NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Blue Sky" data-source="post: 2650180" data-attributes="member: 12230">I don't kill characters as a rule, but that's the confluence (ooh, new big word!) of several aspects of my play style.1.  I play a game where the characters are tied to the plot, both through my actions (your brother needs help with the Baromars again; your father is being brought back as a vampire, etc.) and player actions (a plot to rule the guild; I hate this politician, so this is what I'll do to wreck his public image).  Thus, killing characters means more work for me.2.  This is a game.   You play a game to have fun.  My players don't have fun with their characters dying.  Thus, killing characters means unhappy players.3.  A new plot hook is better than starting over.  I have a rule, loosely stated, that when a character goes below -10 hp, instead of dying, something bad happens.  Usually tied to whatever is most important to that character.  They wake up and find their stuff stolen, the shattered remains of their family sword, etc.  This is more fun for me.  See the first two sentences on number 2.4.  I hate making an npc, then tossing that npc after five minutes because he died.  Therefore, if the fates are sometimes kind to the players, they'll understand that sometimes the fates are kind to their enemies, and a death will turn into a last-minute escape.  Also, my players know that if they start going blood crazy on important people, important people will start going blood crazy on them.  See point 2, sentence 3.  This lets me continue using npc's I think are cool.With all that said, I bend the rules the other way if the players don't keep it fun for me.  So while I'll go soft and think of a million ways to save the knight who risked it all to save the damsel in distress, I'll out and out kill a knave who kills peasants for sport.  No save, no chance to run, just a quick death.  (While that exact situation hasn't happened, a player did decide to just kill a goblin merchant, because he wouldn't give the pc the price he wanted.  The pc was found dead in a corner later, poisoned by goblin assassins.)Besides, when have you ever seen a villian, in a movie or a book, just up and kill the hero, when he can talk smack, then leave the hero guarded by an obviously incompetant lackey?</blockquote>

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