Spineless Puppy DMs Unite!

[PowerWordDumb]

Re: New Symbol? ->

I'm not a Spineless Puppy, nor am I a Killer DM. I like to think of myself as a kinder, gentler Rat Bastard. I don't go out of my way to kill PCs, but the world will react accordingly when they piss someone off.

-- Nifft

They nerfed the Rat-Bastard DM!

 

[rushlight]

So do you guys avoid injuring the PCs? It seems to me that if injury is fine (since you can heal) then dying should be fine (since you can res). Why is there a seperation between the two? I mean, when it boils down to it, Resurrection is just a really fancy Cure spell...

Now, surely it's a rare and fantastic event when it occurs, but then so is nearly everything else the PCs do, so I don't see what the big deal is...

 

[Rashak Mani]

So you torture, wound but dont kill PCs ? Thats Sado Masochism !!

Well if we are doing things AA style... then here it goes:

"I am a Spineless Puppy DM too. I rarely kill or get close to killing my poor PCs. I fudge rolls to help em out.. and I am actually happy when they come out pretty much intact."

 

[zenld]

even with resurrection, death should still be something characters should fear. if everytime they die you just allow them to get res, then soon they wont fear death anyway. i find that by letting them get to the edge of death before succeeding tension remains high. the players dont know whether i will kill their characters or not so they begin to think of other ways to do things. thus escalating the tension even more. everyone has to participate. lots of things have to go right. and death, permanent and unrecoverable is always lurking around the corner.

ultimately everyone has a better time.

i don't think of myself as a rat-bastard dm. and i am definitely not a spineless puppy dm. but elements of both in judicious mixture have led to the success of my campaigns.

besides, there is no right or wrong. play the way you and your group have fun. i have read all kinds of advice and stories and it all comes down to i play different than you do. get over it.

if you find success (ie fun) in being a spineless puppy, more jello to you.

 

[Arthur Tealeaf]

"Hi, I'm Christian, and I'm a Spineless Puppy DM too"

 

[rushlight]

even with resurrection, death should still be something characters should fear. if everytime they die you just allow them to get res, then soon they wont fear death anyway. i find that by letting them get to the edge of death before succeeding tension remains high. the players dont know whether i will kill their characters or not so they begin to think of other ways to do things. thus escalating the tension even more. everyone has to participate. lots of things have to go right. and death, permanent and unrecoverable is always lurking around the corner.

Actually death comes built-in with reasons to fear it. At lower levels it costs gold (in the form of spell components) along with a level (which really hurts) or a "favor" owed to someone (which should be a difficult task at best). At higher levels it costs significant gold (25,000!). There's the reasons for "fear". Players hate to owe favors, hate to lose gold even more, and hate to lose a level most of all.

My players fear death, and are very careful. But in metagame terms, they are aware that if they should die, it's not the end of their character. This preserves the risk and danger elements of combat while keeping the game fun, even if the worst should happen.

 

[Gellion]

If i was a DM, i probably would be a SPDM.

 

[Darrin Drader]

Maybe being an SPDM means you get practice in involving players in the larger campaign world. It lets players relax a little, stop worrying about their precious character and let their imagination wrap them up in the campaign itself.

Bingo! We have a winner!

I try to balance my encounters so that characters will not die unless they have monumentally bad luck or they do something incredibly stupid. I've killed my share of characters in the past, though I try to keep the feeling of risk high while the chance of actual character death stays low. I do this for exactly the reason above. If the characters prove themselves to be heroic, they will care enough about the rest of the world to try and save it rather than constantly scrambling to save their own skins.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

PC death and mortality just isn't a part (or is rarely a part) of some genres -- comic books, action movies, etc. these are the genres i try to emulate as a DM.

there ya go! I think of roleplaying as "interactive storytelling with a randomizing device to settle disputed actions" not "First person shooter with dice instead of reflexes." I'm not challanging the lives of my characters, I'm working with them to tell a story. And I hate stories where main characters die meaningless deaths with their story unfinished. So why would I tell one like that?

There are cases where main characters die very meaningful deaths, or where their death becomes the logical conclusion to their stories and my GMing supports those parts of the story, but this isn't a video game to me. Nothing is accomplished when someone dies in the middle of the fight and respawns at the next nexus....

Spineless Puppy if thats the official name!

Kahuna burger

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

This misconception about Rat Bastard DM's is that we enjoy killing PC's, ok that is true. But the simple fact is, I've never killed a PC, the dice have. Roll 'em in the open and let them fall where they may. I don't want to do it, but I feel I owe it to them.