Who Kills Your PCs?

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

We had a PC "accidently" kill another PC yesterday. They were fighting a Dragon, a slightly lower level Cleric, and some pesky Gargoyles.

The PC Wizard cast a Fireball at the NPCs and the PC Rogue who was fighting toe to toe with the Dragon and Gargoyles. The Rogue made his save and took no damage. So next round, the PC Wizard cast a second Fireball at the NPCs and the PC Rogue. This time, the Wizard rolled real high damage, the Rogue was more damaged than the previous round, and he rolled a 1 on his save and went to -19 hit points. The second Fireball, btw, also killed all of the NPCs there as well (who all missed their saves the second time too).

Regardless of why it happened, I was wondering how often PCs kill other PCs in other people's games. In the last year, we have had 3 PCs deaths and 2 of them were directly due to the actions of other PCs.


So, the question is: Since playing 3E/3.5, what percentage of PC deaths were directly caused by other PCs?

This could include terrible decisions which caused PC deaths or TPKs as well, not just direct damage.

In my Modern campaigns, near deaths have been caused by humans, but one PC was killed by a dog, another by a crocodile. (Near deaths included sniper fire, hails of automatic gunfire, car crashes, grenades, and poisoned daggers.)

For DnD, as a DM I've only had that happen once. A vampire dominated a telepath, who then manifest Fatal Attraction on the rogue. (Fatal Attraction forces you to coup de grace yourself.) This sort of confuses the issue of who was doing the killing *evil grin*

In a 2e campaign where I was a player, we had this really dumb player who usually played paladins. He got killed lots of times by other PCs. Once he was playing a Red Wizard in a party that hated Red Wizards. He challenged the dwarf fighter PC to a duel without casting any defensive spells and standing too close to the fighter. Splat! Next he was a paladin, wearing holy armor and having lots of holy stuff on him. Due to some RP events he had a choice between being a fighter or an anti-paladin. He chose the latter. Zap! (Okay, that's Darwin Awards rather than PC-on-PC killing.)

My very first DnD character (2e) was a halfling rogue. He was grappled or maybe tied to a tree, I forget with. A critical miss by a barbarian-flavored fighter led to him being cut open. Ow.

I voted 1-25%, because of the one time a PC was forced to force another PC to kill themself.

 

[Smaug]

I've only had one character die at the hands of another and that was due to a carelessly thrown fireball.

 

[Henrix]

Of course, if you count the times the PCs have killed themselves through sheer stupidity, then it's a higher percentage.

 

[Ciaran]

What I want to know is the circumstances behind those two posters who answered "75 to 99% of the time." Now THAT would make some interesting tales.

There's really not much to it. I used to run lots of one-shot Amber Diceless games, using the "Throne War" scenario. That's the one where the PCs are all members of the same royal family, and the scenario ends when one of them ascends to the throne. The carnage in some of those games was immense! Betrayals, assassinations, poisonings, duels to the death... you name it, it happened.

And then there was the Vampire LARP that I ran. Not so many fatalities, but they were all PC-on-PC killings. Things were mostly peaceful, aside from when a bunch of aggrieved vampires cornered the Prince in a side room and butchered him (with his bodyguard's approval, if I recall correctly). And then, eventually, things spiraled out of control one session as everyone spontaneously decided to settle their animosities all at once, and the chronicle ended in an orgy of blood, with a handful of survivors fleeing as NYC burned.

As to other games, like D&D, Ars Magica and Exalted? No PC deaths of any sort. I guess I'm an old softy; I don't like to kill PCs. Much better to let them kill each other!

 

[FEADIN]

1%, even less but always great moment, it's often the same player who always play wizards, he sometimes thow fireballs a bit to close to his allies and whooof, you're dead.
The last time I remember he was the victim, an arrow from a shortbow was flying randomly in the melee, he was hit and it was a critical, 3d6, 16hp, dead, he got 5 left.
The rogue was not very proud.

 

[KarinsDad]

1%, even less but always great moment, it's often the same player who always play wizards, he sometimes thow fireballs a bit to close to his allies and whooof, you're dead.
The last time I remember he was the victim, an arrow from a shortbow was flying randomly in the melee, he was hit and it was a critical, 3d6, 16hp, dead, he got 5 left.
The rogue was not very proud.

With two PCs <= 1%, that means that you have had over 200 PC deaths since 3E came out.

Wow! That's a lot in 6 years.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

What I want to know is the circumstances behind those two posters who answered "75 to 99% of the time." Now THAT would make some interesting tales.

I was in the category just below that, and have played in at least one game (albeit in HERO) that would have reached those 'heights.'

Most famously the Champions (a system where it is, generally, hard to die) game wherein, without ever interacting with an NPC, without any attempt by the GM to put us in a dangerous situation, without a hostile environment and without any member of the party actively trying to kill another, we rendered the entire party either dead or unsuitable for play: a functional self-TPK. I wish I could say that skewed the numbers upward, but it would still be close to 75% even without it.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

With two PCs <= 1%, that means that you have had over 200 PC deaths since 3E came out.

Wow! That's a lot in 6 years.

I started to put in a ''".

Then I realized that 33.3 PC deaths per year would be about right for the group I've played with for the last three years.

 

[DonTadow]

We had a PC "accidently" kill another PC yesterday. They were fighting a Dragon, a slightly lower level Cleric, and some pesky Gargoyles.

The PC Wizard cast a Fireball at the NPCs and the PC Rogue who was fighting toe to toe with the Dragon and Gargoyles. The Rogue made his save and took no damage. So next round, the PC Wizard cast a second Fireball at the NPCs and the PC Rogue. This time, the Wizard rolled real high damage, the Rogue was more damaged than the previous round, and he rolled a 1 on his save and went to -19 hit points. The second Fireball, btw, also killed all of the NPCs there as well (who all missed their saves the second time too).

Regardless of why it happened, I was wondering how often PCs kill other PCs in other people's games. In the last year, we have had 3 PCs deaths and 2 of them were directly due to the actions of other PCs.


So, the question is: Since playing 3E/3.5, what percentage of PC deaths were directly caused by other PCs?

This could include terrible decisions which caused PC deaths or TPKs as well, not just direct damage.

Rarely but it happens. I'd say in the less than 10 percent range. Of course that might change now that I"m incorporating some of Monte Cooks suggestions from the latest Dungeon magazine. He suggests providing a random element for such spells as fireball and such to be off a bit. It makes perfect sense if you're getting away from games that get "too tactical". When you're in combat you hardly have the time to count squares and ft. He suggestes a random chance that the spell will be off a certain number of feet.

 

[megamania]

As a DM I have never had a PC kill a PC. However, as a gamer, I have seen one friendly fire fatality and sadly two on purpose incidents.