DM's: How many PC's do you kill per campaign?

[Nightfall]

DMs don't kill PCs, dice do.

But the DMs occasionally help the dice probability along.

 

[Crysmalon]

as many as possible. Just keeeding. voted 3-4. Occasionally I run a short-term killer dungeon where 8-10 die over the course of 7-9 levels, but ultimately this gets tiring. I find it more fun if players grow with the PC - and death is then much more traumatic.

 

[Griffith Dragonlake]

I discovered the saying, "A God all mercy is a God unjust." Stick the word DM in there instead

QFT

I couldn't vote because in my experience it depends entirely upon the skill of the player. I've had some players go through more than 10 characters while others have played their original character up to the end of the campaign. I make every effort to reward cleverness and punish stupidity. But I also try to find ways around sheer bad luck. In the past I've added Luck as an ability score (see the CONAN game from TSR c.1984) and in 3.5 I use action points to be used in case of really bad luck. We used to say that smart & clever characters only die when their luck (points) runs out!

It was my players after all that gave my game the name Grymwurld™ after all the character death in the early years.

In my most recent campaign it was a TPK. I said it was a bad dream and the party killed themselves again due to bad tactics. Then I said it was a really bad nightmare, toned down the monsters (reduced the CR) and then they barely survived. A couple of months later I ended that campaign for a variety of reasons including very poor teamwork on the part of the players. Unbelievable to watch a bunch of 30-something guys act like a bunch of teenagers. In hindsight I should've kept the second TPK.