To my fellow GMs, how do you judge if you are maintaining the balance between challenge and out right death for your players when creating your sessions?

Im not sure how lethal RT is set to be (unless yours a red shirt), but in my last DH game, a player shortly after having his character die sighed and said 'Well I was beginning to wonder if you where able to kill a character' (meaning, if Id allow a character to die rather than actually managing to deal a killing blow). Which made me think that I was possibly being too soft?

Personally, my opinion is Im too worried about killing a character and the player calling BS. Its their creation and I dont want to just strip them of that investment without people being able to step back and say 'Yea, that was a fair call'. But the flip side of that is, I dont want to make the game so easy that the players feel there is very little risk to any action they take.

So how do you balance your threat of death?

*DISCLAMER* Yea, there are plenty of other threats to a player and the threat of death shouldnt be ever present. I get that. Im focusing more on the times when it could be a legitimate element and how it should be moderated.

Characters have fate points for a reason. I make no real efforts at balancing save that I try to make the PCs aware of the sort of challenge they're likely to face going in. Their preparations from that point serve as their own balancing mechanism.

First, find out the level of lethality you would like for yourself. Then revise your players and try to guess what they like (if you know them well enough). Next, try to find out where the middle ground lies.

Final step: stick to that, even if players call you unfair.

Alex

I don't even try to kill characters.

Last session, Navis Primer (and a few bad dice rolls) killed 2 PCs and I didn't even have to intervene. :-/

If a PC gets killed it's the fault of the player. I once had a puny human charge a mighty Space Marine and...

...at least it was quick and the PC didn't suffer.

I find the fear of death inspires a lot of thinking. Too many players just want to run around the board shooting and slashing. Making sure there's a risk involved causes them to use their brain and it usually leads to a more fun game.

General rule of thumb in my group tends to be that the GM does not try to kill you, but will give you the options to get yourself killed. We don't often have character deaths, but when we do it usually is a result of players biting off more than they can chew.

To my fellow GMs, how do you judge if you are maintaining the balance between challenge and out right death for your players when creating your sessions?

How lethal any RPG should be is a decision for the players as a whole (GM included) to make. It's a question of atmosphere; whether you want to play in a Grim Dark future where death lurks around every corner, or play a more standard "action movie" style game where the heroes get injured but usually survive.

Neither option is wrong, it's just a question of what kind of game you want. This is the sort of thing I try to establish before the game begins; what kind of game does everyone want to play? If I'm running a game in an established setting (ie: 40k), I talk about the setting in general to get a feel for how everyone at the table sees that setting. If I'm running a game in a generic setting (like, say, non-brand-specific D&D world), then I usually try to compare game ideas to movie genres to get a feel for what people like.

Providing a good role-playing environment and an entertaining game is something that often gets left on the GM's shoulders, but really, it's a communal effort. Don't let that weight hold you down - ask questions when you need to and respond accordingly.

If you find that you have difficulty talking to your players (hey, it happens sometimes in the geek sub-culture) or you're not sure that they're being totally forthcoming about their desires, another tactic to use is to listen to the players' table talk as they plan their next action.

If they think the next place they're going to will be dangerous and they're taking lots of time to plan out their approach, then you should be busily brainstorming something dangerous for them to find when they get there. Even if it wasn't in your plans, just roll with what they seem to be expecting. I'm not the sort of GM who worries about having a stat block for everything, btw. But if most of your enemies are humans, a generic "human goon" stat block would be handy to keep around.

Some of the best story ideas I've been credited with over the years were really their ideas, poached from table talk and reworked slightly to fit what I had prepared.

If you start with easier opponents and work your way up, you'll discover which ones are the most exciting for your players. They'll tell you. If there are opponents that are above their heads try to give them warnings, but let them make the decision. Make your rolls open, though. Always roll in front of the players and let the results stand.

Quite difficult... like... REALLY difficult. Frankly, I'm very bad at estimating Players Combat-Strength and usually those encounters I deem difficult are the ones they solve quite smoothly, while the ones where I am sure they're quite easy are the ones that trouble them the most.

On the other hand, that is in a way also quite a safe way to estimate the difficulty of encounters, no?

Mostly I simply go by "What is appropriate" though and the players will have to deal with it. Want to steal an artifact from a shrine? Don't be surprised, when I throw hordes of pilgrims and a few zealous Chainsword-Priests and Bolter-Brides at you. Robbing the Casino next door? Probably a few security-guys with mediocre armament, nothing to write home about.

The only combat difficulty you should worry about is when they PCs fight a single powerful enemy. When fighting hordes its easy enough to ramp up from easy to 'as difficult as you want' as the combat progresses. You can't ramp up (or down) a single enemy as easily - it's contrived to have a space marine decide not to use his weapons and go hand-to-hand to offer the players a sporting chance, for example.

The only combat difficulty you should worry about is when they PCs fight a single powerful enemy. When fighting hordes its easy enough to ramp up from easy to 'as difficult as you want' as the combat progresses. You can't ramp up (or down) a single enemy as easily - it's contrived to have a space marine decide not to use his weapons and go hand-to-hand to offer the players a sporting chance, for example.

True Story! I was once in an old campaign where a single Chaos Marine in terminator armor teleported onto our bridge. We managed to knock him over and one of the players thought it would be a good idea to "finish him off" by leaping onto his chest and unloading his storm bolter at Point blank range into his chest. It didn't work, the terminator grabbed him with a powerfist and returned the favor with his twin linked bolters on the one hand. Crit after crit after crit later and there wasn't enough of the player left for him to figure out how to even explain a fate point save. (His entire chest/both arms were gone. He pretty much came into multiple pieces with nothing bud a head and legs left.) He just quietly nodded as he understood the depth of his failure and rolled a new character.

Some words.

That story does not seem to me as if it follows the actual game rules (I could be wrong, of course, but I'm telling as I see it). I'd just like to point out that it's easy to balance any encounter if you don't feel beholden to the rules.

Some words.

Some other stuff with words in it

Granted it was three or four years ago. But we were following RAW, but the GM allows for creative flair as long as it makes no functional mechanical difference. The offending player was adjacent to the terminator at the time his turn started. So that's what he said he was going to do thinking it would be really epic and awesome...it didn't work. Some minor creative license on his part since he was still technically adjacent and not sharing a space. The GM supposed that since termies are gigantic it would stand to reason that if could back up his cool idea for a coup-de-grace with some sort of acrobatics roll he would allow it.

Spectacular fail...

If he had simply stood where he was, adjacent to the Terminator and unloaded into him he would have failed JUST as hard. And the terminator would have still shot him JUST as dead then played with his ruins a little with his power fist for fun anyway.

As for how a terminator fell over to begin with I don't actually remember how that happened, I think it might have been something psychic that caused it...but it was years ago so who knows!

Well it's from a Deathwatch game but my assault marine (low rank, not much XP) ended up convincing the commander of a tau ship to honour duel me, lest the bloodshed continue and more people on each side of the conflict die unnecessarily. He acquiesced but met me head on in a customized XV8 battlesuit.

Now i thought this'd be over quickly (with me dying) because he had twin-linked plasma guns, burst cannon, missile pods et al, more armour than me, superior jump pack capabilities... the list goes on.

What it turned into was 20+ turns of me getting initiative on him, knocking him over and doing maybe 1 wound. He'd then stand up, fire his plasma guns and miss, or hit me and i'd just about scrap together a dodge.

In the end it was only lucky dice rolls on my part and an eventually critical hit that tore the XV8s chest cavity, and the commander inside, wide open that won the fight.

Morale of the story - think carefully about what constitutes a fair 'boss' fight including when your players beg for something you're not sure if they can handle.

Well it's from a Deathwatch game but my assault marine (low rank, not much XP) ended up convincing the commander of a tau ship to honour duel me, lest the bloodshed continue and more people on each side of the conflict die unnecessarily. He acquiesced but met me head on in a customized XV8 battlesuit.

Now i thought this'd be over quickly (with me dying) because he had twin-linked plasma guns, burst cannon, missile pods et al, more armour than me, superior jump pack capabilities... the list goes on.

What it turned into was 20+ turns of me getting initiative on him, knocking him over and doing maybe 1 wound. He'd then stand up, fire his plasma guns and miss, or hit me and i'd just about scrap together a dodge.

In the end it was only lucky dice rolls on my part and an eventually critical hit that tore the XV8s chest cavity, and the commander inside, wide open that won the fight.

Morale of the story - think carefully about what constitutes a fair 'boss' fight including when your players beg for something you're not sure if they can handle.

Seems entirely realistic. You clearly went into battle with your Power Armour, so the Tau very politely did the same.Also Space Marines constantly underestimate Tau technology, so it would be a long, drawn-out fight to try and pierce that stupid candy shell to get at the soft Tau filling.

The thing about people dying unnecessarily was a bluff right? There are no unnecessary deaths in the service of the Emperor, and there is no conceivable way that the death of anyone who doesn't serve the Emperor would ever be "unnecessary". Unless there are Tyranids involved.

General rule of thumb in my group tends to be that the GM does not try to kill you, but will give you the options to get yourself killed. We don't often have character deaths, but when we do it usually is a result of players biting off more than they can chew.

This.

I will let my players do anything they want to do, but sometimes it's so downright stupid that they just deserve to die anyway.

Not that anyone has, yet, but I'm not going to be pulling any punches.

Well it's from a Deathwatch game but my assault marine (low rank, not much XP) ended up convincing the commander of a tau ship to honour duel me, lest the bloodshed continue and more people on each side of the conflict die unnecessarily. He acquiesced but met me head on in a customized XV8 battlesuit.

I love it.

(Though I do abhor the enormous amounts of tauwankery in the rules for tau equipment. Their stuff is way better than I ever remember it being in their codices)

Yeah i had my power armour, jump pack, chainsword and bolt pistol, nothing else. Well it was sort of a bluff - we'd boarded their flagship and had killed hundreds of their crew - knowing that Tau place value on the individual more than the Imperium we seized the opportunity to eliminate their command and scatter their forces.