Are you a "Killer DM"?

[Ao the Overkitty]

In my three years of DMing, I've had 5 character deaths. Strangely enough, 3 of them have been rogues, and all three have been the same player & my girlfriend (well.. at least no one can accuse me of playing favorites).

The first lost their life to a Deck of Many Things (Lost all magic items, then had to fight death, none of the party helped her).

The second was the same player as the first, but a different campaign. Her rogue spring attacked a Fiendish Troll, but didn't back up far enough.

The third and fourth happened within a few rounds of eachother. While fighting "The Root of All Evil" (Monster Mayhem), it swallowed the mage, then the cleric.

The final one was once again a rogue, this time in city of the Spider Queen (my party is having a blast, despite it being a tough mod). She charged a bebilith while the rest of the party was stuck in webs. Unfortunately, they went next. Full hit points to negative 30 in less then six seconds. The sad thing is, her attack didn't even get through it's damage reduction.

I try not to kill characters, but it just happens sometimes.....

Edit: At least I have a better reputation then the other dm in that group. He was averaging at least a character death a session for a while there and will still kill off a character every once in a while.

 

[Djeta Thernadier]

So, a party with a lot of gold cannot just use the church as their personal "raise dead" depot.

Why do I see the Home Depot store sign now reading:

"The Raise Dead Depot"

 

[carpedavid]

Well, in this campaign so far, I've had the following character deaths:

2 by dragons (same player, even)
1 by an enemy rogue's sneak attack.
1 by an enemy spellcaster's lightning bolt.
1 by an enemy spellcaster's fireball.

In my previous campaign, I had:

1 falling from a great height
1 charging a lizardman with a great sword

Prior to that, I've had a lot of character death, usually from one of two causes: missing a dex check and falling from great heights, or getting attacked by bears. Curiously, the same player that got killed by the dragons is the same one that used to get killed by bears.

Is that enough character death to qualify me as a killer DM?

Edit: oops, forgot some...

 

[Arnwyn]

My group is into the "iron-man" gaming thing (to borrow a term from another poster), so there can be some fatalities.

I would guesstimate that there is a character death about once every 7-8 8-hour sessions, on average.

 

[MojoGM]

It does sound like the fights you were putting those 2 characters thru were a bit rough tho. 7th cleric followed by Troll with homies? Not something I would like to face as a 6th level schmuck unless I had some burly gear.

Well, there are 5 PCs in all, 2 of them engaged the 7th level Cleric early (their choice, not mine), the others were riding a wagon down the road provoking an attack.

The 2 of them actually finished and got there in the 2nd round of combat, but bad tactics and bad luck ensued.

They're only 6th level, but built with 45 points and have a good deal of equipment, so I thought it would be a rough fight, but not fatal.

Who knew?

 

[guedo79]

I ran a planescape game for 3 years. It was my first real campaign. Of those 3 years I've had 4 deaths.

1)A set up by the campaign villain. He put the Wild mage against the holy champion of law. The wild mage didn't make it.

2)One of our players wanted to change characters. Her PC was the perfect candidate to be fodder for the same villain. She met his mighty lighting bolt.

3)The Paladin of Horus of the same player got a little too close to a earth elemental. Which also took out our druids animal companion.

4) This was the most fantastic death of them all. Our Rogue charged into battle against a Vilewright after already fighting off two other Vilewrights and some mind flayers. The only problem was everyone else attacked at range. So when it was the Vw turn he took all the damage. The fun part was he came back as a Vilewright. Since he was a fellow dm, I handed him the book and said “These are your stats now, fight the party. I'm going to get food.” I just watched as they fought to take down there former comrade in arms.

So I'm not even close to being a killer dm. I'm more of a softy then anything. I feel the pain when someone losses a character that they've put a lot of time and thought into.

Edit: *grumble grumble* darn english language

 

[talmar]

Well, as a DM I don't typically put pc's in a death only situation. I have been known to throw them into no win situations where they should run away. It is not my fault if they do not run away.

Sometimes I'll put them in a no win hopless situation, have them all die and then tell them, "You awake from your nightmare and notice your party awakes with you."

I slaughtered my entire party one night using 1/2 fiend vampiric kobolds with numerous levels in various classes.

Ultimately I believe PC's kill themselves, a DM may provide the opportunity but only the PC's make the decision.

As to being raised. If I don't see any reason why they can't be then I'll let them do it if they have the ability in party to do so. I typically don't provide scrolls and rods of raise dead, resurrection etc. If the PC's died stupidly then I'll leave them dead or impose heavy penalty for being raised. Seaking aid with resurrection is always difficult. For a dwarf to be raised only a dwarven god will do it, same for elves etc.

 

[ZSutherland]

Getting there...

For the longest time, I was not a killer DM. Prior to my current campaign and discounting planned deaths (i.e. player wants to change character), I've only had one character death to my memory (been playing D&D for around 10 years now and 3E since 2001 or so). In that case, the party was in their hometown which was under siege by the BBEG 20th level lich (I think they were 5th level at the tiime) and his army of undead and half-dragon trolls & half-dragon ogres. Lich-boy moves forward to parley and demand their surrender, and our dwarven cleric gets pissy with his tone and fires a Sunbeam (?) spell at him, which actually damages him. This twists the lich pretty bad so, he grimaces and kills the cleric no problem. I felt kind of bad about that, but you can't let the PCs get away with that kind of trash-talking.

In this new campaign however, I started by saying "Okay, we've been playing this game for 2 years now. You should all be familiar with the rules and how things work. I'm taking the kid-gloves off now." In the 5 or six weeks since we started, I've had 2 character deaths (both raised, it's FR so magic runs high) and several other close calls. I don't kill vindictively, but I pay much more attention to the enemies intelligence and what it says about them in their combat section and play them that way. When the PCs take time to prepare, they tend to steam-roll most of the challenges. When they charged the dragon's lair on Saturday w/o a single buff or protective spell up, they rogue got toasted and 3 of the others got very close.

I don't think I'm a killer DM, but I'm not holding their hands anymore and we all seem to be having more fun for it.

Z

 

[Norfleet]

I am a killer DM. In fact, I am such a killer DM, that I am one the DMs whom the list of "You know your DM is too hard" is partially based on.

#1, #5, #9, and #10 are exact accounts of events that have occurred in my campaigns, perhaps recorded directly from the mouths of the players. The rest of them are based on somebody else, although #4 applies if you substitute in "single kobold" instead. It's surprising how much damage you can cause if you have monsters apply real military tactics against players.

 

[Ao the Overkitty]

I ran a planescape game for 3 years. It was my first real campaign. Of those 3 years I've had 4 deaths.

The sad thing is, those were two players. #1 and #4 were me and #2 and #3 were the same player of the rogues in my game. My girlfriend just has the worst luck sometimes.