Another thing a GM can do to push the party to its limits is to realize that the bad guys have JUST as much ability to be sneaky and outside-the-box as the good guys. Like the osyluths, who realized early on that they couldn’t take any of us in combat… but the dwarven fighter could. And conveniently, he had the lowest Will save… (this tactic, for the record, has an entirely different dynamic depending on whether resurrection options exist…)

As a DM, I don’t like to kill players either.

However, to my sense, you only get the exhilaration of combat if there is a real challenge – a real threat.

I’ve seen it first hand in my last game session – one of the characters nearly died and all players used everything their character had to get through the encounter.

The harshness of the encounter forced them to use tactics and powers they had never used before. The difficulty was a limit that only stimulates their creativity. (Yes, limits actually do encourage creativity)

While not all encounters will be this hard (I surely didn’t mean it to be that hard!), it surely will have an impact on encounters to come.

Had I watered down the encounter to something where the character’s life were not threatened, it would’ve been an entirely different experience.

Eric Maziades last blog post..Looking for lost hubby…

Just to derail it a little, Mike’s suggestion looks to me a lot like the curve taken by comic drama – a situation starts off looking hopeful, darkens as far as the director/cast/author is prepared to take it before resolving to a happy ending. Using this analogy, I wholeheartedly agree that a DM should aim to push the party towards defeat at some point in any given arc.

I don’t think Mike is advocating continuous and ruthless party-bashing (although that is a valid style!), but making things “as bad as it could possibly be” once-in-a-while is fun to watch.

As a disclaimer, I’m yet to actually kill a PC; at the moment I’m busy making a party care about a world before trying to pull it forcefully away from them…

Earlier this week, I was talking to someone who told me he had failed for his driver’s license 4 times (in the wonderful country of the Netherlands, that costs you A LOT of money) and passed on the 5th attempt.

So I asked him, “What made you pass the 5th time, then?”
Quote the man, “I got lessons from a different instructor in between my 4th and 5th attempt, and he let me drive around for half an hour and I would keep rambling on about the mistakes I made, and finally the instructor said, ‘you think too much, take opportunities when they are there, and stop whenever your senses tell you you’re making a wrong choice’…”

I this line of reasoning, there is no universally right answer to the problem presented here – it just really depends on what you, as a group, want, and what kind of day you’re having. The game might challenge, and sometimes it might not, there may be encounters where the players’ life hang by a thread, and there may be encounters all too easy for them. Challenges and non-challenges fulfill different goals of different players. Determining what applies is a matter of ‘feeling’, which you can train by GM-ing a lot… That’s what I think, and I may be wrong, I have been before

The trick here is, of course, that not all groups play the same way. I don’t really see a point in playing D&D in other way, because it is so focused on challenges and problem solving.

As for the character death discussion. I agree that character death can bring a grander scale to an adventure but it has to be done at the appropriate time for it to have a lasting impact. Otherwise it will be something like “We’ve fought a bunch of orcs and John Doe died”. No epic feel or sacrifice just a boring fact.

I’m the player that as died the most in Phil’s games and in all case it was a reckless move to save the day. It did not bother me because it made for a good story, but to die by a die roll is boring as hell and does not give you story material.

I seem to have lost the last sentence of my post. It was basically this: I think we actually agree in principle, we are simply looking at different parts of the elephant (or the Hippogriff, as the case may be.)

My-game-your-game doesn’t enter into it. I was just describing an issue that I, as a player, would have if my character were killed under certain circumstances.

Did I say that I could never accept having my character killed? No.
Did I say that fatality-ridden games were inherently bad? No.
Did I say that the DM has to cater to the player’ whims? No.

However, it is unfair to suggest that players who dislike having their characters killed off are just whining (as some imply), and questionable to state that “deadlier=more fun” for a generic group with which the speaker is unfamiliar.

FYI, I’ve never had a character killed under a circumstance that I considered unfair or unreasonable. I am arguing from a theoretical rather than from a historical perspective.

Grief is a normal emotion when your character dies. It’s not a boy/girl thing, it’s a human thing. You spend time creating them, drawing pictures maybe, filling out the character sheet and writing the back story. You get attached to them and you want to see them continue up through epic levels. That’s the hook in RPGs. It works the same way for DMs, but over time I’ve become accustomed to my players smashing all the monsters and carefully-constructed villains. The challenge for me now is to create foes that are worthy of my players and to do that I have to go beyond balanced encounters and A-B-C quests. I have to play dirty, and think outside the box (cliche alert!). I have to put on my black cloak and top hat and twirl my mustache and say things like, “Nyaaaa!” I have to create serious villians that do seriously bad things and don’t take it personally when the characters interfere, but rather deal with them as they would anything that stands in the way of their plans.

As to completing experiments, how about this? Several years ago I spent the better part of a month creating an ancient blue dragon, her lair, her hoarde and her followers. I got really attached to her and had hoped to use her for the duration of my campaign as the Evil To Be Overcome. One of my players killed her with a single blow of his great-axe on the first round of the first encounter with her. It was incredible, stupid luck. Was I sad? Yes. Was I upset? A bit, yes. Was my experiment thwarted? Certainly. Did that player give a damn? Absolutely not. Further, he did not fudge his die roll, decline his critical or scale back his attack because he felt bad about gakking my dragon, thwarting my experiment, and completely derailing my campaign. In fact he eagerly high-fived everyone around the table….including me. Do I blame him for killing my dragon and ruining my campaign? Of course not! The dragon did not properly prepare for the encounter. She badly misjudged the characters and their abilities and she got her head caved in by a greataxe wielding half-orc barbarian. So it goes for some dragons and so it goes for some heroes.

I fear I’m veering dangerously into a my-game-your-game argument, so I’ll just say this and be done. Every game is as unique as the people who play in it. Gaming groups are like marriages: they’re all different, and they all work or don’t work for different reasons. If your group likes kicking down doors and slaughtering orcs and hates having their character’s lives threatened, then so be it. If your group likes walking the razor’s edge between life and death and having every combat be a titanic struggle, then so be it. Just be ware of complacency and routine, for those are the real game killers.

Carls last blog post..How not to play Rock Band

The death of a PC is like the end of the most awesome chapter there is in a book. You can’t wait to turn the page to discover what will happen next.

Damn 35 comments and the post is barely 8 hours old…

Find what is the reason why you want to DM, and be true to that reason. You will then have fun. And 90% of the time if you have fun it means the players facing will have fun too. Unless you want to make people miserable. Then … not really fun for them either way.

Me. I want to tell compelling stories. I want to create an interresting world where heros rise against impossible odds. Like in the stories that pushed me to create my own; Dragonlance, Stormbringer, Conan, Sherlock holmes, Batman, X-men, etc…

And, you know what? Remember; Flint, Moonglum, Robin’s parents, Phoenix, etc… All NCs (Novel characters!) who died. Perished by aging, killed by his best friend, by a madmen, by his lover.

Why do we remember them? Because death scenes, death of a character, especially characters we care about are things fiction fans cherish.

I try to give it also to my players. I concider the role of the DM to be more then just the guy who say what rule apply when. The job of the DM is not either to save PCs from a tough encounter. To say a DM is responsible of what encounter the PCs face is very unfair. What about the player who decide that his character care so much for (reason of your choice) that he will go inside the black castle in front of him even after he meet three times, three different NPC who tells him how dangerous it is for him to go there. Even after he’s given other opportunities to do something else, he still wants to go. Not by stupidity, he decide he wants to roleplay his character and he say his character is crazy love of this women, item… name it! Do you believe the DM needs to make sure he gets out oK? I would preferer a DM who is fair. Fair defence. Logical trap. Logical consequence to actions the player make.

I was talking with an old friend a month ago. He was telling me about of his friend who play with him. His friend was playing a monk. At the end of a difficult adventure, the group was in a village they saved. The monk from that village was killed during the adventure. The DM never wanted him to do anything. But the player felt that his character, which he loved more then any character he ever played, IN ROLEPLAY would leave his friends party leave without him and stay in the village to help. So he did not even die, he let his character retire.

My friend was in awe of his fellow roleplayer who’s commitment to perform the best roleplay there is brought him to let his character go.

I think I finally found it. The best way to describ the DM job and the players job.

DM: To create compelling stories told while respecting a fair system where all the possibilities are on the table.

Players: To play their character to it’s full potential, and accept and embrace what happens to it.

Exemple: if it means being forced to die forever like the most popular wizard in the world Rainstlin… so be it!

Sorry phil. I could not resist!

Just to be clear, I’m talking about more than just emotional attachment leading to grief. I’m also talking about intellectual frustration at being thwarted from completing an experiment.

To paraphrase, it’s not just an emotional girl thing. If you meant to imply that it was, shame on you. If not, good for you. I can’t tell.

I would like to site Robins Laws’ Immutable Law:

“Roleplaying games are entertainment; your goal as GM is to make your games as entertaining as possible for all participants.”

and he also said:

“There is only one way to roleplay: the way that achieves the best balance between the various desires of your particular group.”

With this in mind everybody here is right, because their is no right or wrong answer. If people keep coming to your game and laugh around the table. Well by all means keep doing whatever it is you are doing because you are meeting your group needs.

This could varies from cutthroat game mastering to a player empowering fiesta. Whatever it is, it need to cater the need of YOUR group.

@Wicked Murph: You touch another interesting point here. I won’t kill a PC unless they do something stupid. Yet, they haven’t done something stupid in about 7 years so they aren’t afraid to die much…

and I’m okay with that!

I like the basic concepts that you are working with, and as a philosophy for adventure design, they’re great guidelines. But design guidelines don’t really help you with group management, or work if you are designing outside of your group’s preferred style of play.

The job of the DM is larger than just adventure design or impartial mediation of the rules. You are playing this game with a group of people. Many (all, if you’re lucky) of whom are your friends. By being the DM, you are taking on a position of high responsibility relative to the other players, and you have to deliver on that responsibility.

And that, depending on the group and players, can mean that your ideas about how an adventure should be run have to go out the window. I’m not advocating going light on your spouse’s character, for example. Although the one time I did finally get my spouse to play, she failed 4 saves in row and was immobilized for an entire encounter, got bored and refused to play again… Is she “probably not someone I would want to game with anyway”?

Having ideological ideas about how to run an adventure is well and good, but where the rubber meets the road, there has to be give and take, or the car goes off the road. Some people might see that as acceptable, or even desirable… but I’ve lost friends, lost gaming groups, lost great campaigns because I blindly followed the dice or persisted in a “realistic” interpretation of what would happen.

If the powerful, intelligent villain you created gets wind of the characters, sends a company and burns down the inn where they are staying, killing them all a week into the campaign… well, I hope you had fun, cause the players didn’t.

wickedmurphs last blog post..Psychology and "Enchantment"

I’m not saying make the combats harder across the board. I’m saying to get away from the mindset that combat is all you have to offer the players. Create a memorable villian or Big Bad Evil Guy and bend them to the task of world domination or godhood or whatever pops your corn. Once this is in place and working, the challenges will flow naturally.

I think that many DMs fall into the habit of creating linear plots for their players to follow instead of presenting a problem space for their players to operate within. The Dungeon Master’s Design Kit called these linear plot adventures A-B-C quests.

Instead of creating a plot, define a conflict and an environment (a problem space) and work from there. Create a villian with a purpose and then set that villain to acting on it. A village burned here, a sacred temple defiled there, a prominent ruler kidnapped elsewhere and pretty soon the players will set about looking for the cause.

Remember to look at the world through the villian’s eyes. Someone’s been asking questions in town about his activities. These same someones were identified as having raiding one of his outposts and killing a patrol of minions. What will he do? Would he smash them without mercy? Vanish them from the face of the planet? Sick an Invisible Stalker upon them? Maybe he’s more subtle than that. Maybe he captures one of their relatives and turns them to his cause. Maybe he holds that relative hostage. Again, put yourself in the villain’s place and the answers will present themselves to you. Those answers will lead you to the challenges you present to your players.

Once you break out of the linear plot, the challenges will start flowing fast and furious. It may be tough to keep up with your players, but don’t despair, just ask yourself, “What would the villain do?” and then make it happen. You are the universe after all.

Carls last blog post..How not to play Rock Band

Seriously though, I feel in any good story, sometimes characters have to die. If they don’t, no one is ever afraid of dying. ((OK, I should say any good story that is heavy on COMBAT ))

Dieing is hardly a big deal in D&D. Get your corpse dragged to the cleric, or *gasp* roll up a new character!! If a player can’t deal with that, he/she is probably not someone I want to game with anyway.