Body Counts?

[Numion]

Well, as a DM I raked in around 30 PC kills in Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. So I'd say yes, I run a high-bodycount games. I rarely pull punches, and I have no aversion for using instakills or cheesy tactics on PCs. That is, if the players use cheesy tactics on me.

Whats good for the PCs is good for my NPCs, so to speak. Many an advanturers have fallen to disintegrates in my games. Thems the breaks, huh?

 

[Eltern]

Well, as a DM I raked in around 30 PC kills in Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. So I'd say yes, I run a high-bodycount games. I rarely pull punches, and I have no aversion for using instakills or cheesy tactics on PCs. That is, if the players use cheesy tactics on me.

Whats good for the PCs is good for my NPCs, so to speak. Many an advanturers have fallen to disintegrates in my games. Thems the breaks, huh?

Ditto. Just got done DMing RttToEE and whenever there was a fight, a PC death was a very real possibility. ESPECIALLY for anyone who even looked like a BBEG. On the other hand, they true rezzed a LOT of people.

Eltern

 

[LGodamus]

Well, I run my game like this....the world is not tailor made for the PCs...they go and do what they want to, but if they go somewhere that is too tough for them I do not change the place , I let them deal with it. I dont try to lead them to battles that are too tough for them, but if they pick em its not my fault. With that in mind, I also do not fudge rolls to save a life of a PC. So when I DM for a new group, if they had a DM with a different style than mine there will be a period of adjustment naturally. With my group now, when we first started playing together I averaged killing about two PCs a week....sometimes more, but there were only one or two weeks someone didnt eat it. Now things are much more normal ...they can go a couple, maybe even 3 sessions, with no deaths

 

[ZSutherland]

I pulled punches with my players for the first year or so after we switched to 3rd edition. None of us had played anything in a while, we had several new players, etc. I stopped bothering, though. They're big boys and girls. They can take it. I don't try and kill them, and generally if they bite it, they made bad rolls or did something stupid. I actually hate to let PCs die from bad rolling, though. I try and help them out, there, but sometime...

For example, last D&D campaign we ran, party was about 3/4 of the way through a dungeon full of undead & aberrations. Only the last fight is more than 1 CR past their average party level. The rogue refuses to scout, though, so they all get nailed with a chain-lightning trap because he didn't bother to take Disable Device or tell anyone abou that before they got down there (we started mid-level and the first few adventures were outdoors). So, there go some resources. Do they stop? Rest? Retreat? Nope. Okay.

A few rooms & easy fights later, the rogue still won't scout, so the dwarf barbarian winds up springing the collapsing wall trap behind himself, trapping the other pcs in a room with a chaos beast. They'd have slaughtered the thing whole-sale w/ the barbarian & they managed to take it down, but not before the ranger falls prey to that nasty attack. Oops, you use charisma as a dump stat. Well, you'd best high-tail it to someone who can fix that (good knowledge dungeoneering check or somesuch followed by spellcraft told them what was happening & what would fix it). Oh, you want to keep going into the boss fight first? Your call. Good job, you beat the nasty vampire. Too bad you're a chaos beast now.

*sigh*

Z

 

[Numion]

Ditto. Just got done DMing RttToEE and whenever there was a fight, a PC death was a very real possibility. ESPECIALLY for anyone who even looked like a BBEG. On the other hand, they true rezzed a LOT of people.

Eltern

Yep, I was considering giving Hedrack XP for PCs he's killed - might've leveled, he was a bad-ass, killed many PCs.

 

[Frost]

When I DMed back in high school, I admit I fudged die rolls a decent bit. There were very few PC deaths. However, I no longer do that. Although we had great times back then, I think it would have been even better if the threat of PC death was more apparent. I am now older and wiser.

In my current campaign, I have wracked up quite a kill count, but what can you expect when you’re running Rappan Athuk? However, my players have taken it in stride. Just about all of them have had a PC death (one poor guy is on his 4th PC). I think part of what helped is that I had warned them at the beginning of the campaign that there would be death aplenty (I made sure they all had back-up PCs before we even started). I’m also proud to say that I think the PC deaths have made them better gamers. They still have their moments, but for the most part, they play a lot smarter now that they know they can die just as easily as the monsters they face.

 

[Stormborn]

Wow, lot's of good feedback, and quickly too.
I should point out that the possibility of dying is there, and some characters have come pretty close. The possibility of torture and insanity are also there. I would rather, and have, given PLAYERS nightmares (to say nothing of their characters) than just spring devious killer scenes on them. The one time I almost had a PC die and I saved them was because I had made the bad guy way too tough for a group of new players, and it was an instant one hit kill.

Overall its more about roleplaying over combat, although that is there too. And the loses are more personal to the character than simply being killed. Any one else out there running games like that?

 

[hunter1828]

My current campaign is going on four years old. No PCs have yet died (highest level is 16, lowest is 12), though not from lack of trying. When the campaign began (with all new players that had never gamed before) I told everyone that I will pull a punch for each PC once. Everyone has now had that once, next time, if there is a next time, it is fatal. The reason I do this is to keep low level PCs from being killed too quickly (I hate creating a new character because of something stupid and I know my players do to).

Now, the fear of death is still there because six NPCs have died while adventuring with the party, and one other was injured so badly as to have to take early retirement.

My players get very attached to their characters, too, and to the permanent party NPCs (my wife shed tears when the NPC paladin sacrificed himself to save everyone else), and while we can go a full 8 hour game session without a single die rolling, we also end up with some pretty serious combats (like the ancient red dragon they fought last Saturday night).

hunter1828

 

[MerakSpielman]

My players want a world where their characers don't lead 'blessed' lives compared to NPCs. Simply put, if any of them looked into a mirror of opposition resulting in simple, direct 1 on 1 combat with their duplicate, they would have a 50/50 shot of dying. No fudged rolls, no kiddie gloves, they're free to get into as much trouble as they can survive.

That said, I still can't bring myself to put lich-beholders guarding a tomb that they'll be investigating at 3rd level, even though it would make sense that the original builders would put them there. Maybe I'm just chicken.

 

[ZSutherland]

Hunter1828 brings up a good point. While I don't DM with the kid gloves anymore, I don't punish them for my mistakes, either. If I accidentally put them up against something they simply cannot handle because a) I'm behind on handing out treasure and they're not properly equipped or b) I just didn't look the thing over carefully enough, then I fudge. I cackle mercilessly when they kill themselves with their own mistakes, but I don't think it's fair or breeds a sense of fun when they die because I made a bad call as DM.

Z