King Nate
First Post
Just had to share.
I started a new campaign a few months back with a group of players, most of which are new players and a couple experienced players involved as well. The game has a strong storytelling aspect to it with at least one combat per session. The players were getting pretty involved in the story and made it 5th level when I lead them to their one combat scene this session. It was suppose to be a hard encounter where I introduced a new villain that was really a red herring and suppose to make the players think that this villain was a major player in the story, but was really suppose to be killed off by the players during that encounter.
It didn’t happen that way, during the encounter the villain killed one of the players. The first time a player died the whole campaign and the mood suddenly changed from having a good time to something akin to being in an actual funeral home.
The villain then took a beating and was at the point where she would try to escape. During the escape attempt, the player with the ranger asked me, in the most serious tone, “How many hit points does she have?” Which is unique, because nobody in 5 levels has ever asked me that question before. Feeling the mood of the table and knowing that the only intention I had with this villain was for her to be killed, I said that it would only take one hit to kill her and I was going to let them have their satisfying finish.
The ranger, the only person that had a chance to stop the villain at this point in the escape, dropped her magic +2 bow in favor of her non-magical longswords, moved up beside the villain and attempted a twin strike to kill the villain off in a more primal and satisfying way. She missed both times and one was missed by 2. Then my villain, a succubus, kissed her (meaning the ranger couldn’t attack the villain) and the villain escaped.
The game session was over at this point and I swear, I never in my 24 years of playing D&D, have I ever seen a group of people so upset about playing the game. I thought the campaign was going to end right then and there. Our fighter blamed himself for not locking down the succubus, the ranger blamed herself for not using her magic bow, the cleric was blaming everyone else saying if they would have listened to the leader none of this would have happened, the dead player blamed the cleric since he told her not to worry about the death saving throws that he will save her, and our sorcerer was quiet, not saying anything to anyone, though I did overhear him say, “This sucks” to the cleric.
After everyone left, I had a two hour talk with the dead player who was both a new player and my wife. She didn’t want to make a new character and was upset that she died. She didn’t trust the other party members since nobody seemed to make an attempt to save her. I tried my best but couldn’t get her to change her mind.
We then went over to my buddy’s house for dinner, he was the cleric. The fighter and ranger were also there. The ranger continued apologizing for her weapon changing moment and the fighter needed a talking to in order to explain that it wasn’t his fault. The cleric, an experienced player, said he never seen so many people upset playing the game before. What it really came down to was that I was rolling very well as a DM and the player’s were rolling really badly and they also made a few tactical errors.
The good news is, during my two hour talk with my wife, the ranger got online to our game forum and posted a heart touching eulogy for the fallen party member that made my wife glad to see that people cared that her character died. She then suggested that she makes a new character and rejoined the party.
That whole night after the character death was the most depressing game talk I ever heard and as a DM I was absolutely loving it. I never had such an emotional response from a campaign before. Now I have to change things in my campaign story a bit, since there is no way my true villain could be more emotionally satisfying to defeat than the intended red herring. A red herring no more, the succubus was behind the whole thing!
I started a new campaign a few months back with a group of players, most of which are new players and a couple experienced players involved as well. The game has a strong storytelling aspect to it with at least one combat per session. The players were getting pretty involved in the story and made it 5th level when I lead them to their one combat scene this session. It was suppose to be a hard encounter where I introduced a new villain that was really a red herring and suppose to make the players think that this villain was a major player in the story, but was really suppose to be killed off by the players during that encounter.
It didn’t happen that way, during the encounter the villain killed one of the players. The first time a player died the whole campaign and the mood suddenly changed from having a good time to something akin to being in an actual funeral home.
The villain then took a beating and was at the point where she would try to escape. During the escape attempt, the player with the ranger asked me, in the most serious tone, “How many hit points does she have?” Which is unique, because nobody in 5 levels has ever asked me that question before. Feeling the mood of the table and knowing that the only intention I had with this villain was for her to be killed, I said that it would only take one hit to kill her and I was going to let them have their satisfying finish.
The ranger, the only person that had a chance to stop the villain at this point in the escape, dropped her magic +2 bow in favor of her non-magical longswords, moved up beside the villain and attempted a twin strike to kill the villain off in a more primal and satisfying way. She missed both times and one was missed by 2. Then my villain, a succubus, kissed her (meaning the ranger couldn’t attack the villain) and the villain escaped.
The game session was over at this point and I swear, I never in my 24 years of playing D&D, have I ever seen a group of people so upset about playing the game. I thought the campaign was going to end right then and there. Our fighter blamed himself for not locking down the succubus, the ranger blamed herself for not using her magic bow, the cleric was blaming everyone else saying if they would have listened to the leader none of this would have happened, the dead player blamed the cleric since he told her not to worry about the death saving throws that he will save her, and our sorcerer was quiet, not saying anything to anyone, though I did overhear him say, “This sucks” to the cleric.
After everyone left, I had a two hour talk with the dead player who was both a new player and my wife. She didn’t want to make a new character and was upset that she died. She didn’t trust the other party members since nobody seemed to make an attempt to save her. I tried my best but couldn’t get her to change her mind.
We then went over to my buddy’s house for dinner, he was the cleric. The fighter and ranger were also there. The ranger continued apologizing for her weapon changing moment and the fighter needed a talking to in order to explain that it wasn’t his fault. The cleric, an experienced player, said he never seen so many people upset playing the game before. What it really came down to was that I was rolling very well as a DM and the player’s were rolling really badly and they also made a few tactical errors.
The good news is, during my two hour talk with my wife, the ranger got online to our game forum and posted a heart touching eulogy for the fallen party member that made my wife glad to see that people cared that her character died. She then suggested that she makes a new character and rejoined the party.
That whole night after the character death was the most depressing game talk I ever heard and as a DM I was absolutely loving it. I never had such an emotional response from a campaign before. Now I have to change things in my campaign story a bit, since there is no way my true villain could be more emotionally satisfying to defeat than the intended red herring. A red herring no more, the succubus was behind the whole thing!
