Am I a Mean DM?

[JoeBlank]

Don't sweat the slow advancement, but I would talk to the players about it. As long as they don't mind, there is no problem with it. But if they would get more into the game with faster leveling it might be one way to keep them happier.

Plus, if you are playing evening sessions I bet they are not 8 hours long, probably much shorter, so not technically "full" sessions. I play in one game where we just finished our 12th session and a couple of PCs are about to be 3d level, but that is diaglo's OD&D game. From what I hear, that is fast advancement to him.

And on killing the PC, I wouldn't sweat that either. If there was no way for the PC to avoid the situation that is one thing, but it sounds like he could have retreated.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Well, if you have to ask if you are a meanie, then you probably are!

Just kidding.

However, if you were planning on ending the campaign soon, you probably should have planned on dealing with PC death. Even if the PCs decided to run, what if one of them said, “I will hold them off while the rest of you escape!”? I know as a PC I had done that in the past in a similar situation at the end of a campaign.

You could always have a DM ‘deus ex machina” come into play as well. A passing cleric hears the fight and sneaks in to heal the fallen PC and then help hold off the bad guys? Or, maybe just a passing 1st level commoner cries out for the guard, scaring off the bad guys and then allowing you to patch up the fallen PC before he got to -10? Or, a gem or gold piece the PC was holding was really a talisman that casts cure minor wounds if the PC falls in combat? Or, well, you get the idea.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

It's more like "It seems like the game doesn't work with people's schedules, so let's play to the end of this adventure and then maybe that'd be a good point to consider quitting."

In fact, I actually came out and pretty much said that... which I don't know if it was a good idea or a bad idea... :/

I'm sorry to hear your group is having scheduling problems. A previous group of mine was the same way. Several babies were born, and the new fathers simply had other priorities.

That said, if this is going to be the last two games for the foreseeable future, just rez the guy for free and get on with it. What's the sense in doing otherwise? There's no game to benefit from the plot hook of a debt to a church, and no time for a PC to recover from an xp hit either.

 

[taliesin15]

As a player and DM for a number of years (though a number of years in between) I must say I cannot fathom this being mean--I've had PCs I ran that got sold into slavery (pirate ship), I had a monk who somehow got tangled up(no pun intended) with some sadistic bondage types, and a female assasin character who got ganged up on by DM and fellow PCs alike--the only thing I can see is it does seem like 13's a long time...

however...this is really a whole 'nuther thread...

...someone said something about 2 encounters in a three hour gaming session? That seems awfully slow for me, especially considering its a low level game. IMC, we had a brand new player join recently, i.e. never ever played an RPG, and in the first 3 hour session we had something like 6 encounters (one of them wasn't even a fight--wolves in the night that got scared off by fire brands)...and this included explaining the basics of combat and spellcasting while we played...

ANYHOW: how many encounters do people think should there be in the average 3 hour session?

 

[ptolemy18]

...someone said something about 2 encounters in a three hour gaming session? That seems awfully slow for me, especially considering its a low level game. IMC, we had a brand new player join recently, i.e. never ever played an RPG, and in the first 3 hour session we had something like 6 encounters (one of them wasn't even a fight--wolves in the night that got scared off by fire brands)...and this included explaining the basics of combat and spellcasting while we played...

ANYHOW: how many encounters do people think should there be in the average 3 hour session?

Well, when I say two encounters, I mean two encounters that end in combat. They had plenty of conversations with wandering NPCs, seeing strange things along the road, investigation-and-role-playing encounters.

Somebody suggested I rez the guy for free, but aggh, I just don't wanna bend the rules like that... :/ I've already established that raising people from the dead is rare in the campaign universe (because it costs XP from the clerics who do it)... is this my stubborn pride speaking?!?!

Jason

 

[ARandomGod]

What I see as REALLY UNFAIR, is not that a PC dies, but that after 13 gaming sessions they still are but 2nd level!

Oh Yea. I mean, if I'm not level two by the end of the second adventure at least, I'm questioning. Sure, things should slow down a bit after the first few levels, but first level is ... well, there's really nothing real in the game for me there. I don't even think the game starts to *feel* adequate, character wise, until I'm at least third. Of course, that said some of the most fun I've had was at lower levels. But part of that fun was knowing I'm definitely going to level soon. Of course, we ususally play eight hour sessions...

Regardless of whether or not you had intended for them to run away you needed to plan the encounter as if they wouldn't (since players seldomly do what is expected - it is what makes the game fun and challenging, especially for DMs).

I don't think that's *always* the case. I often have spots in games I GM where the best option is to *run*. And occasional spots where if they don't run they will die. On the other hand, I also make pretty sure they know the odds when something like this happens. If the low level party is coming across something I try to let them know that, say, this group of guardsmen look like they've been around a while, and are relatively experienced... they look considerebly more experienced than you. That sort of thing. It's one thing to have a party see a dragon and know to run, it's another to have them see a little girl and think they should know that THIS little girl is secretly a 17th level druid.

On the other hand, I'd say that you were being mean if you DIDN'T allow that a PC would die. I mean, where's the fun in that? If you can't be killed there's really no real risk, is there?

 

[ARandomGod]

Well, when I say two encounters, I mean two encounters that end in combat. They had plenty of conversations with wandering NPCs, seeing strange things along the road, investigation-and-role-playing encounters.

Somebody suggested I rez the guy for free, but aggh, I just don't wanna bend the rules like that... :/ I've already established that raising people from the dead is rare in the campaign universe (because it costs XP from the clerics who do it)... is this my stubborn pride speaking?!?!

Jason

Well, really you should (IMO) be giving out XP for non combat encounters too. A victory is a victory, even if no blood is shed.

And no, I don't think it's too unfair to say that a low level PC is unlikely to get raised from the dead.

 

[ptolemy18]

Well, really you should (IMO) be giving out XP for non combat encounters too. A victory is a victory, even if no blood is shed.

Sure, if it's an encounter where they manage to do something important, or convince somebody of something, or some other diplomatic thing. But if it's just "went to down, Gathered Information, talked to some people?"

Jason

 

[ThoughtBubble]

ANYHOW: how many encounters do people think should there be in the average 3 hour session?

The games I've seen, participated in, and run locally typically feature 2-4 fights during a single 5 hour session.

 

[ARandomGod]

Sure, if it's an encounter where they manage to do something important, or convince somebody of something, or some other diplomatic thing. But if it's just "went to down, Gathered Information, talked to some people?"

Jason

But that shouldn't really take very long.
And if it somehow does, that in itself implies that gathering the information was doing something important. If it wasn't important, then why did you wast time actually playing that out?

~_^

On the other hand, one of my favorite scenes from the last game I GM'd was when they were asleep, and the watch heard a noise like a small child screaming. He promptly woke everyone up, they all gathered equipment and went looking. After a while they all heard it again.
Everyone rolls spot
Ranger also rolls Knowledge: Nature
The ranger, and the ones who saw what happened, were promptly sick at the watchman for waking them up to hear a rabbit being caught by some flying creature.
(And sometimes their screams DO sound like children when that happens, BTW)
Although they were a little impressed with the pseudodragon looking creature that did the catching.

But still, that didn't take LONG.