Comments on: Behind the Screen: Killing Players…

By: misterecho

misterecho — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 09:28:33 +0000

Well the idea was to make them heroes of thier village, they die defending it. Then two other young men (new PCs) from the village try to avenge thier deaths.

I don’t have the heart to do it… yet

By: Dante

Dante — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 22:56:44 +0000

That sounds interesting… would the players of the two killed PCs be playing new characters in the rest of the campaign, or would they be continuing on as part of the storytelling as spirits or something?

By: misterecho

misterecho — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 22:02:28 +0000

I’ve been toying with the idea of killing the two PC’s in my group at the very start of a campaign, then the rest of the campaign is new characters fighting for revenge.

seems harsh though, havn’t built up the bottle yet!

By: Ryven

Ryven — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 02:40:58 +0000

In our games, character death never occurs without player permission. While this sounds “soft”, I would argue in fact that quite the opposite is true. A dead character feels no more pain. We rotate GMs (and game systems) fairly regularly and have a running competition to see who can drive the other players’ characters to the depths of madness with the most creativity and panache. Death is mercy for us. >:)

By: Ravenous Role Playing » Blog Archive » Friday Five: 2009-08-28

Ravenous Role Playing » Blog Archive » Friday Five: 2009-08-28 — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 04:43:59 +0000

[...] Behind the Screen: Killing Players… One of my chief complaints about 4e D&D is that it seems to coddle the players too much. Death of a character is such a remote possibility that it is almost not worrisome to the players. I’m glad to see that some GMs out there are still slaying 4e characters. I know that if I ever get my hands on a long-term 4e campaign, the players better worry about their characters’ well beings and long-term health. I’m not saying that I’ll be an evil bastard about the whole thing, but I want to steal the players’ security blankets and make the risks their characters are taking somehow seem more real and larger than life. [...]

By: Behind the Screen: Speeding up combat in 4e | StupidRanger.com

Behind the Screen: Speeding up combat in 4e | StupidRanger.com — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 05:57:10 +0000

[...] is another topic from our GM’s Jam that took place at GenCon this year, continuing on from where I left off yesterday. It was another audience question, once again relating to 4e D&D: How do you speed up [...]

By: Bartoneus

Bartoneus — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 15:31:51 +0000

A great topic for sure, I believe I’m slowly realizing the issue with it in 4E is that whenever I run an encounter and any player gets close to dying, the PCs start to use all of their daily powers and tricks, so if there is a potentially deadly encounter that effectively marks the end of them wanting to continue because they then feel incredibly vulnerable. I’m constantly trying to tweak and change things to make my encounters more challenging and enjoyable, and the players seem to think they’re working from what I hear!

By: Ken Marable

Ken Marable — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:20:52 +0000

*gulp* I hope you mean killing player CHARACTERS, not players!

I’ve always been one to outright avoid PC death if possible. The groups I have played in have still found things plenty challenging and threatening without wondering if they could die in any battle.

Now it has happened on occasion (so it’s possible, even in my games), but since it’s so rare, it is a major event in the campaign. If and when the PC is brought back to life, it is a life changing event.

Of course, I’m not saying it’s better or worse, just that it works for me.

By: bonemaster

bonemaster — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 13:02:09 +0000

I think most of the gamers I hang with locally are somewhat “Old School”. They view something like a TPK, as failure on their part to effectively deal with situation. Now sometimes the foe is too strong. I think players (as well as myself when I play rather than GM) sometimes forget that running away is always a valid option.

By: taichara

taichara — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 09:16:13 +0000

Some good advice here!

Though I sincerely hope you don’t actually go about killing your players … surely that would lead to very few games in short order?

*ducks flying brick* ;3