Glyphic
2008-01-11, 12:45 PM
Soo.. I was sitting behind my dm screen the other night wanting a little more heroics from my Players. I've played in campaigns run by my peers, even those in my group... and death is far too infrequent. The PC's become -lazy- and rather placated. I've been while these people a year or two now, and only witnessed one character death. My character was 'supposed' to die once, but it was glossed over and damage was reassigned.
Lame.
I was perfectly ready to die, but both the Dm and group came up with some decent reasons why I shouldn't (One player was missing from the group at the time, we were facing opponents too difficult for the party, no dramatic tension to dying in a random encounter..)
So, I -love- running and playing in vicious campaigns. Every combat should be -life threatening-. You're not toiling in the fields. You're freaking adventurers. I'm worried how my players will react. so I came up with something seemingly simple to.. encourage players and establish the social contract: if you take these actions, or intentionally try to do stupid stuff, I won't be sympathetic to their little sheets of paper.
So, I thought about hero dice. When your character is in a dire spot: (less than 25% hp, only active pc in the party, attempting a 'heroic action' [catch all for dm's ruling], they may choose to put up a death flag, indicating their character/player is willing to die for the current situation.
When the death flag is up, for all D20 rolls, the character uses a d30 instead. Only one deathflag may be active in the party at a time, monsters and henchmen cannot use d30's. Since we'll be rolling for Spell dc's, this will help wizards who's spells rely on saves. Fighter-ish classes may obviously benefit, and rogues in my game -do- need to make skill checks in battle (typical fleeing from monsters- oh no! Locked door! or similar situations. Traps are meant to severely injure, not annoy..)
Thematically, this involves the table as well. A big hunking, heavy die attracts attention, only one person can have it, ect.
So what I would like from you forumites is opinions, critique, suggestions (for instance.. how may I possibly involve a arcane caster who doesn't rely on spell dc's.. like a conjurer?), or just potential problems I may have over looked.
Lame.
I was perfectly ready to die, but both the Dm and group came up with some decent reasons why I shouldn't (One player was missing from the group at the time, we were facing opponents too difficult for the party, no dramatic tension to dying in a random encounter..)
So, I -love- running and playing in vicious campaigns. Every combat should be -life threatening-. You're not toiling in the fields. You're freaking adventurers. I'm worried how my players will react. so I came up with something seemingly simple to.. encourage players and establish the social contract: if you take these actions, or intentionally try to do stupid stuff, I won't be sympathetic to their little sheets of paper.
So, I thought about hero dice. When your character is in a dire spot: (less than 25% hp, only active pc in the party, attempting a 'heroic action' [catch all for dm's ruling], they may choose to put up a death flag, indicating their character/player is willing to die for the current situation.
When the death flag is up, for all D20 rolls, the character uses a d30 instead. Only one deathflag may be active in the party at a time, monsters and henchmen cannot use d30's. Since we'll be rolling for Spell dc's, this will help wizards who's spells rely on saves. Fighter-ish classes may obviously benefit, and rogues in my game -do- need to make skill checks in battle (typical fleeing from monsters- oh no! Locked door! or similar situations. Traps are meant to severely injure, not annoy..)
Thematically, this involves the table as well. A big hunking, heavy die attracts attention, only one person can have it, ect.
So what I would like from you forumites is opinions, critique, suggestions (for instance.. how may I possibly involve a arcane caster who doesn't rely on spell dc's.. like a conjurer?), or just potential problems I may have over looked.