Killer DMs and you

[Mathew_Freeman]

I have played under a killer DM, twice.

One was forgivable, because he just had this warped idea of 'the dice fall where they may' as regards random encounter tables...whole party of 2nd level characters killed by Hill Giants.

The other wasn't, he pretty much seemed to have a grudge against me. First character died at the hands of ghouls, so next session I turned up with a new one, who got killed by a dire wolf (no real reason for it to be there, it just kind of turned up in a village), so I rolled up another new one that session, and when it got turned to stone by a cockatrice, I decided not to game with him any more.

Apart from that, I'm normally quite cheerful about character death, so long as they go out dramatically.

 

[BlackMoria]

Rack 'em and Stack 'em. That's me.

In my game, stupid gets you killed real fast. Not thinking things through will get you killed real fast. Not having a Plan B when Plan A goes horribly wrong will get you killed.

I have gone entire campaigns without anyone dying (they remembered and lived by the rules).

I have had campaigns in which the funeral pyres burned nonestop for those who took a long time to live and learn by the rules above. So many in fact that I had a 'kill board' on display on the backside of my DM screen as a reminder to the players to do some planning and exercise some common sense.

As a player, I expect no less from a DM. I LIKE tough adventures like Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, Tomb of Horrors, Return to the Tomb of Horrors and Rappan Athuk - all of which my characters have survived without dying.

But that is me. I like facing daunting odds and overcoming them. Make the victory even sweeter when I lay low the Demi-Lich or the Avatar of Orcus or take out the Triad of Tharizdun.

If there is no chance or only a very low chance of my character dying in some adventure - my attitude is 'Call me when you got some serious opposition else, don't waste my time"

Yeah, I know - Type 'A' personalilty all the way. That's me.

 

[Fenes 2]

Rack 'em and Stack 'em. That's me.

In my game, stupid gets you killed real fast. Not thinking things through will get you killed real fast. Not having a Plan B when Plan A goes horribly wrong will get you killed.

I have gone entire campaigns without anyone dying (they remembered and lived by the rules).

I have had campaigns in which the funeral pyres burned nonestop for those who took a long time to live and learn by the rules above. So many in fact that I had a 'kill board' on display on the backside of my DM screen as a reminder to the players to do some planning and exercise some common sense.

I am running a weekly Shadowrun campaign where the whole point is to enjoy whatever trouble the PCs end up in through their own stupidity, hang-ups, blind spots, bad luck etc. We are still breaking in a player that rejoined us and is somewhat stuck in the "smart player mode" we played in the last campaign. Such a mentality is, however, inappropriate for a game that tries to catch the flavor of a funny action movie, not the mood of saving private ryan.

 

[MerakSpielman]

I plan for my new D&D campaign to be brutal. The players will have to play paranoid and smart to stay alive. Beyond the initial dungeon, nothing is going to be sculpted to their level or abilities.

They will have complete freedom to explore anywhere they want to, follow up on any rumors, etc... I'm going for complete open ended, I'm not leading them by the nose from adventure to adventure, where everything just happens to be defeatable at their current power level.

That's right... they'll have to do their research, talk to NPCs, make alliances with NPCs, hire mercinaries, track down the specific equipment they'll need, cast Legend Lore/Commune/Augery, scout/recon, etc, just to have a fighting chance of staying alive. Foes are going to try their honest best to kill the PCs - using the rules and fighting as dirty as they can.

I also have plans on working out the fluxuating political, economic, and religious dynamics of the different organizations in the campaign. For all the party knows, giving the Dwarves access to their ancestral diamond mine will set off a series of econonic reprecussions and political activity that results in some sort of holy war three months later....

On the other hand, I know my D&D group and I know this is the sort of game they'll be able to get in to.

 

[MerricB]

That's a meaningless criterion though, in the context of D&D. At high levels, the game is incredibly lethal for reasons that have nothing to do with DM malice. We were averaging something like one death every session for several months, with a sympathetic DM. Only the generous availability of true resurrection kept things sane.

Not quite. You will find high-level campaigns where the rules aren't strictly applied, and characters don't die at all!

However, this thread is more about perception than anything else: do you perceive your DM (or yourself) to be a Killer DM?

I (and my players) consider myself to be a Killer DM, but not of the malicious sort. There are some of that type, certainly, and the reaction of the players towards them is also of interest.

Cheers!

 

[Madfox]

As far as I know, I am not a killer DM. That is not to say that PCs do not die at my table. It means that in general the PCs can avoid their deaths by proper role-playing. Recently I have been playing in a game and it taught me one thing: players need a victory now and then or else they will lose their interest in the game.

 

[hong]

Not quite. You will find high-level campaigns where the rules aren't strictly applied, and characters don't die at all!

And if you have no fighting, noone's going to die either. Neither of these seem to be particularly useful examples if we're talking about most people play D&D. Because, as I said, you can have games where lots of people die and yet the DM isn't thought of as being a "killer".

However, this thread is more about perception than anything else: do you perceive your DM (or yourself) to be a Killer DM?

Well, if it's all about perception, then the actual body count doesn't have a lot to do with it.

 

[Enceladus]

Funny, I was told by my players that I was a killer DM.

I took it as it was intended. Flattery.

 

[diaglo]

i still remember the first character i killed as a DM.

S
P
O
I
L
E
R


of course, it was in the arms of an owlbear in the Caves of Chaos.


i called up my first DM to find out what to do next. i mean i had an idea, but was worried i wouldn't be able to pull it off. he talked me thru it.

several hundred character deaths later, i think i got the hang of it.

 

[Shemeska]

Hmm... I may or may not be a killer DM. I did happen to kill half the PC's two sessions ago, and one character is currently working on their 4th or 5th death so far, which may increase this Sunday.

However I should point out that I won't ever target anyone for out of game stuff, and 90% of the time, a PC dies because of their own stupidity. I mean, really, when you're essentially the weakest character in a group do you really run alone up 3 flights of stairs in the middle of a pitched battle inside a tower full of Yugoloths (and run into a non too please Arcanoloth with a disintigrate on the tip of his tongue).

Tough love is the term I prefer. I may make encounters hostile and make them think and plan ahead rather than rushing into any given situation with blades drawn and spells prepared. My villains are intelligent, and I refuse to water down the evil in my games.

But my players seem to love me for it. To be honest it's improved their RP ability, and they're no longer playing cookie cutter characters running through hack and slash modules like they did before playing under me to some extent.

Not to toot my own horn *admires self in the mirror, being a rather pretentious and vain Yugoloth* but I've given them nightmares involving my game and their characters, and a few of them have started writing fiction from their characters persepctives. It's really freaking cool I've had that kind of impact on them.

So killer DM or not, it's all semantics I think. But in the end if its applied fairly and the game is enjoyable despite the hardship, it's worth it.