Quote from: Voros;982183Of course as you suggest the deaths in GoT are not random at all but carefully built towards and tragic (death of Ned, the Red Wedding) or full of bathos (Robert, Tywin).

Yep,  R.R. Martin has a rep has a Killer DM that's not entirely deserved.

Quote from: Voros;982185Speak for yourslef, I'm working on a Roland Barthes: RPG Degree Zero game as we speak.

Never say never

Quote from: Voros;982183Of course as you suggest the deaths in GoT are not random at all but carefully built towards and tragic (death of Ned, the Red Wedding) or full of bathos (Robert, Tywin).

You would think that people would learn not to go to weddings.

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https://sites.google.com/site/grreference/

I remember one PC who got knocked into shallow water during a low-level combat, and didn't have any swimming skill, and the player was shocked to see their character suddenly starting to drown and taken out of the fight. He was rescued by his friends, but it was eye-opening to the players and also hilarious and memorable. If he'd actually died, I expect it would have been taken as even more hilarious and memorable by those particular players, who had a good sense of humor and were fascinated by what happened during play.

I remember a knight too who also got knocked into water - well, the sea, and went blub blub blub because he was in full chainmail. That was also an eye-opener for the newer players in that game, and it completely changed the situation the PCs were in, and was also taken as fun and funny by all.

I really appreciate the way using detailed and reality-based rules helps a lot in these cases, so these events aren't arbitrary GM rulings or even random crit results, and the drowning system matches reality pretty well and has mitigations built-in, as opposed to rules which seem arbitrary and severe such as roll one die and see if you die.

Reminds me of the 2e Ravenloft module (Ghost Ship?) where your ship gets boarded by ghoul pirates that paralyze their opponents and throw them overboard to drown. Had a party of eight characters and we lost three of them to that.

Quote from: Nexus;982184And its not  just battles, its random pointless death like the hit by a cab and killed example earlier. If I couldn't think of some interesting consequence for it, I wouldn't bother to roll, just narrate the character dashing into traffic, maybe a near miss, blaring horn and the cabbie hurling some invective. If I did think it might have some meaningful and he blows the roll, the cab clips him, hurts him, weakening him later, or something is loss, etc. Depends on the situation.

This is it mate... Being clipped by the cab and having consequences that could impact the story would be infinitely more interesting than, 'you die'.

If we keep that urban example going for a moment. If one was playing Spider-Man (or some such line swinging hero) and as he was swinging away high above New York, his line was suddenly cut by a villain. Let us say he failed a further opportunity (roll) to grab the usual flagpole and was, therefore, to plummet to his death. I think it would be far more interesting for him to smash into the side of a building rolling around the 35th floor like a rag doll.

Now he's pretty screwed up, maybe with a broken arm or bad limp. Maybe his web slingers are toasted (you get the idea). Now you got some cool extra drama for the next big fight. So because he 'failed' he's now paying with it through a setback. The player now has to come up with some asymmetrical tactic to win the fight.

The story is still driving forward now because he's not a pizza! You could easily apply something similar to a fantasy game. Just change the decor and props, etc.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;982149When most people mean "mundane, undramatic death," the first example they usually pull is a few unlucky rolls from a random critter.  Whereas, I think this was dramatic to the players in part because someone getting shredded so fast by a random critter was an eye opener about how I wasn't pulling  punches.  That is the context that made it dramatic, which is exactly the context that several people have been saying in this topic is part of letting the players reap what they sow.

Exactly.  I don't "enjoy" killing PCs, but the dice are the dice.  Keeping only one person on watch is simply foolish, and the world is not kind to fools.

Quote from: Krimson;982150This is where the Menzter Monster Reaction table came in handy. We used that thing for everything. It was the Frank's Red Hot Sauce of tables. I know you are supposed to use it for initial monster reactions but it became such a useful thing for diplomacy, bluffing, or even cavorting. It started with one DM, and then we were all using it.

OD&D has the same basic thing.

I frankly continue to be appalled at how many people never used any sort of monster reaction.  CHARISMA gets more page space in OD&D than any other attribute; just how fucking stupid are people, that they can't figure out the implications behind that?  (That, of course, is a well with no bottom)

Quote from: Nexus;982181Speaking for myself,* drama is in the context and the results of the action. Facing down a homicidal monsters alone in defense of others is a pretty damn heroic action. The character was facing death vs a abominable monster even if she thought she might survive.  Heroism doesn't require certain death. It would have been a pretty awesome moment

No.  No, it wouldn't.

You have 9 people.  Having only one on watch is simply stupid.  There is nothing heroic about being a dumbass.

To quote Goose in Top Gun, "The Department of Defense regrets to inform you that your sons have been killed because they were stupid."

Quote from: The Exploited.;982272This is it mate... Being clipped by the cab and having consequences that could impact the story would be infinitely more interesting than, 'you die'.

If we keep that urban example going for a moment. If one was playing Spider-Man (or some such line swinging hero) and as he was swinging away high above New York, his line was suddenly cut by a villain. Let us say he failed a further opportunity (roll) to grab the usual flagpole and was, therefore, to plummet to his death. I think it would be far more interesting for him to smash into the side of a building rolling around the 35th floor like a rag doll.

Now he's pretty screwed up, maybe with a broken arm or bad limp. Maybe his web slingers are toasted (you get the idea). Now you got some cool extra drama for the next big fight. So because he 'failed' he's now paying with it through a setback. The player now has to come up with some asymmetrical tactic to win the fight.

The story is still driving forward now because he's not a pizza! You could easily apply something similar to a fantasy game. Just change the decor and props, etc.

Yep and for me, it would be even more appropriate for a comic book game. Death is a rare visitor in comics. And even more rarely permanent guest. Spider-man is down, hurt and the villain(s) likely complete whatever scheme they were up and now the weakened protagonist needs to find them.

This thread is a good example of the extremely broad spectrum that gets lumped under "RPG".  Read closely the posts by Exploited and the ones by Zevious.  The default assumptions about what the game is and what it's about are in some cases almost mutually exclusive.  There's far more difference in what they are doing then say the differences between 5-card Stud or 5-card Draw, or even Texas Hold 'em.  Like any activity/hobby, we have loads of arcane jargon to define things in the RPG area, except one of the most fundamental, types of RPGs.

Anyway...

Back to the OP:
No one who's not an asshole likes killing PCs, but:

• Actions must have consequences for choices to have meaning, period.
• If you don't want to give players some form of narrative control through mechanics, then the dice are the dice - they giveth and they taketh away.
• Shit happens.  The smarter and more clever you are, shit happens less.

Hey story guys, Dicaprio finally got an Oscar because fighting a brown bear turned out to be somewhat less than banal.

Quote from: trechriron;981787I believe that RPGs without the threat of death turn into competency porn akin to a cartoon world where the toons constantly say "hold my beer" and then Do The Cool Things. It's cute for 2 hours in a movie where I was expecting to be wowed by Wushu god-like awesomeness AND where I was planning on dropping any expectations of reality. In an RPG? Not cool.
 
There are a TON of "setups" in RPGs. From farmers-turned-adventurers, to secret agents saving the universe, to unwitting-victims-turned-monsters, to "you wake up in a strange room..."  Despite the myriad possibilities, you MUST know you're going to play an RPG. You MUST have SOME clue there's likely to be SOME kind of shenanigans. You were not invited to play a boardgame, or a war game, or a card game, or hot swap an old-school RTS on your friends Commodore 128... You should be expecting SOME danger. You are supposed to feel a sense of anxiety about maybe dying because that is the point of danger. Something very bad might happen to you because you chose to embark on adventures where bad things can happen to people. You might also go mad, be kidnapped, have your body possessed by a ghost, or a long of list of Bad Shit. Because you can't find the lost sword of He-Man Awesome 5000 Lightning Power pulling weeds on your fucking farm!

You should shift your perspective. Let me give you an example of what I feel is a GOOD perspective;

Often times I read pop articles about actors I like. Some of them have taken on villainous roles where the character was controversially horrible. The horribleness was exacerbated by how fucking awesome the actor was. Sometimes, these portrayals are SO good, that random people on the street hate them. Of course, they don't actually hate the actor, but the performance was so excellent, they can no longer separate the two.

Some might argue that people shouldn't hate the good actor. Cool. But that's not the point. All these actors always say something to the tune of "I poured all my soul into that performance because I WANTED you to hate me. I WANTED that antagonist to be at least as well portrayed as the protagonist." The actor knew the potential blowback from being so good at being bad, but they did it anyways. They felt a responsibility to their craft, to the other performers, to the AUDIENCE that they put 1000% into it.

Your purpose as a GM is not to molly-coddle your players. You're not a fucking psychologist, nor are you a parent, nor are you really anyone's best friend. You are there to BRING IT so goddamned HARD that your players' heads spin. That they forget where they are. Who they are. All the bullshit outside, in life, in WHATEVER before they sat down at your table. Your JOB is to be EVERYTHING outside those characters. And you cannot POSSIBLY do that while trying to hold your players' hands. Im-fucking-possible.

If the world is some video-game alternate reality where you can hit "reset" and start back in town with all your shit, all healed and all OK, then it's not a fucking adventure. It's 6 people sitting around a table masturbating to each other's COOL STUFF on a piece of paper. No risk NO REWARD!!

By not BRINGING IT every time you sit down to GM your game you are essentially CORN-HOLING your players. You just fucked them. It's not about "oh poor me, my character died". It's about "OH SHIT, I charged in to save the day and I FUCKING DIED!!" Who do want to play with? What stories do you want to hear around the cheap table at the retirement home? You wanna listen to some ass-wipe cry about the character that died? Or perhaps instead you would like to be regaled a tale of death so fucking AMAZING you pop the first boner you've had in 20 years!?!?! Exactly.

You have a job. Stop pissing in your pants and fucking BRING IT!! If a player can't handle it, send 'em packing. There's likely some whiney Story Game nearby they can hold hands at.

You applaud such absurd tough guy rhetoric about a TTRPG?

I was killed and killed many an investigator in CoC, never thought that made me some manly man as some of the posts here ridiculously suggest. The overcompensation is so naked it is a bit embarrasing.

I've hung out in boxing gyms with less macho posturing.

Why is character death considered the only metric of failure?

Quote from: Voros;982288You applaud such absurd tough guy rhetoric about a TTRPG?

I was killed and killed many an investigator in CoC, never thought that made me some manly man as some of the posts here ridiculously suggest. The overcompensation is so naked it is a bit embarrasing.

I've hung out in boxing gyms with less macho posturing.

Look, we all know that Gronan, CRK and BV are part of the same 'try hard' crew.  They always come in with some sort of 'hardcore' BS about how their way is the 'right way', usually trying to couch in how it was done back in the day.  They're clearly out of touch and shouldn't be taken half as serious as they do.

Quote from: Voros;982288You applaud such absurd tough guy rhetoric about a TTRPG?

I was killed and killed many an investigator in CoC, never thought that made me some manly man as some of the posts here ridiculously suggest. The overcompensation is so naked it is a bit embarrasing.

I've hung out in boxing gyms with less macho posturing.

Oh please, get over yourself already.  You're the one bringing the manly crap into it, who's the one overcompensating?  The bombastic internet rant is a performance unto itself, but the points are sound.  Here it is rephrased in a way that maybe doesn't threaten you somehow.

Quote from: Spinachcat;981767Here's my secret sauce.

I have a reputation as a "Killer DM" and I boast of my merciless viking horns.

In actual play, most sessions pass without a PC death.

Why?

It's not me. I create nasty worlds full of psycho-monsters and I roleplay them to the hilt.

It's my players. They can bring their D game to other tables. At my table, they know they MUST bring their A game to survive and succeed.

Thus I have set the expectation.

...and the players rise meet the expectation.

...and we have a great time because success at my table is an achievement they earned.

You don't get PC investigators to be deathly afraid of Hannibal Lector, or Bill the Butcher, or the Witch King, or Gallandro, or whoever if you don't bring the A game.  Sometimes that means trying to kill the PCs with everything at the NPCs disposal.  It's like several posters have said already, they don't want a GM who pulls punches, they want their PCs to earn their accomplishments.  

They want to be a hero because they survived, not survive because they are a "Hero".