I'm such a wimpy DM.

[barsoomcore]

Man, I just CAN'T be a rat-bastard DM. I WANT to be. I TRY to be. But I can never make my nastiness stick. I always have to give my players a way out.

Example: Fighter gets himself a duel with a pistol wraith from Monsternomicon. Takes two negative levels. FAILS HIS SAVE. I'm chuckling like a madman.

Then I start to... to feel bad. I think, man, he's sure been working on this character a long time. How awful to lose two levels like that. So then the party's off to the local magic-ruler-guy's house and they're like, "Hey can you help us? Please?"

SO HE DOES. He gives the guy a restoration and he's back to his original level.

Because I'm a suck. A sap. A wimp. A pushover.

I'm not a rat-bastard. I'm a puppy in a rat-bastard's clothing. A fat, wriggly puppy. That's what I am.

Sigh.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Get a backbone man!

 

[Voadam]

Aaawww, how cute puppies are.

Course once we train this puppy properly, it will grow into that suit!

Getting to the specifics, when you give them a potion, always ask if they voluntarily fail the save as they feel the magic wash over them. This causes fear of what the potion really is and what they are letting themselves in for.

Then have the potion be spiked with something so that the ruler can implant a suggestion, or scry on them now, or something.

There are no fully good guys, only good guys whose aims mostly coincide.

Baby steps, baby steps.

 

[Beelzebub]

OK, maybe you were a LITTLE spineless, but not too bad. The players were in a bad situation and they figured a somewhat creative way out. Sounds more like good roleplaying on the players part to me. On top of that, the fighter is still probably not going to be dualing w/ pistol wraits anytime soon; a lesson well learned.

The only problem I would have is if the players ALWAYS try to get bailed out by sombody more powerfull. When a similar situation pops up again, you could try to charge the characters something for the bail-out. Scroll of raise dead, no problem! Just be sure to leave that shiney new sword in my armory on your way out...

 

[lordmalachdrim]

try to keep in mind that the character brought it on himself. He could have run, or tried to avoid the encounter but he didn't. But don't feel too bad, I despise level draining. Feels like a cheap way to smack a character down, so your forgiven. If you had been that nice with him getting killed in a stand up fight then I'd deffinatly say your a wimp.

 

[Tabarnak Smokeblower]

I know what you mean, I'm kinda myself like that.

One of the problems I foresee is that the players will become unafraid, unafraid of everything "Things always find a way to arrange themselves". When things get like that, players either get bored, or, if you try to correct the situation too late, then the players never see it coming, and will probably feel frustrated that the "rules of the game" suddenly have changed.

I think you (as well as I) owe it to the players, to ourselves and to the game in general to crush a PC once in a while

TS

 

[Kyramus]

I understand your sentiments.

I've actually houseruled that any level drain drains xp instead. So a level 10 character would be drained for 9k xp each time he's drained.

The difference is, he keeps his skills and stuff without needing to alter them, AND they have to work for those xp back.

That's the spineless part of me.

The one with the spine however, doesn't care if they die or not. Ultimately I let the rolls go where they may.


Character deaths will make the game more fun. How could there be heroes if they don't face challenges that risk their "lives"?

Peasants won't say "Oh him? Theodric the brave? I think he should be named Theodric the lucky. He always finds something that gets him out of the mess."

Instead of "Now there's a man to really look up to. Theodric the brave who fought off the orcs while his friends made sure the trap was set before leading them into it. Self sacrificing he is. "

 

[barsoomcore]

Thanks, folks.

*puppy wags tail*

Well, I also have a problem with killing characters. The only player in my campaign who's permanently lost a character is my wife -- she's lost two! That's in just over three years, nearly ninety game sessions.

What's weird is that my players still freak out when death approaches.

Though having NPCs gets suddenly opaque eyeballs and mutter things like, "Call us back..." in creepy voices seems to terrify them even more.

You'd think they'd relax. Big fat puppy behind the DM screen...

 

[Desdichado]

Y'know, this thread is an interesting counterpoint to your sig file, BC.

BTW, you've been AWOL from the online game I've started... you gonna do that or no?

 

[Arnwyn]

That's pretty sad.

Regardless, though, the result would have turned out the same, I think. In 3e, I have *yet* to see a player actually lose a level. In fact, I have *yet* to see anyone actually roll the Fort save 24 hours later - gaining back negative levels is so pathetically easy in this edition if you have a cleric in your group (lesser restoration) that I don't bother with most level-draining undead anymore. They're useless. (Though if there is no cleric in the group, then they're reasonably scary - but I've never seen a group without a cleric in more than a decade of D&D.)

Anywho - if your players are still scared of death, then things seem to be working great for you. *shrug*