When Do You (GM) Kill PCs?

[Elemental]

It doesn't make much sense to say "Players kill characters.". When a PC gets ambushed by a bodak and gets a 1 on the death save simply from looking at it, how is that their fault?

When I ran Eberron, I bought in a use for action points where once per session, the player could spend an action point, and the character would be left on 0 HP when they suffered damage that would have killed them. I also toned down death effects, by having them knock the target down to -1 HP and deteriorating.

I find this allows for a situation where the fight's going poorly, and you need to decide if you're going to scram, or stay around to get one more attack in. It cuts down on instant kills from blowing a save-or-die, or suffering a crit, which I don't like happening either as a player or GM.

 

[DonTadow]

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 backstory and connexions to the game world. And then you die. Major bummer. It would tend to make you (the player) less likely to invest time and energy into making an interesting character, and it would make the DM less likely to invest time and energy in developing character-based plots.

ironregime

That depends on the DM and how much of your background and character he puts into the campaign. For instance, had a pc whom had a wonderful character and background about him being athief on the run from a mob like gnome orgnanization. He dies third game but the mob is still after the pcs and his background lives on.

Also, the better the pc the safer you should be. It works the opposite IMO. Good characters are usually kept more conservitive and dms tend to reward players whom are smarter at playing their pc. I'm more inclined to provide a side story to a player who plays his characters smart than a player whom runs nilly willy into every encounter.

Again players kill pcs not dms (or at least good DMs). If the pcs go into a place where a bodak dwells how much research did they or could they have done to figure out the creatures of a particular area.

A lot of dms are using action points and dice now days. If you waist them on comfirming a crit instead of waiting for a horribly failed save thats a pcs decision. (happened in my last session).

 

[Nifft]

I voted "dice fall as they may", and that's most deaths. The other times are when a player wants to switch PCs and we work out a memorable death scene (which happens outside of combat).

-- N

 

[Krafen]

When they do something stupid, let the dice fall where they may. When I do something stupid like make the challenge too difficult (CR too high, ect.) and impossible to escape, I'll fudge some.

- Brottor

This is the approach I have used as well.

 

[Agback]

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 backstory and connexions to the game world. And then you die. Major bummer. It would tend to make you (the player) less likely to invest time and energy into making an interesting character, and it would make the DM less likely to invest time and energy in developing character-based plots.

That has to be balanced against the fact that Luke would not be Luke if he were dependably so lucky as to be able to count on being immortal. He is cool only while the audience (for a movie) or the player (for an RPG) are able to suspend their disbelief, and pretend that he is facing real risks.

There is a nice balance to stike between illusion and reality when it comes to maintaining a perception of risk without losing characters, and it needs work from both sides of the GM screen. A GM can get away with a bit of stagecraft so long as the character-players co-operate by treating illusory risks as real, but I don't really think this can last forever. The PCs have to overcome dangers to be heroes, which means they can't avoid pushing on the scenes and props a little. And the players can't help learning from what results.

I was going to start this paragraph 'the trick is', but I'm pretty sure that that would not have been right. The trick I use is to be pretty liberal with defeats and failures that are short of death, teh ultimate victory of evil, and the destruction of the Universe. That way I get to maintain my players' suspension of disbelief without trashing their investments in character background &c. Now that I think about it, perhaps that is a big part of the reason that I tend to avoid the Tolikeinesqe cliches of climactic battle for the fte of Arda.

 

[Agback]

I can definitely see how groups who are more "gamist" (to use Agback's term ;-) appreciate the very real risk presented by the DM who is willing to off PCs in the first session.

A clarification. As habitués of rec.gmes.frp.advocacy will instantly have recognised, the terms 'gamist', 'dramatist', and 'simulationist' were not originally mine. I use them with gratitude to the people on RGFA who thrashed out the Threefold.

 

[xnosipjpqmhd]

There is a nice balance to stike between illusion and reality when it comes to maintaining a perception of risk without losing characters, and it needs work from both sides of the GM screen. ... The trick I use is to be pretty liberal with defeats and failures that are short of death, teh ultimate victory of evil, and the destruction of the Universe. That way I get to maintain my players' suspension of disbelief without trashing their investments in character background &c. ...

Yeah, perfect. Couldn't have said it better myself.

ironregime

 

[Gronin]

Generally the dice do that voodoo that they do so well. That being said, I will sometimes work it a bit to save the party from a TPK situation if the dice have just gone to hell in a handbasket. There have been occasions where the party hasn't been able to find the high side of their dice and so I will usually give them some opportunity to do something intelligent (like run like the wind).

 

[Hussar]

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 backstory and connexions to the game world. And then you die. Major bummer. It would tend to make you (the player) less likely to invest time and energy into making an interesting character, and it would make the DM less likely to invest time and energy in developing character-based plots.

ironregime

Out of curiousity, how much background do you expect from your players and how much do you provide for your DM? I generally expect about a page worth of info. Where are you from, what motivates you, what goals do you have. That's about it. I don't expect ten page essays detailing every detail of someone's characters. Actually, on the one occassion that I had a player who handed me ten double sided hand written pages of background, I immedietely handed it back and told her to give me the Cole's notes version. I have neither the inclination nor the fortitude to plow through something like that. If you cannot break your character down in about five hundred words, I don't really want to read it.

It is not my role as DM to bring up character goals and points in the game. I see that as the player's role to pursue those goals. I will facilitate that pursuit, but, I will do nothing to initiate it. I've found that as soon as I don't wrap my entire campaign around the wishes of the "role player's" fantasies, they soon forget about their backgrounds and then complain about not being the center of attention. My response is, "If you are hunting the killers of your third cousin's cat, then YOU should be dealing with it, not me. You have not once brought it up to the party, so I see no reason why I should."

But then, that's just me. I actually had one player actually write the words (Plot Hook) into various parts of his character's background. Sorry, your character is YOUR responsibility, not mine. If you want to pursue some goal, then by all means do so. But, I have no idea why players expect me as the DM to bring up their personal goals in the game.

Sorry, wandered pretty far off topic.

 

[DragonSword]

Only when a character has done something particularly stupid, or it is dramatically appropriate. Sometimes I would kill off a PC that sustains large amounts of damage over a sustained period, but not in a single huge attack on them (sometimes the dice give you crazy rolls like that).