I have had many players die after the infamous "are you sure?". I don't use it often and if asked will allow my players intelligence, gut, intuition, or whatever checks if they ask for them. I roll behind the screen and tell them info accordingly. After reading through this situation I think the GM was in the right to kill the character though I have a couple of caveats.
1st - No matter how stupid and nearly instantaneous a death will be for a player make sure to give them a bit of cinematic:
"After holding your breath for over a minute you clamber along the ceiling back to the doorway of the captains chambers as the last of the light fades. Once outside you (make a survival check to determine direction) start swimming as hard as you can but even as the light starts to come back you realize just how far down you have been drug. You think back to the pleas of your friends. The look of concern that only true friends would have, forever etched in your mind. As you begin to choke its not fear but shame that you feel. What pain will your friends endure because of your greed. As the light fades from your sight, all you can do is hope that your tears added to the oceans water will carry your friends to safety."
2nd - I don't personally believe that it was unreasonable for you to think that the ship would suck him under. (The fact that it was on Mythbusters shows how commonly that is believed). However, I do think there is extreme danger in looting a sinking ship as detailed above but just agree to learn from your mistakes, in this case physics, and move on.
3rd - I believe several people in this thread were too quick to jump all over the player for wanting to loot. While I think the below deck area of a ghost ship was pretty dumb to loot. The captains quarters were completely reasonable and maybe that would have been an opportunity to toss an intelligence check so that the player could realize that it is a ghost ship and likely only the captain has the really valuable stuff.
This is just my take on it so remember the grain of salt and all.
--Pharazon
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Pharazon, I have to say that if a DM gave me a cinematic like that, I'd be upset. You'd be taking far too many liberties with the player's character, telling him what he feels. You can describe what happens, but not how the character feels about what happens. That's the one thing the player has control over: his character. Don't take that away ~_~
Pharazon, I have to say that if a DM gave me a cinematic like that, I'd be upset. You'd be taking far too many liberties with the player's character, telling him what he feels. You can describe what happens, but not how the character feels about what happens. That's the one thing the player has control over: his character. Don't take that away ~_~
I agree wholeheartedly. I'd be upset with that as well.
Pharazon, I have to say that if a DM gave me a cinematic like that, I'd be upset. You'd be taking far too many liberties with the player's character, telling him what he feels. You can describe what happens, but not how the character feels about what happens. That's the one thing the player has control over: his character. Don't take that away ~_~
Emotion's felt is quite the issue. It can help convey info, tell the story and all that. I try to put it in a bit, but also leave it hanging. As in they could feel this, betrayal, embarrassment, pride, knowing, etc, but don't force it. As a dm I will put in fleeting emotions and thoughts because they are encountering the world, it is up to the player what they do and focus upon, how they play it.
This connects to forced alignment change. As in you did something, dm says this makes you chaotic evil. No, I don't want to make my character chaotic evil, this isn't how they see it, and CE isn't what they want to become.
I think the DM should have made Frank make a few Wisdom/Intelligence/Perception rolls getting ever more obvious, but there does come a point where you just have to say a player killed his own character and not blame bad DMing. It's borderline though.
One from a game I played in (not DM) but it went like this...
Level 1 paladin, exploring cave...
DM: you step over 2 or 3 charred skeletons.
L1P: I continue on...
DM: you spot 3 more corpses, with good armour.
L1P: I continue on...
DM: You see a burned great warrior corpse in badly damaged masterwork armour. His tower shield is buckled almost beyond recognition and his masterwork axe is in 4 pieces at his feet.
L1P: I continue on...
DM: You hear some sounds... what languages do you speak?
L1P: Draconian.
DM: OK- what you hear is Dragon for 'mama, mama, mama' You look down, feet from you is a baby dragon.
L1P: I hit it with my...
DM: Here's a new character sheet...
L1P: THAT'S NOT FAIR!
lol
There are a few checks to make here. The pc might survive to the second round, or entirely avoid the breath weapon if monk, rogue, ninja etc.
The text I used was overtly cinematic as to the point of hyperbole to over emphasis my point.
In actuality I would not have even given the part about crawling along the ceiling until after the player had told me how they planned to exit the room. And I would have simply let them know when the magic item function had stopped (building tention), maybe described being able to see the surface still hundreds of feet away as he begins to choke. The emotions would be the players own to feel, but I emphasized them originally so that as a DM the OP would understand to create a scene where the player cares about the death and maybe feels a twinge of sadness, rather than the "well that was dumb, your dead".
It was not the best way to go about my point for sure, but death of a character should make the player feel something and by building the scene you can keep it from feeling arbitrary or GM vs Player. Hope that clears my post up a bit.
--Pharazon
As a DM, I might suggest how a character might feel. But, I never tell a player that his character must feel something, unless of course, it is a spell effect or some such (like suggestion or another creature's aura).
I will play up emotional responses when winning or losing a fight for instance. Pressure, fear of death's approach.
Unless they are robots/paladins.
They always have the choice of what they truly feel, what they say they feel and how they respond/what they try to do though.
Viewing it by the numbers but missing a few things.
So the ship is sinking, moving, turning and probably tearing itself apart from the damage it sustained via cannons and from all this movement in sinking.
And he is trying to search a cabin, while water is flooding in, and then it is sinking. Did he leave the door open? Did he close it?
You would have dressers, tables and such going all over the place. Glass, weapons if around would be moving. This will cause damage, to search or even move is going to be difficult (if only some water in the cabin) or flat out swim checks, while going down and being hit by debris.
Good point on darkness, but there might be some light in from the captain's windows for a while, but they may have broken, so glass again, but also a possible way to get out if you don't get pinned/splatted by something heavy.