Killer DMs

[bloodtide]

This sounds like what I would refer to as ridiculously deadly. At this point I start to wonder why my character and all the others are risking life and limb just to open a door. Hell, at some point I'd either be tossing fireballs from 50 yards away to blow up the suspect door or my character would have such a paranoia of doors that he would be catatonic whenever he saw one.

Well, to be fair, most players in my games simply avoid doors for this very reason. Doors are often well protected and trapped....but walls, not so much.

I understand your style of play, you just want to be safe and sound, except when both you and the DM agree that it's danger time. Much like where video games have 'safe zones' and 'danger zones'.

Maybe it is a failure of my imagination here, but though you keep mentioning it and I keep straining to understand what you mean, I still can't imagine meaningful failures that can be summoned up at will to substitute for something like death.

So I don't see how you can equate 'lots of characters die' with the absense of other sorts of failure or the presence of other sorts of failure with the absense of death.

It's not really 'lots of characters die', it's more like 'lots of characters could die...and do'. The fear of character death is always there, but it does not always happen. But all the players must stay on their toes to avoid it.

And my game has all the other failure types you mentioned....curses, taxes, trouble with the law and so on. But with two big points:

1)In a lot of games, the 'little failures' are meaningless. Should a single character take even a point of ability damage the would group will run back to town to get that character help as ''they can't adventure unless the group is at 100% at all times''. Or it's so bad as the DM says ''Oh you are effected by X'' and the player says ''Oh, yawn, I use Y and I'm back to normal''. In my game it's hard to remove many failures....

2)Often when a character is effect by a failure, say a curse, the foes will be nice and won't attack. After all it would not be fair for the foes to take advantage of the poor characters failure. But, in my game, you can fully expect a foe to attack your character when your weak and have the threat that your character might be killed.

A good example of this is a wizards spellbook. First many DMs will do the wink and hand wave and just say the spellbook is immortal. So even if the wizard falls into a volcano and is transported across seven planes and lands naked in the Abyss their spellbook would softly land next to them completely unharmed. But even the DM's that would 'target' a spellbook, would then 'be nice' to the wizard and have foes 'forget' to target and attack the character. In my game the wizard would be a traget, maybe even doubly so. For example, if the character lets slip in a social setting that they lost their spellbook, they can well expect a foe or two to try and take advantage of it(even more so a weaker foe that could not stand up to the characters full magic).

 

[Ringlerun]

I would have to say that i am a killer DM but when you got "poof your healed magic" you should have "failed your save dead" The only issue with character death is in the lower levels as raise dead spells are expensive from churches. But that can lead to another adventure in itself.

 

[prosfilaes]

The problem with the 'TV Style' game is that it's all goofy and light and fluffy. ...
And then there is my game. Everyone knows the door trap is deadly. And there will be more then one...and it will likely have strange effects....and everyone knows that unless they all work together as a team, they have little chance of not only getting through the door, but keeping their characters alive. So all five players get together and come up with a complex plan just to open the trapped door and live.

Which is pretty goofy in its own self. Any trap that takes five PCs to get through without dying is silly; there is no point in history where people put deadly traps in their middle of their living area. If it ever gets that bad, it's about time to put in a wall.

And just killing characters doesn't make anything less goofy. Get Smart killed as many characters as just any other show on TV. The deaths of red shirts on Star Trek never mattered; it took three seasons to make Spock's death matter.

 

[Dordledum]

I'm not a killer DM, but from the DMs in our group I'm perhaps the most ruthless. Sometimes PCs and NPCs die, but only a couple each year.

There's a Dutch saying some of us tend to scream at our table, regardless if it's sensible: "De dood of de gladiolen!" (which basically means: Death or Glory!) If they should have run at that time, it does sometimes end in death. If they do survive the tales are often epic.

Never had a TPK though.

On the other hand, as a player I also have the highest mortality rate. Some guys at our tabel have had the same character for over 3 years, mine last a couple of months, tops. Then they tend to die due to bad luck or (un)intentionally stupid actions/bad tactics.

 

[S'mon]

Which is pretty goofy in its own self. Any trap that takes five PCs to get through without dying is silly; there is no point in history where people put deadly traps in their middle of their living area.

I agree, the super-high-lethality style tends strongly to goofiness.

 

[Crothian]

I agree, the super-high-lethality style tends strongly to goofiness.

Paranoia shows us this.

 

[Crothian]

I understand your style of play, you just want to be safe and sound, except when both you and the DM agree that it's danger time. Much like where video games have 'safe zones' and 'danger zones'.

Based off of how you describe it you don't understand the style of play at all.

 

[bloodtide]

Based off of how you describe it you don't understand the style of play at all.

*The Safe Style-The Dm and players all agree that they don't want character death in the game, except for the rare times were the plot will allow it. So the players are free to sit back and relax through 95% of the game as they know the characters are immortal. No matter what happens, no character will die. The game is safe. Even more so, a player will know that as a character is part of the story and plot, they can't die as it will ruin the plot. Except at official plot points, things like a boss fight. Then the player has to perk up and pay attention as a character can die in a boss fight. But for most of the game, everyone just pretends that the characters are 'risking life and limb', though they are not....and it sound silly to play a game with immortal characters...though they do so, and just pretend that they are not.

And that is just like fiction. You know the main characters will never die. The 'red shirts' is a great example:Kirk and Spook and Lt. Ramiez beam down to the planet, who will die? The ST:TNG episode 'Starship Mine' has a great example: Thug shoots Georidi and he is stunned, Thug shoots 'commander Bob' and he dies instantly.

*My style-Death can happen anytime, anywhere, anyhow. A player must pay attention and stay alert for the whole game. Even a simple slip up can cause character death. So a couple of troll bandits are just as deadly as the dragon king. Even if the character is 'the chosen one' a random arrow can end his life.

 

[merelycompetent]

Do you consider yourself as a killer-DM (or GM)? Are you in a group that has one? What are your experiences with them?

<snip>

I don't know what to do. I'm not really willing to change my ways, but it's not impossible. Let's see after 20 sessions my player are still below 10th level!

I do not consider myself a killer-DM. I think only a small percentage of DMs would consider themselves "killer-DMs". Now, depending on which players, including former-players, you ask, the answer might be very different.

The basic problem with this sort of thread is this: What, exactly, is a killer-DM? Is it: 4 PC deaths in <10 sessions? Is it 1 TPK every 20 sessions? Do you count suicidal PCs (ex: 1st level character walks into Huge Ancient Red Dragon's lair and kicks it in the nose)? Do you count ATS (Acts of Terminal Stupidity, like grabbing the disintegration sphere after watching Bob the NPC grab the disintegration sphere)?

I've played in hard-core games where PC deaths (plural) were expected every session, and the campaigns ran to very high levels (1st & 2nd Ed). That's different from a game where the DM is actively trying to kill the PCs with metagame knowledge. The Anti-Paladin-Ninja/Clerics and beholder-dragons where pretty tough in that one. Would those DMs qualify as killer-DMs?

I've run games where a confluence of bad dice luck and bad planning resulted in TPKs. I've had players decide to take on the top-level badguy before I thought they were ready, told them flat-out that it was no-holds-barred and he would do everything in his power to kill them. They went for it. 2 PCs out of seven "survived" - one because of a contingency spell that teleported his poisoned, insane, paralyzed, petrified, stunned, feebleminded, rot-grub infected, cursed body to a safe room, the other because of a deck of many things - he drew the imprisonment card. I've run other adventures where the PCs managed to awaken the wrath of the entire dungeon and have nearly every critter come out to beat them like drums - and did so. (That's where the players learned the age-old #3 rule of dungeon delving: Never flee into unmapped territory) . Do any of those make me a killer DM?

Bottom line: What do your players think?

 

[Barastrondo]

*The Safe Style-The Dm and players all agree that they don't want character death in the game, except for the rare times were the plot will allow it. So the players are free to sit back and relax through 95% of the game as they know the characters are immortal.

Crothian's right, this is not demonstrating understanding of the style.

The only thing that's "safe" about a low PC mortality game is that... you can pretty much keep playing the same PC without having to make death a revolving door accessed by magic. That doesn't imply that anything else is off the table.

And what you can find in many cases is that if players keep playing the same character, without the comedy effect of plentiful resurrection, they develop more attachment to the world. They stick around to see the consequences of their choices. It means more to them when at 7th level they're helped out by the guy they defended at 1st level, because it's the guy they defended at 1st level.

That means you have some failure options that hit hard: things that you cannot fix with a raise dead spell. Because they care about the world, their successes and failures change the world in ways that really hit the players. If it's not "you slip up, and you die' but rather "you slip up, and the city is plunged into civil war, and many of your friends and allies and relatives will die," players like this pay attention. Things become personal.

What you describe as a "safe" style requires players who have no interest in the game other than whether or not their characters live or die. I suppose that could be a hazard -- but I wouldn't bother running a game for players like that.