Killer DMs

[bloodtide]

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.

All players should care if a character lives or dies. And this is a big disconnect for 'Safe Games'. As the players know for a fact they won't die, they can sit back, relax and even goof off. They know that no matter what happens, the DM will handwave it so it won't be death. A player can be on his cell phone during a dragon attack and know 100% that his character won't be killed.

In my deadly game, the players must pay attention at all times. Death is everywhere. And if the player does like a character, they must be extra careful to keep that character alive. They won't take a risk that a player with plot armor will take. Also the players do develop strong attachments to the world, and 'play hard' to keep them. If a character gets something, they want to keep it. So, again, they will be careful and smart.

Too often in a safe game you see the player of the 'chosen one' not care at all....they know the plot armor will keep them safe. Worse, a safe game can feel hollow. "We made it to level 13 in the "has very different meanings between a safe game where the DM held each characters hand and made sure they made it to the end and my killer style where the players know without a doubt that they made it to the end with no handwaving by the DM.

 

[merelycompetent]

All players should care if a character lives or dies. And this is a big disconnect for 'Safe Games'. As the players know for a fact they won't die, they can sit back, relax and even goof off.
<snip>
Too often in a safe game you see the player of the 'chosen one' not care at all....they know the plot armor will keep them safe. Worse, a safe game can feel hollow. "We made it to level 13 in the "has very different meanings between a safe game where the DM held each characters hand and made sure they made it to the end and my killer style where the players know without a doubt that they made it to the end with no handwaving by the DM.

You must have played in far more of these badly mislabeled "Safe-Style" games than anyone I know.

I might be misreading what you're posting, but it looks to me like you have a great deal of contempt for an easy-going, PC's are plot-protected, style of play. If this is true, then I think your dislike of that style is blinding you. Or maybe your preference and appreciation of a more gritty, die-hard (perhaps so far as cut-throat) style is causing it.

I'd hate to see any gamer think that the DM at the table of complete newbies, who does a lot of hand-holding, damage fudging, "sub-optimal" tactics/strategy until the new-to-the-hobby players get enough rules-familiarity and confidence, is doing badwrongfun. No one could convince me that those tables with yells of joy at each successful hit feel hollow. Even if they're all playing 23rd level characters in any edition. Jaded and full of "been there, done that" as I am, it still wouldn't feel hollow to me - whether I was watching it at a con, playing at that table, or DMing it.

 

[Celebrim]

You know, I think it might be nice and more informative if people stopped trying to describe what there game is not, and spent more time describing what it is. It seems both 'sides' have spent more time constructing what games that they don't run are like than games that they do run, and I don't really have a good feel because of this for what either side is actually advocating beyond the most high level summary.

I'm fairly sure that the so called 'safe game' mainly exists in bloodtide's imagination. The closest I've have ever encountered to a 'safe game' as he describes it is one with ready and easy access to raise dead, so that, while deaths happened they were generally taken in stride and raised no concerns about continuity.

Then again, since no one arguing with bloodtide seems particularly keen on doing any more than characterizing his game, I can't really know whether his charges actually strike closer to home than the seem to.

And I still don't understand how statements like this actually work in practice:

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,"

In my current game, it has been strongly hinted to the PC's that if they "slip up", as you put it, the world could be destroyed or at the very least, the chunk of it they are familiar with. But, that fact has no relation to whether or not the character dies. I can't very well subsitute civil war (also a real possibility), invasion, death of NPC's, or anything else for death of PC as if these were interchangible resources. When the party cohesion breaks down, and the one player is abandoned in a nest of hunger crazed ghouls, I can't very well say, "Ok, instead of your PC dying, what actually happens is a beloved NPC dies, and the Nautians kick the Shalmarines out of the city." That isn't a logical proximate outcome of the situation. The PC failing in his mission as a result of dying might lead to that, but I don't see how you can get from, "Ok, you allowed the beserker cultists to lock you in the wine cellar and you are now outnumbed 10 to 1 by howling mad beserkers who want vengeance on you for the death of their leader." to, "Yeah, well, you escape but as a result Father Anwell dies."

 

[Zhaleskra]

I don't consider myself a killer GM, but the dice and my "let them fall where they may" attitude may make people think that of me.

In one adventure trilogy I have, in the first installment there is a set of not entirely contradictory expectations. There is a battle where the villains will try to kill as many PCs as possible, and they will run if two or more of them are defeated. Not too many sentences later comes the information that this fight should be tough but shouldn't take the PCs out of action for good.

Villain intention: kill 'em all.
Author intention: rough 'em up but don't quite kill 'em.

 

[Barastrondo]

All players should care if a character lives or dies. And this is a big disconnect for 'Safe Games'. As the players know for a fact they won't die, they can sit back, relax and even goof off. They know that no matter what happens, the DM will handwave it so it won't be death. A player can be on his cell phone during a dragon attack and know 100% that his character won't be killed.

You keep describing something that's at odds with my own experience. Seriously, not all players are binary switches. They have settings between "Dead" and "Unstoppable."

That said, if a player is distracted by a cell phone, I've usually been fine with it: we're all adults here, and friends to boot. Sometimes it's a guy talking to his kids that he won't see for another week. Sometimes someone's dealing with the fallout from a deceased relative. We don't get to play at the hours we did during college years, so everyone has a pretty high incentive to make the most out of the game time we get -- if something interrupts that, that's fine. Real life comes first.

Too often in a safe game you see the player of the 'chosen one' not care at all....they know the plot armor will keep them safe.

You keep using this "you" word in a way I find difficult to parse. I don't see it at all. I see players care deeply.

Worse, a safe game can feel hollow. "We made it to level 13 in the "has very different meanings between a safe game where the DM held each characters hand and made sure they made it to the end and my killer style where the players know without a doubt that they made it to the end with no handwaving by the DM.

My group isn't really the sort to do bragging rights by how high a level they got to. Level's just a pacing mechanism. Bragging rights come from things like "hell yes, I gave my minion a wish, it was awesome" or "holy crap you turned a minor player into an archenemy, way to go" or "hot damn we made it through the processional feast without anyone being murdered or petrified or even tossed into the bay!" Context-related stuff.

It doesn't feel hollow, but really, I'm quite okay with it not being the sort of game that doesn't appeal to everyone. It wouldn't appeal to players like you describe, either, the sort pay zero attention to things and care only about life or death as a metric of value. Suits me; don't really want to play with people like that. As long as everyone around our table is having a blast and talking excitedly about the next session when we break up, that's all I require.

In my current game, it has been strongly hinted to the PC's that if they "slip up", as you put it, the world could be destroyed or at the very least, the chunk of it they are familiar with. But, that fact has no relation to whether or not the character dies. I can't very well subsitute civil war (also a real possibility), invasion, death of NPC's, or anything else for death of PC as if these were interchangible resources. When the party cohesion breaks down, and the one player is abandoned in a nest of hunger crazed ghouls, I can't very well say, "Ok, instead of your PC dying, what actually happens is a beloved NPC dies, and the Nautians kick the Shalmarines out of the city."

The example I cited was from a game in which very little time is spent delving into nests of hunger-crazed ghouls. It's a swashbuckling game, and therefore rather light on the dungeoneering -- but thick on assassination plots, intrigues, and social interaction. You could be at full hit points and muck up for that magnitude. It's also a 4e game, so the players have a lot of survival tricks at their disposal to counter what I throw at them, apart from the "use the environment in clever fashion" advantages and such.

That isn't a logical proximate outcome of the situation. The PC failing in his mission as a result of dying might lead to that, but I don't see how you can get from, "Ok, you allowed the beserker cultists to lock you in the wine cellar and you are now outnumbed 10 to 1 by howling mad beserkers who want vengeance on you for the death of their leader." to, "Yeah, well, you escape but as a result Father Anwell dies."

Mostly I don't use that many situations where the players are locked exclusively in combat with antagonists who are incapable of making decisions other than "kill them". Slavers instead of howling mad berserkers; diabolists instead of ghouls; corsairs instead of slimes; rogue mercenary companies instead of spike golems. Death is certainly still possible, depending on who you're up against -- but the most interesting antagonists are those with complicated goals.

Fanatics that are in "kill and only kill" mode are fine used sparingly (within the context of this particular game, mind), but I find them to be sort of like salty french fries -- sometimes they're just what you're craving, but you want some palate cleansers after a heavy dose, and you definitely don't want them for every course of a meal.

 

[Celebrim]

The example I cited was from a game in which very little time is spent delving into nests of hunger-crazed ghouls. It's a swashbuckling game, and therefore rather light on the dungeoneering -- but thick on assassination plots, intrigues, and social interaction. You could be at full hit points and muck up for that magnitude. It's also a 4e game, so the players have a lot of survival tricks at their disposal to counter what I throw at them, apart from the "use the environment in clever fashion" advantages and such.

Ok, but I presume then that:

a) They are never the target of these assasination plots.
b) Whatever powerful group is behind the assassination plots hasn't realized that these meddling kids are always the ones foiling their plans.

I mean seriously, I haven't even pulled the assassins that strongly out of my bag of tricks yet because the party is at this level light on counters to getting attacked in their sleep, slipped a poison, or otherwise the object of a complex assassination plot by a skilled foe. Not that they haven't had to fight a few assassins, but they were more of the knife in the dark alley/crossbow from the roof sort (though the Monster Summoning IV as an assination method came close to killing a PC). And for a while there we were nothing but urban adventures were it seemed everyone was armed with a rapier, and as for swashbuckling I have only one word: pirates.

But sure, I was using the most extreme cases when I talked about enraged beserkers, hunger crazed ghouls, and mindless slimes but they've faced a lot of different enemies with a lot of different motives: bandits, possessed townsfolk, crazed nihilist cults, illegal fight clubs, grave robbers, invading sahuaghin armies, opium dealers, a gluttonous ghoul king, disgraced noblemen, evil fertility cults, corrupt merchant companies, and necromancers with goals so complex and surprising that I can't reveal them publicly yet. Not everyone was in a kill and kill only mode, and indeed there hasn't been one major villain that the PC's didn't have extensive interaction with prior to realizing that he was a villain and/or getting into combat with them. Indeed, there is so much intrigue going on that I can't follow up on every thread - the story may actually have too many players. The current sub-boss, Tarkus, showed up in session one as the helpful neighbor and it took until episode twenty-three or so and a half-dozen conversations before they started wondering what he was hiding.

Nonetheless, the PC's often realize that the easiest way to deal with certain problems is just kill the antagonist, and it's not like their enemies are stupid. If it doesn't make a lot of sense to be merciful, then there isn't going to be mercy.

I suppose out there there is an interesting game where the PC's play the role of event planners and the great challenges are whether the fish course will come off right, whether you can get the master of the miller's guild through the entree before he gets embarassingly drunk, and whether you arranging seating so that neither the ambassador from Flan nor the ambassador from Mulsheen (who hate each) feel sleighted, but well, if the PC's are taking a more active role in politics, I would expect the knives to come out. Seriously, hunger crazed ghouls are more merciful than politicians and regents who feel their power (or path to it) is threatened. You ever read/seen Hamlet? Wasn't exactly a module where everyone enjoyed plot protection and no one could die. So exactly where do you plot your game between worrying about the doilies matching at the party for the retiring head of the lamp lighter's guild and poison armed assassins attacking PC's in their sleep?

 

[Lynda Lawless]

I think there have been some very valid arguments for being a "killer DM" and for considering the player's opinions and feelings about the game's progression as well. What I think it ultimately comes down to is that an individual is going to "DM' with whatever style they feel most comfortable with and competent with, in the long run. And by doing that, they will be the most effective and productive one possible. That said, with any and everything, you can't please all the folks all the time, so, do the best you can and let the rest roll off the back.

 

[Elf Witch]

All players should care if a character lives or dies. And this is a big disconnect for 'Safe Games'. As the players know for a fact they won't die, they can sit back, relax and even goof off. They know that no matter what happens, the DM will handwave it so it won't be death. A player can be on his cell phone during a dragon attack and know 100% that his character won't be killed.

In my deadly game, the players must pay attention at all times. Death is everywhere. And if the player does like a character, they must be extra careful to keep that character alive. They won't take a risk that a player with plot armor will take. Also the players do develop strong attachments to the world, and 'play hard' to keep them. If a character gets something, they want to keep it. So, again, they will be careful and smart.

Too often in a safe game you see the player of the 'chosen one' not care at all....they know the plot armor will keep them safe. Worse, a safe game can feel hollow. "We made it to level 13 in the "has very different meanings between a safe game where the DM held each characters hand and made sure they made it to the end and my killer style where the players know without a doubt that they made it to the end with no handwaving by the DM.

I have played in games where we didn't die. Games like 7 Seas with death removed even DnD. In these games there were other consequences to failure. For example losing a complete level and any magic items you got that level if you hit -10.

Believe me it made for tense combats because no one wanted that. We played smart and combat scared us. It never once felt hollow.

The type of game you describe would feel hollow to me because if someone dies every session it gets hard to form any attachments. It would be just like a video game.

Also it would be hard to keep introducing new characters. Does your group just handwave it away and do the you look trust worthy join us?

You are making some assumptions I don't understand. You seem to be saying there is two ways to play high death count or no death count.

There is a middle ground where death can happen but be rare.

Also your comment about TV is not my experience when I watch it I know that the Enterprise is not going to be destroyed and everyone is going to die. What I find interesting is how do they fix the problem. Having the characters die is not going to make it more on the edge of my seat.

As a matter of fact where TV is concerned I wouldn't enjoy as much it if a character died every week. I might still watch but I wouldn't develop any attachment to the characters. It is why I am not a huge fan of Game of Thrones.

My favorite book series Katherine Kurtz's Deryni has character death but it is not the whole sale slaughter as Game of Thrones.

 

[Zelda Themelin]

I personally death can be over-used as mark of failure. Also failure can be over-used. I couple times had dm:s that overused first. End result, all players didn't care about their current character, they were working on their next character concepts while playing and discussing them with other players. However for some reason it was dm who ended up being dissatisfied. Maybe he wanted pc:s to fear death rather than be exited over next character. But when you can start to care if you constantly die during first encounter or against some trap.

Too much failure games, I'v played in few, always ended up in paranoid-like hilarity, but unlike paranoia it wasn't some fun stuff we were laughting at, but whole unbievlible of whole thing. It made world seem no-real and we stopped taking anything seriously. Gm was going for angsty stuff, I think. On one other game it was just jerkiness.

Just my few warning examples.

 

[S'mon]

Y
And I still don't understand how statements like this actually work in practice:

In my current game, it has been strongly hinted to the PC's that if they "slip up", as you put it, the world could be destroyed or at the very least, the chunk of it they are familiar with. But, that fact has no relation to whether or not the character dies. I can't very well subsitute civil war (also a real possibility), invasion, death of NPC's, or anything else for death of PC as if these were interchangible resources. When the party cohesion breaks down, and the one player is abandoned in a nest of hunger crazed ghouls, I can't very well say, "Ok, instead of your PC dying, what actually happens is a beloved NPC dies, and the Nautians kick the Shalmarines out of the city." That isn't a logical proximate outcome of the situation. The PC failing in his mission as a result of dying might lead to that, but I don't see how you can get from, "Ok, you allowed the beserker cultists to lock you in the wine cellar and you are now outnumbed 10 to 1 by howling mad beserkers who want vengeance on you for the death of their leader." to, "Yeah, well, you escape but as a result Father Anwell dies."

I agree, I don't see how Player Character death can normally be interchanged with other sorts of failure. I can see it in some cases - the monsters leave the PCs for dead, then go on to do bad things because the PCs didn't stop them. And a mixed PC-NPC group may suffer deaths of NPCs while PCs don't die, like a US TV show serial where some of the cast have 5-year contracts and the rest don't. Too much of this can really strain disbelief, though.