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A vampire killed me.. no attack roll it just snapped my neck. :-(

juraigamer wrote:B: it was his girlfriend.

That right there says more than enough.

Not really, I've done my damndest to never show favouritism to Aurelia over the years. Hell I killed one of her characters within twenty minutes of a game starting once, not maliciously of course, just after four failed checks and a botched luck roll, the character seemed fated to drop.

It doesn't help shes one of the most dedicated Roleplayers I have ever met. Seriously, she'll do up a character history and it'll be ten pages long, with lots of great info for me to take advantage off, and no bonuses for her. Just character building stuff. Add to that when she does a diary based history, or photo book one, with her filling in the history as snippets of text around the hand drawn photos, and yeah, I struggle not to go damn, plot armour ahoy.

I don't of course, although like the OP, I've never been one for killing PC's, I'll happily fudge rolls to keep the spirit of the game going, and stop characters dying needlessly, well within reason.

Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:I don't of course, although like the OP, I've never been one for killing PC's, I'll happily fudge rolls to keep the spirit of the game going, and stop characters dying needlessly, well within reason.

I've done that quite a bit as well... I'm still not sure whether I should or not.

I've found messing with the rolls isn't a good thing. If I kill a player, I kill them. It's the players fault for not being able to find a good position in battle. You don't just charge a lascannon.

Depends Juraigamer.. if you have a game with a character who has been running for two years or more in a storyline of particular note, you tend to get a feel of time when they are under real threat.

Certain villians or opponents etc could potentially get them, but to have them killed, destroy an epic game on a the roll of dice from some fluke shot... seems detriment to the game in my opinion.

Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:Depends Juraigamer.. if you have a game with a character who has been running for two years or more in a storyline of particular note, you tend to get a feel of time when they are under real threat.

Certain villians or opponents etc could potentially get them, but to have them killed, destroy an epic game on a the roll of dice from some fluke shot... seems detriment to the game in my opinion.

Killing players just to kill them is rather dull and kills the fun of the group, having it be a part of the plot versus just killing the guy is always more fun for the player from my experience playing. Playing purely in the black and white usually end up in players leaving the group, generally IMHO a GM leaves a bit of a grey area to allow the players to use their creativity to do stuff.

btemple0 wrote:
Killing players just to kill them is rather dull and kills the fun of the group, having it be a part of the plot versus just killing the guy is always more fun for the player from my experience playing.

I asume you are agreeing with my post with this bit, and yeah, having a battle between the players and the core villian, where all rolls are loose and anything can happen, even the players death, equals great in my book. Slipping on the blood of a henchman and allowing them to cave your head in downstairs not so great, of course the player will recieve some kind of wound most likely, but it needn't be a death blow.

btemple0 wrote:
Playing purely in the black and white usually end up in players leaving the group, generally IMHO a GM leaves a bit of a grey area to allow the players to use their creativity to do stuff.

Aye, for sure, thats a key part of the fun of being a GM/ST, seeing what they can come up with.

I try to leave little room for error on my npc's part, of course I don't just make it my goal to kill the players, but sometimes they... how to put it... derp around.

H.B.M.C. wrote:I've done that quite a bit as well... I'm still not sure whether I should or not.

I used to roll behind the screen and be all secretive so that I could fudge rolls and not kill characters if I didn't have to, but then it also brings up the concerns from the players that maybe you are fudging your rolls to make them better instead. So now I just throw everything out on the table and let the chips fall where they may.

Skriker

We were in a friends campaign. Me, my wife, and my friend and the DMs wife were all playing. It was a fairly low lvl campaign so we were all I believe either lvl 2 or 3.

The story at this point was fairly interesting. We were going down this ruined tunnel of this underground gnomish city and the entire time we are being plagued by nightmares and waking nightmares with regards to what we were heading to face. It was a really good lead in. Perhaps some of the best foreshadowing this DM had ever done. I for one was getting excited. We even played past our normal time in anticipation of reaching this encounter.

There were a few random encounters that happened before we got there. One was especially frustrating. This tunnel was dark, closed in, and perfect for ambushes so a couple of Cloakers and chokers ambushed us. For that level, in their perfect enviroment, it almost killed us but we got through it and pressed on.

We got to the bottom, into this murky underground pool and were prepared to assault this whatever it had been that was assaulting us mentally. That was when we noticed the massive carcass laying at the edge of the pool. Coming out of it were these two useless creatures that were quickly dispatched. The point was, whatever we had been sent to kill, had just been recently killed. That was when his "TRUE VILLAIN" appeared and...wait for it....DIDNT ATTACK! Why you ask? Because he was evil, powerful, and could have easily slaughtered us. However, because he was bored and wanted some fun, he would continue to let us run around and fight and do whatever cause quite honestly our party isnt a threat to him. LATER! With this, he vanishes leaving a very pissed off party. So pissed off, the two elves that were brothers and sisters started fighting each other. The other to get in on it and the party has a impromptu mud slinging fight that ends in several broken arms. (this was by far, more fun then his gakky anti-climatic fight which wasnt even a real fight).

His reason, was...he wanted it to be that way.

eitherway, we spent another month on this, till we FINALLY GOT lvl 4. We were sent to this area called the fething GNOLLISH PLAINS! Where, a full scale GNOLL UPRISING was taking place. Sweet...combat! Bloody combat. All of us were jazzed. We get there, and two days of travel...we came across 1 gnoll. We stopped, he argued, he yelled, and we never went back.

Phototoxin wrote:A vampire killed me.. no attack roll it just snapped my neck. :-(

Perhaps the same thing should have been done to the DM?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Comintern wrote:We were sent to this area called the fething GNOLLISH PLAINS! Where, a full scale GNOLL UPRISING was taking place. Sweet...combat! Bloody combat. All of us were jazzed. We get there, and two days of travel...we came across 1 gnoll. We stopped, he argued, he yelled, and we never went back.

You seem to have fallen into that all too common situation of having been gaming with a circus clown rather than a DM.

Contrast that with the Gnoll tribe my first 3rd ed party faced at around 12th to 14th level:

1) Remote mountain fastness and undercavern base to storm
2) Between 15 and 30 minor giant allies to deal with outside the caves
3) 60 to 100 gnoll warriors
4) 20 level 6 gnoll berzerkers with potions of heroism
5) 40 ghouls kept in cages as sacred to the demon prince the gnolls worshipped (later set free and allowed to creep towards the human captives the party was supposed to rescue)
6) One half-fiend gnoll leader with wings to top it all off

When my players fight gnolls, they get to fight gnolls...

Carmine the Wolf wrote:

Phototoxin wrote:A vampire killed me.. no attack roll it just snapped my neck. :-(

Perhaps the same thing should have been done to the DM?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Comintern wrote:We were sent to this area called the fething GNOLLISH PLAINS! Where, a full scale GNOLL UPRISING was taking place. Sweet...combat! Bloody combat. All of us were jazzed. We get there, and two days of travel...we came across 1 gnoll. We stopped, he argued, he yelled, and we never went back.

You seem to have fallen into that all too common situation of having been gaming with a circus clown rather than a DM.

Contrast that with the Gnoll tribe my first 3rd ed party faced at around 12th to 14th level:

1) Remote mountain fastness and undercavern base to storm
2) Between 15 and 30 minor giant allies to deal with outside the caves
3) 60 to 100 gnoll warriors
4) 20 level 6 gnoll berzerkers with potions of heroism
5) 40 ghouls kept in cages as sacred to the demon prince the gnolls worshipped (later set free and allowed to creep towards the human captives the party was supposed to rescue)
6) One half-fiend gnoll leader with wings to top it all off

When my players fight gnolls, they get to fight gnolls...

Man, that combat encounter must have lasted so long.

once when i was gming d&d I killed a whole 1st level party with some orcs within the first 20 minutes of play... i learnt 3 things from this 1. dont give orcs weapons with a x3 crit multiplier 2. always roll behind a gm shield (unless your players are complaining about you fudging rolls) and 3. never use that die again... seriously i have a really evil looking d20, and by the abyss does that thing like to roll 20's. It has actually gotten to the point where some of my players genuinely fear it... I have never run a balor and with this die i never will.

as far as my experiences go, I recently went from running a dark heresy campaign to playing in one. The Inquisitor he runs is a master sue, and the gm has a problem with giving players too much leeway(for example one of the psykers has 80 willpower and a force weapon that does 2d10+3 before psy rating). One thing i can say about him is that he is improving... slowly, and i think he is finding that once you give your players something you have to live with the consequences... at least for a while.

Captain Idaeus wrote:. One thing i can say about him is that he is improving... slowly, and i think he is finding that once you give your players something you have to live with the consequences... at least for a while.

At least your gm is improving! Mine was a pompous fool who wouldn't admit his own mistakes, let alone fix them.

Cheesecat wrote:Man, that combat encounter must have lasted so long.

Nah, it was the focus of the game session and split up so that it went in stages for the party.

Firstly the giants and giant-kin were too large to get into the gnoll's cavern, so they were stuck outside in the stockade defending the entrance to the valley.

Then the standard gnoll warriors were stationed in the mouth of the cave at the top of an interior wall of rock that dropped away to the main floor of the cavern where the tribe's main habitation was located.

The party's ranger/arcane archer and barbarian/sorceror were responsible for taking care of most of them and then facing down the berserkers who charged up the stairs (the ranger was obbessed with Legolas and so peformed a shield surf down the stairs at them).

The party cleric, fond of using levitate flew off to combat the half-fiend amongst the stalactites above the action and then got to save the prisoners from the ghouls to satisfy his humanitarian character traits.

Everyone gets to shine, everyone has something to do and the session ends with a real sense of achievement, some loot and lots of XP.

Being a DM is the best role in a gaming group!