How to avoid killing your player characters as GM

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

I just find out beforehand how much PC death the players want, and then ignore any rules on dying that contradict that wish (if any). Saves time, saves brainpower, and saves points on Unkillable. I'm really more about "storytelling with random prompts" than "tactics with dice", anyway.

[Outlaw]

Originally Posted by mburr0003

And in what way are those maps useful in a social encounter? Do they show the tactical situation of whom is allied with whom, who has what likes, dislikes, what might cause instant aggression in the Don?
"

Point taken, however, once again your presumption is wrong. No adventures I run have that level of social interaction. I would call my play style "guided hack and slash fantasy spec. ops". A fantasy version of the James Bond RPG missions with a bigger team, if you're old enough to remember that.

My players will never be in a situation where their characters WOULD know the information you describe above without me having provided that information.

I don't do mass intrigue and impromptu/random high level social interactions specifically b/c I can't write a background novel for each adventure and I'm not good enough to make stuff of that level up on the fly that meets my quality requirements, so I avoid it. I don't believe anyone is that good (keeping in mind that my quality requirements in this context are high).

Trying to make that kind of stuff up on the fly invariably leads to the players realizing the GM is in totally uncharted territory and it's up to them to back off and just roll in another direction.

I HATE THAT.

It sucks for the GM and it sucks for the players so, through careful planning and preparation I don't allow for that possibility.

Now, that's not to say that my players don't do unexpected things (which is different from stupid things), however, I also have a stack of NPCs with enough back story to make it through anything my players have ever come up with. The biggest problem I have is keeping track of who I used and what they said b/c, on occasion, I do try and have a smattering of NPCs hang around for the next time the players are in their area. That's when the player's notes come in handy for me.

[Varyon]

Honestly, given the characters will often know things the players don't - because they have skills the players lack - I think it's appropriate to basically give everyone a free variant of Common Sense, where when the player says to do something the character would know better than to do, the GM can roll against a relevant skill and, on a success, inform the player their character would know better than to do that, and perhaps suggest alternatives. The player can certainly still have the character do the thing - maybe they feel it's an in-character mistake ("Oh, he should know better than to punch the professional duelist in the face, but the way the <CENSORED> is acting would absolutely set my character off enough for him to forget that."), maybe they think the GM is wrong and their plan is a good one (it worked out for Mal, right?), maybe they just find it more entertaining ("This is boring and I want to punch someone. Oh look, a volunteer!"). But when there's a burning truck hauling lithium, and the chemist PC's player (a player who's only real memory of his highschool chemistry class is that his lab partner was really pretty) grabs a bucket of water to throw on it to put it out, I think giving a chance for the character's knowledge to come into play is useful.

Granted, that's more a general-use houserule than one really designed to keep the characters alive. It can certainly help a good deal, by keeping them out of situations where accidental death is a significant concern... but in an adventure characters are almost certainly going to get into those kinds of situations anyway.

[sjmdw45]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Honestly, given the characters will often know things the players don't - because they have skills the players lack - I think it's appropriate to basically give everyone a free variant of Common Sense, where when the player says to do something the character would know better than to do, the GM can roll against a relevant skill and, on a success, inform the player their character would know better than to do that, and perhaps suggest alternatives... But when there's a burning truck hauling lithium, and the chemist PC's player (a player who's only real memory of his highschool chemistry class is that his lab partner was really pretty) grabs a bucket of water to throw on it to put it out, I think giving a chance for the character's knowledge to come into play is useful.

I would not tell the player not to throw the bucket of water, but I absolutely would tell the player the thing the character knows, which is that "if you throw that bucket of water on the burning lithium it will explode for 8d of damage about a second later," or whatever outcome the rules I'm using would have. It's my job as GM to be their window into the game world. It's not my place to tell them what decisions to make.

It's not a failure on my part if Dr. Einstein takes 30 points of damage from the explosion, but it is a failure on my part if Dr. Einstein is surprised that an 8d explosion occurred.

P.S. It's also my fault if Dr. Einstein and I disagree about how close he was standing to the explosion because I forgot to ask and made an assumption; so if he says "no, I was ten feet away" I will say, "sorry, my mistake; you only take 10 points of damage then, or 7 if you make your Dodge."

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Varyon

A lot of players want the catharsis of dishing out some ultraviolence, and may enjoy the challenge of a fair fight - or even one where the odds are against them. Sure, this might not be the ultimate goal of the character (although it certain still can be - consider Kenpachi from Bleach, or, for a less-extreme version, Nil from Horizon: Zero Dawn), but it's what the players find to be fun. And at the end of the day, the purpose of an RPG is having fun.

Now, personally, I love it when a plan comes together and the party is victorious due to superior manipulation of events and the battlefield rather than because the dice were on their side this time (although the latter can certainly be fun too). But not all players are going to be like me - plenty want to be able to just Leeroy Jenkins their way into a fight. And sometimes having disposable characters is the way to go - from what I understand, the playtesters all had a blast in the Delvers to Grow meatgrinder. But when it isn't, you'll need some options to keep the characters alive despite their best attempts to off themselves.

I gotta note that a fair fight means you're 50% likely to lose it. (A fight that would be fair except you have superior manipulation of events and the battlefield is not a fair fight.)

I haven't seen anybody who wants that at a tabletop. In video games where there's a fairly tight die-retry loop, that's another story.

(Unless you implement that loop in your tabletop game, which is...definitely a thing you could do.)

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by sjmdw45

I would not tell the player not to throw the bucket of water, but I absolutely would tell the player the thing the character knows, which is that "if you throw that bucket of water on the burning lithium it will explode for 8d of damage about a second later," or whatever outcome the rules I'm using would have. It's my job as GM to be their window into the game world. It's not my place to tell them what decisions to make.

That works too. Personally, I think of "Your knowledge of chemistry tells you that throwing water on the fire will result in it exploding in your face and potentially killing you" and "Your knowledge of chemistry tells you that throwing water on the fire will result in it exploding in your face and potentially killing you, so you might want to try something else" as being functionally the same statement, but if you prefer the former over the latter, go for it.

[whswhs]

Personally, I don't fudge dice rolls, and while I almost always make some changes in the rules, I announce them explicitly at the start of a new campaign. My methods for avoiding player character deaths involving announcing explicitly, in a prospectus, how lethal I expect a proposed campaign to be; allowing players to choose campaigns that suit their preferences about lethality; providing options in suitable campaigns for methods of pursuing goals and resolving conflicts other than deadly force; and, in campaigns where lethality is likely, allowing enough character points so that characters can keep themselves safe most of the time.

My experience has consistently been that there are very few character deaths, even in high-combat campaigns. One or another of the things I do may be working.

The most severe outcome I can recall in a GURPS campaign involved three player characters being stalked through the Paris streets by some thugs hoping to rob and assault them. The male PC charged recklessly at the biggest and most visible thug, striking at him while running past him, and missing; the thug made a wild swing and got lucky, hitting the PC's leg and crippling him, after which the two female PCs stepped up and defended themselves and their friend. After things were resolved, the male PC's player summed up the outcome as "Bad Leg and Addicted to opium? Sweet!"

In my recent campaign in a Bronze Age fantasy world, one of the PCs kept coming up with reckless experiments in the use of spirit magic. I carefully worked out how one of them could kill her—but as it happened, she never got around to trying that specific ritual; I explained it to her player after the campaign was over . . .

[mlangsdorf]

Originally Posted by mburr0003

And in what way are those maps useful in a social encounter? Do they show the tactical situation of whom is allied with whom, who has what likes, dislikes, what might cause instant aggression in the Don?

The one time I did a court politics thing, I did create a map of the significant players and their known allies and allegiances. The players could update the map with their notes about people. I don't know how much the players actually got out of it, but I did my best to provide some visual aids.

For my mystery/gangbusters game, there were similar maps and a continuously updated log with what the PCs knew about the major suspects and any outstanding questions the PCs had (see here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...IiLyg2U9O7mz6M)

[Culture20]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Honestly, given the characters will often know things the players don't - because they have skills the players lack - I think it's appropriate to basically give everyone a free variant of Common Sense,

Over time, I've come to the conclusion that Common Sense should be free even if the players are playing versions of themselves, because the characters (usually) have complete senses in their environment while the players have only the description I've given them verbally that they have to translate in real time to imaginary visuals, scents, sounds, etc. When a player says they do something unusual or dangerous, I almost always ask for reasoning and give clarification. The only exception is for characters failing a roll making them impulsive or oblivious.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Culture20

Over time, I've come to the conclusion that Common Sense should be free even if the players are playing versions of themselves, because the characters (usually) have complete senses in their environment while the players have only the description I've given them verbally that they have to translate in real time to imaginary visuals, scents, sounds, etc. When a player says they do something unusual or dangerous, I almost always ask for reasoning and give clarification. The only exception is for characters failing a roll making them impulsive or oblivious.

Yeah, that's a good idea. It's a lot easier to forget the Duchess you're secretly conspiring with your ally to frame for murder is literally standing right across from you when it's something the GM said about the scene 10 minutes ago alongside the rest of the infodump than it is to do the same when you can actually see her there.