Am I doing it wrong?

[The Green Adam]

Do they get hurt?

You're certainly not doing anything wrong, though you may soon feel the need to ask yourself, "Am I saving them from death or are they saving themselves?"

I am one of those GMs who really kills PCs or sees them killed. This is not necessarily because my games aren't deadly or because I'm fudging anything. I simply always leave one or more hidden ways out of a given situation or battle and I'm always open to a Player's imaginative ideas for getting out of a jam. My villains sometimes have a weak spot or vulnerability. My traps have a way out so the creator of the trap can come back in to retrieve his/her stuff. Etc.

If the PCs are thinking and doing things and actively and intelligently avoiding the Big Goodbye, then they should most certainly live. If its a cake walk that they take for granted, it'll eventually feel false and loss its sense of challenge.

Which brings me to this...Do they get hurt? The PCs in my campaigns rarely die but they spend a good deal of time in the hospital/sick bay/a bacta tank/etc. Do yours? Does their stuff ever get damaged or lost? Are they just that good and that smart or are you saving them just to keep the game going?

AD

 

[Rel]

My normal mode of operations is that if I want the PC's to have an "easy" encounter then I design a "normal" encounter. If I want them to have an encounter of "normal difficulty" then I design a "hard" encouter. If I want them to have a "hard" encounter, I design a "seemingly impossible" encounter.

They're that good.

And understandably so. I mean there are 4 of them and they're all very smart so no surprise that they are able to collectively overcome stuff that seems like it'll be fairly tough to me. Plus they know their characters and abilities and those one-use magic items that I forgot I gave them six sessions ago better than I do. I can simply expect them to prevail against rough odds because they find ways to even those odds.

However, the fact that I have the difficulty dialed up a bit past normal also means that when things go badly (i.e. the dice) they can get nasty in a hurry. This has occassionally meant the death of a PC. Once it meant a TPK.

Those events have never hurt the game.

I don't take any joy in a character getting killed. I'm not trying to kill them, though the monsters are. I truly hope they prevail (if only by the skin of their teeth). But the fact that they sometimes don't means that the players know it is a possibility and that brings tension, drama and excitement to the game. It's fun and it's why we play.

I don't think you're doing it wrong. But if you dialed the danger up a notch I don't think you'd be doing it wrong then either, even if a PC occassionally gets killed.

 

[Piratecat]

As long as your players don't get the feeling that they're unchallenged and that no matter what they do they'll always live to see another day, I don't think you're doing anything wrong.

I once had a DM who wouldn't kill characters, and I figured it out. I started to put my PC in more and more ludicrous danger just to see how far he'd go to pull punches. It started to affect my enjoyment of the game, so I talked with him about it.

That, in fact, was the right thing to do. As I found out the hard way. But it's amazing how much more exciting the game got for me when the element of risk was back.

I'd say that so long as the group feels challenged and you're all having fun, don't worry at all. If that isn't the case, talk with them about it.

 

[Janx]

Here are what I believe the OP's stated facts are:
he rolls init, attacks and damage in the open
he rolls stealthy secret rolls privately (stuff PC's don't know the results of)
he changes an action from an attack, if it would kill a PC (ex. not attacking a below 0 PC)

So here's the thing. In most games I ever play as a PC, I never attack downed monsters. I assume they will stay down (unless my parties loses, which then they'll get healed). Which is the same policy my party follows when we beat the monsters.

I suppose we might cut their throats after the fight, just to be sure. But I don't recall actively doing that. And as GM, I'd advise NOT doing that to PCs, because you more surely eliminate a PC (which could actually have survived the fight, taken prisoner, be brought back later as an angry NPC or something). Basically the comic book trick of don't make a death too evident, or it'll be lamer to bring them back later as a surprise.

Now if you've got a party of 5, and 1 PC is down to a few hit points, you have a choice. It makes sense to throw another attack, and weaken the party's force. However, you risk killing a PC, and if you're too successful, you get a TPK eventually.

Personally, I say take a PC down to negative. It will scare the party. Nobody's dead yet, but they just lost 1/5 of their attacks for the round, and 1 other PC will have to rush to aid them (getting you 2/5 fighting force neutralized).

After that, be wary of really trying to kill PCs. You've set up a situation where a PC could die, IF the party fails to coordinate/rally, roll well. This creates tension, and the FEAR of death. It also makes it where the GM didn't kill the PC, so much as the party failed to keep the PC alive.

Killing a PC is easy. Pick the lowest AC guy, and have almost all the bad guys attack that 1 PC (with the others to act as flank buffers). Keep attacking until the PC is -10.

Fear of death is useful. Actually killing PCs, not so much. It kills plotlines, backstories for a player. It forces them to start over (if they can't get raised, which seldom happens in my game).

I'd also recommend using fewer combat encounters, but make them tougher and more significant. Consider almost any fiction. The protagonist doesn't slog through a dungeon and fight 20 encounters before the BBEG. There's maybe 3 fights. So for pacing, you can skip all that dungeon crawling crap. Secondly, by having fewer combat encounters, you'll make the ones that happen matter. Your PC can't die meaninglessly on the way to the muddy marsh to face the BBEG if you skip having 20 meaningless encounters with goblins on the way.

 

[vagabundo]

Oh Yeah your doing it wrong, your missing out on that visceral trill of the kill.

I still remember my first; In the Iron Orb of the Duergar, the group just wandered up to the mines, even though they seen the frost giants and the paladin got squashed by a rock at was thrown at him. I called out the damage and he told me he was dead, I was 15. Good times...

 

[pawsplay]

You could always kill a PC, just to see what it's like. With the caveat that this can be surprisingly difficult to do with finesse, as players are a crafty lot.

 

[Asmor]

Am I doing it wrong?

1. Are you having fun?
2. Are your players having fun?

If you answered yes to both of these questions, you are doing it 'right.'

 

[Asmor]

You could always kill a PC, just to see what it's like. With the caveat that this can be surprisingly difficult to do with finesse, as players are a crafty lot.

True that. I've got this annoying rogue in my game who just. won't. die.

Got him close last time...

 

[Ydars]

There is alot of wisdom in this thread and I have learn't some things today.

But I still maintain that suddenly dialing up the danger with no warning is a sure recipe for a TPK. Don't do so without some warning that the "ground rules" have changed otherwise your players may become overly risk averse and there is nothing worse than a bunch of tiptoeing "heroes".

 

[Lacyon]

The first and most important piece of advice is: Don't sweat it. In my experience, the fact that you still have players means you're doing something right.

Beyond that, I recommend the following: only ever pull your punches if you underestimated how potent a monster, NPC, or hazard was. If your players pick a fight with something they shouldn't (and don't retreat when they realize they've done so), there's no real reason for you to hold back.