Killing Characters / Combat Realism

[Guest taxboy4]

Kia ora from New Zealand

 

Two topics for the price of one

 

GM's out there, under what circumstances do you kill a PC? I tend to be quite soft and they really have to do it to themselves AND the story / logic call for it - no radom combat death's in my game - least not for the PC's.

 

2nd - How graphic are you in description of the combat - Fantasy Hero has an awesome location system -e.g. on Thursday I described who a brigand was disembowelled by a sword blow and a 2nd later his offsider lost a hand (with a spray of blood) to a clothyard shaft (ohh errr).

 

So let me have your thoughts

 

Cheers

 

Baz

[Blue]

1. In combat with anything humanoid, this never happens. It just doesn't happen. I don't even have to go out of my way to make sure; it's just how it goes. However, there are some beasties out there that I know would drag him off for a meal. If a PC was dragged under by a shark, while wearing armor (the PC has the armor... not the shark), or a dragon the character has mercilessly goaded... yes, those are things a character should not recover from.

 

2. Not graphic enough. Seriously. My games get so many players that I don't spend enough time trying to describe the blows. Too bad... that's a lot of the fun. I'm a big fan of games with critical charts just because of the descriptions.

[Markdoc]

I go out of my way to avoid killing characters just randomly in combat, but it does happen.

 

In my opinion, it has to happen, otherwise combat becomes an amusing diversion that players engage in when feeling bored, like baiting the barman or buying nice clothes.

 

I do like to describe the action in combat, as much as is possible.

 

cheers, Mark

[Midhir]

1. PC Death: There isn't much point in killing off your PCs every other session but if the PCs do something extremely stupid it happens (i.e. the thief type sets off an obvious trap with out using his skills to avoid it). I almost never let the dice decide the ultimate fate of PCs since I look at Role Playing more as telling a story then hacking and slashing creatures, but sometimes at key moments a PC death happens and fits the situation.

 

2. Combat Details: I'm currently starting up a campaign based on the Warhammer Fantasy RPG, The Enemy Within, converted to FH. I use a home brewed critical hit and critical failure rule and then tie it in with the critical hit location tables from the Warhammer rules. They have a great set of critical hit location tables that are very descriptive. Warhammer is a very dark fantasy setting and the Enemy Within campaign is one of the best series of modules I've ever seen that portray that flavor.

[Drakkenkin]

PC Death, I can't really add and think more to this part of the topic. I'm too much of a softy when it comes to PCs being killed. Makes me feel bad when someone puts time into a PC they like and then it dies, but I know I have to have it happen some times. Other wise combat becomes more or less meaningless and the treat of death looses it sting. So far I have been lucky. My players have not done anything to ridiculous.

 

Combat description, I have been trying to do that for some time, but the players in my group just stare at me blankly with the look of, so is it dead. Makes me feel like it's a waste of my time and effort. I know that I like all the detail I can get. I'll have to ask them what they think. Do they like it or not.

 

Drakkenkin

[Arthur]

When I ran FH, I just made sure that the PCs were significantly more powerful than most of their opposition. The few foes who were as or more powerful than the PCs either attacked one at a time (like dragons or demons) or wanted them captured rather than dead (The Cult of Shadow tries to recruit them).

 

To me, this fits in with most heroic fiction.

 

However, I do not fudge results after that. The PCs are either up against inferior opposition, have the beastie outnumbered, or up against opposition who wants to capture them, not kill them. I have stacked the deck, now the chips will fall where they may.

 

The result is that PC death is quite rare, but it does happen. When it does, it is usually due to poor PC judgment (even then, if a character is about to do something stupid, I ask for confirmation - "Are you SURE you want to tell the King what you did with his daughter last night?") or really bad luck. Usually the former.

[Old Man]

PCs need to die. If combat poses no risk, why bother playing it out? I don't even hide the dice. If the dice say a PC dies, then the PC dies. If the dice say all the PCs die, all the PCs die. (It's happened.) But sometimes I will have the bad guys do relatively stupid things, like not blocking, or putting all their levels in offense. WIthin reason. If it's not one of the boss enemies.

 

I find that the RPG sessions you remember most are 1) the funny ones and 2) the ones where a lot of PCs happen to die.

[Vondy]

My players and I have an unspoken contract developed over the years.

 

In general I try to avoid killing characters at inconsequential or anti-dramatic, anti-climactic moments in the story. There are, however, two times when their assumed "script immunity" is suspended:

 

1) major plot points (dramatic or climactic moments)

2) belligerent stupidity in the face of all reason

 

I've killed several characters in the second instance, and a characters do pay the last true measure of devotion to their cause in the first instance from time to time, too.

 

About ten years ago I had a player pointedly come to me and say: kill the party - all of us. The guys are starting to act like they don't have to think. I did, and #2 above was born.

 

I have one player (who was around ten years ago) who has started acting out with belligerent stupidity in the past few sessions (and the rest of the group, most of whom were also around when rule #2 was born, are aghast at it) - and I'm quickly losing patience with his antics.

 

If he does something unbelievably stupid again in todays session... he goes down with brutal clarity.

[tkdguy]

At this point, I'm still trying to get the players used to the Hero system (we hardly play at all), so I'm trying to keep them alive until they get the hang of it. I want them to understand what they can do.

 

I try to describe combat as much as possible, as it is a martial arts campaign. The fancy moves are what make it look different from a streetfight.

[UltraRob]

I solve this in HERO through a simple method...

 

They can use unspent XP to do 2 things at a cost of 1pt.

1) Force any roll made by them or the GM to be rerolled. (Although I still reserve the right to say "no" at any time.)

2) Not die. In a situation where they should have died, they end up unconscious and at Zeros for Stun, Body and End.

 

This has produced great results. If they die, now it's their own damn fault for not saving the points...And also they can use their points to have a second shot at critical times in the story when the dice say they missed.

 

Of course, you have to be careful that you don't get a "bidding war" going on those re=rolls, which I have had happen when my NPC major villians spend THEIR Xp to make the heros re-roll. Although I almost never allow critical hits or failures to be rerolled...

 

Rob

[farik]

Our group takes no special actions as GMs to ever protect the PC's as GM the only thing we do is try to have the NPC's act as reasonably as possible and avoid writing adventures with no reasonable expectation of success.

 

Examples:

NPC's don't stand and fight until dead they leave when wounded: low level thugs run off as soon as they get a single point of Body damage (after all that will take a week to heal) soldiers will stand and fight until their at half body before retreating. Only insane people or people with no hope will fight to the death.

 

Monsters, if being territorial, will not pursue characters out their territory; if hungry they'll stop fighting if they become hurt enough to make hunting more difficult, unless they are so hurt they feel cornered and that they must kill or be killed.

 

When writing an adventure I plan for three reasonable outcomes.

#1 Total success the PC acted as expected and win the day

#2 Partial success the PC didn't get all the cash and prizes but they still won.

#3 Failure the PCs failed but they still survive

Other outcomes are possible like total or partial PC death but if that happens it's because of something the PC's did I didn't expect not because I was attempting to kill them in good conscience I know they had at least three options to avoid that death.

 

Back when I only planned on one escape option for PCs there were many more deaths because to me the solution seemed simple but that was because I knew all the details which the PCs rarely did.

[Guest taxboy4]

Thanks guys - all pretty much agree with my way.

 

Tho I do have a guy whose characters prefers to carve up people first and ask questions later - the whole party is very quick to murder fallen foes or use a blade.

 

I am loath to simply kill them as I have let them get away with it for so long - but I think I might make them have a close shave.

 

One guy is an absolute maniac and should be well dead by now but he has the most incredible luck and I'll let him live - but the first time he does something stupid and the dice desert him I won't "save"him.

 

I fight description of wounds / combat works very well , esp as I keep track of all the pc's body / stun and only by wound description do they know how there are faring...

[Eosin]

I don't kill characters...players kill characters. I just design the world...Players want to go fight the dragon when they are 100 points that is fine...I won't stop them...I might cock an eye and tisk a little as they march to their doom.

 

Roll dice in the open...That keeps most people honest. Especially if your world is Status Quo...

 

Player to DM: "You meant the guy I challengedto a duel is 400 points and has a 12 OCV in a fantasy game?"

DM to Player: "I told you he was the kings champion."

Player to DM: "But he called me a silly country bumpkin!"

DM to Players: "And you just prooved you were. The next character might want to ask questions before deciding he wanted to duel to the death every rude person in the capitol."

 

DM: "Phase 12"

 

Having said that, my players die a little more than I would like (and definately more than they would like). Usually, just after uttering lines like "We are only 3rd level...Randy would not put a 10th level necromancer in the town knowing we would fight him."

[Lord Mhoram]

As to one, statistics will tell - in nearly 17 years of GMing HERO (a good 9 year stretch of that being an FH game) I have never killed a PC, aside from the player asking me to kill them off because they wanted something completely different, or killing characters of players who left the game. We play for story rather than the gamist aspect. There is always a chance the PCs loose, but they don't die. The threat of failure is as good for motivating players (and having fun because it is all on the line) much more than the chance of PC death - to fufill the " If combat poses no risk, why bother playing it out?" aspect of the game Oldman mentioned; at least with the group of players I've have gamed with in the last two decades this is true.

 

I tend to be fairly description and sometimes very graphic with the descriptions of combat.

[UltraRob]

There's an old Kung Fu movie called "Crippled Avengers" that comes to mind...the heros get seriously maimed at the start of the movie and then the rest of the story is how they train in weird kung-fu to use what working limbs they have left to get revenge....

 

God knows no PC party would ever be willing to do that after the bad guys won....but as a GM I can dream.

 

Rob

[tkdguy]

I think I saw that movie, Rob. It was many years ago, but I vaguely remember someone without legs fighting while on the back of his friend who had no arms.

[farik]

Originally posted by UltraRob

There's an old Kung Fu movie called "Crippled Avengers" that comes to mind...the heros get seriously maimed at the start of the movie and then the rest of the story is how they train in weird kung-fu to use what working limbs they have left to get revenge....

 

God knows no PC party would ever be willing to do that after the bad guys won....but as a GM I can dream.

 

Rob

 

That's not true our group would happily play with lost limbs.