We've all heard the cliche about the killer GM, but what happens when you find yourself leaning the other way? I put my players through the ringer in combats but never really challenged them otherwise - no instant-death or gender/alignment changing traps, no relentless environmental hazards. Then when they would get into a bad scrape I'd ALWAYS throw them a lifeline. I had a barbarian who stupidly decided to fight a young green dragon; 3 of the 5 party members were still alive, all 3 were down HP and they'd somehow resisted his fear aura.
On his second attack: nat 1 followed by a nat 1. His masterwork greataxe catches in a knot of underground roots, the haft breaks, and he falls prone. Now, any GM, not even a killer one, should've said game over at this point right? No, he leaps past the dragon into its horde to look for anything to fight the thing with and by chance it misses him with not only its attack routine but also the AOO. So I end up REWARDING him with a Vicious Greataxe; every time he attacks with it a wyvern's tail barb at the end of the haft stings him.
So I'm asking 2 questions: have you folks ever gone soft on your players and if I do start leaning that way again how do I balance it? For instance, I thought of making the Wyvern's Axe cursed so that it also slowly poisoned him, draining his Con until he got uncursed and got rid of the thing, but the campaign ended. Your thoughts?
If you are all having a great time, what's the problem?
I have always maintained that the DM's job is to keep the PCs alive while convincing the players he wants them dead.
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If you are all having a great time, what's the problem?
I have always maintained that the DM's job is to keep the PCs alive while convincing the players he wants them dead.
THAT's my problem!!
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But really I agree, the job is to keep the game entertaining. Occasionally a PC death helps keep things alive and spices it up, but I like to try to keep it dramatcially appropriate. Lucky goblin crits the wizard and maxes damage with a bow? Yea, that's why I roll behind a screen. 'Ohh, that almost killed you.' instead of 'Well, you're dead.' Now if it's the BBEG and he crits you for max damage, I'll try to do the drama thing on it, but yea, dead wizard.
In the case you presented, excellent job imo.
Some players like to play deadly games. Some don't. If your players are happy, I don't see any problem.
But really I agree, the job is to keep the game entertaining. Occasionally a PC death helps keep things alive and spices it up, but I like to try to keep it dramatcially appropriate. Lucky goblin crits the wizard and maxes damage with a bow? Yea, that's why I roll behind a screen. 'Ohh, that almost killed you.' instead of 'Well, you're dead.' Now if it's the BBEG and he crits you for max damage, I'll try to do the drama thing on it, but yea, dead wizard.
Totally agree. The point of the game is to have fun. The players have to believe that there's the possibility of death for the dramatic tension to be there, so I usually have the PCs have a bunch of close calls, setbacks, loss of equipment/allies/reputation, but I rarely kill them off-- unless they really deserve it.
(Example of PC who deserves it: "I charge the dragon!" "Um, the dragon is huge, and seems to just want to talk." "It's a dragon! I charge it!" "Um...okaaaay...take 15d6 fire damage...save for half?")
I prefer heroic play, so I have absolutely no qualms killing off a character that's being evil. A character who's risking his life to save people? They usually win, regardless of how the dice fall, unless heroic martyrdom would serve the plot.
I have also killed off PCs with the full cooperation of the player in question. Most recently, this was because the player had tired of the PC and wanted to play something else, so I had the PC die in-game in a way that furthered the plot. I had introduced the player's new character as an NPC a couple of sessions earlier, so it was natural for the new character to be part of the party.
I don't like to kill PCs due to bad luck. That's why I roll behind a screen-- I don't want to let bad dice rolls completely derail the plot of the adventure.
I believe in being very flexible as a GM...I will change encounters as they are happening if the turn out to be far easier or more difficult then I thought they would be...I will save my PC's if I made a mistake and threw something at them that was too much...I will not save them if they are acting like idiots and get themselves killed for no good reason.
I believe heavily in role playing and the only way to get players to not play it like a video game is to have consequences when they act stupidly.
That said I want everyone to have fun and will only let the whole party die if as a group they have earned it(i don't think there would be anything wrong with letting that barb die and allow the rest of the party to raise him. If they can't accomplish it because of lvl or wealth let them quest to get it as a reward).
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Totally agree. The point of the game is to have fun. The players have to believe that there's the possibility of death for the dramatic tension to be there, so I usually have the PCs have a bunch of close calls, setbacks, loss of equipment/allies/reputation, but I rarely kill them off-- unless they really deserve it.(Example of PC who deserves it: "I charge the dragon!" "Um, the dragon is huge, and seems to just want to talk." "It's a dragon! I charge it!" "Um...okaaaay...take 15d6 fire damage...save for half?")
One game I was in, we encountered a very large green dragon who basically demanded a magic item from each of as payment for not killing us (there's abit more to it, but that's the simple version). We were way below this guys level at the time. A friend of mine went up to the dragon, and slapped him.
The rest of us gave a magic item each after watching him get swallowed up.
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If you are all having a great time, what's the problem?
I have always maintained that the DM's job is to keep the PCs alive while convincing the players he wants them dead.
I have always maintained that the GM's job is to orchestrate and lead the collective storytelling that is, IMO, the heart of a good role-playing game. Means, I don't even need (or necessarily want) the GM to convince me that he wants the players dead (nor do I have that approach when I GM)-- I do think, however, that the GM should have you convinced that the story involves real challenges and that there are going to be serious consequences for failure (especially if failure is due to egregious mistakes by the PCs)-- failure need not always include death as one of the consequences (although it certainly can include death).... on the other hand, IMO, it's best of all for motivating the PC's if they are convinced that the consequences of failure are worse than simply dying...
(not that your approach is wrong, if it works for you-- not that my approach is right for everyone either-- just wanted to present a slightly different view here-- I entirely agree with you that above all else, the idea is for everyone to have fun-- if you're achieving that, you're doing it right!) :D
You just used fifty words to explain what I used ten to summarize.
I'm not making myself clear and for that I apologize. With my current gaming group I've NEVER killed a character, not a one. I've dropped them to negative hit points but no one has ever died. Also no one has ever been captured, cursed, permanently disfigured or anything. My last climactic battle of my last campaign was as follows:
Party enters a room, finds a Chimeric Worg (3 heads: a worg, a red dragon, and a giant ram) and the thing is Large size. It Intimidates them and FOR ONCE they actually decide to talk to it when it opens up a dialogue. It tells them that it will give them the macguffin if they go to the other side of the ruined monastery and slay the Draconicore (1/2 blue dragon, 1/2 manticore. I had a dragon thing in my last campaign).
Party listens intently, walks out of the room and down the hall, makes up their mind to kill it anyway and then turns back and charges the thing. First they take breath weapon to the face. They then proceed to take MASSIVE damage from it's melee attacks. ONE of the party members is smart enough to go and make contact with the draconicore, pulls off an AMAZING diplomacy (total 30 at 5th level!) and convinces the creature that the party is there to help smite it's mortal enemy, and with it's help they can do it; all they ask in return is the macguffin. Draconicore grudgingly agrees and takes wing.
Meanwhile remainder of party has epic (but futile) battle and SHOULD have all died. I fudged die rolls, not because they were close, but because they were game ending. The barbarian manages to survive long enough to get on the chimeric worg's back, at which point the beast leaps skyward. He rolls a fantastic grapple check after it takes off and holds it, attempting to halt its ascent. For it's round it breaks the grapple; I have him roll another roll and he looses his grip and is going to fall off of it. He dealt decent damage to it but the bottom line was - charging the thing headlong was not the right plan.
However, once it got airborne and had taken SOME damage, it was finally weak enough for the draconicore to finish off. While the 2 monsters fight an epic battle in the night sky visible through the ruined roof the barbarian falls 40' uncontroled to impact the floor with a bonecrushing...10 pts of damage (fudged because 11 damage or more, with what he'd sustained already would've permanently killed him.)
Party rallies around the barb, begins their healing cycle, and before the draconicore manages to smash down into the courtyard outside as the victor they are all back on their feet.
Now, I know you're all saying "well, if they're having fun..." but that's the thing. I asked later "why the heck did you go BACK in and charge straight at it?" and the players said they were bored, plain and simple. I am getting the idea that they have no concept of consequence.
Now I didn't start this thread to say "how do I kill my characters"; that one's easy. Besides, I'm like all of you in that I rarely do that at all w/out good reason. But I feel like there should be SOME kind of consequence for such actions. I have one guy who for 3 games has played the same kind of character, based loosely around the Warhammer novellas of a guy that HAS to die an epic death in battle. As such I have him leading these charges against Dragons, ghoul queens, goblin/skeleton hordes and such as if he's asking to suicide his guy, even though when I talk to him later he SAYS he's enjoying things and just gets a little bored with talking.
Again, I'd like to see if there's SOMETHING you guys can suggest that isn't as black and white as "let them live/kill them" to have the party learn to change up tactics from time to time.
I liked what Haladir alluded to in that he has loss of equipment. I tried loss of allies but my players don't really engage in plot so they only care for loss of things that up their chances in a fight. Nobody got weepy when their holy priest NPC was swarmed by ghouls while his last dying act helped portal them to safety. As such losing reputation/honor wouldn't affect them either, unless it somehow translated to a -2 attack roll or something.
I played a game in HS once and HATED it because it was so railroady AND my character got shafted a lot. But the one thing that was balanced in the whole campaign was actually a throwaway encounter that the GM felt bad about when it went terribly wrong.
Our party was in the darkest heart of an evil forest, just crawled out of a nightmare dungeon and, as this GM always ran dark worlds we fully expected to be attacked while we slept. We decided it'd be SMART to hammock up in the canopy since it was so thick and our enemies were goblins. One guy goes on watch but fails a save and we all fall asleep. We're awakened, middle of the night, to gentle swaying, and as my character opens her eyes she finds a GIANT eye staring right back at her. She freaks out of paranoia, grabs a dagger and stabs...natural 20. Turns out what she blinded was a benevolent treant, one of the last of its kind in this evil forest. In retribution it pierces my character's eye and blinds ME right back. It could've killed me outright but the GM decided on lenience and poetic justice.
Now, that's not the good part. GM feels bad for all the negatives I'm going to have after losing sight in one eye and the hell he'd put us through, so he cuts me a break. I still have the penalties, but he replaces my eye with a piece of amber made from the treant's sap...a magic item that allows me to see almost everything: alignment, magic, almost every "detect" spell in the book.
Now it was a dark world and magic was bad, so I couldn't walk around like that so I wore an eyepatch. My Charisma went down from this too. I went from being the pretty, happy-go-lucky Elf wizard/Fighter to the bitter, dark brooding warrior. But at LEAST I got the eye out of it.
It's a hard line to walk. My advice is, stop fudging the dice.
Roll them in front of everyone.
Let them land where they will.
There is no "right" answer. Some groups like a more lethal campaign, some like a walk in the park. The only real difference is that the lethal campaigners like to sneer at the non-lethal ones as being wimpy or something.
I like a more lethal campaign, so I can sometimes veer towards the sneering at the walk in the park variety... But it doesn't really matter, just have fun.
(To put it in context, I played the game when it was REALLY lethal... back in the zero hit points = you're dead, roll your first hit die, get a 1, too bad days...
UPDATE: Nothing says "lethal" like being killed by vermin. I saw a character killed by a rat bite.
I only fudge dice if the circumstance is necessary. For instance, my party of 7 PCs a cohort and NPC Bard went up against a templated purple worm. Only 3 of the PCs showed up that day and we left the previous session off at the beginning of the fight, so I couldn't hold it off for a side adventure. So I held back, lowered damage, etc. and the party still almost got wiped out.
I'm not gonna lie, I'm a moderately brutal GM. I'll kill a player and not feel bad about it. I want my players to improve, and I've largely only killed a player because he was stupid (charging the dragon with 5 hp left), never bothered to speak up about how bad he was hurting, or, in only one case so far, I intentionally hunted him down and murdered him.
He was meta-gaming at my table, decided that since I was describing a situation, and asking what he was doing, there must be combat coming up and said his character had his weapons ready, armor on, and was on the look out, all the while the party was in a safe location, and preparing for a celebration. The fact that the enemy was going to attack that night was irrelevant, he only put his character on alert because I asked what he was doing, and he actually told me he was on alert because I asked what the party was doing and where they were at.
Invisible Rogues getting a surprise round and going first on initiative with 6 attacks that all hit = dead meta-gamer.
Anyway, sounds to me like your characters aren't feeling a challenge because you're holding back. They aren't worried about consequences because they know you're not going to kill them. Players need to feel the threat of death, or they're going to get careless. I mean, why worry about buffing if you know the GM is going to hold their hand through the fight?
I think you should probably stop holding back. You don't need to kill the party, but a PC death every once in awhile can be a good thing as it makes them play tactically. They have to make the good decisions, and if they don't, the learn what they should have done, or what they could have done better.
I had a barbarian who stupidly decided to fight a young green dragon; 3 of the 5 party members were still alive, all 3 were down HP and they'd somehow resisted his fear aura.
I don't consider it "going soft" on a party when two of the five of them are dead from an encounter, even if the other three still have a moderate amount of hp.
You don't need to make sure a TPK happens just to prove somebody did something stupid, and especially not to teach them a lesson, which will NEVER be your job.
You're doing fine. Soft GMs make sure nobody ever dies. You do not seem to be doing that. Ignore most of the other advice you'll get here. Some posters seem to think it really is advisable to kill at all costs, and to teach other grown people "a lesson." It isn't.
I find it curious the idea that it is never a DM's place to teach a party a lesson...maybe if i only played with people who acted in a rational and reasonable manner I would never feel the compulsion...unfortunately my group has not always met this standard(should i let them slaughter towns full of people scott free or challenge any creature no matter its strength..If my lvl one party finds out there is an Ancient Wyrm Red Dragon in a nearby cave and refuse all of my efforts to tell them not to go should I have the dragon run away from its hoard or fudge rolls so they win...
I never try to kill my PC when I am setting up an adventure but if my party refuses all common sense you have two options...react in completely unreasonable ways(which in my opinion makes combat boring...if there is no risk of death then there is no excitement and what you do in combat doesn't matter) or you can roll the dice as they should be and let the players feel the consequences of their actions...that's all we are really talking about should you make your parties choices matter or let them run wild at no cost...
I also don't think you need to TPK but when I give them an out when they should have died they will earn it(forced to do a quest or give up items). Making tough choices is what makes role playing fun if I want to remove them I can play a video game RPG.
Going soft is necessary sometimes, but don't be afraid to kill them. you always want them to feel like they're going to die without ever letting a TPK happen.
when you guys say "dead" or "kill", are you talking stabilized at neg HP, or do you mean "in need of resurrection"?
What I'm talking about here is destroying the character; they can no longer receive healing to continue and need to be raised or reincarnated or whatever, or else the PC needs to roll up a new character.
If you guys are saying neg HP, I've done that many times. In fact, part of the problem I've acknowledged in my own gaming style was I was throwing out TOO MANY APL+1 fights Buin order to challenge the 2 optimized martials and as a result we had a massive amount of 15 minute adventures.
But the reason for this thread was in those situations I'd change the BBEG's treasure at the table to include healing potions or a wand of cure light w/a handful of charges, one time I threw in a 1/day healing shrine in the NEXT hallway from a challenging fight scene. The pattern of my games would be: enter the fight (usually APL+1), take 3-4 rounds to finish the fight, heal up, and move on. At this pace we could usually only pull off like 4 or 5 fights a night and that was because I almost never used traps and puzzles. By the end of the last fight the heroes were almost always low on HP, maybe even unconscious, but STILL had some source of healing enough to loot the scenes, pick themselves up and retire to a safe distance.
I don't think the players felt challenged because 1) my games were so formulaic, and 2) they KNEW there'd be some form of healing or refresh around the next corner, or an NPC w/a portal or whatever so that they would survive. I've acknowledged the formula problem and am taking steps to fix that, change things up a bit; for example the 1st level kicker to the next campaign is a series of fights, RP challenges and traps/hazards which, if I've done my math right, should have a range of CR 1/2 - 2 for a party of 4 characters.
So what I'm looking for advice on is when to be nice to the PC's (which you folks have already answered - be nice when they're having fun, drop the hammer when they're being stupid) and how to enforce consequence w/out killing everyone.
For the record I do not mean negative hit points when I said kill I meant we need raise dead...Be careful with CR's and taking them to literally. a lot of there value is based on an average party(rouge, cleric, mage, and warrior) they also assume non optimized characters and don't take into account character abilities...A paladin will own your evil monsters but get owned by a construct of the the same CR...I play with a group of very experienced players and often have to throw 3-4 + party lvl CR to challenge them....
So assuming we aren't going to permanently kill the party.
1. rather then provide them a means of recovery after every encounter and do more encounters design the encounter to stretch them to there limits before having to rest or go back to town to recover(do they have a divine caster because it sounds like your relying on wands a lot...and if they are relying on wands make them buy them(be prepared don't assume you will save them)
2. let one member of the party die and force a dangerous quest for the rest to get him back(let the dead player play an NPC) i have done this many times before its a less permanent problem that can help build a story arc...maybe even make the party make tough choices like having to become indebted to non-good npc's
3. If fighting intelligent NPC's have them offer party a cease fire(I will let you live if you give me this much gp, items, or if you do X for me)
4. rather then punish the bad players reward the good ones...give xp, item, or quest rewards to characters that role play well and effectively...if your character is never getting props(or benefits) and everyone else is you might be motivated to change your behavior...
5. the most important I think is to talk to your party outside of game and explain the situation and ask for their input and advice...how would they make it better why were they acting the way they were...if you let your party know what you want and expect they might be willing to work with you...
I find it curious the idea that it is never a DM's place to teach a party a lesson...maybe if i only played with people who acted in a rational and reasonable manner I would never feel the compulsion...unfortunately my group has not always met this standard(should i let them slaughter towns full of people scott free or challenge any creature no matter its strength..If my lvl one party finds out there is an Ancient Wyrm Red Dragon in a nearby cave and refuse all of my efforts to tell them not to go should I have the dragon run away from its hoard or fudge rolls so they win...
I never try to kill my PC when I am setting up an adventure but if my party refuses all common sense you have two options...react in completely unreasonable ways(which in my opinion makes combat boring...if there is no risk of death then there is no excitement and what you do in combat doesn't matter) or you can roll the dice as they should be and let the players feel the consequences of their actions...that's all we are really talking about should you make your parties choices matter or let them run wild at no cost...
I also don't think you need to TPK but when I give them an out when they should have died they will earn it(forced to do a quest or give up items). Making tough choices is what makes role playing fun if I want to remove them I can play a video game RPG.
edit: also, why is a creature with an int of 22, making a lair thats accessible by any idiot who wants to walk into his cave? He can fly, and cast 9th level sorc spells. How dumb is this int 22 beast?
really, it feels to me like you're baiting your players at some point, becuase no CR25 is that stupid, and you expect them to metagame not to attack the threat to their hometown
On a curious tangent to this, I never understood the idea of putting a CR25 ancient red dragon within the reach of the adventurers in the first place. It's your world, right? In most worlds, these things aren't common. the nearby cave of the small sleepy village the PCs start out in isnt really realistic to begin with.
Why blame them for assuming that hey, someones exagerating. Or hey, I have no knowledge arcana. I dont know how deadly a dragon actually is...
Tons of in character reasons for a party to go after it, because they arent metagaming 'oh, thats an ancient wyrm dragon. way too tough for us!'
I build sandbox worlds...It is impossible to to build everything on the lvl of your PC's if you start at low levels(there will be things that can and should be able to kill them in the world...Should the king and his imperial guard all be level 1-3 so the party could kill them if they chose absolutely not...part of creating a real world is that at low levels you should have to watch what you do because you aren't the biggest guy on the block(in fairness I always warn my PC's of this before the game begins but I don't know if it is even necessary)...
Do they know exactly how powerful a dragon is maybe not can they be held to a reasonable knowledge of a commoner(oh crap its a huge flying thing that breaths fire and only the strongest of knights would dare battle it I think so)...and seriously what party have you ever been in were no one has knowledge arcana or Id even give you something of knowledge nature or dungeonering(I might even allow a straight int or wisdom check). Its not meta gaming to know what any person would know and naturally fear...I do not agree that that there are tons of character reasons to go for it...lets change the example an army of 4k solders guard the same treasure...Sure the party wants the treasure or get experience or even rid the world of an evil army but it would clearly be suicide to go for it...if you role play chars like they are real people who don't want to die(the only ay to do it in my opinion you would never go after either one of these things because its stupid...