I pay homage to my mentor in gaming; Phil Pringle believed in these three gamemastering principles.
- (1.) Keep player character levels low
- (2A.) Keep your player characters on the run.
- (2B.) Keep them running with overwhelming firepower, nothing clears the mind to practice the art of creative thinking as a blood-curdling scream coming from your throat.
- (2C) Run to live, there is no shame in a 1st level character to run from a 12hit dice multi-planer creature with the great big bloody axe.
- (3) Keep the pressure up and when they make mistake, kill them in an absurdly grotesque. horrific, and abominable way.
It is with these principles in hand he would lead a group of two or three players into Blackmoor Tower (Pringlelized). I died every trip in and never had as much fun since.
Have you died in an interesting way lately? Tell us a yarn about your most colorful, picturesque, and gruesome death.
Throwing of popcorn and heckling are not only allowed they are encouraged.
Mister Pringle and I would not have gotten along. I don't run 1st-level characters anymore, specifically because they're so fragile. ;)
It's been a long time since my last PC death, as we just ended a campaign almost a year ago now and the new batch hasn't suffered any casualties yet. The characters were mid-teens and going for Round 2 against a lich they'd defeated earlier in the campaign but hadn't found the phylactery of. He managed to nail one of the party's fighter-types with a Ray of Ending.
Rather anti-climactic death, I know. Nothing gruesome or celebratory about it (other than getting a fightery character to bomb a fort save). What made it interesting was the aftermath.
See, that game was our Kingmaker campaign, and unlike most people on this forum I decided to enhance the fey involvement in the plot, rather than reduce it and turn the campaign into Westeros: Pathfinder Edition. One of the things that had occurred was the group had made the acquaintance of the Puck of the Summer Court. He had a tendency to pop in and out of the party's presence from time to time, and the party had exchanged several favors with him and earned several from him over the course of the campaign. One of these favors was paid off by having the fey jester return Derrick to existence with a wish.
Derrick, confused and having joined the party after their last run-in with Puck, proceeded to ask several befuddled questions as he was patched up from his sudden return to reality. Answers that Puck happily provided. And since the fey never do anything for free, Derrick's first encounter with Sir Goodfellow resulted in him having a fairly substantial list of minor debts suddenly owed to him. The rest of the party alternated between laughing their heads off and trying to get him to stop talking.
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This isn't recent but
I once was dispelled after being shrunk down so I could fit into a cave. (was playing a giant 1st edition) I expanded to full size in an area that made medium sized creatures have to squeeze through. It was ugly
Also same character split down the middle by a lance. (crazy crit hit charts!)
I miss those charts. But my players flipped out when I told them they would be used against them, as well at the monsters. Cowards. No guts (spilled or not) no glory.
As the GM, I haven't had a character die in years. Back in 1e while playing a pretty high level Anti-Paladin he was attacked by Tiamat and three of five of her heads used their breath weapon on him. The rest of the party carried his dusty remains in a bag until they could resurrect him.
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I miss those charts. But my players flipped out when I told them they would be used against them, as well at the monsters. Cowards. No guts (spilled or not) no glory.
We use the crit hit/fumble card decks, my players love them even when crits come down against them.
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Call me Moe, I was with two other dwarves call them Curley Joe and Larry. We went to pillage and plunder the famous Blackmoor Tower. The first room we came to a 20x20x10 unbenowced to us was a corkscrew elevator room. It turned as it quickly as it dropped, we were already lost. We opened the door onto a hallway perpendicular curving away. Directly across the hallway was a door. Voices and sounds of running coming down the hallway the from both left and right. Crossing the hall we opened the door and saw the room with walls following the curve of the hallway it. It curved out from us for 30’x 20’high and with a heavy purple curtain closing the space off in the back of the room. We hurried into the room and quickly setting a spike in the door. Looking around the room we see two broken kitchen chairs three crockery beer mugs also broken. Then we heard noise coming from the other side of the curtain. Muffled voices and the scooting of a chair came from the other side of the curtain, then “Live from Blackmoor Tower. The Three Dwarves ” boomed a voice.
The curtain parted and there passed a circle of limelights was about thirty orcs setting in chairs around small tables with bowls of popcorn and crockery mugs of beer and more orcs were the line to the round room. The three of us were shocked. They started throwing popcorn. Larry got his wits first and started. “Why did the dumb orc cross the bridge? “ [ The crickets sang ]
“NO DUMB ORC, dumb dwarf…” came from the audience with several “Yeahs” thrown in.
“Oh remember now, it was about Snot Nose the Disgusting.”
“Let's hear more about flemy dwarf.”
They ran Larry out of material fast, they were getting a little disorderly the third time though.
“Come on guys give me a little help here,” said Larry.
I was pushed in front by Curly, “sing, kid.”
“My bonnie lies over the ocean. My bonnie lies...come back to me” I squeaked out two times.
“No more sad song!!! We want a drinking song! “ they all chimed in.
Larry stepped up and started. “Ninety-nine hairy dwarves on the wall. Knock one down…”
“ OH, oh. I know this one. My Ol Mutter sang it to me and my brudders.” said one.
Larry kept singing while the orcs.joined in. He gave me the sign for “lets go.” I slid slowly to the curtain and began to close it, slowly. Not slowly enough.
“Hey what goes on here! They are getting away. “ one orc shouted. Nearly ninety turned and came at us.
my ghost said to Larry’s ghost, “I’m going to haunt that old wizard that gave us that treasure map.”
I don't think I've ever enjoyed a character death. Even when the GM tried to run 'pringlized' games. It just felt like abuse.
it is all in the attitude and reason for game-mastering. If your reason for gming so that everyone has an enjoyable time. if you keep an attitude that your there to foster their creativity.
most of your problems smooth out. everybody likes those kinds of games and they are a pleasure to gm.
That's actually the main reason deaths aren't fun for us, especially at low levels.
We game to have fun, specifically, telling a story together. And it's hard to have a good cohesive story when your protagonists are dying left and right. Easier at higher levels when death is a temporary expensive setback rather than a cast-breaker; I tend to get harsher with my willingness to put the players into lethal situations when I know they have a nest egg saved up for the next resurrection.
And don't even bring up Game of Thrones, because no I don't consider that a good story. Others may enjoy it, good on them. But I do not.
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Nope, I'm still alive... uninterestingly.