I've done it. I've killed my first PC. And now I need some help dealing with the unforeseen consequences.
I became a Dungeon Master for the first time during this summer, and have been running a weekly game for some roommates and friends during Saturdays since August.
One fellow joined a few weeks later with a mage character called Dante, an interesting character who mostly buffed himself up and would enter combat with his bastard sword. Here is his tale of death.
There was one zealous magma mephit with an amulet of ooze-riding and a magma ooze mount. He accidentally came to the Prime Material Plane (the PC's world) from the Elemental Plane of Fire through a one-way portal. His brother, cousins, and a few more people from the plane got stuck the same way. He said he'd go try to find a spell to send them all back and struck off northwestward, drawn there by some inner prompting.
But the magma mephit, called Tesh, was being drawn there by an Immoth (ice-based outsider, likes books) who went by the name Immo. Immo had sensed the planar disturbance, but not it's exact nature. Confident he could handle it, he called one of them to him.
Tesh entered Immo's Cold Library, a cave where all the books and scrolls were sealed with ice. His very presence began harming the cave, and Immo ordered him out. Tesh and his mount Kish refused to leave until they had the spell to send his kind home. Immo was annoyed and refused to help. Tesh, furious, went on a rampage, in the process nearly killing Immo three times and destroying several books when they did not contain the information he sought. Three days passed. Enter the PCs.
They had met Tesh's brother and had agreed to help him. Following the scorched trail that Kish has left behind, they found the Cold Library (after making a stop in the town a bit southward to get more information).
At this point, Immo was absolutely furious about the loss of his books and the attempts on his life. Tesh and Kish hated this cold place, but were firmly convinced that the spell they sought was there and were prepared to do anything to get it. The PCs tried to talk with both of them, trying to get Immo to realize his pride at refusing Tesh was destroying the library. Immo, however, felt that if he gave Tesh the scroll he wanted, it would be as if the little attempted murderer had won. During this tense exchange, Dante wandered over to the stacks to search for what Tesh wanted, assuming Immo would be distracted by the party.
(Note, the party was around 7th level, with 5 PCs and two NPCs of 6th level. An Immoth is a CR 9, a challenging encounter.)
Dante managed to find one scroll on planar magic and put in his robes about the time that the party had gotten Immo very reluctantly convinced to hand over the spell in order to get Tesh out of the cave. But when Immo went over to the stack, right next to where Dante was and found a scroll missing (and by a human hand, rather than Tesh's hot claw) called Dante a thief. He demanded he turn his pockets inside out. Dante, not having the scroll in his pockets, complied. Still angry, Immo thundered for him to give it back. Dante said he didn't have it. Immo, who I figured was at the breaking point, lashed out.
An Immoth casts spells as a 12th level sorcerer. Dante took chain lightning to the chest, failing his Reflex save. Because Dante didn't try to give the scroll over, I decided that Immo got off the spell during the surprise round. Dante put a minor globe of invulnerability up and I called for initiative. Immo went first unfortunately, and blasted Dante with a cone of cold. He failed his Reflex save again, and died. The rest of the party took heavy damage, but finally was able to put Immo down.
After trying to figure out how to salvage this debacle, as Immo was often visited by other sages and magicians to exchange knowledge, the party went back to town. The NPC cleric said that they could ask the church of Pelor to speak to Dante's spirit and see if he wished to come back. Dante said no.
Other factors that may have influenced Dante's death. I noticed that Dante's player looked a bit bored and restless during the game. Two of the four people there (the fifth was busy and couldn't come) had varying reasons to want to talk things out. One has a very goody-two-shoes character and the other is a minor noble's son with high ranks in Diplomacy. As the only character with item creation feats, he has occasionally put his character essentially in limbo for two or three days of game time while the rest of the party makes the best of it and roleplays their little hearts out. Due to conflicting interests and a side quest, his character was again left somewhat in the lurch. His character was not particularly a talker, so during the many talk-y times during this adventure he didn't say or do a lot.
There wasn't a whole lot in the way of combat (I had had a rough week with very little time to prepare and doing NPC interactions is much easier for me than trying to come up with a half-dozen balanced and interesting encounters complete with treasure). He had some cool ideas during the few combats we had, ideas that were enthusiastically praised by the party, just to be fair.
The encounter with Immo and Tesh was a volatile one. It could have gone either way very easily. Both were very much convinced they were right, and only a valiant effort of diplomacy by nearly the entire party got even an uneasy truce. Stealing from Immo and then lying about it I think was a poor judgment call. A low initiative roll and two failed Reflex saves sealed Dante's fate.
On another note, Dante's player is also my DM for another game. When he overestimates our characters' abilities, he will often ask us our hit points to give us one round to stabilize a friend instead of killing us outright. I asked for Dante's hit points when I realized what was going to happen and he refused to tell me. Twice. I only fudged the damage on the cone of cold slightly, praying that would only take him badly under instead of killing him. Nope.
I also essentially gave him a "get out of jail free" card with the party taking his body to the church of Pelor. The party had done some significant work for the church a few adventures ago and was highly regarded. For only a short term of service they would have agreed to raise Dante. Yes, he would have been a level behind, but we have one player that's behind already due to missed sessions, so he wouldn't be alone.
Apparently Dante's player was angered at some of the comments made, in character, about his character's choices that got Dante killed. I'm guessing this was an amount of frustration coming to a head due to the other factors in the game. Maybe there were other factors as well (bad week at work or something), but I don't know.
What's really disheartening to me was the fact that the player didn't want to start rolling up his new character (I just wanted to see the rolls, I do that for everyone). He did send me an e-mail, saying that he wanted to be a chaotic neutral character and that he didn't care what his stats were. He mentioned that he didn't even care if his stats were low and wouldn't even care if this character died as "this game desperately needs someone to move it along." He didn't even have a class in mind.
With this e-mail I feel I've somehow failed as a DM. Obviously this player isn't having fun. He's been coming to my game and being bored, and only coming because otherwise he'd only be DMing and not playing. I could see that he was getting bored and restless, and I tried to focus some of the NPC interactions on him to get him engaged, but it's tough when a character makes choices that puts him out of the picture for a while. I'm all for PCs making their own stuff, and while I could gloss over it by saying "You take three weeks and enchant the magic sword," then every other character wants to do something other than sit around. That usually means NPC interactions, or at least a summary of them. With four other PCs, even a summary of their activities takes an amount of time. Also, he was playing a somewhat taciturn, sarcastic, and militant character that didn't always jive with the other party members' desire to talk or diplomacize instead of fighting.
So, my question is, did I handle Dante's death correctly? An ECL two above a party's average level is supposed to be challenging and even possibly result in one or more PC deaths, but with such a large party, I thought it was appropriate. For the challenges they faced, I thought they did very well, statistically speaking. However, was there anything more I could have done to prevent Dante's death?
My other question is, what do I write back to the player? I'm afraid he's going to make a chaotic neutral party disrupter in an attempt to make up for lost opportunity. I'm also afraid he's going to go after other party members for their comments. He's generally a pretty nice guy, but I think he's just frustrated with the game and looking to inject some fun for himself anyway he can. I don't like the idea of intraparty conflict due to this incident. That's not the game I'm trying to run. While a little could be interesting if it were for purely character reasons, this may end up as a way to avenge insults to the dead Dante.
I know I'm going to ask what problems he has with the game in an attempt to change it a bit to make it more accepting of his playing style. However, I want to guide him away from a chaotic neutral avenger. I'm probably going to enforce a "good character only" rule, but what other suggestions can I make in terms of class and character concept? I don't want to belabor the obvious meta-game point of not taking in character insults personally or using a new character to avenge slights done to an old one, but should I mention them?
I've been playing with this guy for three years and this is the first really major problem I've had. I've been DMing him in this game for about three months, and this is the only PC death we've had so far. The atmosphere at the end of the session was decidedly gloomy and depressed, not the upbeat, laughing way we usually end. I don't want to DM or play if things are going to be this tense. I play and DM this game as a way to relieve tension, not to cause it. What suggestions do you have so I can clear the air both in and out of the game? Thanks for listening.
I became a Dungeon Master for the first time during this summer, and have been running a weekly game for some roommates and friends during Saturdays since August.
One fellow joined a few weeks later with a mage character called Dante, an interesting character who mostly buffed himself up and would enter combat with his bastard sword. Here is his tale of death.
There was one zealous magma mephit with an amulet of ooze-riding and a magma ooze mount. He accidentally came to the Prime Material Plane (the PC's world) from the Elemental Plane of Fire through a one-way portal. His brother, cousins, and a few more people from the plane got stuck the same way. He said he'd go try to find a spell to send them all back and struck off northwestward, drawn there by some inner prompting.
But the magma mephit, called Tesh, was being drawn there by an Immoth (ice-based outsider, likes books) who went by the name Immo. Immo had sensed the planar disturbance, but not it's exact nature. Confident he could handle it, he called one of them to him.
Tesh entered Immo's Cold Library, a cave where all the books and scrolls were sealed with ice. His very presence began harming the cave, and Immo ordered him out. Tesh and his mount Kish refused to leave until they had the spell to send his kind home. Immo was annoyed and refused to help. Tesh, furious, went on a rampage, in the process nearly killing Immo three times and destroying several books when they did not contain the information he sought. Three days passed. Enter the PCs.
They had met Tesh's brother and had agreed to help him. Following the scorched trail that Kish has left behind, they found the Cold Library (after making a stop in the town a bit southward to get more information).
At this point, Immo was absolutely furious about the loss of his books and the attempts on his life. Tesh and Kish hated this cold place, but were firmly convinced that the spell they sought was there and were prepared to do anything to get it. The PCs tried to talk with both of them, trying to get Immo to realize his pride at refusing Tesh was destroying the library. Immo, however, felt that if he gave Tesh the scroll he wanted, it would be as if the little attempted murderer had won. During this tense exchange, Dante wandered over to the stacks to search for what Tesh wanted, assuming Immo would be distracted by the party.
(Note, the party was around 7th level, with 5 PCs and two NPCs of 6th level. An Immoth is a CR 9, a challenging encounter.)
Dante managed to find one scroll on planar magic and put in his robes about the time that the party had gotten Immo very reluctantly convinced to hand over the spell in order to get Tesh out of the cave. But when Immo went over to the stack, right next to where Dante was and found a scroll missing (and by a human hand, rather than Tesh's hot claw) called Dante a thief. He demanded he turn his pockets inside out. Dante, not having the scroll in his pockets, complied. Still angry, Immo thundered for him to give it back. Dante said he didn't have it. Immo, who I figured was at the breaking point, lashed out.
An Immoth casts spells as a 12th level sorcerer. Dante took chain lightning to the chest, failing his Reflex save. Because Dante didn't try to give the scroll over, I decided that Immo got off the spell during the surprise round. Dante put a minor globe of invulnerability up and I called for initiative. Immo went first unfortunately, and blasted Dante with a cone of cold. He failed his Reflex save again, and died. The rest of the party took heavy damage, but finally was able to put Immo down.
After trying to figure out how to salvage this debacle, as Immo was often visited by other sages and magicians to exchange knowledge, the party went back to town. The NPC cleric said that they could ask the church of Pelor to speak to Dante's spirit and see if he wished to come back. Dante said no.
Other factors that may have influenced Dante's death. I noticed that Dante's player looked a bit bored and restless during the game. Two of the four people there (the fifth was busy and couldn't come) had varying reasons to want to talk things out. One has a very goody-two-shoes character and the other is a minor noble's son with high ranks in Diplomacy. As the only character with item creation feats, he has occasionally put his character essentially in limbo for two or three days of game time while the rest of the party makes the best of it and roleplays their little hearts out. Due to conflicting interests and a side quest, his character was again left somewhat in the lurch. His character was not particularly a talker, so during the many talk-y times during this adventure he didn't say or do a lot.
There wasn't a whole lot in the way of combat (I had had a rough week with very little time to prepare and doing NPC interactions is much easier for me than trying to come up with a half-dozen balanced and interesting encounters complete with treasure). He had some cool ideas during the few combats we had, ideas that were enthusiastically praised by the party, just to be fair.
The encounter with Immo and Tesh was a volatile one. It could have gone either way very easily. Both were very much convinced they were right, and only a valiant effort of diplomacy by nearly the entire party got even an uneasy truce. Stealing from Immo and then lying about it I think was a poor judgment call. A low initiative roll and two failed Reflex saves sealed Dante's fate.
On another note, Dante's player is also my DM for another game. When he overestimates our characters' abilities, he will often ask us our hit points to give us one round to stabilize a friend instead of killing us outright. I asked for Dante's hit points when I realized what was going to happen and he refused to tell me. Twice. I only fudged the damage on the cone of cold slightly, praying that would only take him badly under instead of killing him. Nope.
I also essentially gave him a "get out of jail free" card with the party taking his body to the church of Pelor. The party had done some significant work for the church a few adventures ago and was highly regarded. For only a short term of service they would have agreed to raise Dante. Yes, he would have been a level behind, but we have one player that's behind already due to missed sessions, so he wouldn't be alone.
Apparently Dante's player was angered at some of the comments made, in character, about his character's choices that got Dante killed. I'm guessing this was an amount of frustration coming to a head due to the other factors in the game. Maybe there were other factors as well (bad week at work or something), but I don't know.
What's really disheartening to me was the fact that the player didn't want to start rolling up his new character (I just wanted to see the rolls, I do that for everyone). He did send me an e-mail, saying that he wanted to be a chaotic neutral character and that he didn't care what his stats were. He mentioned that he didn't even care if his stats were low and wouldn't even care if this character died as "this game desperately needs someone to move it along." He didn't even have a class in mind.
With this e-mail I feel I've somehow failed as a DM. Obviously this player isn't having fun. He's been coming to my game and being bored, and only coming because otherwise he'd only be DMing and not playing. I could see that he was getting bored and restless, and I tried to focus some of the NPC interactions on him to get him engaged, but it's tough when a character makes choices that puts him out of the picture for a while. I'm all for PCs making their own stuff, and while I could gloss over it by saying "You take three weeks and enchant the magic sword," then every other character wants to do something other than sit around. That usually means NPC interactions, or at least a summary of them. With four other PCs, even a summary of their activities takes an amount of time. Also, he was playing a somewhat taciturn, sarcastic, and militant character that didn't always jive with the other party members' desire to talk or diplomacize instead of fighting.
So, my question is, did I handle Dante's death correctly? An ECL two above a party's average level is supposed to be challenging and even possibly result in one or more PC deaths, but with such a large party, I thought it was appropriate. For the challenges they faced, I thought they did very well, statistically speaking. However, was there anything more I could have done to prevent Dante's death?
My other question is, what do I write back to the player? I'm afraid he's going to make a chaotic neutral party disrupter in an attempt to make up for lost opportunity. I'm also afraid he's going to go after other party members for their comments. He's generally a pretty nice guy, but I think he's just frustrated with the game and looking to inject some fun for himself anyway he can. I don't like the idea of intraparty conflict due to this incident. That's not the game I'm trying to run. While a little could be interesting if it were for purely character reasons, this may end up as a way to avenge insults to the dead Dante.
I know I'm going to ask what problems he has with the game in an attempt to change it a bit to make it more accepting of his playing style. However, I want to guide him away from a chaotic neutral avenger. I'm probably going to enforce a "good character only" rule, but what other suggestions can I make in terms of class and character concept? I don't want to belabor the obvious meta-game point of not taking in character insults personally or using a new character to avenge slights done to an old one, but should I mention them?
I've been playing with this guy for three years and this is the first really major problem I've had. I've been DMing him in this game for about three months, and this is the only PC death we've had so far. The atmosphere at the end of the session was decidedly gloomy and depressed, not the upbeat, laughing way we usually end. I don't want to DM or play if things are going to be this tense. I play and DM this game as a way to relieve tension, not to cause it. What suggestions do you have so I can clear the air both in and out of the game? Thanks for listening.
but it happens to everyone... honesty, so don't feel so hard on yourself, okay? 
)
