What the hell is wrong with me???

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Assuming you're serious, maybe you should be a PC for a while. That'll give you the opportunity to kick some behind with less guilt.

 

[William drake]

Hello, my name is Gundark and I'm a killer DM.


I say things to my group like "the heroes should win" and "I'm not playing against you", I lie through my teeth and say that DMing isn't about me vs. the players.

Bull#@&*. I want to see the players defeated at the hands of the villians. I want TPKs and PCs shaking with fear at the prospect of facing the BBEG. I wanna say "suck it up princess!!!! Go put on your big boy/girl panties and deal with it like a grown up" when the players complain and say "what CR was that?" or "Wow that CR was off". I want smart villians who aren't just sitting around in their strongholds waiting for the PCs to kick down the door and hack them to death. Damnitt I want villians who are going to send assasins to kill the PCs who are actually going to get the damn job done, not lower level jokers who meet the appropriate CR. I want the bad guys to grind the players to powder and sow their remains over a farmers field and then burn the field just for daring to even try to defy them.

Sigh :\ . I don't get why I'm like this. I mean shouldn't the players win? Isn't it about all of us having fun rather than be the Gundark slay the players show? I get annoyed when the PCs beat the boss in 2 rounds...I love playing Descent cause I can kill their pasty @$$ heroes and it's all part of the game. *Sigh* Is their treatment for a guy like me?

Wow, it sounds to me that you shouldn't be DM'ing, you'r holding a too tight for me.
I would question a few things "are you fixing the Dice, I mean, are you rolling just to roll and then telling the players what damage you feel is right? when you fail a role for your villian, do you fix it so that he still succeds? Are you almost always giving out max damage, and or soaking evey bit of damage the players send your way?"

It seems that you just want to kill, to take out whatever is bothering you on the players...this makes me wonder what your like when your a player. Do you want to Frag players all the time? Are you upset when the DM outsmarts you and you get smoked...do you then feel its unjust..do you then Suck it up and pull up your panties and deal with it? I bet not, I bet you get your feelings hurt.

Gaming, is about difficulty, you set up problems and the players deal with it or they dont move on. Like, use your assasins, send them at the players, but there are plenty of ways to make it so that its a fight and not an outright slaughter. Someone could have been awake in the inn, so the assasin had to kill him, but he got out one yell...this alerted the players..then you move on. I mean, come on, if your a DM there are tons of things you can do to hurt the players and reward them, leave them bleeding, but with a sense of "hell yeah that was great." And if you can't stop DMing, do some reading study and get back to it later.

ON the other hand, I could be wrong. It may not be you, your players might be fools, they might never see anything coming, so they die alot, you may be getting tired of showing them things, and they still dont get it and die anways. Like "its a troll", the player then says "well, does it see me?" you then say "yes," the player then says "well, I draw my sword" a few grounds of combat later, you say, "I told you." and the player goes "well, it shouldnt have stepped on me...I didn't think they could do that."

But even so, the players are not out for YOUR amusement, they are not your play things to abuse when the day didnt got your way. Alot of DM's take their sorry outside lives into the game and ruin it for the players, for them, and it sounds like for you, Id say, "grow up, pull up your panties, make a cool game, interesting villians and have fun. If not, stop playing."

 

[Shades of Green]

Victory is much more satisfying when there is a real chance of defeat; I'd say that you should give the PCs challenges they have a good chance of overcoming, but also a good chance of failure to overcome. Always winning (or always losing, for that matter) gets boring quick IMHO.

 

[Black_Swan]

Make sure that you state this up front to your players. You're not going to pull any punches...

Oh..and sending an assassin that can just kill the entire group is boring. Honestly...as a DM you can create anything at any time to kill the players. I don't see how that's any fun for you.

It also may not be realistic. Can the BBEG afford an assassin like that? If so..then why can't the PC's hire an awesome Paladin to kill your Villain? Make a villain that hates violence and doesn't send assassins. He'd rather banish the PC's or imprison them.

If a video game started with you fighting the most powerful baddie in the game cause it's more realistic that the boss would just kill you rather than have you wade through his hordes of underlings, would that be any fun?

I had a gm once who played like that. He would ask us to choose odds or evens on a die roll to see if a gang member had a rocket launcher...just cause he possibly could.

Those games were annoying and frustrating for me and the rest of the players. Then we would take out our frustrations on the game. We'd go nuts and be evil..ignore plot hooks..and work for our own power. Because it became obvious that the game was about survival and in order to survive you needed as much power as possible.

 

[shilsen]

Try to see it this way:

Death is a release from suffering. Thus, only long-lived PCs will learn what suffering really means. Thus, keep them alive for your own enjoyment.

It's not really the job of the Dm to kill the PCs - only to make them wish they could die to release them from the torment that is life.

*disarms Jürgen Hubert, picks up his schtick, hits Jürgen over the head, and then cleaves into Holy Bovine*

 

[ivocaliban]

I would say you're just a bad, bad person filled with evil and fish!

Kidding. Though, I have no idea why you have this problem. Apparently, you enjoy winning. Or, perhaps you just enjoy the player's losing. Who knows?

Take heart! The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. *heh*

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Besides, if you really want to torture players, you don't just kill their PCs and laugh at them. That will only make them hit you and then stop playing.

You have to make their lives hell and still draw them back at the table every week. They have to loathe and hate you but still be fascinated by the game. In short: Don't be a killer-DM. Be a rat-bastard DM!

If you think that making it "realistic" and making the Villain just kill the players is fun, try a real villain. Those killers aren't villains. They're mere criminals. Crime doesn't pay. But Villainy....

A real villain doesn't kill his adversaries. He makes them want to die while denying them the sweet comfort oblivion would bring. What use is defeating someone when he's dead afterwards? He has to know that he's beaten, every single day of his dismal existence.


So an evil-doer hears of a bunch of heroes intent on ruining his plans. A mere criminal will kill them for their insolence. Efficient? Yes, but booooring!

A real Villain will make sure they don't have the means to beat him any more. He'll ruin their reputation so they're chased out of every village. He'll incriminate them so they'll have to flee from the law. Maybe he'll get them incarcerated, or exiled.

Or he finds something else to occupy them. Imagine you're a hero, planning on taking out the villain in a week when you get an urgent message: Your father was found guilty of trafficing with fiends and is to be put to the stake, your whole family dishonoured to the last generation, and all adult family members put to death because of their patriarch's crime. Will you calmly go and keep that villain from performing that relatively inconsequent ritual of his or will you try to save your family?

 

[Andor]

Besides, if you really want to torture players, you don't just kill their PCs and laugh at them. That will only make them hit you and then stop playing.

You have to make their lives hell and still draw them back at the table every week. They have to loathe and hate you but still be fascinated by the game. In short: Don't be a killer-DM. Be a rat-bastard DM!

If you think that making it "realistic" and making the Villain just kill the players is fun, try a real villain. Those killers aren't villains. They're mere criminals. Crime doesn't pay. But Villainy....

A real villain doesn't kill his adversaries. He makes them want to die while denying them the sweet comfort oblivion would bring. What use is defeating someone when he's dead afterwards? He has to know that he's beaten, every single day of his dismal existence.


So an evil-doer hears of a bunch of heroes intent on ruining his plans. A mere criminal will kill them for their insolence. Efficient? Yes, but booooring!

A real Villain will make sure they don't have the means to beat him any more. He'll ruin their reputation so they're chased out of every village. He'll incriminate them so they'll have to flee from the law. Maybe he'll get them incarcerated, or exiled.

Or he finds something else to occupy them. Imagine you're a hero, planning on taking out the villain in a week when you get an urgent message: Your father was found guilty of trafficing with fiends and is to be put to the stake, your whole family dishonoured to the last generation, and all adult family members put to death because of their patriarch's crime. Will you calmly go and keep that villain from performing that relatively inconsequent ritual of his or will you try to save your family?

I want to play in your SpyCraft campaign. "Start the unnecessarily slow dipping mechanism!"

 

[sckeener]

It's not really the job of the Dm to kill the PCs - only to make them wish they could die to release them from the torment that is life.

you know...I think that is how I DM....I don't like to kill. I like to make them suffer...admittedly I lie and say I like them to work for their rewards.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

Damnitt I want villians who are going to send assasins to kill the PCs who are actually going to get the damn job done, not lower level jokers who meet the appropriate CR.

You might be happiest running a "status quo" game, where you have figured out before the campaign starts who the movers and shakers are, what level they are, and what level their minions are. Example:
The evil overlord in the wastelands is a level 15 barbarian/fighter. He has a level 12 wizard vizier and a level 13 high priest assisting him. The power behind him is a glabrezu. He can call on a level 14 Assassin for one mission and has 2,000 1st-level troops and half as many at each higher level. His chief trapmaker can make traps of DC 30 for his lair -- and this won't change based on the party rogue's Disable Device skill.
The crazy wizard in the wastelands, who can either be a potent ally or a dangerous enemy depending on the PCs' Diplomacy and role-playing, is a level 11 CN Wild Mage who starts off as "unfriendly."
The local gang leader in the main city is a level 8 rogue. He has a level 6 fighter bodyguard and a level 5 wizard assisting him, and his lair has traps of DC 23.
The ruler of the city is a level 1 Aristocrat, and his personal guard consists of ten 9th-level paladins and four 11th-level clerics.

Now, whatever the PCs choose to do, you aren't making it too easy on them out of mercy or too hard on them out of antagonism. If they choose to go after the gang leader at level 4, it'll be a very tough fight. If they choose to wait until level 10 to deal with him, he'll be no challenge. If they annoy the barbarian warlord at level 8, they're almost certainly going to die. If they want to take over the city at level 13, they may well be able to.

The key in this kind of game is to NOT direct the PCs to "Do this mission next." Just give them the world and the situations and let them get themselves into trouble.