Have you guys found that it is relatively easy for a PC to get killed in this game? I seem to "fudge" the NPC rolls often, leaving the PCs with one wound short of their threshold.

Never fudge rolls, seriously never do it (unless there's an extremely valid reason, and of course this is my own oppinion...).

When you fudge rolls, players will never learn to take care, never! Players should learn that:

a) Not all fights are meant to be fought/won

b) When initiating/anticipating fights, prepare!!! Allways know who goes in first, who's adding surport, and finally know when to retreat

c) Use every dirty trick in the book to win...

Now, I know this is my own oppinion, but killing PC's when done correctly, helps build up the atmosphere in the game (first and foremost that it's a grim world, and the pc's are not heroes...). But never kill players with "A 23 foot greater deamon attacks you...".

I construct most combat encounters, so the players will win, but I also make some encounters so the players can't win, unless they're creative. The hard encounters are 99% of the time build so the players will be starting them "From the balcon you see the cultists gathered below you...", while the easier ones are often some they can't really avoid.

But the tricky part is not starting out to strongly, and instead slowly scale up the combats so they don't kill players, but leave them so bruised that they see it's very dangerous.

On one hand you want players to fear combat, but on the other hand you don't want them to die left and right, because that makes them detached from their characters. But never fear a character death.

Oh and btw, I said to my players, that toughness 3 was a minimum... and I don't even have combat in every session, but I told them that toughness 2 would make them waaay to squishy.

Are you playing that characters need to be 0 wounds and have Crits > Toughness to die?

Hi,

Firstly I completely agree with Spivo's call on fudged rolls, and my first query was exactly what Monkeylite asked. You are aware that 0 wounds is not dead unless the char also has more crits than tou stat?

Would also add that IMHO WFRP is not a game of swaggering around slaying hordes of greenskins and beastmen. If your players are consistently rping too gung ho and failing to respond with any sense of caution to the dangers you throw at them, kill someone, maybe a couple... This way they will learn to respect the dangers more, and hopefully it will increase the tension when put in a tricky situation. I say this both as a GM and a player, I have much more fun playing char's in grim and perilous settings when I know the GM isnt scared of killing/chopping limbsoff/riddling with disease/mutating my character. It places more value on the risk vs reward.

Oh and with fudged rolls, I would only fudge a roll if I thought a player had played his char very well, had done all he/she could to sensibly prevent death and had just had abysmal luck... and even then I'd exact some sort of lasting mark.

Last month our Acolyte spent 3 days(gametime!) and a huge amount of cash trying to cure some of the diseases he has. A few obscene rolls later and he's contracted 2 more symptoms and died. I decided to give him a second chance and cured a symptom at the cost of a permanent black dice to all tou checks for the future. Player was happy, and is still one failed disease test away from death and loving it!

Have fun...

Mallencons said:

monkeylite said:

I thought you had to have more wounds than your threshold (like all the other thresholds).

Doc, the Weasel said:

Yeah, I was thinking counting down D&D style and counting up was mathematically identical. Man I hope my player who lost his 4th Rank character last night doesn't read this.

monkeylite said:

monkeylite said:

Man I hope my player who lost his 4th Rank character last night doesn't read this.

Killing pc's comes in two forms, bad killinggood killing (both story related...)

An example of good killing...: I had a GM who actually stopped a campaign, with one reason he gave me much much later,that was because he was afraid of how I would react to my character dying. I should add that I'm as peacefull as a drugged baby seal. Anyway he started the campaign back up,my character died (we all did, was an impossible encounter in a world where you play weapons, wielded by peopleso our wielders died, complex...). My character had at this point survived for a very long time, with the others dying often, but was I angry? Not at all, the death was a part of a very good story,thus my character dying was a good thing!

An example of bad killing...: I wanted to purchase some surplies for our adventure (was waaaaay back in my aD&D times),the shopkeeper (who apparently was a wizardalso a VERY high level one) had a symbol of death on the floor, which instantly killed my level 4 cleric... <coughs> Now... this was, well... I can't explain this, because neither did the GM. I was completely baffled, because I did not know how to react, not as the character, he was dead, but me, myself on a meta-level. Think I stood upsaid something along the lines of "Wow, this has been ehh... interesting..., but I got an appointment with less insane people,left". Or it might have been what I 16 years later wish I had said...

Point is, that there's nothing wrong with designing an encounter to kill players, as long as it's part of the whole story! I plan to finish my current campaign with an orc raid killing the players,to have the new party start in the village/town the orc raid is heading for. Can seem crazy, but all stories have an end, the trick is finding a proper end,an end does not have to be the end for all characters, it can be the end for one character.

Just never ever make a character death pointless, like my above example. And if you do kill a character, remember that someone took time to give "life" to the character, so the least you can do is make the death interesting in some way.

I don't understand these numerous threads on many forums about killing PCs...

Since when has killing the main protagonists of a story become so common as to merit this many threads. Each to his own, I know, but sometimes I feel that GMs posting are secretly proud of having "stood up" to their players by imposing the "harsh reality" of the game world... Bizarre !

I GM since 1989 and I believe I have had all in all 4 character deaths, maybe 5. Then 3 more when PCs went at each others throats... But those were not "my" kills. In the end, most character deaths are bad, IMO. Why ?

Because in good stories you get to know the protagonists, you get to like them, and they almost feel like family. Building that kind of character depth takes numerous sessions and a lot of energy by the players. Killing this "construct" is a grave event indeed. The player needs to start from scratch on a new character. The said new character feels thin for a while and always contrasts with the other beefier characters of the other players. I'm not talking power level here, just depth of character, of personality. The group dynamic. All that's role in rpgs.

Of course, a good character death makes for a memorable scene, and the new character revitalizes the group. It can be very positive. But PC deaths rarely happen that way. Usually it's dumb luck (or lack of it). Which is often, in essence, anti-climactic and a downer for players.

I play long winded campaigns where PCs lasts for years in RL. The quality of the gaming experience is very good, usually, because players can really develop character evolution arcs, and surprise us with the way their PC matures. This depth is worth a pile of gold. It is the earth that nourishes the game play and the quality of the immersion.

Fate points. The best thing since sliced bread. Why ? Because it lets me, a GM who dislikes PC deaths, devise very hard encounters that instill the fear of death in my players, without actually needing to kill anyone ! They know FP are rare and thus when they lose one, it really hurts... The occasional bad luck or tragic "accident" then becomes a reminder of the fickleness of fate and the fragility of life in the Old World, not a game-breaking event.

My preference all-in-all, each to his own. But I still don't gather how a GM can be "proud" of killing PCs.

This is the case if your campaign has the PC's as main characters. In my campaigns the PC's are not main characters, the story evolving around them is the driving factor. The PC's has the chance of becomming main characters/heroes, and go down in history, but it's not "written" yet. It's kinda like Napoleon, he was a part of the grand story of the French Revolution, he could have faded into history, with little written about him, but instead (by part chance and part skill) he became one of the most famous rulers in history. But had he died, or never been born, the history would not have stopped, another person would very likely have taken his "place" and gone down in history, maybe not become as famous, but another would have come.

Neither way to do it is right or wrong, it's simply a matter of how you perceive GM'ing. To me I have the somewhat cynical approach that I make a story, and fill it with tons of stuff, in enters the PC's as guests in MY story. They now have to earn the right to be called heroes, I won't do the work for them, I won't fudge dice, I won't let the filthy rich nobleman have an insult go by. If the PC's screw up, they will suffer consequences, and might die from it. But the story never dies, it just has new guests entering, ready to try'n make their place in it.

It works for me and my players, they really seem to enjoy it.

I won't try to kill the PC's though, I'd never just say "10 orcs attack you", but I might say "There's 10 orcs moving down below you in the gorge", now the PC's can chose to make an attack, taking advantage of the surprise/elevation, they can quickly move to warn nearby villages/roadwardens, or simply ignore it. No choice is right, but every choice has a consequence, either affecting the PC's directly, or indirectly.

So... that's my world

Jericho said:

Jericho, you make some really good points. I certainly hope that my players' characters don't get themselves killed. But (perhaps depending a bit on the game, or style of game you're playing), I want the adventure to be dangerous, and if players make lethal choices then the game demands there be a significant chance of their death.

Also, and this doesn't really contradict what you're saying about the importance of character development, some times the GM should absolutely set out to kill the characters. Imagine Romeo and Juliet with the two star crossed lovers burning fate points at the end and walking away! Sometimes (not too often), drama needs death (in a world as dark and violent as Warhammer).

I wouldn't say I'm proud of killing player characters (and have rarely done so in fact), but I'm proud of running games that make the players fear for their lives (and sanity).

Hi Jericho,

I dont think anyone here has posted they are proud of killing PCs. Proud of running a memorable story that involves player/s deaths within it and to enhance it maybe, but not for the sake of some megalomaniac gm control buzz. As Spivo and Angelic Despot have said, a good player death can be very positive from the story perspective and even from the players.

I too run campaigns that have lasted between 2 to 6 years in some cases. Having sustained characters is essential for the storyline to remain solid, but the odd death in the right place reinforces the threat of the warhammer world, provides the "tragedy" element of the story and as you said can be refreshing for the player and group. In essence getting the balance right is probably something that comes from experience and knowing the group you play with?

Without the threat of death, the actions and choices of the players have less consequence. For example, there is a large group of monsters in the room ahead.

a) The players, knowing the GM won't kill them, draw their weapons and charge recklessly into the battle

b) The players, knowing that their PCs can die, come up with a plan to distract the monsters and sneak past them, or make a tactical battle-plan to reduce the number of monsters to even the odds.

Etc.

So, while I agree that the game/story is best when PCs survive, the threat of PC death needs to be present (and serious) for the game to have a "weightier" and "grittier" feel to it IMO. Actions have consequences. Now, as a GM I try not to let bad rolls cause a permanent death ... but if it is something caused by the poor decisions of the player/PC then that is something else.

@Jericho: I just have to add my thoughts on death. The threat of death make the players think before acting, doing their best not to die. Optimizing their strategies and so on. Way more interesting for the players than knowing that the players will survive anything. I don't even try to keep track of who's closest do dying, I try to have my creatures do "the logical" thing. If the players are getting beat up and get close to dying it's up to them to turn tails and try to run.

I would not like to play in a game where you allways survive combat. When my character goes into a fight I want to know that I can die, otherwise combat looses it's "adrenaline kick" and then I would rather skip combat alltogether.

That beeing said I never intentionally kill PC's just for the killing (if they do not ask me to, which happends), but I can plan for dangerous encounters where there might be death(s) on the PC's side. As I see it, this makes it all the more rewarding to win the fight with no deaths on the PC's side. At least that's what I feel when I'm a player. I want us to be in danger when fighting dangerous monsters, that is kind of the point with fighting dangerous monsters.

It is no competition between me and the players, rather it's about keeping it interesting (and in combat danger = interesting in many cases). I'd rather have all my PC's survive, but I won't fudge rolls for them because they'll notice and won't like it as it will take the edge of combat. The same thing goes for deseases, insanities, mutations etc. They are part of the world, and might kill the PC's if they are not careful, and that's how it should be.

One other thing to add: as a player I've had my character killed on more than one occasion. On at least two of those occasions it has been gutting at the time... But with retrospect two of the best things that have happened to me (in the world of RPGs).

In my case, it gave me an opportunity to start another (much more interesting) character.

In another case though (and this is not a problem if you're actually able to keep a group together for year after year), it's better to bring a campaign to a meaningful conclusion than let it peter out. Not that a 'meaningful conclusion' has to mean any of the characters die, but it might do.

Hi,

Perhaps "Dying a messy violent death for a cause you believe in" is the new "Retiring and buying an inn with your loot"

No.12 said:

Jericho said:

Never run Call of Cthulhu...