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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yora" data-source="post: 8444842" data-attributes="member: 6670763">What I like to do as GM is to always think that when a person is killed, someone, probably not that far away, is going to be really upset about it.Doesn't mean they will chase after the party for revenge. Depending on the circumstances, there might be more of a suspicion about the PCs that they had something to do with the disapearance of some people. Or a town or camp might be in a general state of distrust not targeted at the party specifically. Doesn't have to be that the people particularly liked the ones who got killed, but their deaths might disrupt their own plans, or just the faxt that someone got killed in a place is an unwanted disturbance for others.Not every time an NPC is killed do the players have to run into a situation that they can connect ditectly to the killing. Chances are high that the upset people are somewhere in the west and the party is travelling to the east.But it should happen often enough that the players get a feeling that every time someone gets killed in their presence, there might be unpredictable consequences for them, regardless of how justified their actions seem.Sometimes the unexpected consrquences might even turn out to be a good thing, to really make things feel unpredictable. This avoids the perception that the GM wants the players to stop killing at all without saying it. I would even say that in most cases, the immediate gains from getting into a deadly fight should be bigger than the problems resulting from it. Using lethal force against enemies should not be outright discouraged in most games. The goal is simply to make the players stop and think for a moment before they decide to kill. Killing should not be the default approach taken without thinking.Another big thing is of course that enemy NPCs want to stay alive. They will continue to fight as long as they think they can still win the fight and come out of it alive. When it becomes clear that they won't be able to kill or drive all of the PCs as they will clearly die first, there is no point to continue fighting. They want to live, so they will try to flee. As GM, make that attempt genuine and don't hobble the fleeing NPCs so the players will be able to kill them before they get away. Have them run in different directions when possible.Obviously it helps getting across that these are people and not game mechanic entities, and it might make the players reconsider where self-defense ends and murdering begins. But it also helps to get across that it's really difficult to make sure nobody will ever know what they did. People can stll learn of the deaths of NPCs and the party's connection through other means, but having survivors escape is probably the biggest one. And it only takes one who got away to expose everything. If the players decide to follow the tracks of an escaped survivor through the wilderness before he reaches his friends, that's great. It only raises further questions about how justified and sensible everything is that the players are doing.I think a key to all of this is to set the expectations straight early. Springing it on the players after they already have a body count in the low hundreds won't go over well.</blockquote>

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