GMs: How do you soften the blow?

[Wicht]

I would like to point out that not all PC suffering must end in death. I think it interesting that so many equate bad things happening to PCs with death. It is much more gratifying to have the PCs live, but only after sustaining much grievous bodily harm or emotional trauma.

And by gratifying, I of course mean story wise. I take no sadistic pleasure in crushing, maiming, blinding, poisoning, dropping, bludgeoning, enchanting, haunting, scaring, deafening, or otherwise harming my player's imaginary personas.

 

[Janx]

I would like to point out that not all PC suffering must end in death. I think it interesting that so many equate bad things happening to PCs with death. It is much more gratifying to have the PCs live, but only after sustaining much grievous bodily harm or emotional trauma.

And by gratifying, I of course mean story wise. I take no sadistic pleasure in crushing, maiming, blinding, poisoning, dropping, bludgeoning, enchanting, haunting, scaring, deafening, or otherwise harming my player's imaginary personas.

That's analogous to what I called the Setback. The PC fails, so you redirect the harsh D&D outcome (no HP=dead) to something non-fatal, but story-fitting and challenging. The simplest is the PC is knocked out, not killed, and must escape from capture or crawl out of that box canyon he fell into, etc.

I am very wary to actually maim or disfigure a PC. Much like a beloved TV character, you risk destroying it and angering a player. Plus, there's only so many times you can do that to a PC, before you've pretty much ruined it as an adventurer. Lose any eye 3 games ago, a hand last week, a leg tonight, yer pretty much left with a live PC who's unplayable and not much fun anymore as he sucumbs to depression and funk over his helplessness.

You have to know your audience before pulling that trick even once. Do it to the wrong player, and you've lost a player. As a GM, you have to see the game as a shared novel writing experience. You own a lot of the material, but you don't own the protagonists. There are lines you can't cross, and those lines vary with the player.


This is why as a GM, I don't:
rape a PC
deliberately capture a PC (where I plan to do it, versus do it to prevent a PC death)
strip the PCs naked (which tends to lead to rape/abuse)
maim or disfigure a PC

Those might be things that are logical outcomes or tactically smart to do (chopping off a master swordsman's hand is a smart. Stripping the enemy down to nothing makes it harder for the to escape. But it is offensive to many players.

There are plenty of fun things I can throw at players, while avoiding these kind of things.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

I think it helps if the GM describes the action prior to death and subsequently the death itself memorably rather than trying to empathize after the death. If my character dies in an exciting, memorable, flavorful scene I'll be sad to see my character die but I'll celebrate or embrace my character's death because of the incredible scene.

And you should distance yourself from making combat a simple exchange of numbers ("Does 26 AC? Okay, take 18 damage.")--especially if it leads to death. No amount of empathy is going to soften the blow if my character dies with such a sterile description.

 

[joemarsh]

A little bit of sympathy for a dead PC doesn't hurt. I definitely am not trying to kill them, but if it happens, oh well. The best case scenario is that they died heroically, sacrificing themselves to save someone else, or to achieve some greater victory. But then sometimes they just get eaten by a giant mushroom.

 

[joemarsh]

Also, it came help your game in the long run if players die. They will start to fear and respect monsters and challenges instead of just charging head first into everything they come across.

 

[Dethklok]

So as DMs, we have those moments when we inflict major pain on our players and their PCs. Death by major damage, mind-control, paralysis, backstabbing NPCs, really bad rolls in combat, and like such.

When these things happen, I normally attempt to put forth a very sympathetic face, a small, "tut, tut," and a sincere, "that's really awful, I'm sorry," before moving on and describing, sometimes in detail, what has happened.

Oy. I wouldn't like that. I'm with Wednesday boy; I go for dramatics when characters in my games die.

Come to think of it, I can recall situations when my GM should have killed my character, and didn't, and I felt cheated. Things stop feeling real when you figure out that nothing scary or bad is allowed to happen.

In my campaigns, when a PC suffers mind control, I leave him or her in the hands of the player to control. Though I do expect them to "play fair" with that - so if the dominator orders them to kill their friend, I expect them to apply their very best efforts to do so (so no using Combat Expertise and massive Power Attack to guarantee that every attack misses!). Thus far, I haven't had any instances where that might cause a problem, though of course it's a possibility.

Hey that's pretty interesting. I can't recall ever using full blown mind control in my games, but come to think of it I'd love to play a mind controlled character. In fact I'd roll one up that way!

 

[Kingreaper]

When a PC dies in my campaign it always means something more. No-one's ever really in danger of death in a situation which can't be epic.

If they do die, then they die well: I have a standing house rule that you get one major action as you die, and it always succeeds. You might fire an arrow that collapses the roof on top of you and the guy who just stabbed you. You might give a dying speech that reinvigorates your allies. Anything cool really.

It also works well for preventing TPKs, because once one person goes down permanently the rest of the party gets a huge boost.

This rule does have one proviso: If the game has resurrection you can either choose to be resurrectable or to get death epicness, not both. An epic death gets your soul a permanent place in the afterlife.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

When a PC dies in my campaign it always means something more. No-one's ever really in danger of death in a situation which can't be epic.

If they do die, then they die well: I have a standing house rule that you get one major action as you die, and it always succeeds. You might fire an arrow that collapses the roof on top of you and the guy who just stabbed you. You might give a dying speech that reinvigorates your allies. Anything cool really.

It also works well for preventing TPKs, because once one person goes down permanently the rest of the party gets a huge boost.

This rule does have one proviso: If the game has resurrection you can either choose to be resurrectable or to get death epicness, not both. An epic death gets your soul a permanent place in the afterlife.

Simply brilliant!