But I also have a firm wall between what the characters know, and what I know. And I think stupidity should be rewarded with severe limitations (death). If you do something stupid you die. I don't care of you've calculated to the N-th that your 18th level fighter can survive a 100' drop, I'm sorry... your dude can do a fort save, to see if he's at -9 (or whatever is hovering on the brink of death) HP... and move from there.
Now, if the BBEG throws the "magic ring" in to a pool of lava 100' below, and one of the PC's decides that he's going to jump down to try to catch it and throw it back up to the party, I will allow him to do that, and even require some rolls, of which I'm probably not going to assign them to horribly difficult DC's (though I am still going to make it a challenge). I will explain to the PC that this means he WILL die (save a reincarnation of some sort). And if he still wants to do it, then I'll even make some sort of "Hero's death" bonus that he'll get to his rolls, and bam, it's done.
But now I'm just rambling.
I think that "keep what you roll"/"roll it in the open and deal with whatever comes" is a valid way to rp, and it can be hella fun... it's just not what I personally prefer, or enjoy when I'm running a game. As the elements that I try to incorporate are closer to an attempt to mimic fiction and dramatic storytelling.
Put simply, I think Heroes should be heroic... and as my definition, that means that they have to be able to do things no one else can, survive things that no one else should, and come back to tell the tale.
But I also understand that this is my view, and not a universal constant among the gaming community.
I also realize that at least in my 25+ year history where I've gamed in conventions, in my youth, in many different groups, in many different states, in many different countries, and I've never had a character die. Whether that's because I'm a "good at RPing," lucky, just have happened to find groups that aren't "killer groups," or whatever is definitely debatable.
I have asked that question before and have the player still keep plan A. Oh well, there is only so much a GM can do.Haha. I have a player who dies. A lot. Settings and system alike do not matter. His excuse is always the same: "It's what my character would do."
I continually ask him to stop rolling complete morons, but it is to no avail.
I have known that player. He has managed to get his char killed in many games. My favourite took place in Nirmathas. Allow me to tell you the tale of a foolish werewolf...
The party, was a crack team of Molthunian jobbers, average level 12. Cleric of the end times, aristocratic wizard, some melee including a blackguard. After a char death, the player decides he will bring in a barbarian werewolf.
The players (save 1) are in Nirmathas, they have to be alert to ambush and are in a lycanthrope zone--there had been rumours of attacks and people eaten. They are in a small wood raised off the plains and it is night. They hear howling. Something is running around out there, making some noise. The players get up, and form up. The other player keeps trying to spook them. He keeps back. They are not scared of werewolves. They wait. The spookiness continues. They expose the werewolves position with thrown light rocks, and shell him into negatives before he can do anything. Everyone rushes down the hill and takes him alive.
He awakens a human, buried up to his neck. Surrounded by people with pikes, swords, a mace of Odo, all ready to strike. They ask some questions such as who he serves (Nirmathas or Molthune, give us the name of a Molthunian noble house). He refuses to answer the party.
Then the kicker. The player says he should make a save versus transforming. He asks to do this, because of the stressful situation. I say to him, you do not have to make the save. I'm not going to make you make that save. Changing would be a bad idea.
The player rolls the save, decides he failed it, and starts the full round change. The weapons descend. And the player later complained about me, the dm, killing his character. 0-0
I have asked that question before and have the player still keep plan A. Oh well, there is only so much a GM can do.Haha. I have a player who dies. A lot. Settings and system alike do not matter. His excuse is always the same: "It's what my character would do."
I continually ask him to stop rolling complete morons, but it is to no avail.
Many many years ago... had a fellow player in a Cyberpunk game who was like that for a little while. Best thing of all-- he kept rolling up characters, who would have mob ties, which would lean on him to betray the other PCs-- and instead of coming to us for help, he'd keep trying to betray us, we'd keep catching him at it-- and, this being Cyberpunk (and yes, that sort of campaign), we kept killing him for it, because we were better at catching his attempts at betrayal than he was at pulling any of them off (GM decided it was perfectly okay for us to off our fellow PC if he kept trying to sell us out). He went through 3 characters before the GM and the 'Alpha' players in the group (two of us, one of which was me) spelled it out to him and explained some other options he could take if he really wanted to play a 'Fixer' with shady ties that wouldn't get him killed.
As I recall, the final death score for this poor guy's PCs was 1 to me (decapitation with a monokatana), 1 to the other 'alpha' player (.50 caliber nostril surgery), and 1 we shared credit for (a literal defenestration from the upper floors of a very tall skyscraper). I should add, that this player's continued attempts at betraying his party did cross the line into "doing something really stupid that could get you killed" (meets the 'dying because you screwed something up' standard); also, that 'Cyberpunk' is inherently (at least, if it's played much like the SF stories it's based on) one of those 'high-lethality' games.
From the stories of a friend, I heard about something like this happening once. It involved a d*ck wizard character who would betray and let down the party, and then after that one died, another one came along. Then an attempted third. The party of three solved it really well, they refused to hire or take on any more wizards. They refused to adventure with any spellcaster character from the fourth player.
Problem solved. 3 out-vote 1.
The player rolls the save, decides he failed it, and starts the full round change. The weapons descend. And the player later complained about me, the dm, killing his character. 0-0
LOL.
When I ask that it is when I think the player, not the character, has had once of those temporary mental lapses we all have. If it is a "my character would do it" situation. I don't normally say anything.
Example: A player thought it was a good idea to pull out a potion and drink it while he was standing right in front of a melee focused BBEG.
When I ask that it is when I think the player, not the character, has had once of those temporary mental lapses we all have. If it is a "my character would do it" situation. I don't normally say anything.
Example: A player thought it was a good idea to pull out a potion and drink it while he was standing right in front of a melee focused BBEG.
Hey, if the Paladin says he's going to charge the dragon to buy time for the group to escape, I won't second-guess it. That's completely in line with what your stereotypical Paladin would do.
When the samurai masquerading as a ronin bandit to infiltrate the enemy bandit camp challenges the badass duelist bandit-leader to a duel because "she insulted his honor..."
When the lord's adviser asks him NOT to return the Lord's cursed sword to him, he immediately returns the cursed sword to him, then TRIES TO STEAL IT BACK FROM HIM (getting caught in the process and subsequently decapitated)...
When the player subtly asks his wizard friend to help him get out of jail with some sort of invisibility spell, then turns around and tries to carve his way out of the prison immediately after gaining a nod of consent from the wizard...
... it's hard to cut someone any slack. A momentary lapse of reason (not the album) is sure to come up from time to time, but then there are those moments that leave you questioning if the brain is functioning at all.
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Basically, asking "are you sure?" is a means of cautioning the Player to step back and carefully consider what he's about to do. This consideration can be framed by the character (and should be, as it's the character's rationale that is being applied) to the exclusion of any meta-gaming. People make mistakes, and the question is offered more to prevent flukes caused by brain farts than some sort of inexplicable divine inspiration.
To cite an example: in a Necessary Evil session I was playing in, the player in question had a character with a super-nifty automobile that was cloaked/invisible. We were in the process of trying to rescue a person of importance from the hostile alien forces that were interrogating him. We were faced with a situation that involved this person we were trying to rescue standing on the front of a futuristic monorail/tram that was traveling somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 mph. His car, being super-nifty as it was, could keep up with this monorail quite easily. Escort (the name of the player's character who owned said super-nifty vehicle) decided he would open the side-hatch of his vehicle and scoop up the guy we were trying to rescue. What follows is where the palms fly to foreheads...
GM: Okay, exactly how do you plan to scoop him up in your ride, Escort?
Escort: I'll just hover my car over the rails fifty yards or so ahead of the monorail with my side-hatch open.
GM: You're just going to leave your car stationary up ahead of the monorail?
Escort: Yeah. So when the monorail passes by the guy will land in the back seat. *He uses his hands to imitate the act, satisfied with the strategy*
GM: Are you sure that's what you're doing?
Escort: Yeah.
Cut to the guy we were trying to rescue getting cut in half and spraying the back seat of his vehicle with obscene amounts of gore. The player was dumbfounded. The rest of us were laughing our asses off.
The gods shall recognise their own.
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That makes me wonder if the game just have gotten less lethal or people who play now just have a different mindset regarding player death.
Both, in my opinion. It's blatantly obvious that the game has gotten less lethal. Characters continue to gain hit dice past "name" level, save-or-die has all but been eliminated, many characters have had their hit dice bumped up to the next level, and even if you do die, there's an overwhelming feeling of entitlement in regards to spells like raise dead.
You're also not forced to pay Experience points to cast certain spells or create certain items.
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You're also not forced to pay Experience points to cast certain spells or create certain items.
That was less a concession to player survivability, and more to GM sanity.
This (I feel) is one of the biggest struggles as a DM.
Where do you draw the line of "That was a great battle and was the perfect level of challenge."
I always seem to be one way or the other when running scenarios. Either it feels like the party got through the fight with reasonably minimal stress, or a few rounds in i have to rip the enemy back a little bit for fear of demolishing the party.
How do you prevent/deal with this?
I use correct cr for my parties. And i do realize people feel differently about the balance of how much challenge.
But when is it ok in your campaign to just kill off party members?
Or are you like me in that you're afraid to kill off a party member for the effects it will have on the story?
I want to know from players and DMs where do you feel the line is for deaths/challenge?
When do you walk away from a fight feeling accomplished, like you overcame odds?
There is something to be said for confident dice rolls. When a GM rolls a die, they often come out evenly in the spectrum. However, most players are more casual and basically "drop" the dice on the table. More often than not that results in poor results. Also, too, I've seen GMs roll consistently higher than the average player even when I've watched the rolls. It's an odd phenomena. The game and rules assume the dice treats everyone fairly in that 5% of the time you'll get a particular result. However, in practice, it's more often than not I roll less than a 15 the majority of the time where GMs often never roll under 10. That's not to say they NEVER roll under a 10 but on any given roll it's more likely to be above. Again, these are rolls I've seen first hand and it's just weird.
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This is my own perspective on kill vs coddle, and by no means indicative of anyone else:
I don't try to kill the PCs. On the flip side, I won't go out of my way to not try to kill the PCs. Their characters will live or die based upon the choices they make and the randomness of the die roll. Making them think they're character can die only to have them pull through by scaling back the challenges mid encounter or fudging die rolls is a false sense of accomplishment/success. An oppoprtunity for success must countered with an equal opportunity for failure.
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Of course, that rarely works even if they sense their potential action is a bad idea. Here's a recent example from my latest campain:** spoiler omitted **...
That example you give is a wonderful tale. The only thing that surprises me (or that, maybe, I wouldn't do as a player in that group) is that they got a 'raise dead' for the deceased even after the crap he pulled. As a GM I wouldn't interfere with the party... but as a player (even, or perhaps especially, when playing a good character), I'd leave him dead.
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As far as permanent character death == drama (or even dramatic Tension); this is part of the false dichotomy that I was talking about. Dramatic tension is created when there is a real "sense" of failure. Failure =/= Death.
Another excellent point. This is something more GMs should remember-- that your characters can live, and have still failed. It's even possible to set it up (legitimately-- see "Call of Cthulhu") so that there are worse things that can happen than characters dying... High tension in the game does not require death or risk of death in every situation.
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GM: Okay, exactly how do you plan to scoop him up in your ride, Escort?
Escort: I'll just hover my car over the rails fifty yards or so ahead of the monorail with my side-hatch open.
GM: You're just going to leave your car stationary up ahead of the monorail?
Escort: Yeah. So when the monorail passes by the guy will land in the back seat. *He uses his hands to imitate the act, satisfied with the strategy*
GM: Are you sure that's what you're doing?
Escort: Yeah.Cut to the guy we were trying to rescue getting cut in half and spraying the back seat of his vehicle with obscene amounts of gore. The player was dumbfounded. The rest of us were laughing our asses off.
This whole example is another great one. Total failure of basic physics, total failure of common sense-- total failure to watch movies and read tales demonstrating the "correct methods" to rescue someone from that situation...
Didn't even have to kill the player-character to have a lot of fun at his expense, via his errors.
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An observation on character death... lately, I haven't had a character get killed in D&D in quite some time, although several have come perilously close. Generally, part of that's been careful play-- it's not that the risk isn't there, but good risk management on your character's part really helps.
In the old days ('70s and '80s), I did lose characters to various causes. I can only count 3 times where I genuinely felt okay with this: 1 was a heroic sacrifice (knew he was gonna die, was worth it); 2 were because I did make a big mistake, and paid for it.
The other times were either s*** happens/bad dice luck/GM deciding to follow through on a killer situation without any fault/error on the player's part; or intra-party conflict (a problem in parties that include evil characters and no prohibitions on PvP action-- something that I remember being a problem several times way back in the dark ages of role-playing). Now, I'm reading a lot of people praising this style of play. Personally, I didn't like it at all when I lost characters via those types of death, I did not see a point to it or find it a worthy way to fall in battle, and I'd be even less happy with it if it happened in a game now.
Yes, people die all the time through "s*** happens" and/or "the enemy got lucky, rather than us" or "random IED", etc., in both historical and modern warfare, not to mention the calamities of every day life. Just as I don't play role-playing games in order to recreate the experience of being just another ordinary f***ing person (OFP, for short), I don't play role-playing games so I can relive the frequent pointlessness/meaninglessness of death and destruction in modern war (or anything like that from past wars). It ain't heroic at all.
I've played other games where death is much more common than it is in D&D, where mortality is a more constant companion, and where death for the PC often is quite pointless (Call of Cthulhu has been one of my favorite examples for that)-- sometimes the game has sufficient other virtues that it becomes worth playing, but I definitely take a different approach to such games if I'm going to play them. I stand by what I said earlier-- if you run that kind of game, more power to ya-- it's your game, play it how you want to play it. I will either not play in your game, or if I do, I will not waste my (and your) time bothering with complicated and intricate back-stories, well-developed character personalities, or complex in-character role-playing (something that I usually do for most games I'm in, except for CoC and similar games)-- when IMO your game essentially calls for "throw-away" characters. I will still "role-play" rather than treat it entirely like a tactical game, but I'll stick to simple backgrounds and basic personae; something where, if my character does die, I will not have wasted so much time and gotten so invested in the dead character, and creating a similarly basic character will be quick, easy, and ready to roll... again, without strong investment in a character that may not last-- which is the way that I usually work on character creation in those "high-mortality" role-playing games.
I can guarantee though-- that if you ask for, and expect, such intricate and strong character development in your game, while still essentially telling me that, "gee, your character could just as easily die in the first combat if I roll a few criticals-- too bad!", I'm definitely not joining your game.
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Gurby I agree with you, but many people just want the story, and don't think a GM should allow a player to die or if he does that it has to be an important fight. I don't really agree. I think the random tiger can kill you just as surely as the hired assassin, but that is why I give a primer of how I run my games if I am inviting a new person. I have had people not show up after realizing they will have to earn their victories.
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Think about it, Dying is part of Life. Living is part of the ROLE PLAY experience! So is Dying!
Pulling a punch or two is fine. Pulling 20 just kills the trust us players want in our GMs.(IMHO)
I actually agree with you (sort of) on the second point (more on the first point with the response to Wraithstrike below). If players are playing their characters with due care and precautions, recognizing that their characters are mortal, and therefore are not inclined to take unnecessary risks, you shouldn't ever have to pull more than one or two punches (and those one or two will be, IMO, along the lines of proper GM mercy in not killing a character just because the dice are really hot for an enemy that shouldn't be quite that dangerous)-- if you have to "pull 20 punches", IMO the player almost has to be doing something really stupid to need that kind of 'divine intervention' from the GM.
I think the random tiger can kill you just as surely as the hired assassin
This is entirely true, in real life-- just as Gurby's point that dying is part of life is entirely true. However, some of us don't play RPGs so that we can experience the pointless random deaths we see often enough in reality. I say again, in your favorite fantasy novels, how often do the main characters die? And, do they ever die from a "random encounter"?
Your game, so you get to run it your way-- I'm not saying you're wrong, just that it's not to my taste at all. It just doesn't seem at all heroic, or all that fun, to me-- it's too much like realities I've already had to face more than once in my own life, with people dying that I knew for stupid, random reasons in daily life, or ugly little pointless incidents that they should have been able to avoid in wars whose reasons still seem rather dubious to me, or from diseases that we should already have a cure for. I used to be okay with games that included such realistic random hazards once upon a time, but not anymore-- those are my reasons why I probably wouldn't join your game if the opportunity was otherwise there.
My witch died last night. I was on a rope bridge that had too many occupants and I didn't make my reflex save and went plummeting into the water below. That didn't kill me though. I was unconscious but stabilized. But, then a monster ate me. Even though the GM let me make a Fort save to resist something I still took enough damage to send me under neg con. :D
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I'm an Ol'Fart RP'r back from a 20+ year hiatus.
From what I've noticed,(IMHO) Is there is less permission to kill characters as there used to be.
When it does happen players seem to take it worse then ever.
Think about it, Dying is part of Life. Living is part of the ROLE PLAY experience! So is Dying!
Pulling a punch or two is fine. Pulling 20 just kills the trust us players want in our GMs.(IMHO)
I find myself in complete agreement with this pulling a punch so that a player dosn't die half a hour after the game began due to some freak accident is totally fine but a game with no deaths means IMHO that the Gm isn't being hard enough or that the players are overtuned to the campaign.
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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.
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...but a game with no deaths means IMHO that the Gm isn't being hard enough or that the players are overtuned to the campaign.
Or the players are being smart and careful, while still getting the job done.
I think a GM who thinks that if he/she doesn't kill at least one character, he/she isn't being hard enough... is a GM who is actually trying to be too hard.
A GM who doesn't "reward" gross stupidity in game play with a death (particularly repeated stupidity) is being too soft (IMO).
You do have to find a balance (IMO), but (within that balance) I just don't see character deaths, not even one, as necessary if the players are well aware of the risks, are taking steps to manage those risks, and are playing smart.
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Just a minor point to make here. I played most of my gaming back in the mean old early days of D&D when PCs died left and right. After my first character death I learned to play very, very carefully. Since then I've only had a couple of characters die, and one was entirely due to a GM who totally misunderstood the darkness spell and blindsight feat.
Even in a highly lethal environment, good tactics and careful planning can keep you alive.
This is entirely true, in real life-- just as Gurby's point that dying is part of life is entirely true. However, some of us don't play RPGs so that we can experience the pointless random deaths we see often enough in reality. I say again, in your favorite fantasy novels, how often do the main characters die? And, do they ever die from a "random encounter"?
Your game, so you get to run it your way-- I'm not saying you're wrong, just that it's not to my taste at all. It just doesn't seem at all heroic, or all that fun, to me-- it's too much like realities I've already had to face more than once in my own life, with people dying that I knew for stupid, random reasons in daily life, or ugly little pointless incidents that they should have been able to avoid in wars whose reasons still seem rather dubious to me, or from diseases that we should already have a cure for. I used to be okay with games that included such realistic random hazards once upon a time, but not...
I don't generally run random encounters because I kind of agree with you, and also because there is no reason to roll the dice if the result is pretty much predetermined. Otherwise I am wasting game time on a combat that does not matter. I would rather just give you the XP, save the time, and move on to things that do matter.
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Another point to the "player should die if the GM is trying: I don't think players have to die. I do think that if the party is not legitimately challenged at some point something is wrong though.
I don't generally run random encounters because I kind of agree with you, and also because there is no reason to roll the dice if the result is pretty much predetermined. Otherwise I am wasting game time on a combat that does not matter. I would rather just give you the XP, save the time, and move on to things that do matter.
Whether I run "random encounters" depends a lot on my campaign. When things are moving along briskly and the party is hot on the trail of something that moves the plot along, I generally won't interrupt that with a sudden inexplicable troll attack.
But when things are less tight and the party is perhaps moving around new territory between major story arcs, I pull out the old random encounter die.
Sometimes the results are quite fun and interesting. I rolled up a random encounter for some wolves once, and that led to the party discovering some young wolf cubs that they adopted as pets. That was sorta fun for awhile.
So was the point of this that sometimes people mess up in real life and so they should in...Basically, asking "are you sure?" is a means of cautioning the Player to step back and carefully consider what he's about to do. This consideration can be framed by the character (and should be, as it's the character's rationale that is being applied) to the exclusion of any meta-gaming. People make mistakes, and the question is offered more to prevent flukes caused by brain farts than some sort of inexplicable divine inspiration.
To cite an example: in a Necessary Evil session I was playing in, the player in question had a character with a super-nifty automobile that was cloaked/invisible. We were in the process of trying to rescue a person of importance from the hostile alien forces that were interrogating him. We were faced with a situation that involved this person we were trying to rescue standing on the front of a futuristic monorail/tram that was traveling somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 mph. His car, being super-nifty as it was, could keep up with this monorail quite easily. Escort (the name of the player's character who owned said super-nifty vehicle) decided he would open the side-hatch of his vehicle and scoop up the guy we were trying to rescue. What follows is where the palms fly to foreheads...
GM: Okay, exactly how do you plan to scoop him up in your ride, Escort?
Escort: I'll just hover my car over the rails fifty yards or so ahead of the monorail with my side-hatch open.
GM: You're just going to leave your car stationary up ahead of the monorail?
Escort: Yeah. So when the monorail passes by the guy will land in the back seat. *He uses his hands to imitate the act, satisfied with the strategy*
GM: Are you sure that's what you're doing?
Escort: Yeah.Cut to the guy we were trying to rescue getting cut in half and spraying the back seat of his vehicle with obscene amounts of gore. The player was dumbfounded. The rest of us were laughing our asses off.
To a certain extent, yes. But let's be honest... the Wizard with a 34 Int and 24 Wis is not going to be prone to fits of mental lapses. While it's not the system's job to play a character for you, there's a delicate balance called immersion that needs to be revered. If the Barbarian with virtually no Intelligence score is the one solving all of the thinker's puzzles (by virtue of the fact that the person playing him happens to have the highest IQ at the table) it's going to have people scratching their heads when they read the novel. In general, I do agree with you, however. People make mistakes. The GM's caution is just a chance to gain perspective. Good roleplayers know what their characters are or aren't capable of, and will adjust or not adjust accordingly. Some people are just clueless in general though, no matter how smart their character is.