# Are you a "killer" DM?



## Makarov (Jun 19, 2012)

Depending on how you define a killer DM, yes and no. Am I trying working against my players yes, and I going to be a dick about it no. I want them to have a fun challenging experience. For example would I have them die if they slip on a banana peel, no. Would I have them die from an ambush, yeah, but with that said it depends on how they handle the situation. There are three ways I break it up A: They trying to act smart and fight off the ambush, if so I might show some flexibility. B: They aren't acting particularly smart or stupid, I got with what is rolled. C: If do they do something really really stupid, they deserve what they get.


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## Warlord_Winters (May 2, 2012)

the 1st time i ever played our DM was a killer, how ever one of the other 1st timers was an idjut, it was the standard "enters the tavern" kinda thing, we had to stop a group of ruffians without killing them, i was a dwarf knight, one guy was a mage, then there was a priest and a hunter, the priest went 1st and for some reason he punched a ruffian in the face and the DM said they were warlocks so they summoned skeletons and we all died


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## Insanity (Oct 25, 2011)

^Well that's just bad DMing


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## scscofield (May 23, 2011)

Bout the only time I 'kill' a party is if I want to reset the power levels. It you have smart players they will work around the various restrictions and checks and balances in a system. I am all for thinking outside of the box. This causes issues at times though and every once in a while they would get their asses kicked and wake up nekkid in a room. I would allow them to regear for their level pretty much instantly but it allowed me to yank anything that was causing issues with the game flow. The only one that would get annoyed about this is also the only one that went out of his way to munchkin things and was always skirting the rules in a way that was unpleasant for all.


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## Insanity (Oct 25, 2011)

I think I would be a fairly forgiving DM if I did DM, Instead of being killed by that group of bandits or group of warlocks. I would instead have had the group wake up in a dark room, tied together and find a means of escape.


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## darkreever (Apr 3, 2008)

In part it depends on the RPing medium. Down here in Roleplay Threads you might have someone who is completely unwilling to kill off player characters. You might also have someone who has no qualms with it, or others who are varying degrees of middle ground.

Personally, I play with the possibility that player characters can be killed, otherwise the ramifications of your actions are drastically lessened. The chances of a character being killed, however, depend on a number of factors. Things like what kind of character is it? Who/what are they fighting? (A space marine charging a half dozen poorly trained soldiers is likely to die than a conscript charging a squad of terminators.) Are they blatantly ignoring my (the GM's) rules or decisions?

For me, it also comes down to the rule of cool. If a player has put his/herself in a situation where death may be the consequence, is there a cooler alternative. 

In my RP, The Claw, one of the players (Dark Angel) had his character (Alrik) leap through the fire of a heavy flamer being wielded by a traitor marine. He then proceeded to damage the flamer, but got blind-sided and tossed into a reactor core.

Thats essentially certain death, but what sounds cooler? He falls into the plasma and dies; or rams his knife into a stanchion, thus arresting his fall, and hauls himself up and out while avoiding arcs of plasma, the heat of the reactor giving his exposed flesh burns, and makes it out in time to rejoin the fight after others thought him dead.


For me, its not about seeing what kind of challenge it takes to kill off the player-characters. But rather what is best for the story? If your using a dice system of some kind, yeah that uber boss enemy rolling critical fails might mean the players beat it without a struggle, but does that read as cool/fun?


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## Galahad (Dec 21, 2006)

I tend to min/max a bit, particularly in D&d. The game, to me, is just as important as the roleplay. I never ignore one for the other and don't expect my players to. I pride myself on never breaking a rule as a GM, and any houserules are there for everyone. Anything I can do as a GM the players can do s well and vice-versa. That means while I tend to come up with very challenging encounters I never just fidge things for the sake of the story and encourage my players to use the rules creatively to make what they want to play.

Some people would rather just hold hands and tell stories than actually play the fucking game though, and from them I;ve been called a killer DM, but all my fried know how I play and what to expect so they bring their A-game and everything is peachy keen.
e undead.
I like challenging myself to come up with a dangerous and memorable adventure/npc/encounter with unusual or sub-optimal materials. Sometimes it's something simple like using the Animated Object rules to create mobile, hostile, self-loading siege weapons wandering the Moournlands in Eberron. 

Or it could be something as intensely devious as the Funhouse of Dr Enzo Caligari, gnomish necromancer. Nothing like combining 'whimsical pranksterism' and hordes of the undead for a memorable challenge. Also, if you take a zombie, stuff its chest cavity with rusty nails and gunpowder then mummy-wrap it in oily rags it teaches players not to metagame. for extra fun, have a real mummy on hand to personally handle all the shrapnel when loading your dummy mummy bombs so they can get mummy rot on top of the tetanus. 

Or challenging a high level party to a kobold run.
just because they're kobolds doesn't mean they can;t have class levels. And chances are those levels are in sorcerer and rogue. Nevwr read the 'escape instructions' helpfully provided at the bottom of a high level kobold pit trap. Explosive runes.
Also, watch out for the big yellow and black signs that read "CAUTION! Exploding Sign!"
Eventually they had the barbarian lead and ordered him to smash anything with writing on it.


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