When Do You (GM) Kill PCs?

[ThirdWizard]

On a side note, the most memorable deaths in my campaigns have always been meaningless.

Same here. Comments after the death usually go something like "You're never living that down!"

 

[Dougal DeKree]

When playing D20 (AU or SW) it's faulty tactics that kills the players, not the dice.

But as we are playing spacemaster at the moment, the players usually die due to critical hits, not loss of hit points.

I _had_ the option of fudging a critical hit while reading it aloud, but the players took that from me, since they thought I was doing so in favor of the opponents (which is not true - I rather liked to have them killed quickly to move on with the story).

But since they are now consulting the tables themselves (and I controll it, at least when they are up against a BBEG), they read themselves to death, literally

Dougal

 

[Mixmaster]

If it happens, it happens. All rolls are out in the open.

 

[frankthedm]

I do not kill PCs unless i am declaring them dead without reason or when i rule thier suicide attempt succedes.

The world or the NPCs kill them when the players give them the chance.

 

[xnosipjpqmhd]

I wonder if the DM's who do go for the story are unwilling to throw out the hours of work they've spent preparing that story by having a wounded kobold crit the PC and kill him.

Undoubtedly many, if not most, DMs value "story" over "game," and the worst of these DMs think they are the sole authors of the story. Luckily my whole group values "story" over "game," and we see it as a shared creation.

When there is a senseless death, we all feel a bit let down by the story. It would be like watching a version of Star Wars where Luke gets offed by Sandpeople after 30 minutes of setting up the whole story behind him. You'd probably walk out of the theatre saying, "Man, that could have been a great movie. I wonder what would've happened if dumb luck hadn't gotten in the way."

ironregime

 

[LostSoul]

Running Star Wars, I let the dice fall as they may. I also let them turn a Dead result into Stable a -9 but Maimed if they spend a Force Point. And then they pick the limb they want to lose. And then they pay to get a cybernetic one.

 

[Agback]

I would have liked to vote somewhere between "when it is dramatically appropriate" and "let the dice fall where they may".

If player characters in my campaigns behave in ways that are dramatically appropriate they meet challenges that are dramatically appropriate, and then the dice falling where they may characters usually die only when it is dramatically appropriate. But if they behave with dramatically-inappropriate aggression or foolhardiness they overreach themselves, face overwhelming challenges or provoke overwhelming responses, and (the dice falling where they may) generally die.

I have only three times bent my game reality to kill a PC because it was dramatically appropriate that he die. And a couple of times I have done the same to whole parties in one-shot adventures. I would do the same again, so I can't quite honestly answer that I let the dice fall where they may.

 

[Agback]

Those of you who protect the PCs from die rolls are slowly teaching them that they can overcome opponents that they shouldn't be able to overcome on a regular basis. This, in turn, leads to the DM cornering himself as the PCs become more and more brazen in their approach.

I know from bitter experience that what Hjorimir writes is quite true. Back in the late '80s I inadvertently trained the players in my usual group to rely on the fact that if their characters got into trouble I would intervene in some way to save them--and not just from danger to their lives, but also to their good images. I began to notice that they were playing their characters with dramatically inappropriate aggressiveness and recklessness. They employed neither prudence, nor caution, nor circumspection. So having sacrificed realism and challenge for drama, I lost drama too. It eventually go to be too much when I realised that if the players realised that their characters had bitten off more than they could chew their response was to quickly bite off still more, so as to have the biggest mouthful when I rescued them. If I brought up a big party of soldiers to warn the players that their characters were out of their depth in, say, attacking a castle, they would always attack rather than sneak away. I likened this gambit to the player taking his own character hostage against the GM.

Eventually, of course, my games became completely flaccid, offering nothing much to either the 'gamist', the 'simulationist', or the 'dramatist' taste. I had to start shooting hostages to re-inject rigour into my games. For a year or so I killed a lot of PCs, TPKed a few parties, and let a number of high-stakes adventures and campaigns collapse through the death of a key PC. It was a heavy price, I guess. But now players who know me once more treat the features of my game worlds as needing to be addressed on their own terms, and my games once again present a real challenge and offer real satisfaction.

 

[DonTadow]

Undoubtedly many, if not most, DMs value "story" over "game," and the worst of these DMs think they are the sole authors of the story. Luckily my whole group values "story" over "game," and we see it as a shared creation.

When there is a senseless death, we all feel a bit let down by the story. It would be like watching a version of Star Wars where Luke gets offed by Sandpeople after 30 minutes of setting up the whole story behind him. You'd probably walk out of the theatre saying, "Man, that could have been a great movie. I wonder what would've happened if dumb luck hadn't gotten in the way."

ironregime

I think that just comes with the creativity of the group and the DM. The best Star Wars game I ever played in Luke died the second session, completely by accident. Sure it sent hte campaign in a different direction but it didn't end the campaign. If the movie had Luke dying early in the film, sure we wouldnt have the same set of movies but if Lucas was as creative as he was back then, it would have been a great film none the less. Having a player design his own death scenes seems to undermine the story and the game. Never give the actors that much creative control.

 

[Hussar]

I think that just comes with the creativity of the group and the DM. The best Star Wars game I ever played in Luke died the second session, completely by accident. Sure it sent hte campaign in a different direction but it didn't end the campaign. If the movie had Luke dying early in the film, sure we wouldnt have the same set of movies but if Lucas was as creative as he was back then, it would have been a great film none the less. Having a player design his own death scenes seems to undermine the story and the game. Never give the actors that much creative control.

Hear hear! By saving a PC for a "Dramitically appropriate moment", you've effectively railroaded your game. You've already decided the outcome of the action before you've even picked up the dice. Because we're talking about rolling dice, that generally means combat - although I suppose skill checks come in here as well, but, by and large, you don't die through failed skill checks. If you've decided that the character is unkillable until a certain point, then you have to guarantee that that point will be reached. The party must get to the BBEG in order to have any credible threat.

If that's true, then why bother playing the parts before the BBEG? If the party is going to succeed eventually anyway, there's no point in dragging it out. You're just wasting everyone's time if there is no chance of failure. Since I cannot die, I can just keep plowing through, confident that I'll eventually get to the end.

I see this habit far too often from players who are new to my games. They never retreat, never bother to gather information about the threats, never do anything other than go straight forward. Then they get annoyed when they get offed by Nameless Mook #12. Sorry, I'm not writing a story. I couldn't care less if the entire party dies during the game. Keeping your character alive is entirely the responsibility of the player. If I tell you that there is a dragon in that cave and you go in anyway, don't whine when you become lunch.

My experiences are similar to Agback's and now, I make it abundantly clear that PC death can happen anywhere, anytime and I will do very, very little to save you. Granted, I did allow one PC to administer a healing potion to another PC despite that PC being at -11 hp, but, it was a small fudge. He did actually have the potion in hand and he was standing right beside the mage who was dying. Meh, I guess I slipped that day.