When Do You (GM) Kill PCs?

[ruleslawyer]

That said, I still don't think it's always a good idea for all dice to be rolled in the open OR for the DM to allow the dice to stand under every possible scenario, for the simple reason that I, as a DM, do not trust myself to have crafted a scenario in which any outcome, no matter how silly the dice become, will lead to an interesting or satisfying story to my players. My axiom is that if my players are happy, I've done a good job. To be honest, if I were playing with gamers who would be happy only to rack up levels and to always win in the end, I'd tailor the scenario (and fudge the dice) to fit their expectations. Why? Because it's a game, and games work best when the players are having fun. So, I make the players' rolls stand, and I fudge the occasional roll if I think things are getting out of hand. Does this take the element of chance out of the game? No way. A 1 blows your save against that wizard's disintegrate, you're dust. Poof. Bye bye. I roll 14 20s in a row, and follow up with confirmed crits, for the band of kobold archers firing on those high-level PCs when the ambush isn't an important part of the story? Fudge fudge. I have had ONE player, in 23 years of DM-ing, MAKE me show him the dice (he died two rounds later, since I rolled all the monsters' attacks on HIM in the open and got unprecedentedly lucky rolls). Everyone else is fine with the arrangement. Besides, it keeps things a bit mysterious; I don't want the players knowing that a 15 is a hit for the BBEG as opposed to a 10, for instance.

Now, back to topic: There is little to no availability of raise dead/resurrection spells for PCs below level 15 IMC, and to be honest, I find a Fate Points mechanic (avoiding death in the first place) a bit more narratively sound than resurrection, which I do find a bit too video-gamey. I award Fate Points for roleplaying, exceptional cleverness in achieving story objectives, and similar behaviors. Thus, PCs of mine who find themselves in a fatal situation will get out of it... if they're good enough players to have earned the needed Fate Points. So, death tends to come to the players who (a) weren't holding up their end to begin with; (b) were profligate with their Fate Points; or (c) were very, VERY unlucky (and see the preceding paragraph for my approach at that point). IOW, if you were playing well and took some educated risks, you ain't dying IMC. If you're not playing well, you stand a good chance of becoming meat.

 

[genshou]

I can't really accurately vote on this. I like to work things so that PC deaths occur less frequently, but when the dice actually roll, I let things happen as they may.

Then again, I run some games specifically with the intent of making my encounters as deadly as possible. Surprisingly enough, those were the games my players loved the most, even though PC fatality was incomprehensibly high...

 

[LostSoul]

I roll 14 20s in a row, and follow up with confirmed crits, for the band of kobold archers firing on those high-level PCs when the ambush isn't an important part of the story? Fudge fudge.

If the ambush wasn't important to the "story", why did you include the encounter?

You could just say, "Don't make dice rolls for anything that's not important. You guys can decide if you succeed or not." Which is totally valid.

 

[jasper]

Jdrakeh…..Can you honestly tell me that 'Your party is killed by a squirrel because you rolled crappy. The campaign's over!' sounds like a fun game?.. No the campaign is not over. This group has just bit the dust. So now the players can either; roll up more PCs and decide to pick up near where the last group died. Or follow a new adventure thread and never travel through the forest of Rocky the EVIL vorpal squirrel.
I generally let the decide fall where they may and the best stories come from let the dice rule. Ex. Fifth level dwarf breaking his magical battle axe over an orc’s head while using the “good hits bad misses” chart. Or the three rounds crit then fumble of second level fighter versus an orc where both sides did Nat 20 Nat 1 3x. And the damage dice rolling one or two.

Most of my players know it is a game and some times the monster wins and they have to roll new up a new pc.

Jdrakeh…I mean things like Conan dying every few game sessions - doesn't make sense. He only died twice IMC then player rolled up a new character. Or Odysseus dying never had a PC called that but man talk about a bad DM. How many times did he get in over his head and the gods or luck get him out of the situation.? Having a (drop the heroic) PC decapitated by a squirrel. And if you let the dice rule your game, all of these things can happen, eventually will happen, and not make sense when they do happen. It does it is called Fate. And levels the playing field between the PC and monster where death comes to one an all except PCs who may meet it up to 18 times depending on con.

The ends of scale are it is just a game to it is a story. Where the scale balances is up to the individual gamer. I stay away from far end of it is story side because if I can’t really die and start over what is the point.

 

[jasper]

Ironrgime…No, no, the point is, what if you were playing Luke and you just spent all this time creating a really cool character with a bunch of back story and connections to the game world. … What back story in the first movie? Orphan farmer boy who wants to go to college aka West Point because his friend Wedge was there and a hint his father was knight killed by a famous blackguard. You are seeing the full story at the end of campaign while you drink the beers not the being.
Some decision points in the movie. What if Luke did not remove the restraining bolt but instead took the droid into town the next day for a real droid lab tech to work on it. What if the Obi wan decided to charge to attack the sand people instead of bluffing? What if the npc decided to take aunt and uncle in for questioning to the famous blackguard?
Star wars was a lame cliché fantasy movie with heavy layer of science fiction and great special effects. The extra story and background comes from the DM and player what do they want to do with pc next. And as the movies (campaign etc) go along how do we go back explain logically what happen due good and bad dice rolls.

 

[KRT]

I think there are two issues here 1) whether or not to fudge dices rolls or storyline of a campaign to keep the PCs alive and 2) DMs abusing their power sometimes unintentionally.
for the first point it is important to realize that how a player decides to play his PC MUST matter. In otherwords in a campaign where playing smart gives good odds of survival and playing stupidly gets you dead then players will feel more captivated by the game (psuedo-realism). When playing in a campaign where the DM never kills anyone but NPCs the PCs tend to full on charge anything that gets in their way, each trying to earn the kill and do more damage than any other PC. They are played like adolescent gods in their own little playground. How many of you have played Doom (or similar game) in Godmode. Got boring real quick didn't it. Which then leads to more outrageous play, pissing on altars, hitting on the King's fiancee, or having your dire bear animal companion crap on the Khans rug during an audience. These are symptoms of a campaign where the players have learned that there are no real worries for them. So we seguay into the second point. The DM is at a loss now because the PCs are disrespecting the NPCs and by association the campaign, and possibly the DM. So the DM decides the fudging is going to go the other way to teach the players a lesson (when actually its the Dm who needs the lesson first). So a nasty encounter results where the first salvo from the party is pretty much ignored by the Dm and the response from the monsters are impressive. However the party keeps its cool and figures they'll finish of the monsters the next round. The next round a couple of party members drop and the critical cascade will undoubtably follow even as the DM realizes he's gone too far. oops TPK.

The way to avoid this is to have trained you players to recognize when they are outmatched an to react accordingly. This cannot be done through pampering or fudging the rolls in the PCs favour. Fix this problem and the second one won't arise, at least not as inevitably.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I voted "Other" because I'll use ANY of the poll-offered options.

I don't usually kill characters, but I'm not unwilling to do so. I'll fudge dice here and there, but if the players push their luck, I let the die decide...unless I have a campaign reason not to do so.

And of course, I have run into players playing disruptive PCs that just simply have to die, or disruptive players who need to be reined in for the good of the campaign or the game group.

 

[xnosipjpqmhd]

Star wars was a lame cliché fantasy movie with heavy layer of science fiction and great special effects. The extra story and background comes from the DM and player what do they want to do with pc next. And as the movies (campaign etc) go along how do we go back explain logically what happen due good and bad dice rolls.

Well, I won't debate the merits of the movie here. Maybe SW is not a good illustration of the point, but my players really get into the story behind their characters and I enjoy building the campaign around them. So if a character were to die in an unexpected way in the first few sessions of the campaign, neither of us would be having fun. (As I've posted earlier, I am quite willing to allow PC death later in the campaign.)

Other people here have different groups with different expectations, and that's great.

ironregime

 

[SkidAce]

Let the dice fall where they may, with an addendum: If the player(s) are going through a string of bad luck, I'll fudge. I've only had a few deaths, but I don't think that's because I've gone out of my way to prevent it.

Ditto...

 

[SkidAce]

I'm more of the latter than the former, so I'm a big fan of maiming the characters instead of killing them outright. Break bones, sever limbs off, poke eyes out, leave lasting scars. Make the characters hurt. But killing them off outright? Unless the story demands such a thing, there's no glory in being killed during the build-up of the story. Once you reach the juicy bits of the story though, all bets are off.

Ditto again,

However in one campaign of around 12th level the "Cripple Crew" as they renamed themselves was quite the sight entering town.

"Boy, you don't want to be an adventurer...stay on the farm..you wanna look like this when your 25?" says the scarred ranger...as he limped away.."Bring me a beer"

Fun times