IS Your GM Out To Get You (Serious)

[Distracted DM]

I want the party to win, but I want that win to feel earned. Sometimes that results in loss
I'll try to run the NPCs as they would act in the world... But honestly sometimes I'll make suboptimal choices if the party is on the ropes. I'll often publicly roll their intelligence or wisdom to help make tactical decisions if I'm not sure or if I'm trying to give the party a break.. though I don't phrase is like that to the party

 

[The Cheshire Goat]

This isn’t really what is being discussed, but I run Dungeon World for 5th and 6th graders at my school, and I pretend I’m trying to kill their characters every game. They squeal and high five each other when they ‘beat’ me, and yell “You are trying to kill us!” every monster. They actually know I’m not, but the game is really fun for them this way, so I run with it

 

[kigmatzomat]

I had one GM who was out to get us. Cyberpunk 2020 is high lethality, so we weren't mad about getting blown up. What bothered us is that his NPCs were psychic and always had the perfect defense to our plans. We a acquire an oddball weapon (the "lightning gun"), the next BBEG had the specific defense for it that no other enemies had had or had afterwards. That happened over and over.

I finally had enough and got the others to go along. We had a big planning session but it was a smokescreen (plan S) for my real plan (plan X). I didn't even tell the other players what Plan X was.

I made it perfectly clear how to defeat Plan S without ever saying "here is how to defeat Plan S".

We had just figure out we were "hosed" because of the cameras we had scattered about and connected with fiber optic cable, all the way back to our vehicle. The GM had put a massive security force in the underground parking garage where we had planned our primary escape, added a missile launcher positioned on the garage to keep us from using the penthouse helicopter (the secondary escape route), and he had caused a communication blackout to keep us from calling for a ride/help/witnesses (tertiary escape route). The crude incendiaries we had brought as a "distraction" were worthless because of the advanced foam fire-suppression system. The elevator shafts were almost impenetrable without a plasma torch so our climbing gear to move between floors without using the elevators was useless.

Everything was in place. Plan X began. The drone-ai to run the "escape" helicopter was programmed to instead go over the side of the building as an incendiary detonated on its belly before it nosed down, cut power and let gravity take it to the missile launcher. The incendiaries we had "left" in the disposable car detonated near the garage exit, triggering the foam, making the exit ramps impassible for at least 15 minutes. The climbing gear was used to rappel down the opposite side of the building, all while the communication blackout kept anyone inside from alerting any other security teams. The "backup" climbing gear we brought, in case we had to leave some on different floors or it got cut up by a vibroknife weilding executive chef (again), let a number of office workers try to escape the building the same way, creating cover for us.

We went from a puppy he could kick at will to a terrifying hellhound. Instead of him being the omniscient being, he'd walked headlong into a trap. It was the only time we took effectively no damage and accomplished all our mission objectives. Had he done anything other than exactly counter the plan, it wouldn't have gone half as well.

He was literally incapable of continuing the game and refused to talk about it, so I don't know if he ever learned how to play fairly as a GM.

 

[Joshua Randall]

In addition to LFR on hard mode, as mentioned above (and sometimes explicitly supported in the published adventures!), our group had a lot of fun when we ran the Fourthcore adventures with me (DM) being as adversarial as possible.

The premise of Fourthcore is Gamist taken up to 11, or one-hundred and eleven, where the players are measured on how quickly and efficiently they complete the dungeon and how few (not zero) PC deaths accrue. So the DM in Forthcore should absolutely do everything within RAW to kill as many PCs as possible. Else their score (yes, we’re keeping score) at the end of the adventure would be unearned.

 

[Gorgon Zee]

I suppose it really is a matter of what style of play one group likes. Maybe I'm not following you 100%, but I would never even consider running a game as a DM where a player gets to choose whether or not, and how their character dies.

Yes, that’s right. It’s the way I have played and run for 20 years or so now. I used to be more into the “you rolled a 1 so you die” style of play, but over time I found that it rarely made the game more fun. I also have a really great bunch of players, so I can trust them to make good decisions.

If you don’t have players who you feel you can trust to make that sort of decision, then yup, it won’t work for you. I have been lucky and have that level of trust in my players.

Also, I find the “random death by traps” games tedious. Either you have replaceable, forgettable characters, or you end up with resurrection spells so failing a trap save means paying gold and taking a minor penalty for a few hours. Neither is particularly appealing to me at this stage of my RPG experiences.

For me, permanent character death is the end of a long series of decisions, stories, relationships, development and thought. It doesn’t make sense to me that something I’ve put maybe 100 hours of effort into is eliminated by a bad dice roll without my having any say in how it ends. I know some people find the possibility of instant death exciting, but that’s not me. If it is you, fantastic! It’s much easier to run and play!

 

[R_J_K75]

Yes, that’s right. It’s the way I have played and run for 20 years or so now. I used to be more into the “you rolled a 1 so you die” style of play, but over time I found that it rarely made the game more fun. I also have a really great bunch of players, so I can trust them to make good decisions.

If you don’t have players who you feel you can trust to make that sort of decision, then yup, it won’t work for you. I have been lucky and have that level of trust in my players.

Also, I find the “random death by traps” games tedious. Either you have replaceable, forgettable characters, or you end up with resurrection spells so failing a trap save means paying gold and taking a minor penalty for a few hours. Neither is particularly appealing to me at this stage of my RPG experiences.

For me, permanent character death is the end of a long series of decisions, stories, relationships, development and thought. It doesn’t make sense to me that something I’ve put maybe 100 hours of effort into is eliminated by a bad dice roll without my having any say in how it ends. I know some people find the possibility of instant death exciting, but that’s not me. If it is you, fantastic! It’s much easier to run and play!

We've always played with an element of randomness and still do. It makes sense for us as our games develop based on what happens in play rather than a pre-determined narrative. None of us put a whole lot of time into the game outside of when we play, so there isnt as much character development as there was when we played in years past. Even for me who is the DM 99% of the time I probably spend a few hours on an adventure on a random day then a few hours day of our game. Honestly, we have more fun when characters die by some random event than something epically heroic. We insert new character and move on, and we don't take the game as seriously as we once did.

 

[Golden Bee]

99.9% of GMs IMO are not out to get the PCs. It's too easy to kill the characters. Even high-level ones. What most GMs are is neutral: they try to play as fair as they can.

So out of 1000, ONE GM does this? What a claim!

 

[Theory of Games]

So out of 1000, ONE GM does this? What a claim!

Even with RPGHorrorStories we never see numerous tales of GMs slaughtering entire parties on purpose. Now, accidentally ....

 

[kigmatzomat]

Even with RPGHorrorStories we never see numerous tales of GMs slaughtering entire parties on purpose. Now, accidentally....

Yeah...sometimes stuff happens. I was running a Mage game and had a "wildlife" encounter in suburbia of semi-feral dogs. The player attempted to use mind magic to make the dogs go away with a fear aura. One lone pomeranian resisted, went psycho and proceeded to put a Mage in the hospital, using 2 dice vs the PC who was usually rolling 6. Legends are still told of the newest Garou totem spirit, Fluffy the Vanquisher.

 

[Lanefan]

I expect both adversarial-ness and fairness, both ways.

I expect the players to push the envelope of what the rules allow, and the DM to clap back if-when they go too far.

I expect the DM to present challenges as a neutral arbiter and to let the dice fall where they may; and if we-as-players get in over our heads then so be it, we gotta run and we might not all make it out (it's sad that some today see this as "adversarial DMing").

As long as the DM is out to get all of us equally, we're good. If however it becomes the case (or appears to) that the DM is out to get a particular character or player or to save a particular character or player, alarm bells all round.