To Kill or Not to Kill (PCs): That is the Question...

[Fifth Element]

For me as a player, i consider it the gm's responsibility to put in some threats that are potentially very lethal without there always being clues before hand. Tiamat is a bit much. But i having a genuine threat behind the door sometimes definitely keeps the game fun for me. If my character dies, i don't blame the gm...that is part of how I expect him to run the game.

Indeed, character death is often just part of the game. But my overarching point is that DMs bear a great deal of responsibility for how a game goes, even if they do "let the dice fall where they may." As you point out, you have a particular way which you expect your DM to run the game. If the other players agree with you, and the DM knows it and yet fails to deliver that, the DM is at least partly responsible for the lack of fun.

 

[Umbran]

For me as a player, i consider it the gm's responsibility ...

I'm with Fifth Element, here. If it is the GM's responsibility, we can't say that GM isn't responsible when death happens, now can we?

It isn't whether there's chance for random death around that's the issue. It's owning your responsibilities as GM that I'm talking about. If something does go wrong, you've little chance to fix it unless you admit that you had a part in it, you see.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Indeed, character death is often just part of the game. But my overarching point is that DMs bear a great deal of responsibility for how a game goes, even if they do "let the dice fall where they may." As you point out, you have a particular way which you expect your DM to run the game. If the other players agree with you, and the DM knows it and yet fails to deliver that, the DM is at least partly responsible for the lack of fun.

Sure, they have a responsibility to be place such encounters in a fair way. Clearly if they are out the get the party, they can rig encounters so TPK just happens. But my point is if the GM is distributing things in a reasonable manner, so the threat of death is present but not overwhelming or a forgone conclusion, i wont fault the Gm if his placement of the monster results my character's death (especially if I do something like open a door or enter a room, knowing it could lead to such encounters).

Yes GMs are responsible for fun at the table. He needs to read his group. But players are also responsible as well. It is one thing if four out of five people aren't having fun. But if four out of five are having a blast and one guy throws a fit because he he doesn't like the overall playstyle of the group, in that case the problem rests more with the player in my mind than the GM. One type of player I definitely dont enjoy playing with is the sore loser. Now if you died because the gm was unfair, i dont mind voicing a complaint. But if it was fair, i would rather you make a new guy and move on.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I'm with Fifth Element, here. If it is the GM's responsibility, we can't say that GM isn't responsible when death happens, now can we?

It isn't whether there's chance for random death around that's the issue. It's owning your responsibilities as GM that I'm talking about. If something does go wrong, you've little chance to fix it unless you admit that you had a part in it, you see.

Sure, but if what you did was just part of the expectations people had at the table, and a character died because of it, i don't think the Gm has sinned or should be blamed. If we are fine with very lethal traps in the dungoens and he places one or two uber deadly traps in an adventure, resulting in one pc dying, for me there is no issue there. That is one of the hazards of going to the dungeon. Now if he placed deadly traps on every square, that would be different. If his placement was reasonable then I have no problem.

 

[Fifth Element]

Yes GMs are responsible for fun at the table. He needs to read his group. But players are also responsible as well.

Absolutely, I'm only responding to the claim (that has come up a couple of times in this thread, and many times in others) of DMs who "let the dice fall where they may" and put everything that happens on the shoulders of the players.

The players are responsible, but the DM can't disavow his own responsibility by claiming to be completely neutral and letting the dice decide. It doesn't work that way.

 

[Umbran]

Sure, but if what you did was just part of the expectations people had at the table, and a character died because of it, i don't think the Gm has sinned or should be blamed.

Surely, if the players had fun, there's no blame to be had. If you've gotten the idea that I'm saying otherwise, I don't know where you've gotten it from.

But, if the players don't have fun, we ought to dig around and find out why not, shouldn't we? This is not possible when someone preemptively proclaims, "the results are on their shoulders, not mine." You cannot fix it if you refuse to recognize that you might have a hand in the problem.

This isn't about blame or punishment or calling someone bad. It is about improvement. You cannot learn from your mistakes unless you admit you can make them.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

I'm a "let the dice (and PCs) fall where they may" DM. That said, I do try to keep the PCs alive while making the players think I'm doing my best to kill them. The DM has enough control to add/subtract events, monsters, allies, environmental features, and treasure to get the job done without fudging dice.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

Jeff Rients is a pretty big proponent of what me might call "fragile pcs." Jeff also happens to be my dungeon master. I posted the following as a comment in one of his recent blog posts:

"As a player in Jeff's game, whose Dwarf, Fred, died (melted on a magic throne, fell down two consecutive pit traps) and was resurrected twice, while also surviving two fireballs from the same space wizard (on different occasions), a critical hit from a vampire, several poisonings, and all sorts of other threats to his general well-being, I love the edge of your seat gaming that having a more fragile pc brings.

If you know you're going to survive, what's the point? Who cares if Fred fell the giant, Joe Mama, with a single sling stone if we were just going to win anyway? Who cares if Fred used his bare hands to rip apart the space wizard's armor so that one of his party members could pierce his heart with a magic sword if we were just going to win anyway? Who cares if Fred and his friends infiltrated the vampires' lair and engaged in a mass revenge slaying of the entire coven if there was no way we were going to lose? Who cares if we came up with the perfect plan to teleport the dragon away from his hoard if we were going to succeed regardless of whatever actions we took? Who cares if Fred used his Ring of Climbing to barely escape sure death at the hands of two iron golems if there was no way he was going to die in the first place?

(snip good stuff)

What struck me about this post, besides the cool story, was that Fred's fragile and endangered, but keeps getting resurrected. It seems to me that if Fred is easily resurrected without penalty then he's not really fragile. It's the same as if there's always healing magic on hand to save him. Who cares if Fred dies if he's going to be walking around like nothing happened 5 minutes later? This is why I've always thought that there should be some penalty for dying, like 1E's CON loss + system shock, or the experience point loss seen elsewhere.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

As often as I see the "DM as neutral, dispassionate arbiter" claim, I still don't think it really holds water. The DM has far too much influence on the game world and the actions of NPCs to claim impartiality. You may not fudge the die rolls, but you decide on the enemy's strategy and tactics. You may not fudge the results of encounters, but you place the possible encounters in the first place. You may not decide what the characters do but you do make rulings as to what works and what doesn't. Arguing that these things have no effect on the characters' chances of survival is untenable, I think.

"Dm as neutral arbiter" sounds good in theory, but I don't think it can happen in D&D, which requires a great deal of human decision-making to make it work properly.

I think you and EW are talking about two different things. When planning encounters, terrain, etc, the DM should try hit the right difficulty for a fun, exciting, challenging adventure. Unless the players enjoy their PCs dying, he should not be planning to intentiionally kill the PCs. Once you're actually in combat, the DM should be a neutral arbiter, simply picking the actions that make sense and using his best (neutral) interpretation of the rules.

 

[Argyle King]

I'm with Fifth Element, here. If it is the GM's responsibility, we can't say that GM isn't responsible when death happens, now can we?

It isn't whether there's chance for random death around that's the issue. It's owning your responsibilities as GM that I'm talking about. If something does go wrong, you've little chance to fix it unless you admit that you had a part in it, you see.

I do not agree with this at all. As a GM, if I make a rules mistake or something of that nature which causes the death of a PC, then -yes, that is my mistake. However -as I've said previously- when it comes to what is going on in-game; inside the game world, the entity of GM does not exist.

How the characters choose to engage the world around them is something they choose for themselves.