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Rankar
2011-02-22, 01:22 AM
So... I've been DMing for a few months now and mostly we've been playing fairly easygoing games where fudging the roll of the dice didn't matter too much. That changed last week when we started Expedition to Castle Ravenloft. I told them beforehand that you don't get to fudge rolls and this wouldn't be a cake walk. We've had two session and tonight I killed the Favored Soul in the party. The player took it well and started statting out a new character right there but I'm still a little shocked over it.

Has anyone else felt the "I just killed a PC and I liked it" reaction? I'd also like to hear stories.

Otherworld Odd
2011-02-22, 01:43 AM
Never had to kill my players. They do it themselves. A couple instances include burning down a random shack, falling through the floor and being suffocated and burnt in the basement. Another was in the same game (The guy's second character) got shot in the head with a critical hit from his companion who tried to shoot a zombie in melee with him... But yeah, I don't let them fudge rolls ever. I might fudge mine a little bit but if they roll it, it's solid.

Morbis Meh
2011-02-22, 03:11 AM
I have a nasty habit of rolling crits with greataxes... it leads to insta death. I find it rather amusing at times but the PC's get a little perturbed when it happens. I TPK'd with a single dual greataxe wielding bug bear.

MeeposFire
2011-02-22, 03:16 AM
I have a nasty habit of rolling crits with greataxes... it leads to insta death. I find it rather amusing at times but the PC's get a little perturbed when it happens. I TPK'd with a single dual greataxe wielding bug bear.

Anything with x3 or x4 crit is brutal in low level 3e D&D. Heck a bow is one of the most dangerous weapons in a the game due to that fact.

Funny when my group went through Ravenloft it was fairly easy. Though when you have people like my players that is no surprise. One exception that joker with a death spell who has no chance to actually cast it but somehow does anyway.

Saint GoH
2011-02-22, 03:25 AM
First Blood. Niiiiiice.

Let's seeeee. My first PC kill (I like how we are referring to it as a "kill") was a Warlock. See, during this campaign the PC's would get their quests (mostly harmless and benign in nature) from an NPC Blue Dragon who I told them was a.) Colossal and b.) had PC class levels. The idea of course being that no level 3 party (no matter how freaking good) would challenge a Colossal Dragon (especially because most of his quests involved stabilizing the surrounding country side. Too many bandits and chaotic evil sorts wrecking the stability of things).

The warlock, however, was Chaotic Stupid, and told the Dragon that he (the warlock) was the 'Prince of Darkness, and as such, you should bow to me.' The Dragon's reply? Om nom nom.

So technically it was the PC's fault, yes. But I still made the decision.

DragonSinged
2011-02-22, 03:32 AM
First Blood. Niiiiiice.

Let's seeeee. My first PC kill (I like how we are referring to it as a "kill") was a Warlock. See, during this campaign the PC's would get their quests (mostly harmless and benign in nature) from an NPC Blue Dragon who I told them was a.) Colossal and b.) had PC class levels. The idea of course being that no level 3 party (no matter how freaking good) would challenge a Colossal Dragon (especially because most of his quests involved stabilizing the surrounding country side. Too many bandits and chaotic evil sorts wrecking the stability of things).

The warlock, however, was Chaotic Stupid, and told the Dragon that he (the warlock) was the 'Prince of Darkness, and as such, you should bow to me.' The Dragon's reply? Om nom nom.

So technically it was the PC's fault, yes. But I still made the decision.


I think in that situation, I would have just had the Dragon rip the Warlock's arm off - Consequences for being an idiot, but still gives the character a chance to learn from his mistake. Also allows the Dragon to gloat a bit. :smallbiggrin:

Kerghan
2011-02-22, 04:58 AM
My first kill was actually my first time ever dming a D&D campaign. The group of pcs I ran with didn't take me serious as a Dungeon Master, and they were a group of level 15-17 characters. So I threw an Effigy from the Monster Manual 2 that possessed and eventually killed a particularly annoying Planar Champion in the group. Of course, I later wiped out the whole party. Not sure why, but it did feel nice.

CapnVan
2011-02-22, 05:00 AM
Has anyone else felt the "I just killed a PC and I liked it" reaction? I'd also like to hear stories.

Welcome to the Dark Side.
:belkar:

Anterean
2011-02-22, 05:15 AM
Welcome to the Dark Side.
:belkar:

The actual quote is :
:belkar: "Welcome to the deep end of the alignment pool pal" (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0645.html)

Kerghan
2011-02-22, 05:23 AM
Dark side? Nah, only if it becomes a habit. An occasional pc death strengthens group resolve, forces them to explore new avenues of thought and tactics, and builds character.

Heliomance
2011-02-22, 05:24 AM
Haven't killed anyone yet. I have turned a PC into a wendigo though... He'll probably turn up again at some point.

CapnVan
2011-02-22, 05:32 AM
Dark side? Nah, only if it becomes a habit.

But, but, why would it not? :smallbiggrin:

Now, for someone who truly enjoys a good PC kill, check out this guy (http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/community/gaming/campaignJournals/kILLERGMRETURNSWithCampaignClassicsCharacterCarnag e).

Kerghan
2011-02-22, 07:56 AM
In the long run, killing players all the time just makes you a jerk, and if keep killing your group, no one will want to play in your campaigns. Of course, you could quench your player killing urges by running a lot of Call of Cthulhu campaigns. There's a d20 version. Just blame the pcs deaths or inevitable insanity on the inherit hostility the system has toward players. Besides, the builds character comment was meant to be a pun, a bit of a groaner though.

The Big Dice
2011-02-22, 08:08 AM
In the long run, killing players all the time just makes you a jerk, and if keep killing your group, no one will want to play in your campaigns.
This is true. But the odd character death gives a GM a reputation as being tough but fair, and adds a certain frisson to adventures. If payers think any combat could be the one where their number is up, quite often they enjoy things more than if they think no combats are going to be the one where their number comes up.

Kerghan
2011-02-22, 08:24 AM
A reputation's a fine thing to have, and a good character death can illustrate to players that the dungeon master is serious. But, these sorts of games are meant for entertainment purposes, and if a dm kills characters left and right, well then you might as well play Magic the Gathering. Like everything else, its balancing being creative, and fun but not being someone players can walk all over.

AshDesert
2011-02-22, 08:29 AM
My first kill was during my first 3.5 campaign. We had been playing at it a couple of months, and the Barbarian, who came from a DM who had a body count of at least one PC a session, figured that I wouldn't let them die because no one had yet. In actuality I like to make my encounters tactical rather than just standing there full attacking and they had been playing smartly without me needing to give them incentive.

So, one day, they come upon another adventuring party that are obviously much richer and probably more powerful than them. They find out they're both heading to the same tomb (yes, this was a tomb-raiding campaign) and start arguing about who has dibs, apparently each group having been given a charter by two different companies who both claimed the tomb. Barbarian rages and attacks the leader (who is dressed in glowing full plate and has an obviously-flaming greatsword when the group is about 4th level) figuring that I would intervene before letting him die. He lasted all of about 2 rounds :smallbiggrin:

hewhosaysfish
2011-02-22, 08:30 AM
I think in that situation, I would have just had the Dragon rip the Warlock's arm off - Consequences for being an idiot, but still gives the character a chance to learn from his mistake. Also allows the Dragon to gloat a bit. :smallbiggrin:

Maybe I'm too nice but I would have just had the dragon laugh, pet the warlock on the head and then carry on as if nothing had been said.

Last Laugh
2011-02-22, 08:40 AM
I think in that situation, I would have just had the Dragon rip the Warlock's arm off - Consequences for being an idiot, but still gives the character a chance to learn from his mistake. Also allows the Dragon to gloat a bit. :smallbiggrin:

Dragons ripping limbs off.... (side note, I almost spelled ripping with a w, wripping. :smalleek:)

I had a player, he's one of my best friends, who was playing a sneak thief during a dungeon crawl. Partway through he decides to break away from the group and explore on his own. (imagine me saying "Are you SURE you want to do that?" the entire time you are reading this.) He stumbles around for a little bit, he triggers a trap or two, narrowly avoids dying in a single fight, and finally decides to storm the Black Dragon boss of the dungeon. He is alone, and at least a little bit beat up.

Rogue enters boss room, hits tripwire, portcullis falls, takes acid breath to the face (no evasion in narrow corridors) and finally gets an arm sliced off by dragon tail.

I seem to recall letting his character live, but for the life of me I can't remember how I explained it.

Kerghan
2011-02-22, 08:41 AM
First Blood. Niiiiiice.

Let's seeeee. My first PC kill (I like how we are referring to it as a "kill") was a Warlock. See, during this campaign the PC's would get their quests (mostly harmless and benign in nature) from an NPC Blue Dragon who I told them was a.) Colossal and b.) had PC class levels. The idea of course being that no level 3 party (no matter how freaking good) would challenge a Colossal Dragon (especially because most of his quests involved stabilizing the surrounding country side. Too many bandits and chaotic evil sorts wrecking the stability of things).

The warlock, however, was Chaotic Stupid, and told the Dragon that he (the warlock) was the 'Prince of Darkness, and as such, you should bow to me.' The Dragon's reply? Om nom nom.

So technically it was the PC's fault, yes. But I still made the decision.

Generally speaking, every time a player gets too big for their britches, they need to be taken down a peg. Occasionally, if a dm is just trying being an a--hole, then they too need to be taken down a peg. I once had a dm that puffed up because he was running a campaign, and supposedly "god." He strutted around bragging about how tough his campaign and encounters were going to be, and how he was going to institute all these ridiculous house rules. Eventually, another player and I threatened to buy lots of chalk and desecrate his precious dungeon with vulgar obscenities, and wise cracks about the dm. In hindsight, that campaign never got off the ground.

Traveler
2011-02-22, 08:43 AM
The first time I killed a PC...
That would have been the boss fight at the end of my mods a year or two ago. I found out the mod as writtian was mostly a push over for the PCs, mostly due to the wizard being OP and found some really good magic. I did make adjustment throught the mod to challenge them more, but I really uped the boss fight at the end. One 8th level cleric and 4 bluespawn godslayers against 6 7-8th level PCs. Took out the cleric, the paladin, the same paladin again, and the ranger. It was really the first time I was able to shake up this group in a long time.

tcrudisi
2011-02-22, 08:48 AM
Has anyone else felt the "I just killed a PC and I liked it" reaction? I'd also like to hear stories.

"I killed a PC" by Rankar:

This was never the way I planned
Not my intention
I got so brave, dice in hand
Lost my discretion
It's not what, I'm used to
Just wanna try to crit you
I'm curious to crit you
Caught my attention

I killed a PC and I liked it
The taste of sweet DM victory
I killed a PC just to try it
I hope my players don't mind it
It felt so wrong
It felt so right
Don't mean I'm bloodthirsty tonight
I killed a PC and I liked it
I liked it

No, I don't even know the characters name
It doesn't matter
You're my player in my game
Just character nature
It's not what,
Good DMs do
Not how they should behave
My dice gets so confused
Hard to obey

I killed a PC and I liked it
The taste of sweet DM victory
I killed a PC just to try it
I hope my players don't mind it
It felt so wrong
It felt so right
Don't mean I'm bloodthirsty tonight
I killed a PC and I liked it
I liked it

Zanatos777
2011-02-22, 09:02 AM
I've gained the reputation of a Killer DM who is not out to kill you. It simply happens when you are stupid.

My first kill was with a ceptic ooze. The party barbarian got himself engulfed (actually the whole party did) and died. The rest of the party, well one sold his soul to a deity (who decided to save one of his friends as well) and then the druid eventually escaped the ooze and ran out into the streets stark naked just in time for the ooze's special ability to activate and cause him to go crazy. The guards put him down after that.

Not a very good first kill in my opinion but I have nailed home the lethality of some games with early kills, for instance killing the party cleric in the second session via flaming troll, the barbarian a couple later by hill giant, the crusader with five level 1 warriors. I enjoyed these. I've personally found that I dislike killing PCs who have fleshed out stories and more to tell. Otherwise...well I enjoy it even if I don't aim for it.

Edit: Because I just read the post directly above me the barbarian who was devoured by the ceptic ooze was named Cet and he was a blacksmith.

fortesama
2011-02-22, 09:34 AM
I was a co-DM at one point and gave side quests irrelevant to the main plot.

I ran a relatively simple bandit encounter with one sorcerer on the bandit side. I built it's spell list with my style of casting too. Basically, starts out okay, though they ignored the sorcerer that only used haste and not nuking. It was after the warlock was hit by a hold person followed by a coup de grace, and a failed glitterdust attempt that they took the sorc seriously. Warlock and bard, a third of the party, got downed and the soulknife and monk was badly hurt before the party finally wiped them out, albeit with difficulty since they had to contend with hasted targets.

I did warn them that I play enemy casters my style (lockdown, buffs and disables but hardly any damage spells).

The warlock and bard got better though (ala main DM's free rezz since i "left quite a mess"), although sudden spike in the use of chilling tentacles, hideous laughter and the like is hardly a coincidence.

Knaight
2011-02-22, 11:12 AM
Killing PCs ocassionally is usually a good idea. That said, if your players are anything like mine you can count on friendly fire to do that for you.

RndmNumGen
2011-02-22, 11:14 AM
The second night of the first campaign I was DMing, the party was traveling along a worn road when a human and two orcs stepped out of the bushes and yelled "Halt! We have you surrounded!". They were highwaymen, and wanted a toll. Our Ranger started negotiating, but the sorcerer decided that Magic Missile was an appropriate course of action, it seemed like Scorching Ray was an appropriate response.

I rolled 6, 5, 4, 5. The sorcerer had 10hp. I one-shotted him, bringing him exactly to -10. In retrospect, giving an enemy caster a wand with a level 2 spell when the party has just hit level 2 themselves and was going back to town probably wasn't the best idea.... he took it well though, the barbarian and ranger wiped up everyone else, and the guy made a rogue.

Choco
2011-02-22, 12:02 PM
I still remember my first kill, also my first TPK, it was quite... hilarious.

I can't remember the name of what the party were fighting, but it was those cat things that can pull the skin off of their faces to cause people to run away in fear (I call them kittens...), and the party was lvl 2. After some embarrassing will save failures at the start of the fight, half the party was overcome with fear and fled. Here I decided to take it easy on them, and had the kittens split up to take care of the different groups, as opposed to TPK'ing the party early by having them all gank one group and then the next.

Luck was not on the PC's side, because the only people who could actually dish out good damage and/or crowd control were in the group that stayed, and all the defensive and healer types were in the group that ran. The attacker group was able to (barely) take care of their kittens and ran as fast as they could to help the others. They basically got there right in time to flank and kill one of the 2 remaining kittens before the last of the defensive group and one of the 2 attackers was KO'd by the last kitten in the next 2 rounds.

So there they are, one PC left conscious at 3 HP, surrounded by his dying party who are quickly bleeding out. Luckily for him, he had more than enough ranks in Heal to stabilize all of them in time should he take the kitten out within 2 turns or so. The kitten had 9HP left, so a 2-round kill was more than doable for someone with a 1d6 weapon and a +3 STR modifier. Here is where I made the mistake of telling the player exactly how much HP the kitten had...

It's all the PC now, it's his turn to be the hero. He rolls a 20. He confirms with a 19. The look of triumph on his face and the hope on the faces of the other players was made all the sweeter given how hopeless they looked just a few seconds before. He knows he will do a minimum of 8 damage, so anything but 2 1's and he's got this in the bag. He rolls.... and gets the snake-eyes. Kitty is still alive with 1 HP, it is his turn, and he is NOT a happy kitty (this is the part where if I hadn't told the player how much HP the kitten had, I would have just fiated that he won). The look of horror on the PC's faces when they realized their situation was made all the sweeter given how hopeful they looked just a few seconds before.

I remind them that they still have a small chance, just gotta survive this round and kill the 1 HP kitten next turn, and they still win and they all walk away. They request I do the roll in the open, so I oblige. Kitten attacks... and gets a 20. He confirms with a 19. The players all slump in their seats, depressed. The last standing PC is ripped to shreds, and the last kitten eats well that night, going home to brag to his pack how he single-handedly took out 3 adventurers after they downed the rest of his hunting party.

Everyone gets a good laugh at the irony of the situation and we call that the end of the campaign, and leave D&D for a while in favor of a post-apocalyptic campaign. To this day I still laugh about that, and still tease my old friends about how they got slaughtered by a pack of kittens.

RndmNumGen
2011-02-22, 12:48 PM
Och, yeah that was a close call. As a rule, I never tell my players exactly what a monsters hp/AC/whatever is,instead just opting for "It seems heavily wounded" "it has a high evasion", etc.

Choco
2011-02-22, 12:52 PM
Yeah, I know better now, that was years ago when I was just starting as a DM...

Beelzebub1111
2011-02-22, 01:09 PM
My fist player kill was a TPK as well. they were level ten. A Samurai, A Swashbuckler, A Cleric, and a Sorcerer. they were clearing out the winw cellar of an impprtant NPC that they needed a MacGuffin from.

The Cellar was crawling with plant creatures. Assassin vines, Tendrulocos, Shambling Mounds. They followed a tunnel bored through the wall and, after trudging through waist deep water, find an Octopuss Tree. They charge. Four rounds later everyone is dead.

kyoryu
2011-02-22, 01:15 PM
In the long run, killing players all the time just makes you a jerk, and if keep killing your group, no one will want to play in your campaigns. Of course, you could quench your player killing urges by running a lot of Call of Cthulhu campaigns. There's a d20 version. Just blame the pcs deaths or inevitable insanity on the inherit hostility the system has toward players. Besides, the builds character comment was meant to be a pun, a bit of a groaner though.

The key is that players have to have decisions. If a character death occurs because the players made a series of dumb decisions (see: warlock/dragon above), then hey, it's a learning experience.

If the players decide, against all evidence that it's a bad idea, to enter the Cave of Scary Death at level 1, even though they hear rumors of the last Great Champion of the Kingdom getting munched in there, and they see really nasty scary things, and when they get into a fight they *refuse* to flee, then it's on their head.

Where PC death sucks is where the players are railroaded into scenarios without any real choice, or where the consequences of their actions are not logical. (You went into the inn? THere's a dragon there! You lose!).

The players always need to have a choice, even if that choice is just the ability to flee.

I also like designing scenarios such that the win/lose condition for a combat isn't one side or the other getting wiped out, but rather some other condition. This means the PCs always have an option - give up on the victory condition to save their lives. That doesn't always work, of course.

The J Pizzel
2011-02-22, 01:55 PM
I can't remember my first kill as a DM for DnD, since it was an extremely long time ago.

I can however remember my first kill as a GM for a Star Wars SAGA game. I'm running Dawn of Defiance (a huge adventure path) and the party is level 4 or 5. They're trying to hunt down a lackey that works for a Hutt Crimelord. After digging around they find out he likes gentlemans clubs. And, he likes to bring some of them back to his den.

So one lady tells him where he's held up and they ransack the place.

Before I go on let me tell you about my Jedi in the group. He's an extremely high wisdom, high charisma force user. His lightsaber abilities are practically nil, but he has a metric crap ton of force powers. He built his character on the idea that he'll use force powers often, then empower them by burning force points, which makes them uber powerful. In SW:SAGA, Force Points are used to empower force powers, enhance any d20 roll, and most importantly, stay alive if you're dropped below 0. He took a talent that allows him to gain back any force points spent during the encounter on telekinetic powers. Also, you get all your points back when you level, and they're pretty sure they're leveling after this fight. So, needless to say he burns through them like crazy this fight.

So after a long and tedious fight in the middle of the street with several lackies, two little pathetic droids, and one huge pissed off construction droid (think IRobot), they're all pretty banged up. He's got only 14 HP left and he's spent all his force points. The kill that last lakey, he walks through the door into the warehouse and a weird little spider droid drops on him. He's been set to drop and attack the first one in the door. He only does 1d6 damage, but if he's attacking from above, he does triple damage. I rolled a natural 20. He rolled a new character.

RndmNumGen
2011-02-22, 02:13 PM
Where PC death sucks is where the players are railroaded into scenarios without any real choice, or where the consequences of their actions are not logical. (You went into the inn? THere's a dragon there! You lose!).


...

You know, I want to do that now, just for the sheer absurdity of it.

Kerghan
2011-02-22, 02:20 PM
The key is that players have to have decisions. If a character death occurs because the players made a series of dumb decisions (see: warlock/dragon above), then hey, it's a learning experience.

If the players decide, against all evidence that it's a bad idea, to enter the Cave of Scary Death at level 1, even though they hear rumors of the last Great Champion of the Kingdom getting munched in there, and they see really nasty scary things, and when they get into a fight they *refuse* to flee, then it's on their head.

Where PC death sucks is where the players are railroaded into scenarios without any real choice, or where the consequences of their actions are not logical. (You went into the inn? THere's a dragon there! You lose!).

The players always need to have a choice, even if that choice is just the ability to flee.

I also like designing scenarios such that the win/lose condition for a combat isn't one side or the other getting wiped out, but rather some other condition. This means the PCs always have an option - give up on the victory condition to save their lives. That doesn't always work, of course.

The choice aspect is kind of a given, otherwise it becomes another cookie cutter campaign experience that you could get from a video game. But dm planning doesn't always account for player decisions, even if there a clever one. The dm might not have worked out a scenario quite the way the pcs do, and thus the dm has to make up the rest, and this leaves potential for accidental deaths if an encounter or adventure isn't properly balanced. Mostly the issue I was referring to were dms with a God complex (illustrated by the Dead Ale Wives Watchtower skit) that always want the pcs to do things their way. Control freaks that have to control every aspect of the campaign, issuing pointless or ridiculous restrictions in order to fit the player characters into a prefab mold.

To quote the Slayer's Guide to Game Masters:

It may help to imagine GMs as dogs, with Control Freaks as Dobermans, Storytellers as puppies, and Accidental GMs as hamsters. What you have to ask yourself is this:

Which one would I like to kick most?

tcrudisi
2011-02-22, 02:33 PM
...

You know, I want to do that now, just for the sheer absurdity of it.

My group of friends really enjoyed Baldur's Gate way back in the day. One of them decided to have some fun and edited the game so that, at the very beginning, when you open the door to leave the room and go into the Inn, there was a giant red dragon there.

Another of my friends spent a solid hour working on a new character, making it look just right, and basically making it his new baby. Then, he starts playing, opens the door, and see's a giant red dragon. He immediately closes the door and goes, "Doh!" After a few seconds, he's not dead, so he cautiously opens the door to receive a facial of fiery breath.

We still laugh about it. Good times.

Loki Eremes
2011-02-22, 04:16 PM
I really...dont like killing PCs, unless is a one shot or extremly short campaing.
People have tendencies to get in love with his PC if they prepared a long backround story and they really get into it sometimes.
If you add the effort of thinking several ways to make them do as you wish without them noticing, is rather a pain in the ass when they die, and by doing this, ruin lots of your plans for them.

SPECIALLY when the get killed by their own actions.

i dont know, there is no thrill for me as a DM in killing any PC. Putting them on the line is fine, but killing them just for fun...meh.

Tengu_temp
2011-02-22, 04:35 PM
I've yet to experience a fun random PC death. All the ones that were satisfying were planned beforehand by the PC and DM because the player decided to drop the character or leave the group. The unexpected deaths were just frustrating and unfun, as well as being distant memories of the time when I played less story-focused games. These days, my PCs are pretty much guaranteed to never die, unless they do something monumentally stupid (which has yet to happen) or they choose for their characters to die. Nobody complained so far.

Drascin
2011-02-22, 04:40 PM
...

You know, I want to do that now, just for the sheer absurdity of it.

Well, we have had a dragon inside an inn in our campaign. He's the innkeeper. Nobody tries to burn down THAT inn, let me tell you :smalltongue:.

Rankar
2011-02-22, 04:48 PM
"I killed a PC" by Rankar:

I killed a PC and I liked it
The taste of sweet DM victory
I killed a PC just to try it
I hope my players don't mind it
It felt so wrong
It felt so right
Don't mean I'm bloodthirsty tonight
I killed a PC and I liked it
I liked it

You have taken a song I could never admit to liking out of principle and made it far better. Katey Perry is on my list of music I feel dirty for liking to listen to.

After reading the posts throughout, thank you for the stories. And thanks for the invitation to the dark side aka deep end of the alignment pool. Does membership come with cookies?


People have tendencies to get in love with his PC if they prepared a long backround story and they really get into it sometimes.

The Favored Soul whose demise started this thread had a fairly elaborate backstory connected with the Warlock in the party. It was the roll of dice that did it. I'd have provided something to resurrect him but the parties reactions to the death felt genuine and restoring his life without them working for it would have cheapened it. They do plan on finding a way to restore his life if at all possible.

Ason
2011-02-22, 05:42 PM
Well, my first session DMing led my first kill and ten seconds later my first TPK. Why? I thought it'd be fun to run the Tomb of Horrors as a one-shot. :smallbiggrin:

Five internet points if you can guess what did it.
Answer:Sphere of Annihilation in the devil's mouth

Nero24200
2011-02-22, 05:48 PM
I've killed a few PC's in my time, whenever a monster gets a lucky roll or two.

Though the last time one died in my capaign it also resulted in near TKP. When the party is in single digit hit points the last thing you need to do is confuse the raging barbarian.

Protecar
2011-02-22, 06:02 PM
My first kill happened in the 2nd to last D&D session I Dm'd. A demonic rift had opened in a city seeking some evil god's weapon that had be cast asunder by some deities' squabbling. My party was doing a good job fending off the varying lesser demons but was having a chore taking down an upper level demon that was flying around. The demon and the party's wizard were flying about the city streets, exchanging blows. The demon was dropping a lot of slas and one of them expanded outside thirty feet of him.

The wizard, genius that he was, decided to move within 30ft(I think it was an area silence of some kind).

On my next turn:
"So, wizard moved into melee range of the giant demon?"
Player:
"...uh..."
Me: "Demon floats over and full attacks"
Player: "uh oh"

Character was dead before he hit the ground, and nobody heard him fall due to the area silence. It was pretty fun actually because that player wasn't really paying much attention to what was going on in this session.

randomhero00
2011-02-22, 06:16 PM
(probably swordsage'd but..)
I've had a couple players into BDSM but never wanted to kill one.

But on topic, no, I feel bad or nothing (if it was real dumb) when they die.

kyoryu
2011-02-22, 06:35 PM
The dm might not have worked out a scenario quite the way the pcs do, and thus the dm has to make up the rest, and this leaves potential for accidental deaths if an encounter or adventure isn't properly balanced.

What does "properly balanced" mean? I find this term kind of offensive. An encounter that can potentially wipe the players? Okay, sure - so what are their options? Can they run away? Can they try another path?

If you throw an encounter at your players that they have no choice but to either defeat or die, then you've railroaded them, and a PC death is on your head. That's why you always give them a choice. Engage, or don't engage. Allow the villain to retreat, or pursue the villain. Defend the wall to the last man, or let the bad guys take the wall and survive to continue the defense further in the town.

Planning can *never* account for all player decisions. It can't. If you try, you're going to end up railroading. A good DM has to make stuff up on the spot - but again, always give the players a way out.

faceroll
2011-02-22, 07:07 PM
"I killed a PC" by Rankar:

This was never the way I planned
Not my intention
I got so brave, dice in hand
Lost my discretion
It's not what, I'm used to
Just wanna try to crit you
I'm curious to crit you
Caught my attention

I killed a PC and I liked it
The taste of sweet DM victory
I killed a PC just to try it
I hope my players don't mind it
It felt so wrong
It felt so right
Don't mean I'm bloodthirsty tonight
I killed a PC and I liked it
I liked it

No, I don't even know the characters name
It doesn't matter
You're my player in my game
Just character nature
It's not what,
Good DMs do
Not how they should behave
My dice gets so confused
Hard to obey

I killed a PC and I liked it
The taste of sweet DM victory
I killed a PC just to try it
I hope my players don't mind it
It felt so wrong
It felt so right
Don't mean I'm bloodthirsty tonight
I killed a PC and I liked it
I liked it

/ applause

true_shinken
2011-02-22, 08:39 PM
Has anyone else felt the "I just killed a PC and I liked it" reaction? I'd also like to hear stories.
Getting your Katy Perry reference fills me with shame.

big teej
2011-02-22, 09:51 PM
wierd.... I've been kicking around the idea of making a thread EXACTLY like this since sunday....

when I wiped out 1/3rd of the party....

with a bugbear and 4 orcs
.... with class levels
and species and alignment bane weapons....

and sneak attack

oops.

Lawless III
2011-02-22, 10:01 PM
I had my first player kill as a dm less than a week ago. There were Mindflayers, the wujen went off by himself. This was such a bad idea, I almost didn't feel guilty. Almost.:smallfrown:

In all seriousness though, these things happen. If there were no death, life would have less meaning.

Goober4473
2011-02-22, 10:42 PM
I prefer to take the Joss Whedon approach to character death. It'll happen sometimes, but only if it makes the story better.

Random deaths from monster crits for instance will only kill a PC if that shock will make the game better, and losing that character won't bring the story to a crashing halt. For instance, half way through finishing some important thing from a PC's backstory, that PC dying is pretty lame. But just as it's resolving could work. Deaths in the final battle are common.

On the other hand, if a character is boring and has no backstory and is going nowhere in the plot, I may just kill it for fun.

sambo.
2011-02-23, 12:29 AM
So... I've been DMing for a few months now....

what took you so long?


Has anyone else felt the "I just killed a PC and I liked it" reaction? I'd also like to hear stories.

yup.

i suggest you run a game of Paranoia if you enjoy killing off PCs.....

Dralnu
2011-02-23, 02:03 AM
My first kill was when I ran the first battle of RHoD, the hobgoblin ambush. The party is ambushed in the open road by a dozen archers dotting the treeline. Most of them smartly decide to duck into the undergrowth to avoid the arrows.. but not the barbarian. No, the barbarian, after seeing the rest of of his party move to the forest, CHARGES FORWARD to fight the rest of the hobgoblins advancing forward on the road.

All the archers start firing at their easy target. It takes a couple rounds but eventually the barbarian bites the dust.

All my player kills have been due to utterly insane stupidity on their part, but I still feel bad when I do it.

Rankar
2011-02-23, 02:23 AM
what took you so long?

The previous game sessions have been goofing around with teaching two people the game, me learning to DM, and everyone can only get together once every other week typically, and can't even set that typically.

Loki Eremes
2011-02-23, 05:46 AM
The Favored Soul whose demise started this thread had a fairly elaborate backstory connected with the Warlock in the party. It was the roll of dice that did it. I'd have provided something to resurrect him but the parties reactions to the death felt genuine and restoring his life without them working for it would have cheapened it. They do plan on finding a way to restore his life if at all possible.

Meh, what i was sayin' is that as i dont like killing them just for fun, i try not to guide them to a very probable demise.

There are times when death is almost visible, and well, those are the times when PCs have to recognize themselves.

And there is times when nothing could be done. That times when your players say "hey, dont cheat on us, throw the dice so everybody can see hehe". You throw it and 2 consecutive 20s appears. [that was my first kill :smallbiggrin:]

I was just differentiating between the intentional kill (i had that kind of DMs from time to time) and the ocassional one.

Edhelras
2011-02-23, 07:05 AM
It's a question of weighing different goals, what kind of game play you like to foster, what the players think is fun.
At least personally, I don't like having my own PC killed - my link to the PC is what makes the game intensive and fun, so his death is equally frustrating. Unless revivification is available but not too easily achieved, it can be very frustrating. Even though I can restart with a new character, I always feel a bit detached if I have to start with a character from a high lvl, I prefer to follow the same character from the very start at lvl 1.

If PC death can never occur, the game gets boring. But if PC death is a too common threat, it can foster over-cautious and un-inventive game play. For instance, a Rogue got the Wizard to cast Gaseous form in order to enter the enemy compound through a locked door. She decided to fix the whole thing herself, by knocking the Guard unconscious with her sap once the Gaseous form expired; that would have made the rest of the encounter a walk-over. But she rolled unluckily, and the whole thing turned into lots-of-lowlies crowding her. I thought her plan was daring and great, so I found I had to help her a bit in order to allow her to at least survive the foiled attempt. Had she died there, it would have discouraged the player from using his character's abilities (the sneak attack and scouting), and instead in the future use safer, more predictable and not-so-fun strategies.

Kaww
2011-02-23, 07:11 AM
I prefer to take the Joss Whedon approach to character death. It'll happen sometimes, but only if it makes the story better.

Random deaths from monster crits for instance will only kill a PC if that shock will make the game better, and losing that character won't bring the story to a crashing halt. For instance, half way through finishing some important thing from a PC's backstory, that PC dying is pretty lame. But just as it's resolving could work. Deaths in the final battle are common.

On the other hand, if a character is boring and has no backstory and is going nowhere in the plot, I may just kill it for fun.

I use DM points. For 1 point you are not dead, due to dmg, you are at -9hp and stable. I have no problem killing PCs, when it suites me.

readsaboutd&d
2011-02-23, 07:49 AM
I use DM points. For 1 point you are not dead, due to dmg, you are at -9hp and stable. I have no problem killing PCs, when it suites me.
There was a similar system i warhammer fantasy roleplay where players started with 3 fate points which were expended to avoid death and could be regained occasionally. It is kinda required as it is pretty easy to die in wrfp.

potatocubed
2011-02-23, 08:14 AM
My preference for deadly situations is to set them up like a mousetrap: if the players can stand to lose the cheese, they're in a lot less danger. If they can think of a clever way around the danger, good for them! If they dive into a puddle of super-cooled liquid on the paraelemental plane of ice in pursuit of a sinking suit of "awesome magic armour"... well, I wash my hands.

Aside: The PC survived, recovered the armour, then discovered that it melted at room temperature on account of being made of magic ice. >:3

Some of my favourite kills include the paladin who crashed an airship and fell to her death, the half-orc who ate a flesh-eating beetle (after taking it from a room of flesh-eating beetles, which he had just seen eat the flesh off someone else), Randy the Rogue in the Hat (who jumped into the middle of a gibbering mouther, instead of over it), and the drow monk who feigned death so well she was thrown through a waste-disposal portal to the Abyss.

Although that said, in more character-centric games like Exalted or Vampire or even some games of D&D, I prefer instead to destroy everything the character has ever loved and leave them maimed and helpless. All the fun of harming the PCs, but without disconnecting the characters from their players! I still have fond memories of the Eberron game in which the party became stranded in the middle of the Talenta plains with no clothes, half a suit of armour, two swords, and a grand haul of lady's jewellery. Although admittedly, that was more their fault than mine...

Hazzardevil
2011-02-23, 08:49 AM
wierd.... I've been kicking around the idea of making a thread EXACTLY like this since sunday....

when I wiped out 1/3rd of the party....

with a bugbear and 4 orcs
.... with class levels
and species and alignment bane weapons....

and sneak attack

oops.

Technically I've been Dming for 3 months now, despite I'm only on page 2 of my IC thread, i haven't even had teh chance to kill a PC yet without just throwing a dragon at them or something.

I'm afraid to actually kill a PC since there is 2 of them, theres my charecter as well and I'm not sure what to do presuming I kill one of then.

CapnVan
2011-02-23, 09:11 AM
For instance, a Rogue got the Wizard to cast Gaseous form in order to enter the enemy compound through a locked door. She decided to fix the whole thing herself, by knocking the Guard unconscious with her sap once the Gaseous form expired; that would have made the rest of the encounter a walk-over. But she rolled unluckily, and the whole thing turned into lots-of-lowlies crowding her. I thought her plan was daring and great, so I found I had to help her a bit in order to allow her to at least survive the foiled attempt. Had she died there, it would have discouraged the player from using his character's abilities (the sneak attack and scouting), and instead in the future use safer, more predictable and not-so-fun strategies.

Interesting — I find her actions foolhardy and tactically unsound. When you put yourself in a situation in which rolling poorly puts you in danger of immediate vivisection, I think you ought to be prepared to suffer the consequences.

There's a reason rogues are often portrayed as craven — discretion is the better part of valor.

Aidan305
2011-02-23, 09:30 AM
My first "kill" as such was a Flesh to Ice trap. If the PCs spent more than three minutes in the room (which they had detected as being full of strong transmutation magic) they would be turned to ice.

He got better though.

The second campaign I ran had a player who ended up getting himself killed due to acts of sheer stupidity every four sessions or so (This includes the time that we told him doing something was a very bad idea, giving him a full video presentation of precisely why, and then he proceeded to do it).

jpreem
2011-02-23, 11:50 AM
I read the thread title as - "First ... kill the DM". And thought hmm thats an interesting strategy.
My first kill AS a DM was a cleric who died to a contact poison trap ( some loot was smeared with strong con poison, it had a really low dc ( guy could only fail it at 1 or 2 - he rolled 1 for first and 2 for second save)
The thing is he had a full plate on which includes gauntlets - but hmm i mean if you don't suspect anything then sooner or later you are going to take off those now smeard gauntlets and poison yourself or someone else.
(I think wearing gloves to avoid contact poison should work only when you do it conciously and cleanse/discard them carefully after handling suspicios stuff)

VeisuItaTyhjyys
2011-02-23, 11:57 AM
I think my first kill was a matter of convenience. The barbarian's player was about to take a vacation for ten days or two weeks, while the other players were similarly free, but staying in town, and thus wanted to play. Cut to a dead barbarian and a sidequest to revive him. I don't think anybody was too worried about it, but I think the amount of effort that went into bringing him back didn't make the death seem too cheap, either.

My first non-plot/"accidental" kill was a random goblin on a mountain road somewhere. The party's sorcerer, an elf who insisted on competing with the drow wizard at every opportunity, also happened to have the best initiative. Accordingly, on the surprise round, he launched into a barrage of spells and wiped out most of the goblins before anybody else got a chance to act. Of the five or six remaining, a couple more died over the rest of that round, and when he came up again the next round, he rolled either an intimidatemcheck to crush whatever was left of their morale and more just brag about what a general badass he was. Generally, I give pretty big circumstance modifiers both for circumstance and for the content the player RPs. While it was the right time, on top of rolling a one, he said all the wrong things, including something about them being "nameless talleymarks" on a scoreboard between himself and the wizard. One of the goblins, who was more angered than intimidated, snarled "They had names," and began listing his companions names turn-by-turn.
Nobody managed to kill him, or even touch him, before it was his turn, at which point the goblin bull-rushed the sorcerer. . . right over the edge of the road, and thus the mountain, still howling their names over-and-over until there was a gross sound and the yelling stopped. The whole party, OOC and (except for the wizard) IC, was shocked. I didn't really expect it to happen, either; I understood it was a possibility, but I figured on it being a far more remote one than it turned out to be. A few high damage rolls and low HP can really take their toll, even a few levels in, I guess.
I liked having the death in a random, largely meaningless encounter; I think that sorta added to the impact, more than a big, final battle would have. It really drove the message home that things just happen sometimes, and that as an adventurer, you can just get unlucky and die somewhere doing something routine, especially if you get too cocky. The sorcerer's player wasn't too upset, since, as he put it, "We all have to learn not to talk smack with our back to a cliff, someday."

The best part was after the sorcerer died, when the party looked at the wizard accusingly, and asked why he hadn't cast the Feather Fall he prepared. The wizard, with that smarmy drow charm, looked at them like they were all idiots and said he had. He had sent me a text saying to cast it on the goblin, so the party had no idea. He gave them a spyglass to pass around to prove that he had; the party, each in turn, got to look at the perfectly-healthy goblin making his way along the mountain away from the mangled sorcerer. The wizard then shrugged and said, "I guess he wins, this time; doesn't look like I have any talley marks down there," as the goblin got away and the party just gaped at his grin. Right up until that moment, he was a prissy and self-centered CGish drow wizard who was somewhere between a charming ends-justify-the-means anti-hero and Drizztillation into the stereotype of all non-evil drow, but from then on, he was firmly established as a CN powerhouse of magnificent bastardhood.

Slipperychicken
2011-02-23, 12:54 PM
[Goblin Revenge Story]


That's just... Epic. I'm assuming you read Goblins at some point or other?

VeisuItaTyhjyys
2011-02-23, 01:21 PM
I actually didn't hear about it until after that, but I was excited to know somebody else felt bad for the poor little "cannon fodder" monsters. I was always proud of that one goblin (ironically, one the two in the group who never got a name, since he listed the others' names) for taking out a PC, totally unscathed, without even needing class levels. Just one good roll and a big mountain. Well, I guess he wouldn't have been unscathed had that drow not wanted to utterly humiliate the sorcerer as he died.

Kerghan
2011-02-23, 03:33 PM
What does "properly balanced" mean? I find this term kind of offensive. An encounter that can potentially wipe the players? Okay, sure - so what are their options? Can they run away? Can they try another path?

If you throw an encounter at your players that they have no choice but to either defeat or die, then you've railroaded them, and a PC death is on your head. That's why you always give them a choice. Engage, or don't engage. Allow the villain to retreat, or pursue the villain. Defend the wall to the last man, or let the bad guys take the wall and survive to continue the defense further in the town.

Planning can *never* account for all player decisions. It can't. If you try, you're going to end up railroading. A good DM has to make stuff up on the spot - but again, always give the players a way out.

Properly balanced usually refers to a Challenge rating that matches a group of four with the same number as their level, but if you play with a group of powergamed characters (or you have more than 4 players) then balancing encounters can be difficult. Not all monsters are created equal as a lucky roll can make a mind flayer extremely dangerous, and an Advanced hit dice Great Wyrm dragon less dangerous. The best solution to this problem is to test out the characters with regular combat or basically do some sort of roleplaying intrigue like diplomatically resolving a war or whatever else floats your boat. When you have a comfortable feel for your players' strengths and weaknesses, you should be able to plan accordingly. To sum up, practice makes perfect, or in case, more appropriate encounters. Properly balanced insulting? Are your encounters not properly balanced? Do you kill a player a session, or did you assume I was taking an intentional shot at you? Now I think I'm insulted.

VeisuItaTyhjyys
2011-02-23, 04:31 PM
Yeah, if I 'm running something I'm unfamiliar with in a campaign, I'll definitely have an NPC ally who goes from buffoon to badass at the drop of a hat around for the first couple fights to be sure I don't kill anybody/everybody just because I figured something would be more powerful than it actually was in practice, as played by that player.

faceroll
2011-02-24, 03:13 AM
Getting your Katy Perry reference fills me with shame.

Katy Perry is pretty good pop.

kyoryu
2011-02-24, 04:28 AM
Properly balanced usually refers to a Challenge rating that matches a group of four with the same number as their level, but if you play with a group of powergamed characters (or you have more than 4 players) then balancing encounters can be difficult. Not all monsters are created equal as a lucky roll can make a mind flayer extremely dangerous, and an Advanced hit dice Great Wyrm dragon less dangerous. The best solution to this problem is to test out the characters with regular combat or basically do some sort of roleplaying intrigue like diplomatically resolving a war or whatever else floats your boat. When you have a comfortable feel for your players' strengths and weaknesses, you should be able to plan accordingly. To sum up, practice makes perfect, or in case, more appropriate encounters. Properly balanced insulting? Are your encounters not properly balanced? Do you kill a player a session, or did you assume I was taking an intentional shot at you? Now I think I'm insulted.

No, I didn't take it as a shot at me. I just don't like the idea of "balanced" encounters. The idea itself insinuates that the job of the DM is to provide a series of challenges of just the right power at just the right time so that the players feel awesome.

I prefer to stick the players in a world. If they go into the wrong spots, they will encounter things that will kill them. If they go into some areas, the opponents will be trivial. And encounter difficulty is fixed with giving the players options to do things like flee, rather than just making sure that everything is always perfectly balanced for them.

panaikhan
2011-02-24, 08:18 AM
My first kill was the player's own fault. He spotted a GROUP of orc bowmen, climbed a hill 100' away, and shouted his battle cry.

They were all using poisoned arrows. (2ed)

The last two sessions have been ... interesting.
The first session saw the cleric of the group mashed into a bloody pulp by a flesh golem, whilst fighting a minor BBEG. After the battle, in which the BBEG escaped, they manage to free a prisoner (whom I statted into a replacement cleric - they needed one).
Next session, they start another battle. More high-level NPC's. More flesh golems. Halfway through, the minor BBEG pops up, and kills the fighter. They do manage to polish him off this time tho.

The cleric's player had stopped turning up, so it wasn't much of a deal.
The fighter's player took it rather well considering. He was just glad the party managed to kill the bad guy, and resigned to take the level hit in being Raised by the new cleric.

DontEatRawHagis
2011-02-24, 10:19 AM
I have only knocked out a PC once, and it got to the point where I wanted to kill him. Not because of anything the player was doing, he was doing it all pretty well.

I knocked him out with a Dust Devil and then flung him into a quicksand pit. Luckily the healer was there.:smallannoyed: My players didn't know in 4e you don't die until -10 or after 3 death save fails.

Ormur
2011-02-24, 10:24 AM
My first kill as a DM was not actually accomplished by an NPC but the PC's themselves. I don't actively try to kill the party but they are tough enough so I have to challenge them with dangerous encounters. They decided to storm a small castle defended by a few archers and a wizard. While failing to scale the walls the factotum/warblade was hit by a confusion effect and the unarmed swordsage by a domination (to kill the factotum/warblade). A few turns of the swordsage trying to hit the warblade and the warblade doing random things ensued and ended with the swordsage ripping out the heart of the warblade with Flesh Ripper. Meanwhile the sorcerer took care of the encounter.

It was nasty but very fun to watch.

Jastermereel
2011-02-27, 04:50 PM
My first kill was collaborative. The player was growing a little tired of their character. While it made good character sense as to why they were Fighter 2 / Wizard 2, and I was impressed they stuck with it as much as they had, it, as expected, wasn't really working out well for them. So, as we discussed it, their character, for largely IC reasons, behaved more and more recklessly until they had a fantastic final act.

The long version is detailed in session #21 here: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9375259&postcount=6

The short version is that the party was fighting a Level-Boss oversized Ankheg. It had injured the party's primary muscle rather badly, so Ennostiel was placing a landmine over which to lure the beast. It mortally wounded her before she could move from the square it was placed in and so collapsed atop it. It needed someone to enter the square to detonate so while she effectively hid the mine, she didn't trigger it. The Ankheg Queen, becomes quite wounded, looks to flee but is otherwise impeded. It steps on her, into that square, and KABOOM. No more Ankheg. No more Warforged gish with identity issues.

That said, I'm generally not looking to kill my players. It's more fun to work with them to weave character-focused side-stories through the campaign. Killing them resets their personal stake in the story. They should fear for their lives and you can only fear if you have a personal investment in the character's history and future.

Calimehter
2011-02-27, 05:31 PM
No, I didn't take it as a shot at me. I just don't like the idea of "balanced" encounters. The idea itself insinuates that the job of the DM is to provide a series of challenges of just the right power at just the right time so that the players feel awesome.

I prefer to stick the players in a world. If they go into the wrong spots, they will encounter things that will kill them. If they go into some areas, the opponents will be trivial. And encounter difficulty is fixed with giving the players options to do things like flee, rather than just making sure that everything is always perfectly balanced for them.

I prefer this route as well.

My preference is based partly on my first (D&D) PC "kill". I had a long-running campaign going way back in 2nd ed. in which the PCs were looking for clues about a lost sword. I had been throwing both low-powered and high-powered encounters at them depending on what the situation would 'realistically' call for, and they had been doing a fine job of overcoming those encounters.

Well, I decided to change things up a bit and come up with a 'balanced' encounter to test them against in the form of a competing party of Githyanki who were also looking for the same sword. I cannot recall the exact composition of the Githyanki party, but they were largely analogs of the PCs in terms of classes (just a level or two lower).

The PCs were in the process of questioning an NPC who had some knowledge of the sword, when the lone 'scout-type' Githyanki from the rival party appeared on the scene. He spotted the PCs talking to this key NPC, and being unable to stop the PCs on his own, he promptly assassinated the NPC at range and took off. At this point, the Ranger/Wizard PC promptly took off after the culprit, and in the process badly outran his fellow PCs who were slow to come up behind. After several rounds of keeping the enemy in his sights but not being able to close, the Ranger/Wizard rounds a corner . . . and runs smack into the entire Githyanki party . . . the same party that I had already pre-statted out to be a 'balanced' fight for the entire party of PCs.

He might have even survived the bashing that followed, since the Githyanki had reason to turn tail as soon as the Ranger/Wizard was down, except that the very last spell he was hit with as he went down was Beltyn's Burning Blood. :smalleek: The rest of the PCs caught up soon after, but not in time to save their fellow adventurer from his own fiery ichor.

In some ways it was the players fault for getting out so far ahead of his teammates (and he's gotten his characters into scrapes in the same fashion many times before and since), but he had also been successful doing it before in this particular campaign, precisely because I had been encouraging the PCs to react to the world 'as it is' instead of just assuming that all the encounters they were facing were designed to be balanced against the whole team.

Kerghan
2011-03-02, 09:00 PM
No, I didn't take it as a shot at me. I just don't like the idea of "balanced" encounters. The idea itself insinuates that the job of the DM is to provide a series of challenges of just the right power at just the right time so that the players feel awesome.

I prefer to stick the players in a world. If they go into the wrong spots, they will encounter things that will kill them. If they go into some areas, the opponents will be trivial. And encounter difficulty is fixed with giving the players options to do things like flee, rather than just making sure that everything is always perfectly balanced for them.

So you prefer the sandbox approach? Well, the problem with that is that characters sometimes get lost or overwhelmed with all the decisions available to them (or perhaps unavailable). It sounds more like you're playing a video game instead of actually dming.Yes you're acting out the NPCs, but where's the direction, or the storyline?

Provengreil
2011-03-03, 12:03 PM
i have 3 stories.

one time they had a random encounter with a sea hag. i know those are questionably CRed, but i felt it was fair since one of the party members was immune to all of it's abilities and gonna take half damage from its attacks(bone creature template). this PC ran around it's hut instead of fighting. not just behind the hut, AROUND. in circles. the second PC, a sorceror, had the first turn and delayed his action after saying "hello there!" in goblin. the third PC failed his save vs the evil eye before he acted. they lost, but i think i can blame them for it, really.

another time my PCs were, in a unexpected turn of events, siding with the kobolds they had been sent to kill and had decided this would be an evil campaign. OK, fine. so they took a group of kobold warriors out to kill some of the townspeople. a pair of rangers killed most of the kobold group, so their segeant hulked out and rolled 12 straight 20s. yes, 12. the one kobold critted his way to as many kills that encounter as the party fighter. not a PC kill, but there you have it.

Later that campaign, they were working with necromancers and had decided to kill them and take their stuff(they had reasons). unfortunately, one was a cancer mage and had given the party tank, a warblade, a hug a couple of days ago. he hadn't made a single fort save since. this guy, the cancer mage, jumps into combat against 4 wizards and a cleric, all of unknown levels of power. 3 rays of enfeeblement, a hold person, 2 grease spells and a really bad grapple later, the PCs are on the zombie table.

kyoryu
2011-03-03, 03:39 PM
So you prefer the sandbox approach? Well, the problem with that is that characters sometimes get lost or overwhelmed with all the decisions available to them (or perhaps unavailable). It sounds more like you're playing a video game instead of actually dming.Yes you're acting out the NPCs, but where's the direction, or the storyline?

Sandbox does not mean "nothing happens unless the players do it."

a) As the DM, part of my job is making sure they understand the context of the world, and the opportunities available to them. If they set a long-term goal, it's my job to make sure they have some idea of what might get them there, or progress them along that path in the short term. Essentially, my job becomes giving the player the knowledge that the character should have.

b) Playing a video game instead of DMing? I'm going to ignore that as being argumentative.

c) The storyline and narrative comes via the players' actions, and the consequences of those actions. If they raid the High Temple of Babblewong, you'd better believe that if any worshippers of Babblewong find out, there's gonna be repercussions. It could even tick the whole cult off, causing them to start a war or action against either the PCs or the perceived source of the problem. There is not, however, a predetermined, novel-like plot that the players will be marched through. Also, events *do* happen in the world. Wars start. Kings die. Merchants get pissy with each other, and other factions stir things up. These all represent strands that the players could take up - or not. But the world marches on in either case.

The_Jackal
2011-03-03, 03:56 PM
While I've never deliberately gunned for my players when I run, I do like to make dangerous, challenging scenarios, and I NEVER fudge rolls. I've killed PCs outright for doing stupid things, and I've had TPKs for my party when they've slopped fights. My favorite of these was a simple encounter with a group of bandits holed up in a cave, backed by a mid-level sorcerer, with some kenneled up dire wolves in the back of the cave. The party monk snuck into the kennel area, courtesy of a narrow shaft at the top of the cave, only to blow his stealth roll and get mauled by a ferocious pack of dire wolves. The rest of the party decided to kick down the door and rescue him, only to get jammed up fighting the entire bandit force. While they cut an impressive swath through the bandits, the bandits, having nowhere to run, didn't break ranks, instead fighting defensively to buy time for their sorcerer to melt the party, which he eventually did. Result: the entire party was killed, and their corpses looted and rolled into a gully, where their bodies were discovered by a benevolent trapper, and brought to nearby Abbey, where they were recognized as heroes and resurrected. Fun times.

MeeposFire
2011-03-03, 05:07 PM
Sandbox does not mean "nothing happens unless the players do it."

a) As the DM, part of my job is making sure they understand the context of the world, and the opportunities available to them. If they set a long-term goal, it's my job to make sure they have some idea of what might get them there, or progress them along that path in the short term. Essentially, my job becomes giving the player the knowledge that the character should have.

b) Playing a video game instead of DMing? I'm going to ignore that as being argumentative.

c) The storyline and narrative comes via the players' actions, and the consequences of those actions. If they raid the High Temple of Babblewong, you'd better believe that if any worshippers of Babblewong find out, there's gonna be repercussions. It could even tick the whole cult off, causing them to start a war or action against either the PCs or the perceived source of the problem. There is not, however, a predetermined, novel-like plot that the players will be marched through. Also, events *do* happen in the world. Wars start. Kings die. Merchants get pissy with each other, and other factions stir things up. These all represent strands that the players could take up - or not. But the world marches on in either case.

1) So on that long term goal that you are going to try to follow are you going to make the party fight ECL 20 at party level 3 since they want to destroy the giant king since it makes sense or are you going to find a way to create encounters that they can actually have a chance at beating?

2) You should ignore that comment as for one video games do it in all ways. In Baldur's gate you could get into fights way above your level (if you really tried) but in Dragon Age origins fights are leveled to you (though even then it may not be possible until high levels due to your need for more talents and spells).

3) Is the retaliation from the temple going to be much higher than the party's level or are you going to make the retribution just happen to be near their level so that the encounter can actually be a fight? Just because you level fights in accordance with the party does not mean you do not follow a storyline or you ignore obvious consequences of actions. Chances are you are going to tell me that you would send groups of encounters that are relatively in the same ballpark in power as the party so as to make interesting combats (with a few exceptions of course).

true_shinken
2011-03-03, 05:49 PM
Katy Perry is pretty good pop.

The only pop I'll ever find good is Michael Jackson's.

MeeposFire
2011-03-03, 06:40 PM
The only pop I'll ever find good is Michael Jackson's.

The only pop I think is good is when it is called soda. Stupid NE Ohio...

kyoryu
2011-03-03, 06:56 PM
1) So on that long term goal that you are going to try to follow are you going to make the party fight ECL 20 at party level 3 since they want to destroy the giant king since it makes sense or are you going to find a way to create encounters that they can actually have a chance at beating?

If the goal is to kill the giant king, fine. That doesn't mean that you do it at level 3. Maybe you have to wait a while. It can be a long term goal - and then we can look at short-term goals that get you closer to that goal.

That said, if the party decides to ignore the subtle and not-so-subtle warnings they're given and kick in the giant king's door at level 3... so be it.


3) Is the retaliation from the temple going to be much higher than the party's level or are you going to make the retribution just happen to be near their level so that the encounter can actually be a fight? Just because you level fights in accordance with the party does not mean you do not follow a storyline or you ignore obvious consequences of actions. Chances are you are going to tell me that you would send groups of encounters that are relatively in the same ballpark in power as the party so as to make interesting combats (with a few exceptions of course).

Depends on how badly they've ticked everyone off. THe cult has limited resources as well, and will choose to engage the party in appropriate ways. They might send forces after the party that the party can't defeat - in which case, the party had best think about escaping and staying hidden. Or, worst case, surrender.

What I don't typically do is throw an encounter at the party that they have no way of winning, and no way to escape from. Not every encounter has to be, or should be, kill or be killed.

klemdakherzbag
2011-03-03, 10:15 PM
First official kill was in first session after the BSF decides to turn his back on two attacking dire rats. Well actually was at 0 HP, he got better after a random wandering paladin layed-hands for full HP.

First TPK was last weekend after the above BSF egged the other BSF into attacking the unconscious druids pet panther. Attack missed but said Druid was roused and retaliated against the second fighter. First fighter then attacked the panther. Druid and pet only survived (and leveled) due to DM fiat and playing in-character. Only party member to remain unharmed was the NE rogue.

Bibliomancer
2011-03-03, 10:30 PM
My first kill as a DM was at level 4, when one of the players charged a squad of powerful agents working for the local (previously established as highly organized and quite competent) noble after said agents captured the party (after the party burned down the house they were in to get back at them for being shortchanged on a reward which the agents only did because the party had previously stolen an equivalent sum from the treasury).

This, and subsequent players deaths for me, usually occur when the players overreach significantly.

Oddly, based on other experiences with law enforcement difficulties for mid-level characters (a group of 7th level characters stole an airship in an Eberron campaign I was running) I can't really understand why Roy and (especially) Belkar didn't cut through the police when being arrested for a bar fight (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0731.html) and run away (as Haley did with some ease in the palace (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0722.html)). They're adventurers, after all. Extreme violence should be Plan B all the time (right after running away).

Hawriel
2011-03-03, 11:42 PM
Has anyone else felt the "I just killed a PC and I liked it" reaction? I'd also like to hear stories.

Yes oh yes :smallamused:. Congratulations keep up the good work! The first time I killed a PC I didnt stop and just one. Eight characters entered a room 2 walked out.

It was a 5x5 square room (2nd ed so they are 10 foot) with one door and four iron statues in each corner. In the center a pedistal with a magic gem sitting on it. There was a portcullis invalved too.

Vknight
2011-03-04, 01:22 AM
Irony being how it is my first PC kill was from a Crit pinning the halfling to a wall with a ballista.

The rest have all been either TPK's or never enough. All brought on by things belonging in the Darwin Awards thread.

Rankar
2011-03-04, 03:10 AM
Irony being how it is my first PC kill was from a Crit pinning the halfling to a wall with a ballista.

That is beautiful on so many levels.

I almost got my second a few days ago with 1 long term player, 2 players who'd been in a few sessions, and 2 absolute greenhorns. Usually I roll behind a screen so I can fudge rolls if I feel its appropriate, but with a skeletal centaur charging with a lance I critted and confirmed where everyone saw. If the Barbarian hadn't been raging, he'd have been at -4. He was also standing next to a nasty abomination that would've needed to roll a 5 to hit him with one of his attacks. I decided not to kill him (teaching session) but it would have been a second kill. That crit also brought the fear to the new players who'd been feeling bored with the game and became far more interested for the last 2 encounters than they had the previous 2.

Killing PCs: a healthy form of entertainment when used in moderation. Side effects include: power trips, losing players, causing people to cry, yelling, instilling fear in those you have power over, and insomnia. Remember: killing PCs isn't right for everyone. Ask your doctor if killing PCs is right for you.

Hyde
2012-07-26, 09:37 AM
I couldn't tell you, I've killed... several hundred PCs by now.

Maybe the first kill was... maybe a mind flayer? I think it might have been my half-fiendish mindflayer.

You can imagine the exact details of that.


These days I tend not to kill characters if I can help it- I try to run a heavy story-driven campaign that involves the characters at a personal level. Killing them off really complicates that.

Lord Il Palazzo
2012-07-26, 09:48 AM
I've been DMing for almost a year and still haven't killed a PC, though I did almost take out a player's pseudodragon familiar once.

The familiar made the mistake of being in the blast area for a red dragon's breath weapon and failed its save. Even with improved evasion, the familiar should have died. Being a softy (and having put a fair bit of work into coming up with a way the wizard could get a pseudodragon early) I declared that it was at -9 HP and that someone would need to get there with a heal check or a cure spell within one round. In story, the pseudodragon's survival may or may not have been a case of divine intervention. (It still isn't clear.)

A couple PCs dropped in the same fight, but none ever actually went below -3 or so.

Knaight
2012-07-26, 11:56 AM
I don't remember what my first kill as a GM was, though there have been a few - almost all of which were due to blatant player stupidity (e.g. attacking people who just said they were allies on account of species, while heavily outnumbered). That said, there have also been a lot of friendly fire incidents, to the point where I have players who have killed the characters of a specific other player* more times than I have killed PCs in total.

Jay R
2012-07-26, 02:30 PM
On the old Gunsmoke TV show, Marshal Dillon once said, "I don't hang people. The law does."

Similarly, I don't kill people; the game does.

I avoid DMs who enjoy killing people as much as I avoid DMs that will warp the game to prevent it. The DM's job is to rule honestly and fairly.

kyoryu
2012-07-26, 02:39 PM
On the old Gunsmoke TV show, Marshal Dillon once said, "I don't hang people. The law does."

Similarly, I don't kill people; the game does.

I avoid DMs who enjoy killing people as much as I avoid DMs that will warp the game to prevent it. The DM's job is to rule honestly and fairly.

We need a "Like" button.

Rakmakallan
2012-07-26, 07:42 PM
Zero kills in a decade or so of GMing. I believe that for consensus reasons (as in freeform), character death should be decided by the players themselves, if and when they feel it would benefit the story, the group or themselves. Then the death is incorporated in the story in some way so as to serve its purpose. So far no one has ever wished their character dead, so I roll with that.

havocfett
2012-07-26, 08:09 PM
My first kill, as a DM, was entirely accidental.

I'd designed a puzzle wherein the sword that was the prize for the puzzle (Meant for the parties warforged fighter) was very clearly labelled, via hieroglyphics, 'hilt kills organics on touch'. The pedestal it was on had these hieroglyphics. The floor and wall had them. It was, in fact, told to them by an NPC due to some successful social roleplaying.

Naturally, the human wizard decides to grab it, and rages for about three minutes when they die.

lerg2
2012-07-26, 08:30 PM
Oh, nothing gives you a better feeling than a critical hit on a PC. After the party was blindsided by an unforeseen betrayal, they chased him down and proceeded to get pummeled. The 2 dead players are to return as mini-boss 1 and 2, leading up to the Traitor as the BBEG. I see more death in the future.

DontEatRawHagis
2012-07-26, 08:43 PM
Had my first kill outside of Paranoia a long time ago now. An as of yet(probably forever) nameless NPC sniped a character that he had a vendette against. He was the only Elf in a forest full of Halfling Mercenaries. Which was an interesting fight in an of itself. They were all level one so I didn't want them to have to reroll new guys just yet.

The player was already to tear up his character sheet when I pulled out a table from my bag. I knew I was going to kill someone eventually so I made a random Death Table in my bag. Mostly it was just a bunch of different events that made characters come back to life. His ended up being that The Grim Reaper would return him if he could bring back someone who was defying him, by staying alive past his time.

Erik Vale
2012-07-26, 09:19 PM
My first kill was an accident (players fault, I tried to allow him to save himself, he's lucky that character isn't statuerary) on my first session.

The dumby deccided to jump over a small horde of p**s weak demons to attack the Devil Priestess who I told was immensly powerful, while they where all were busy.
The Devil Preistess got nocked out, but not killed (Heroes rules, shes insanely toughagainst non-silver/non-magic). He proceded to have 25 demons known to actually be transformed (Temporary, easy to undo) townsfolk, grab and slam him against the floor. Cue uncociousness as the rest of the demon horde chases away the party.

He was dumb, but he set up a lucky stalemate and the wizard was able to untransform a good majority of them.

Cealocanth
2012-07-26, 09:29 PM
I admit it, my first kill was at the very least partially my fault. The players were being introduced to the true threat coming from the black dragon they ticked off, so I decided to throw together an encounter that the DM's guide said would be challenging, but not impossible. The town was being attacked from two sides, from within the walls of the town in the form of a horde of various kinds of minion undead spewing from a portal, and from the sea in the form of a pirate ship filled with trained attack dogs. Each combat was constructed of minions and possibly one standard monster, and they would only end when the source of the attack was destroyed, i.e. the ship or the portal.

Sure enough, they finish the zombies and fight the pirates, but in the midst of it all, our tank/healer is mauled to death by minion attack dogs and their feral beastmaster. The party only barely survived when the thief figured out to use the oil soaked ropes on the dock and his arrows in order to attach a fuse to the ship, which only needed to have some explosives provided set on it, and blown up.

Long story short, as DMs, we always make mistakes. Sometimes it's entirely your fault, and sometimes the players do it themselves. Don't beat yourself up over it. I didn't, and my players didn't. The player who played the tank/healer is now having a blast with his new Warden. Deaths happen, they're part of the game.

Gnomish Wanderer
2012-07-26, 09:49 PM
-Goblin Story-
Brilliant.

I've only ever tried to kill PC's for bad decisions, and never in any D&D campaign because no player has given me a reason to. I have in some one-shots but the players knew what they were getting into. As for my first...

The players were on orders to arrive at a place about 10 minutes before they received the orders to be there. Friend Computer warned of serious consequences if they were late, so the players booked it. They took a private transport shuttle and decided to hack it to make it faster. Sadly none of them really had rolled the ability to do anything like that. *facepalm*

So they start fumbling around with the wiring and the car starts getting faster and faster. They're kinda freaking out, but by the time they think to jump out it's going at like 80mph and they decide against it. So they fiddle with the wiring some more and they learn the steering controls were disengaged, complete with the steering wheel breaking free of the console. This causes the vehicle to lurch through a group of infrared citizens, staining the windows so they burst that out.

They're freaking out at this point, and rightly so. So of course they mess with the console again and manage to get control over the brakes at last! So their brilliant decision is to slam the brakes.

Yeah, I'm guessing they just weren't thinking about momentum, or seatbelts, or that they had burst out the safety window, or really anything. They were tossed pretty far, all of them but one died and that one took some heavy wounds. I think a snapped leg and arm as well as a concussion. It was great.


Probably my favorite part of that game was the 'healing' gun that player ended up getting. The gun contained a healing dart, a cancer dart, a mutation dart, a stasis dart, and then a euthanasia dart. Pretty much in that order. It kinda went against my normal 'don't punish them for arbitrary decisions' thing, but the way it ended up working out was brilliant.

The players were running from a chain of explosions they had caused, avoiding various traps and obstacles that they had ended up setting up :smalltongue: At various points they were given decisions between different options, trying to use clues that had been set up earlier to figure out which was the right choice. The other choices led to gaining some damage.

By the end of the chain, two players were alive on a platform when one broke her legs and went down. The other was standing on the platform getting into the vehicle right before the last explosion goes off, knows he has enough time to save her, and goes 'Nope.' He closes the doors and leaves her to die.

And then, badly wounded, the only survivor of the mission, he decided to use the last charge of the 'healing' gun on himself.

Friv
2012-07-26, 10:54 PM
Maybe I'm too nice but I would have just had the dragon laugh, pet the warlock on the head and then carry on as if nothing had been said.

I would probably have gone with,
Dragon: (casts Suggestion): "I am much larger than you, and stronger. I suggest that you kneel in my presence."

And then the warlock is forced to kneel for the rest of the conversation. If he tries to press the issue via violence, he pretty much gets what he deserves. And if the player is still seething, point out that now he has something to work towards - becoming powerful enough to spite that dragon.

Anyway, on-topic.

My early games didn't really kill players if they weren't working with me on the subject. I entered the hobby through White Wolf, and my group was big on long, elaborate stories tying everyone together, so fights where death was a possibility were rare. More commonly, people lost friends, family, possessions and homes, and generally had to deal with that. The first character I actually killed, the player had worked quietly with me about creating a scene where she could have a heroic sacrifice; she was tired of the character and thought it would be a suitable end to her story.

When I moved into Exalted and D&D, death tolls popped up a bit more often. One player lost a ranger after trying to throw various explosive scenery into a fire to cause a distraction. A Solar Exalt died after deliberately picking a fight with an ally of the party, confident that they would back him over the enemy (they did not). But it's still been pretty rare for me. A few months back, we came within a single die roll of losing a character - he actually took enough damage to die, but one of the other players could force a reroll on someone else's damage roll once per session, which luckily rolled the damage down to "almost dead".

And in about two weeks I expect most of my players' PCs to murder one another in a quest for ultimate power.

GideonRiddle
2012-07-26, 11:25 PM
My first player death was when the party was in a huge library and the area they stopped in was filled with many stacks of books. The description was that when they looked up they saw no ceiling as if the stacks went up forever. The monk promptly climbed one ten feet and "knocked the books off of three stacks so she could sleep on them." The result was that the party took an uncountable number of books to the face. We stopped for an hour before we gave up and said it was non-lethal damage. Had I not we would have had to wait for ten people to make level 6 characters.

The_Jackal
2012-07-26, 11:59 PM
I've always maintained a 'never fudge' policy. IMO, fudging rolls takes the 'game' out of roleplaying game, and you're just indulging an amateur theatre. If your players are in danger, sometimes bad luck will kill them, and if they're never in danger, they will get bored FAST.

I vividly remember my first GM kill. I was running Champions, and my scenario was a bunch of paramilitary agents who had taken a bunch of hostages, which the Heroes were meant to foil. One of my players, a flying energy projector, decided to try and negotiate with them, declaring that he was dropping his defenses and going to DCV zero. For you non-Hero players, that means he's totally defensless. The negotiations did not go well, the terrorist leader drew a bead on his face and held the trigger of his M-14 down. 5 rounds of 7.62x51mm later, the headless corpse of our hero fell to the floor.

ORione
2012-07-27, 12:13 AM
Mine was rather unpleasant, mainly because the character's player was absent.

The party's fighter's player couldn't come to one session, so another player took over. Under that player's influence, the fighter killed a cat. What he didn't realize was that the cat was a sorcerer's familiar. I decided that this made the sorcerer mad, and he fired spells at the fighter faster than the party's cleric could heal him.

The fighter's player was less than pleased when he found out.

Knaight
2012-07-27, 12:23 AM
I've always maintained a 'never fudge' policy. IMO, fudging rolls takes the 'game' out of roleplaying game, and you're just indulging an amateur theatre. If your players are in danger, sometimes bad luck will kill them, and if they're never in danger, they will get bored FAST.

That depends on the game - in particular, there is a lot more room for in danger but not with a risk of dying in some games than others. If all the players value in the game is the life of their characters, then the two are identical, but if there are other things of importance that can be lost, or things that they are building that can be prevented failure still has an edge to it. Plus, whether or not fudging rolls is necessary at all to prevent character death is hugely system dependent.

Ulysses WkAmil
2012-07-27, 12:43 AM
Dragonborn Warlord is forgotten by his party after he fell unconscious and hey left him with the powder-laced coke-like drug. Players burnt down the warehouse, only realizing their mistake after my extra-fun explosion flavor text.

Doorhandle
2012-07-27, 01:26 AM
First Blood. Niiiiiice.

Let's seeeee. My first PC kill (I like how we are referring to it as a "kill") was a Warlock. See, during this campaign the PC's would get their quests (mostly harmless and benign in nature) from an NPC Blue Dragon who I told them was a.) Colossal and b.) had PC class levels. The idea of course being that no level 3 party (no matter how freaking good) would challenge a Colossal Dragon (especially because most of his quests involved stabilizing the surrounding country side. Too many bandits and chaotic evil sorts wrecking the stability of things).

The warlock, however, was Chaotic Stupid, and told the Dragon that he (the warlock) was the 'Prince of Darkness, and as such, you should bow to me.' The Dragon's reply? Om nom nom.

So technically it was the PC's fault, yes. But I still made the decision.

Funny story, but you must remember/learn rule one of player belligerence: they are afraid of nothing. NOTHING. :smallbiggrin:

Gravitron5000
2012-07-27, 08:18 AM
On the old Gunsmoke TV show, Marshal Dillon once said, "I don't hang people. The law does."

Similarly, I don't kill people; the game does.

I avoid DMs who enjoy killing people as much as I avoid DMs that will warp the game to prevent it. The DM's job is to rule honestly and fairly.

... and to provide the PCs enough rope to hang themselves. :smallbiggrin:

... or tie up their adversaries, or construct a rope bridge, or to hatch a plot to corner the market on rope, or ...

TheWombatOfDoom
2012-07-27, 08:42 AM
I've had many kills over the years. However, there are those times you don't expect a player to die. Somewhere around my first was when I was still new to some of the creatures in the MM. I had a group of higher level players go through a marsh with Ghosts. 2 players ended up getting possessed by some of the ghosts, and the party decided to kill the characters to stop them from attacking. T-T That was almost half the party, and one of the players got pretty demoralized by it. Luckily later they were able to resurect him, and the other one took the opportunity to make a new character. But it just goes to show - encounters never go as planned. If you expect it to be a tough encounter, players might talk their way out of it, run, or plow through. Another easy fight could end in the death of everyone. Example - 5 Level 5's against Vargouilles. 1 Round, all of them failed their saves and got infected. Best part? When they died and came back as Vargouilles, we decided to go Savage Species with the group, and they continued playing that for a few sessions. I CERTAINLY was not counting on that one.

some guy
2012-07-27, 02:47 PM
My first kill ever was when the halfling rogue player tried to apply guerilla-tactics on an enlarged gnoll fighter/barbarian with her pack of gnolls and hyena's. My second kill was when the druid tried to save that rogue. The rest of the group retrieved their bodies 3-4 rounds later.

In my current campaign my first kills happened when the group walked merrily along with the ogre shepherd. They couldn't understand his language and only when they saw he wanted to put them in a cage they started to rebel. This was after I told them ogres were maneaters and capable of killing people with one blow. They were level 1, they could've ignored the ogre, they could've ran away, they could've taken him on with ranged weapons. Only 2 of them died.

Dread Angel
2012-07-31, 05:55 AM
I've been doing this for a while, and I've killed a great many PCs over the years. My homebrew games are tough, really tough, but rewarding. I've no compunction about having the enemies go all-out against the PCs because they too are fighting for their lives.

I don't recall my first kill. But a pretty decent recent one was in CotCT, I scored a max damage critical hit with a spear through the fighter's chest. That was the first death in that campaign and it kinda shocked the players into not rushing in.

I do give my players a freebie though. Everyone gets one character death. As in, one DM-fiat-resurrection without penalties. Precisely because I start my games at 1st level, and I'm not stingy about having them fight stuff that's quite able to drop them rapidly if they're not smart about it.

For my upcoming game, my girlfriend has rolled up an archery ranger...she rolled high for starting gold and purchased herself a decent composite bow with strength bonus, and didn't buy any armor at all (!) so her AC isn't high as it should be. She'll be relying heavily on the others to keep her alive until she finds some armor or can afford some. Should be fun.

Another rather amusing tale...while not quite character death, they came within inches of their lives. In the same campaign, the party was fighting some rather interesting creatures. Plant-type demi-genies who could fly, had reach, and liked their Large scimitars very much. The party was having issues, as there weren't many ways for them to get up within reach of hitting the things, and the fighter was having serious issues with his crossbow. The rogue/swashbuckler/oracle/whatever managed to get high enough to grab onto one of them, and dealt some decent damage...but while he was hacking away, the thing floated off the edge of the cliff. And tossed him off. He made a spectacular effort to reach the cliff, but missed, and fell....took a decent amount of falling damage, into water, but the real trouble for him came when the monster in the water went "mmmm lunch", the creature itself a couple CR above the party's average level...and he was alone and heavily wounded and encumbered. He BARELY managed to escape with 2 hit points, meanwhile the fighter had been knocked out, the gnome had gone invisible and hidden, the bard was running away. They actually managed to come back from that and beat the things, amazingly, with the cleric managing to find them in time and healing them all. It was a damn good battle. There's nothing cooler than a gnome riding an unconscious fighter across a Greased floor flinging magic missiles.

Velaryon
2012-07-31, 10:08 AM
The first PC kill I can remember that was neither a scripted story event, nor the result of the party policing the Chaotic Stupid members, happened early in my current D&D campaign.

The party had just made it back to town after completing a difficult quest. I forget the exact details at the moment, but they're all down some HP, the casters are low on spells, and most of their "per day" abilities are all used up. They find an inn and settle in to rest... except for the party druid.

Looking for something else to do, the druid heads over to the guild house from whom the party has been taking all their quests and asks to see what they have available. I list off the quests they have at the moment (all of which I had in mind for the full party), and he chooses one - a local tavern called the Verdant Spiral was burned to the ground recently and the owner wants someone to track down the culprit and either bring him to justice or at least make him pay for the rebuilding.

The druid makes some inquiries around town, talking to witnesses and finding out who was in the Verdant Spiral the night it burned down. After a chain of inquiries, he learns that the perpetrator was a half-orc barbarian type whom all evidence suggests has left the city and headed for the forest to the north.

At this point it's been several in-game hours, and the rest of the party has completed their resupply shopping and gone to sleep. The druid at this point has roughly a third of his max HP, only a few low-level spells remaining, and no wild shape uses left. About the only thing he has going for him is that his gorilla companion is in pretty good shape. The natural thing to do is head back to the inn, get some rest, and fill in the part on what he's learned the following morning so they can track down the half-orc.

But of course, that's not what he does. The druid instead buys a wagon for himself and his gorilla, and sets off immediately on the trail of the half-orc. He ignores the obvious DM warnings ("Are you SURE?" and so on), and hits the road, as the other players all start to facepalm. At this point my conscience is clear, so I roll for a random encounter an hour or two out of town. The druid gets attacked by a pack of hungry krenshars (those monsters someone mentioned earlier who can peel the skin back from their faces).

Needless to say, they made short work of the druid, although his gorilla companion did survive.:smalltongue:

Exediron
2012-07-31, 05:17 PM
I couldn't tell you, I've killed... several hundred PCs by now.

Ah, a DM after my own heart :smallsmile: - I was wondering if anyone in these parts could compare to my kill record.

I have killed quite literally over a thousand PCs during my career as a DM, and I think pretty darn near to a full thousand going through our most recent dungeon. Of course, there are some factors which make my situation different from that of a normal DM.

Now, back on topic: My first kill as a DM. Ah, but that was a sordid event...

The year was 1998. The party, 10th to 12th level second edition AD&D characters. The group was trapped on a horrid imitation of a 'Lost World' setting - a lone island rising high from the sea, populated by many completely unexplained dinosaurs. After passing through a grove of hideously poisonous plants which looked exactly like harmless mistletoe, the characters found their way to an old and abandoned appearing structure.

As the paladin cautiously approached the building, sword drawn, the party watched from the cover of the jungle. Suddenly, without warning, the foot of a colossal Tyrannosaurus Rex came down from the sky like the hammer of an angry god, smashing the poor paladin flat in an instant. None had seen or heard the enormous brute approach, and they were taken completely by surprise.

... I did warn that it was a sordid tale. I was young, and it was my first campaign ever - pretty close to my first session ever, in fact. Over the years I acquired the nickname 'Dark Angel of Character Death' for my habit of killing PCs by the dozen. Nowadays, I still kill massive numbers of PCs, but I have much better reasons for it, and I do it in a much more dramatically appropriate fashion.

I believe that the characters exist in a world, and that this world operates independently of the characters. The people in it exist - they have power, they scheme, they work their designs. The characters choose how they move through this world, but it is entirely possible for them to find themselves in a situation they cannot win. I won't force it on them, but it needn't have been their conscious decision, either.

Furthermore, I believe that a certain feeling of challenge is important to a game, and that it must not be a false feeling. False challenge is when encounters seem dangerous, the PCs seem at the very edge of death, but it will never actually happen. It has to actually be possible for the PCs to die, and to prove that it's possible, some - many, even - of them must die. Players in my campaigns know that their actions carry true risk, and that they must do more than simply not make any bone-headed mistakes to live. If circumstances mean the character would die, they die. I've lost characters I liked and everyone else liked to this rule, but that's the price.

The players in the games I'm involved in all run multiple characters, anywhere from a few to a lot, and I have my own as well. If I'm just looking for a sacrifice to build tension or establish credibility for a villain, I go for one of my own. That's the price of being the DM's character, naturally.

As to the question of rather a world which exists on its own, a 'sandbox' as such, can maintain a strong and consistent story: Yes. My PCs have been following the same story for 8 years, and it's very near to its world-shattering culmination now. They can go wherever they want and do whatever they want; my campaign plans just consist of what is going on, how its happening and who is doing it. More specific plans are drawn up as I find out how the characters plan to deal with it, if it isn't what I expected. Usually, they do what I expect - I know this group very well.

But they choose to do what I expect because what I expect is what makes sense, not because I force them to. I've been wrong several times, and I've drawn up a plan for where they go instead and what's happening there. They still follow the main plot because it's important to the characters and it's something they want to work to stop - if they wanted to, they could go off and raid random dungeons until the Elder Gods remake the multiverse in their own image and end time and conventional reality forever. Actually, that became something of a problem for them recently, as they spent way too much time raiding a dungeon which contained information they needed instead of just going through it as quickly as possible.

Post-Preview EDIT: @Velaryon: Heh; you had me at the idea of a critically injured man riding down the high road in a wagon with a gorilla. I love that mental image, and the fact that it ended in a sick way only makes it more brilliant.

MachineWraith
2012-07-31, 05:50 PM
Interestingly enough, most of the PC deaths in my campaigns have been at the hands of other PCs. I've actually had a TPK because of party infighting. Granted, I provided the scenario that caused the argument which ended in lead flying, but I didn't pull the trigger.

That said, I like my encounters to be difficult but manageable with proper planning and tactics, and I don't fudge. Thus, if the players don't approach a situation intelligently, it's entirely possible they'll die.

My first PC kill was actually in a home-brewed zombie apocalypse campaign adapted from D20 Modern. The game had the standard slow, stupid hordes, but also had some special infected, ala Left 4 Dead. I had a player who insisted on being exclusively a melee combat character, despite many party urgings to the contrary. This same player worked with me on a backstory in which his older brother had been bitten while defending him, and told the PC to run while he held them off as long as possible.

Naturally I had to use that somehow, so the brother wound up being a slightly more powerful version of the Hunter-type special infected (pounce, claws, speedy, and able to track by scent). After already being wounded from an earlier combat, he decided to try to take the thing on, solo, with a sword.

My description of the result was, "He's playing with your guts like a two-year-old plays with spaghetti."

Randomguy
2012-07-31, 07:10 PM
My first kill, as a DM, was entirely accidental.

I'd designed a puzzle wherein the sword that was the prize for the puzzle (Meant for the parties warforged fighter) was very clearly labelled, via hieroglyphics, 'hilt kills organics on touch'. The pedestal it was on had these hieroglyphics. The floor and wall had them. It was, in fact, told to them by an NPC due to some successful social roleplaying.

Naturally, the human wizard decides to grab it, and rages for about three minutes when they die.

You mean he didn't grab the blade and use the hilt to bludgeon his enemies to death?

Tathum
2012-07-31, 11:44 PM
I've only ever killed one player in my years of being a DM...

One of my player's GF (eventually his wife), wanted to join us in a run through ToEE and she took over control of one of the Orc Prisoner's that the group had freed. She became a devout follower of the Paladin leader of the group who took it upon himself to make sure she left her wicked ways behind and join the forces of the light...

Can't remember why I killed her (I generally like to keep things close, but still sway in the PC's direction to keep things fun), but I do know that the group traveled to the City of Greyhawk, found a High Priest that was swayed by the anguished pleas of the group to bring an Orc back to life, and paid for the Resurrect Spell.

Now, I did have a player that I killed recently out of spite, much to the delight of the rest of the group. He was drunk, being a complete moron; having brought the game to a halt twice that for 30+ minutes each time by complaining.

The first time was during a battle where he wanted to drop his spear, pull out his crossbow, load it and fire it all in the same round. When we told him that he could draw the crossbow off his back, but not be capable of loading it until next round, he began to stand up, pace about, and say that we were out to get him, cheating, and disappointing him on a personal level. This was while all of his were trying to explain to him that he could just walk up and stab that sleeping mob he wanted to hit with his spear, and then get a free AoO while it got up (most likely killing it), but he demanded that he just get to do what he originally wanted to do. Finally just told him he lost his turn and moved on.

Later that session, when the group got to town (level 2 and close to 3), sleeping for the night and striking out to the next area to explore and surely get a good 50+ gold apiece and items in the morning, he refused to pay the 2 gold to the innkeeper for a room because he was down to his last 10 gold. There was complaints that I was bleeding him dry, everything was overpriced, the game was unfair. Everyone else was stunned, saying they were about to hit a small payday, there was supposed to be a daily gold drain.

Eventually they came up with the idea that he could bluff the innkeeper to accept a 3gp gem to pay for a 10gp charge to have the room for a full week. I thought it was a good idea and gave him a 20 DC on his check (with a +9 Bluff Skill roll modifier, this gave him a 50/50 shot to get a guy who didn't really deal in gems get excited enough about a a cheap looking stone to give up one of his best rooms). Everyone else thought it was a great idea and a fair chance, he still took about 5 minutes before he even agreed to try and roll.

He failed.

After that he proclaimed he would cheat the system and just sleep outside of town. I told him that if he slept near the town limit, the guard would arrest him for loitering. He said he would just sleep further out. I told him that as a Sorcerer and a min/max'er that refused to put skill points in anything but stuff that he felt his character needed to deal damage and avoid being hit in combat, he had a zero survival score and no outdoor knowledge, he would most likely get killed by bandits or wandering goblins if he left on his own just to save a few gold. He sneered, said I wouldn't kill his character, that I was just bluffing.

The rest of the group breathed a sigh of relief and thanked me after the night was done when I took his character sheet and told him he was dead; middle of the night, in his sleep, bloody mess ... THE END!

BootStrapTommy
2012-08-01, 12:06 AM
Never had to kill my players. They do it themselves.

This.

I've never "killed" a PC, because I'm not a ****. I've dealt damage to them for meta-gaming or forced them to lay the bed they made, but I've never killed them. Much to my annoyance they always claim I'm out to get them because of this. They've even rage quit before. But *I* don't kill them. Their poor decision making does.

Remmirath
2012-08-01, 12:49 AM
Ah, these are some great stories. :smallbiggrin: I wish I could remember for sure what my first kill as a DM was, but I can't. It may have been one of these two:

My first MERP campaign, neither I nor any of the rest of us in the game had realised that OB was not supposed to be applied to criticals. We also thought that there was no initiative and everyone just went at the same time. It was fairly screwed up all 'round. This entire story was not one of my finest moments. I was, in my defense, quite a bit younger. Anyhow, the characters were at a funeral for one of their own (a hobbit scout of mine who had been killed previously in Exediron's campaign); and for some reason that I no longer recall, a large and evil man had been hiding in the casket and jumped out, attacking one of his characters - a dwarven warrior who was standing nearby - after taking a casual swipe at the elven bard nearby, breaking his arm. They both swung, both dealing E criticals, and because we were mistakenly adding the OB on in criticals and also doing things simultaneously, both the dwarven PC and the human NPC died instantly due to crushed hearts.

The second possibility was a one-shot AD&D game I ran, which may or may not have been before the previously told of MERP campaign. I had several thieves break into the inn they were staying at with a plan to knife everybody and take their money. Only one of the PCs actually even woke up, ineffectively cast Colour Spray, and was straightaway stabbed in the back. The thieves made off with all of their money. That was certainly my first total party kill...

I don't actually believe it was either of those - there's a good chance it occured in my first AD&D campaign, which I can't recall - but those were both quite early, at least.

Also, I agree with most everything Exediron said concerning character death in general. I was going to write out my view on it, but he already said it more eloquently than I would have.

Phoenixguard09
2012-08-01, 01:22 AM
Alright then, this was with a Warhammer Fantasy Homebrew system.

I had a player who was one of those "friends," you know, the kind that you only tolerate because he's been around so long that getting rid of him would lead to all sorts of awkward questions.

Anyway, he was walking down the streets of Marienburg after being busted out of imprisonment. Without having to pay a penny I might add. I did have a justification but this was quite a long time ago.

Anyway, he wants to break into someone's house to steal some food (looks like prison did him a world of good) and perhaps some money so he can find an inn to stay the night. I might add that this is his plan for the afternoon as, in game, it's about 3pm.

His attempts to break in are met by the angry yelling of an elderly woman on the other side of the door, who threatens that she has a handgun.

As the GM, I'd already decided that she was bluffing but I wanted him to get on with the quest rather than end up getting captured again. Anyway, he knocks on the door an offers his services as a prostitute.

I promptly decide to shoot him through the door.

I have killed maybe four other characters as the DM, two of which were played by this same guy. All of the kills bar one were due to pissing me off with stupidity. The last kill was really unfortunate and I am sorry for it.

Erik Vale
2012-08-01, 01:55 AM
I think you dropped a not there, but still... Granny says:

http://punditkitchen.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/political-pictures-off-lawn.jpg (Spoiled just in case)

Amazo
2012-08-01, 12:26 PM
I insist that my first kill wasn't my vault. In 4e, I had a player with a kalashtar warlock with 20 Charisma, 10 Dexterity, and 10 Intelligence. The player insisted on playing a character with as much Charisma as possible and always felt the need to walk in front of the party in case something needed to be talked at. He didn't last 2 fights. Both of which were against mobs of minions. With me fudging rolls like crazy. The running gag after he died was that the beastmaster ranger's hawk would become the party's point man in his stead since the hawk had significantly better AC than him

Yukitsu
2012-08-01, 03:15 PM
First kill as a DM, I was running a horror themed campaign. Players were stumbling along modestly, but were trying to get the hell away from the place instead of fix anything. They kept going about it in really bad ways (build raft with rope and limbs to cross ocean... Of acid...) but really wanted to leave. Eventually, one character capped himself in the head rather than keep going. I took that as a general sign that the horror part was at about the right level.

Drako_shorty
2012-08-10, 06:42 PM
My brother DM's for me and we have a lot of fun, and he made a game where I made three separate characters. The first was chopped in half by a party member who started going insane, the second was first killed by an evil clone of himself, then reincarnated as a Minotaur/Mindflayer crossbreed, and he was killed by the demidragon, which then resulted in me making a halfling bard. The point being, he killed my characters plenty of times, but he never did it on purpose, it was all just rolls, and I loved it, cause everyone role-played emotions at my deaths, even with the reincarnations.

Also, my friend made a guy who was killed, reincarnated, and then like ten minutes later, beheaded from a crit kill.

Riverdance
2012-08-10, 08:06 PM
This seems relevant: The Few Conquests and Many Deaths of Flynn the Fine (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ8AgLh2PEE)

Masaioh
2012-08-10, 09:07 PM
I have a nasty habit of rolling crits with greataxes... it leads to insta death. I find it rather amusing at times but the PC's get a little perturbed when it happens. I TPK'd with a single dual greataxe wielding bug bear.

My first kill as a DM was also due to a greataxe...in the hands of a raging troll barbarian. He attacked the (PC) barbarian and rolled max damage on a critical, doing 60 damage while the barbarian only had 47 (max) hp. I told him that that was his punishment for stacking charisma and taking leadership because "he wanted a dragon".

Fenryr
2012-08-10, 09:23 PM
We need a "Like" button.

Indeed.

But yeah, if the character dies, well, too bad! You can bring him/her back if the other characters use Resurrection or a similars pell. I also allow to use a secondary character to recover the body and bring the character back to life. Of course you need a good background or reason to make such a quest.

But my first kill... I don't remember. I think TPK are way more traumatic.

SilverLeaf167
2012-08-11, 01:26 PM
My first kill was in a heavily trapped dungeon. The party rogue, swinging from a robe, poked a control panel and swung back out of the way just in time to avoid the walls crushing him. His reaction?
"Oh, that was funny, let's do it again."
This time he wasn't quick enough, and after some unlucky rolls all that was left of the rogue was a red stain.