D&D General Does the killer DM exist?

[toucanbuzz]

Haven't seen that term used in TTRPGs before. Care to define it?

I mean, I've always used it in the drinking game context. "Who is up for the deathfunnel?"

In DCC (Dungeon Crawl Classics, an OD&D style game), it's an intentional feature of the game. You each control four 0-level nobody completely randomized villagers and charge en masse into some adventure. It's expected very few will survive, and from whoever does you pick your 1st level character and give him or her some class. I'm assuming that's the deathfunnel.

For me, it's a blast playing, giving absurd histories and stories to the mob in their usually short time, and trying to make something work that isn't optimized, may have horrific stats as low as 3, and may not be the class you always like to play.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

In DCC (Dungeon Crawl Classics, an OD&D style game), it's an intentional feature of the game. You each control four 0-level nobody completely randomized villagers and charge en masse into some adventure. It's expected very few will survive, and from whoever does you pick your 1st level character and give him or her some class. I'm assuming that's the deathfunnel.

That makes sense. Then again, as my mom always told me, "Snarf, you can be as much of a character as you want. But you'll never have any class."

 

[jayoungr]

There are also a small number of DMs that like to prove how smart they are by setting up 'tricks' that you need to figure out to survive, and then they withhold the clues necessary to figure it out.

Guilty confession: I am so glad I didn't start gaming as a teenager, because I know I would have been that GM at that age.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

I think the archetype being discussed is a portmanteau of a few different DMs:

Some actually bought into the glamour of killer DMing and went out of their way to be brutal, probably not GMing for long. Others bought into the glamour and played it up, but weren't particularly killer in their actual scenario design, perhaps even pulling punches while allowing the illusion of their joyful mercilessness to contribute to their player's suspension of disbelief concerning their actual feelings of achievement-- I used to do this a lot when I had players who wouldn't anxiously convince themselves it was completely true, and then begin resenting me for it. Some jokes still get cracked, but there's very much disclaimers now, and mostly other players make them ABOUT me, rather than me making them.

Others were interpreting the game as an actual gauntlet, and high lethality was just their idea of the game, you'd expect to see this in troupe play, ala DCC's 'funnel' dungeon, players die a lot but they can jump right back in with new PCs and give the trap/puzzle/monsters another shot, its not actually a terrible experience because the failure state is so soft-- new PCs just stroll right into where the old ones are and pick up their gear, the point is making your way through the obstacles and traps, even learning the dungeon as you go and exhibiting that knowledge by making it further and further.

Others probably had players that treated them that way because impartiality can lead to some merciless TPKs, especially if the player thinks that a GM 'ought' to pull punches, with the 'pull punches' being contrasted with a scenario exhibiting fair consequences and 'beatable' or at least survivable situations. I have a player that treat me this way because their own attitude is that character death should be impossible, and that they aren't really 'interested' in being able to fail, they essentially want a pageant of their characters exciting and ego-stroking exploits-- I'm not willing to go in that direction so their remaining in my group is a question of their own tolerance for my actual style. This gets especially 'killer DM' the worse the decisions the players make, and can get into a style mismatch where the players are playacting when the GM expects them to be problem solving.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Guilty confession: I am so glad I didn't start gaming as a teenager, because I know I would have been that GM at that age.

The thing is, we (I mean the "royal we" or the gaming community in general) need to be more tolerant and forgiving of GMs, especially young ones that are starting out.

When you are learning something new, you make mistakes. And most new GMs will make a lot of mistakes. Many of them, despite their best intentions, will be too tough (killer GM) or too lenient (Monty Haul) or, even more likely, will alternate wildly between the two (going too easy, then overcompensating by being too hard, then over-overcompensating by being too easy again).

Be encouraging and helpful as a player, and eventually the young & inexperienced GMs will acquire the good GM skills.

 

[GuyBoy]

Played under an incredibly dull DM for a bit at university; proof that D&D isn’t always fun, but fairly easy to get away from and find a new game in a large student environment.
Then there was “competitor DM”. He actually had some strengths; knew the rules well and was an excellent raconteur with great NPCs and descriptive abilities. However......he would get into this childish competitive rivalry with one of the other players (who was a really decent bloke). The DM would throw tougher monsters at that player’s characters, ultimately killing them. The player would design new characters, then they would be killed. Then the player min-maxed a new character, which would then be assailed by still tougher monsters and so on.
It was like the DM had to “win” against the player. But only against that player. Weird.

 

[Shiroiken]

Know one? I was one! Back in high school 1E, the game was fairly combative, with the Players vs DM mentality. The books were inconsistent about how to handle troublesome players, with "blue bolts of lightning from the sky," but "remaining impartial during play." Add in the immaturity of teenagers, and you get the idea. Of course, it doesn't have to be limited to high school, as I witnessed a Player/DM grudge match in college too.

I still have a reputation of being a "killer DM," but not for those reasons. I don't really follow the guidelines of encounter design, but rather use what logically makes sense (which requires the players to think before attacking). In addition, I don't pull punches, with dice landing where they may. I have usually have no remorse for slain PCs, because more often than not it's because of what I'd consider poor decisions (there was one poor monk who was critically hit at level 1 for 6d6 damage, killing him outright, which I kinda felt bad about). My players have learned that avoiding a fight is often better than going LEROY JENKINS, and fleeing is a legitimate option.

As for modern day killer DMs, they're rare, but probably still exist. They'll have a hard time keeping a group together, since most players won't put up with such nonsense. The internet has made the rules and common rulings fairly accessible, so players can know when the DM is up to shenanigans. I imagine they probably only DM for organized play or open games on VTT, since they can usually sucker a group together for at least a session.

 

[jasper]

Hi I am Jasper. I am a Killer DM. I will not kill you but the dice will. And I hid the Watermellon d20 Kait.

 

[LongTimeLurker]

We hear about the BBEDM all the time. The one that enjoys torturing players, killing their characters, abused DM fiat, with inconsistent rulings and other shenanigans. Does he even exist? To me he is a legend. Never met him. Never played with him. I only played with inexperienced DMs that got better with time. Or those who stopped DMing because they weren't any good at it.

Have you actually played with (against) an unrepentant BBEDM?

I consider myself to be a killer DM. I don't cheat though, I'm as consistent in my rulings, I roll the dice where players can see them, I don't fudge for or against the PCs; the dice fall where they may. However, I'm very good at optimizing monsters and npcs. I make liberal use of save or dies, I expect my players to know how to play their characters, I play all intelligent foes as if they actually have intellect and I expect players to make use if intelligent, small unit tactics. I expect players to surrender or flee when they get in over their heads, which can happen a lot in an open sandbox. If the players wander into the Trollhell Mts. at level 1? They're probably going to die, all of them, and it won't be up to me, the DM, to save them.

The players at my regular game have become top notch, though they don't flee or negotiate as much as they probably should. It's the randoms at game stores and whatnot that probably suffer the brunt of my Killer DMness.

This is all from a 3.5E perspective.

 

[MichaelSomething]

In the last instance, the players came to my table completely paranoid and on the defensive, ready to kill each and every NPC before the inevitable betrayal and who swore by 10' poles and sending henchmen in first at swordpoint to spring the inevitable killer traps. By the end of the first session, after no betrayals and a straightforward dungeon with some easily (at their level of paranoia) avoidable traps, they started to "calm down" and open up to actual RPing.

You have something against skilled play???