Kill Your Pretties (NPCs)

[Ruined]

My Players probably want to stay away from this thread.

There’s a term in writing called ‘Kill Your Pretties’. It’s when you have characters that you love and enjoy so much that you find yourself afraid to inflict anything drastic upon them, including death. I’m leery of encountering this in my campaign.

At the end of the current session, the PC warrior had just won a costly battle against a Fiendish Troll (leader of troll force). When we wrapped the session, three important NPCs were down (the other PCs were off involved in a different battle):

Lawgiver Doran – priest of law god. Romantic interest of another NPC, travel companion to the party. Lost his clerical abilities months ago in game due to serious unlawful action he took. Regained powers during this battle, took serious AoO blow to heal fighter. Fell from strike afterwards.

2 cohorts to fighter – Fellow jannisary slaves freed by PC fighter. Both cool in their own respect. One was crunched with a critical, the other was knocked back and down into a flaming trench.

Now, I have the dice results from the fight, and they’re not pretty. I’m looking more for story impact as opposed to ‘letting the chips fall where they may’. I know some of the population here goes straight by the numbers, and have high death counts anyway. How do you DMs deal with ally deaths?

 

[barsoomcore]

KILL YOUR PRETTIES!

When in doubt, kill your NPCs.

Being an NPC on Barsoom is a very risky proposition -- they tend not to survive very long, especially if they spend any time near the PCs.

I am terribly prone to falling in love with my NPCs and derailing the campaign out of my need to explore their stories and personalities and so on. So I kill them.

You'll never go wrong killing your NPCs. Remember that your campaign is a story about your PCs, that your PCs are involved in telling. Every time an NPC dies, it reinforces the idea that the PCs are the ones the story is REALLY about.

[xena]
KILL 'EM ALL!!!!
[/xena]

 

[the Jester]

I'm 100% with barsoomcore on this.

 

[El Ravager]

I have encountered the "kill your pretties" phenomena but not so much with NPCs. More with PCs. I usually find myself with several PCs in groups I DM which I would rather not see die more than others. I don't think I let this bias influence my DMing though as it seems that the PCs on this list always end up dying anyway.

I don't get terribly attached to NPCs too badly. I had one NPC who I had planned to eventually become king of a realm. He was adventuring with the PCs and went unconscious in an encounter with some perytons (spelling is probably wrong – they are the bird of prey/buck hybrid monster from MoF). Then I read that this beast will always leap upon unconscious foes and hungrily rip out their heads. So that was that.

==========
El Rav

 

[Malk]

seems to make the most sense to me to let the story decide whether they live or die. will it be a more poignant, moving story if the love inrest of the party lives on to produce more story before he dies...or is now a good time. it seems somewhat wastefull to just kill of npc's because you can, or because the pc's are the true heroes...make it dramatic. in my campaigns people who are part of the story tend not to die meaningless deaths (unless of course it makes a good story hehe)

 

[barsoomcore]

I usually find myself with several PCs in groups I DM which I would rather not see die more than others.

The question with PCs is one of DM favouritism, which is also bad, but sort of a different kettle of fish. That you address just by making sure you treat all your players the same way.

Killing favourite NPCs is different because it's about tracking the way you treat YOURSELF. Sort of.

seems to make the most sense to me to let the story decide whether they live or die. will it be a more poignant, moving story if the love inrest of the party lives on to produce more story before he dies...or is now a good time. it seems somewhat wastefull to just kill of npc's because you can, or because the pc's are the true heroes...make it dramatic. in my campaigns people who are part of the story tend not to die meaningless deaths (unless of course it makes a good story hehe)

Sure, make it dramatic. But whenever you find yourself getting all excited about how cool some NPC is, or how great their story (or even their contribution to the story) is -- kill 'em.

Because I guarantee you, if you're excited about an NPC, very shortly your players will be bored of hearing about that NPC. You should be excited about the PCs and THEIR story -- otherwise, go write a novel.

 

[Gez]

Given how jaded my players are (it's hard to have any situation shock or frighten them anymore), I have resorted to another technique, borrowed from horror novels. You introduce a NPC, you describe him or her well, make sure to get the NPC a very cool and nice character that the PCs will love to stay with -- and one the NPC is liked enough, you inflict him a dreadful death.

The only downfall is that the PCs will try to save them if you let them have a chance. So I've got two unwanted NPCs strolling along the PCs actually.

 

[Malk]

The question with PCs is one of DM favouritism, which is also bad, but sort of a different kettle of fish. That you address just by making sure you treat all your players the same way.

Killing favourite NPCs is different because it's about tracking the way you treat YOURSELF. Sort of.

Sure, make it dramatic. But whenever you find yourself getting all excited about how cool some NPC is, or how great their story (or even their contribution to the story) is -- kill 'em.

Because I guarantee you, if you're excited about an NPC, very shortly your players will be bored of hearing about that NPC. You should be excited about the PCs and THEIR story -- otherwise, go write a novel.

i can see the logic of that, but in my game something very different happned, i had a very high level gnome befriend the party, he was wicked and cool, and i was a new dm so i probably made him a bit cooler than i should have. but the oposite of what you describe happened the party shared my enthusiasm. As i grew into mk dm'ing skill i toned his role in the game back, one of the PC's fell in love with him and married him..and he was a great force in the campaign as a whole...nothing would have been the same if i had killed him. Not that i didnt kill off some npcs that i as very fond of

 

[barsoomcore]

Well of course if your party is fond of an NPC that's very different from you being fond of an NPC. Sometimes everybody likes a character and certainly campaigns turn on those characters and moments.

But it's pretty easy to kid yourself that everyone else thinks Fred is as cool as you think he is -- which is why I say, "When in doubt, kill 'em all."

You can always get more NPCs.

 

[Malk]

or heck, throw them in prison on the other side of the world, that way if you need them later you have an adventure just sitting there waiting for you hehe