What the hell is wrong with me???

[LostSoul]

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

Sounds cool. I like that style of game.

Maybe what you could do is limit your options. Scale back the challenges that you allow yourself to throw at the PCs. Maybe you could do something like treating all creatures at +1 CR when you come up with your challenges.

Like, let's say that the PCs are 4th level. You want an EL 4 encounter. So instead of using an actual EL 4 encounter, you make an EL 3 encounter. So instead of two ogres, you just throw one at them.

I would probably award the PCs XP as if the encounter was actually EL 4 (against two ogres), though. Or maybe just calculate XP as if they were a level lower.


This way you can still push hard, but you won't wipe the floor with them.

 

[Korgoth]

Surely there's a balance to be struck. And any time there's a balance, there's a possibility of erring to one side or the other. Would you rather err on the side of mollycoddling or Darth Vader?

That's a personal call. There are other issues besides balancing your style, that have more to do with the overall intent of the game. Are you playing a Sword & Sorcery game where the villains are tricky and play smashmouth, or are you playing Epic Fantasy where the villains are fatally overconfident and have small-minded lackeys? Are you, to go along with P&P's excellent post, mostly playing a game wherein the challenge is for the players to defeat you at the mindgame level (rough tactical situations and devious tricks/traps) or are you mostly telling a story where the characters are more or less assumed to be the heroes?

I don't think there's a single "either/or" dichotomy, but there are probably several axes on which you could locate your exact approach. Someone who runs a "vagabonds contra mundi" S&S game designed as a game that challenges the players rather than just the characters could still turn out to be something of mollycoddler, for instance. But to be clear: the mollycoddler vs. Darth Vader are two extremes where the best approach is probably, all other things being equal, the via media. Whereas the S&S vs. HF and Game vs. Story are more like real axes.

 

[Nikroecyst]

If its the slaughter you're after I suggest playing more often and DMing less. However if its the torture, then my words would have to be "There are far worse things than death."

I put my players in hopeless situations OFTEN, and I have found that this teaches them not only to work together better but it also allows me to exercise my ultimate control over them by way of torture without them uncovering my true vendictive nature. In the end I come out a fair DM but I know whats truly in side. For the heart of a Rat-Bastard-Dm lies within me.

 

[Gundark]

Maybe I'm not as killer as I thought, after reading some of these replies

There's a third kind fo DM ... the referee. You don't take a personal stake in the game; you let the players take their actions, have the opposition take reasonable actions, enforce the rules, and let the dice decide. You can root for the players, or the monsters, but it doesn't change the outcome -- you let the chips fall where they may.

Maybe this is the kind of DM I should be. Believe it or not I don't fudge rolls for my benifit, if my BBEG rolls a one to save I play it as rolled. I craft appropriate CR encounters for the PCs. Yeah I know that if I was a totally $%*&@# and threw way overpowering stuff at them they would stop playing (and I might end up with a bag of flaming dog poop on my step ) Should I be neutral? Is that the best way? Well even though I craft apprppriate CR encouters for the PCs and don't use knowledge about the players that the villians wouldn't have. I still secretly glory when they have a hard time, and when they are shaking in their boots. I kinda like it when at high level play the voral bastard sword weilding BBEG criticals the party fighter and the rest of the party goes oh &*$#!! This is tha attitude I'm talking about. I'm fair with the group (I work very hard to make sure everything is fair for the group, it's just I really like it when the BBEG kicks their butts. I'm the kind of guy that roots for the villian in movies. I love the Empire strikes back cause luke gets his hand lopped off and Han gets frozen in Carbonite, and I'm like "ha! take that upstarts".

So while I'm fair and do the best to keep a poker face, I really want PC destruction. I think that I get to attached to my BBEGs.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

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

*reaches out from the grave, grabs shilsen's ankle, drags him below the ground, devours his heart, and turns him into an undead minion*

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

My best actual D&D experiences have been with a highly adversarial DM.

Survival meant being both lucky and perfect, or at least very close to it - and I for one loved it. There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG with the old 'tournament' style GMing.

Now, if you're fudging rolls so the monsters win, that's another thing entirely. The key to being a great adversarial GM is to play it like a really great character optimizer does on the other side of the screen - by the rules, but to the fullest extent of the rules.

The only other problem is if the other players don't like it...

 

[Harmon]

The OP seems to be telling me (this is just what I understand him to be saying and thus my post earlier) that when combat begins its with a character's death.

GM- "Surprise round- Galag your AC is a 24?"

Galag's Player- "Mage Armor, rings, and I still have Shield up?"

GM- "Yep, Shield still up. You were still hit, sneak attack- oh, no fire protection? No, okay. Hit a 25 AC, that is 70 points of damage. A man in a mythral chain shirt with a short sword appears behind behind Galag."

Galag's Player- "puts me to -14. Another character- that's two in two weeks."

Which is in the plausability of the game. Is it fun for the Player (no) is it fun for the GM (depends on the GM). An invisible rogue sneaks in behind a wizard and guts him, ya, happens, the Player needs to not whine, and make a new character or hope that the cleric survives to raise him. Will losing a character every other night encourage role playing? Not with anyone I know. Will raising party members every other fight encourage a sense of immortality? Ya. Unrealism in the character's view? Ya.

You don't have to pull your punches, just don't be a prick and do it every weekend, or even every other.

Eventually your Players will get bored, and you will either be gone, or miss out on some good role playing.

 

[Mistwell]

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 get annoyed when the PCs beat the boss in 2 rounds...

These are the two comments that concern me.

You want to be adversarial? Fine. You wanting to challenge the PCs? Fine. But you intentionally sending things after them that are going to kill them because the NPCs are a much higher CR than the PCs? Not fine. You being all upset when your PCs get lucky and defeat your NPCs quickly (but apparently take joy if your NPCs kill your PCs quickly)? Not fine.

I think there is a difference between being adversarial and challeneging, and being outright unfair. Your PCs should have a decent chance to win. It should be hard, and there should be a decent chance of losing as well. But the CRs should be appropriate, and the time it takes to defeat your NPCs in a particular battle shouldn't be weighed against your PCs for having been lucky or smart.

 

[Oryan77]

I wouldn't enjoy playing in your games at all.

Did you post here asking for help because your players are getting frustrated over your DM'ing style and you want to change it? Or are you just bragging that you win D&D all the time?

I don't understand the logic behind a DM that TPK's so often. Killing PC's is the easiest thing in the world to do as a DM. Whenever I hear this, I don't think, "Wow, this DM must be really good & one of those RBDM's!" Instead, I think, "Man, this DM sucks at running encounters."

Challenging PC's is an art. You need to know how & when to throw that easy/moderate/even/hard/killer encounter at your players. If players are getting TPK'ed left and right...I believe it has more to do with the fact you aren't good at making proper encounters more than it has to do with you being good at making hard encounters. Any DM can throw a killer encounter at PC's, that's so easy. Any DM can throw an easy encounter at PC's, that's so easy too. But not every DM can throw an encounter at PC's to make them crap their pants...yet still have a chance to survive without it being a TPK. And if you're the type of DM that lets the dice fall where they may & rolls out in the open, you better be extremely good at balancing encounters throughout the adventure.

Why are you adversarial towards your players? I personally can't stand DM's like this and I would never play with one. Playing against a DM is pointless because he knows all & sees all, and can do all. A DM is not limited...players are. If I wanted to play against the DM, I'd invite him over for a game of Chess or Stratego. Or if I just had to play D&D rules, I'd roll up a character and just tell him, "Ok, pick something from the Monster Manual and lets fight each other". Otherwise, it's pointless to call your game a "campaign" if no one makes it far in your world. All you turn it into is a board game. If that's what you want, cool...I'm not criticizing that game style, it's just not my style.

When your players say, "Dang, what CR was that?", do you tell them? Do they complain about it being too high? Are you throwing too high level CR's at them? Are you throwing too many high level CR's at them? If your fights truely are balanced like you say, there's nothing wrong with wanting to smack on the PC's & enjoying when your cool NPC does it. We all do that I just don't purposely shoot for a TPK. If it happens it happens, but I will try to not let it happen because a TPK is as annoying as when someone accidently knocks over your chess board in the middle of the game.

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't want to play with pushover DM's either. I prefer a DM that can whoop my butt to the point where I think we're about to die, but gives me a chance to save the day if I figure out a way. If I play smart, I survive, & if I play dumb, I die. I don't have fun playing with a DM that kills me no matter how smart I'm playing. If you are TPK'ing all the time, you're doing nothing different than throwing a CR 20 NPC at 1st lvl PC's (give or take a few levels)...no matter how smart I play against the CR 20 NPC, if the DM is out to kill me than I'm not going to survive.

Basically, I believe most players prefer the NPC's to kill them rather than worrying about Gundark the DM killing them.

 

[Treebore]

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?

Ooohh! Rat Bastard DM! Cool! I feel so much better knowing what kind of DM I am. I also like the title of Killer DM we got from buying Rappan Athuk: Reloaded. Unfortunately I have yet taken the time to turn any PC's into fresh Hash in RA:R, but I like letting the anticipation build to a feverous pitch so that my maniacal laughter has that deep rich sound of ultimate evil to it.