When Do You (GM) Kill PCs?

[xnosipjpqmhd]

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.

It’s not so much how much they write (they don’t actually write much… ;-) but how much they get into the character. My last campaign was a very localised one; that is, the PCs were all from the same area, they knew most of the NPCs, etc. They heavily ingrained themselves in the milieu, and the various threads of the plot were woven around them. They also heavily personalize their equipment, etc., and this is another form of emotional investment in the character.

It is not my role as DM to bring up character goals and points in the game. … "If you are hunting the killers of your third cousin's cat, then YOU should be dealing with it, not me…." 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.

I think it’s great when players have personal goals, and I do everything I can to encourage it. Then I try to connect those subplots to the greater story at hand as closely as possible. (The players are summoned to the home of the distraught third cousin, and they discover that not only was her familiar—a cat—slain, but its BRAIN had been carefully removed. A little more investigation and the players begin to peel back the layers of the mystery, revealing the secrets hidden by the third cousin and where the cat had been before it was killed….)

Ok, yeah, we're pretty far off topic.... ;-)

ironregime

 

[jdrakeh]

Depends on the game, really.

If I'm running something that's epic in scope such as The Journeys of Odysseus, then the answer is 'almost never' because its inappropriate for the game (go read Homer's Odyssey if you haven't already). Ditto stuff like Conan - because in the novels, Conan isn't dying every few pages.

Now, if I'm running something like The Black Company, where even major protagonists don't have plot immunity, the answer would be 'let the dice fall where they may'. Ditto stuff like Thieve's World - another setting where major protagonists tend to get themselves killed off rather quickly.

Then there's stuff like The Kingdom of Steel (my own, private, game), where the game play is deliberately adversarial - that is, the GM deliberately throws very lethal kinds of obstacles in the paths of the PCs. When I GM Stuff like this, the answer is 'Kill them! Kill them all!'

 

[wedgeski]

I'm torn on this one and haven't actually voted. I would have voted 'When it's dramatically appropriate' except I don't think the OP meant it the same way as I do. Basically, I don't like watching PC's die when their death doesn't serve the adventure in some way. My default position is to let the dice fall where they may, but I will modify this based on the encounter and character in question. I'm extremely unlikely to let a PC die if they've just been unlucky on a couple of saves or whatever and have otherwise had very little say in the matter. That just sucks.

Oh, and the difference between dying at zero his points and dying at -10 hit points is DRAMA: "Oh fiddle-lee-dee, I'm dead." vs. "Crap I'm dead in three rounds unless someone gets to me!"

 

[I'm A Banana]

If the players want to test themselves against the milieu by effectively poking it with a stick to see what happens, it's absolutely vital to maintain versimilitude.

One of the biggest events IMC that the current group gets a laugh at is when they were in an abandoned tower, searching for a portal out. Instead of taking the portal, however, they kept searching the tower. The first few times they said "I continue seaching the tower," I rewarded them with some extra treasure and some more information about the world. The next few times, I had their rescources trail off. And then they met an ooze in a sack who grabbed a PC and killed it.

After the game I told them: "I was just going to keep throwing stronger and stronger stuff at you until you guys either died or gave up searching!"

It was a bit railroady, and I wouldn't usually recommend such a tactic, but by the time they were doing the fifth search check, they were already laughing about how well they were examining this place, and it had reached the level of metagame absurdity. So I threw something metagamey at them. Brought them back to the world right quick, it did. And the PC was raised pretty quickly after that, IIRC.

This is actually another thing to consider, though. Death is only common in my games in proportion to the commonness of resurrection and restorative magic. Rarely is death an absolute, final thing. Usually, in fact, I leave it up to the player: "It's up to you, you've got the ability to come back, but it would make sense if you didn't do it, too." Keeps the perma-death rate and new-character rate pretty low, which works well for my games.

 

[Morgoth]

No Mercy!!!

In a fight, there is always the chance of dying. I let the dices decide. If I have made a dungeon, and they want to go down there, they just have to get some infomation about the place. I'll never make it easy on them. But on the other hand, I will always let them know, if they search for the info, how dangerous the dungeon is. If they take chance, and let us say, try to steal the kings crown, well, if they succed, a lot of xp to them. BUT if it dosn't succed, well I hope they have good back-up plan. because they a going to be hanged! I think as a player, it's more fun, if there is a chance of dying in the mission. You have to be fair, but don't show mercy.

 

[Mean Eyed Cat]

We played a game last night and most of the players came really close to dying (they fought some pretty tough baddies).

Now, normally I go with what the dice say and if a player dies, than he dies (this happened a couple games ago when the party mage died - I still feel a little bad). Last night, one of the players had to leave a little early so I let another player run his character. One of the baddies scored some pretty major damage to his character (a cleric) and he probably should have died. However, since the player was gone it didn't feel right to kill off his character. Therefore I fudged the result and dropped him to zero. The rest of the party managed to help him and they barely ended up defeating the baddies.

 

[kigmatzomat]

I don't mind killing off PCs. I try to do it without malice and make sure it is rational within the setting. Sometimes it is a senseless death (like the first time I used trolls; everyone's eyes were wide as the monk was turned into so much troll-chow) but even at the low levels they had managed to make friends with enough NPCs that they could get a raise dead (or in the monk's case, a reincarnate).

The players realized that making allies can save your bacon. That alone served to make the monk's death worthwhile, if senseless. The group occassionally sends out gifts to various allies as reminders that "Hey, we're out fighting the good fight and sharing the loot!"

I could have a TPK and their allies would bring them back in a couple of months when they were noticed missing. Alternately, the Spirit of Death may have tasks for them related to a particular diefic horror they released.

In both cases, the game is not ended by a TPK. They may be set back ("Where's our stuff?!?") and they've lost some time but the game isn't over.

Death is not necessarily the ending.

 

[jdrakeh]

I could have a TPK and their allies would bring them back in a couple of months when they were noticed missing. Alternately, the Spirit of Death may have tasks for them related to a particular diefic horror they released.

Good examples of how to work around a TPK.

Death is not necessarily the ending.

Not necssarily, but usually (often less for in-character reasons than because of players resenting the blanket de-protagonization on behalf of the GM that a TPK represents).

 

[KRT]

I don't mind killing off PCs. ... the game is not ended by a TPK. QUOTE]

I like to let the dice fall where they may. However that said I try to avoid putting situations in place where a single roll could kill a healthy character (i.e. deathblade poison). I find that if there isn't a realistic balance of action to consequence the players become quite detatched from the game. Players need to know that good play can mean the difference between life and death. However even in TPK (Total Party Kill for those who hate acronyms) it is rare that all the PCs will die. The PCs who are at -1 to -9 hp points are either captured if the enemies are intelligent or gradually come to if they aren't eaten (I allow action points to be used to aid recovery from negative points without aid).

 

[kigmatzomat]

Death is not necessarily the ending.

Not necssarily, but usually (often less for in-character reasons than because of players resenting the blanket de-protagonization on behalf of the GM that a TPK represents).

I guess it depends on the means of death. As long as the players agree that the TPK is a reasonable and forseeable consequence for their actions (looting a dragon's lair, trying to overthrow a king, snubbing a god, etc) then they remain the protagonists. Dead protagonists, but protagonists all the same.

I've been in pointless TPKs (usually heralded by the statement "*bamf* You're in Ravenloft!") and can't stand them. But I've also been in glorious, blaze-of-glory/Butch'n Sundance finales where no one survives. In the Butch & Sundance moments the DM didn't kill us; we somehow bit off more than we could chew.

Okay, that one time the thief bit off more than we could chew but it wasn't the DM's fault; had someone told me Thzorin was going ask the baddies how much a mystic doodad was worth I could have told you they'd know we had it and the jig would be up. I would have also tried to kill Thzorin in his sleep the night before but only b/c I was playing an assasin.

My point is that "suicide via DM" is not the DMs fault nor should it emasculate the players. It can result in the end of a campaign but in a world of magic that is far from an absolute.