How to avoid killing your player characters as GM

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Well, okay, I was using "dungeon crawls" as synecdoche for fighting to the death as a play style.

Ah, thanks for the clarification.

Originally Posted by whswhs

As for prospectuses, here's an example entry from my 2020 prospectus:

_____ Demobbed. Streetlevel supers. GURPS. Source material: Astro City, JSA: The Liberty File, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Planetary, Top Ten: The Forty-Niners, Wild Cards, The Defenders (Netflix series).
It’s 1945, and the boys (and girls) with special powers are coming home from the war. How will they fit into civilian life in a world at peace? Player characters will be streetlevel supers—not necessarily “superheroes,” but generally inclined to obey the law, protect the innocent, and help the helpless. The focus of play will be partly on the usual superheroic combat and partly on inventing a role for people with strange powers and abilities. There won’t be a generic category of “superpowers”; rather, many different types of special abilities will be available, from ancient mystical rituals to superscientific inventions. Combat will be realistic and death will be possible, as will legal consequences for going too far with your abilities.
You may enjoy this campaign if you like streetlevel superheroes or pulp adventurers; a post-World War II setting appeals to you.

Yeah, that doesn't sound like a campaign where I'd expect existential combat to feature, particularly with the bit about legal consequences for going too far. As I suspected, your prospectuses sound like they do a good job of setting expectations.

Originally Posted by whswhs

I was going to include this in my last post, but I can't figure out how multiquote is meant to work; when I click the icon I don't get a box to type in.

I normally just open a new tab for each reply, then cut-and-paste them all together into a single post, but I decided to test out the multi-quote function for this reply. Looks like the way it works is that you hit the multi-quote button for each post you want to quote, which selects it; once you have all of them, you click on Post Reply (as though you were posting without a quote) and your reply automatically has the selected posts quoted.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Varyon

I normally just open a new tab for each reply, then cut-and-paste them all together into a single post, but I decided to test out the multi-quote function for this reply. Looks like the way it works is that you hit the multi-quote button for each post you want to quote, which selects it; once you have all of them, you click on Post Reply (as though you were posting without a quote) and your reply automatically has the selected posts quoted.

I'll try that next time. Thanks!

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Varyon

As I suspected, your prospectuses sound like they do a good job of setting expectations.

I'm glad you find them so. I've been writing them since the 1990s, and I've learned to make them more informative and formulaic as I've gone.

Here's a bit from the oldest prospectus I still have on file, dated 2005, so nearly twenty years back:

___Mentat: Immediately after World War II, but with a historical divergence: effective mind-control drugs were developed before and during the war, making possible most of the effects attributed to hypnosis, telepathy, and brainwashing in popular fiction. Induced autism drugs made digital computers unnecessary for codebreaking and no one has them. Can the United States use this technology to preserve world freedom, or will it be corrupted by the use of these methods? And how long can they be kept secret, or is the secret already out? Agents of the United States’s most secret organization confront these issues. Rules system: GURPS.

[sjmdw45]

Originally Posted by Otaku

Okay, but can you understand our confusion?

I had to follow a quote chain to realize why you thought I was addressing you. I quoted a post by Boomerang (who was neither quoting nor directly responding to anyone) and a post by johndallman (who quoted Colonel_Klink). When I followed the quote chain back a step, I noticed Colonel_Klink had quote both you and johndallman in his previous post.

Not a superlong quote chain, but still not 100% obvious. Plus, I made sure to say this immediately after quoting johndallman:

...

There are probably other exceptions. It is just that, given the main topic of this thread, johndallman's advice seemed good "in general".

To clarify: I did not think you were addressing me, and do not disagree that johndallman's advice is good in general especially for player characters.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Rupert

Prior to D&D3, D&D had morale rules for NPCs and monsters, etc., were absolutely expected to often retreat or flee if things were going against them unless they were something like mindless undead. 't.

As long as we're talking about 3.x and retreating we should mention the way "Attacks of Opportunity" complicated retreating. AoO actually discouraged many kinds of imprecise swanning about in combat ("Roll for Initiative." "What do you do for your first action?" "I climb a tree.") but it was triggering an AoO by trying to break off combat that fixed in people's minds that it could be very difficult to do this successfully.

Gurps can make it pretty difficult too. Burning those 3 movement pts to spin around so you can run away full speed will generally give your opponent an attack you can't Parry or Block. Sometimes yu have to do something like encouraging disengagement by taking a Retreating Defense when you think the enemy is ready to flee.

Fleeing is always easier when you're not in melee but "hit' em hard and fast" is usually a good way to start off battles. I usually have non-engaged monsters roll IQ or similar stat to figure out that it's time to run but for the oens already committed to melee changing their minds can be difficult.

You could have monsters signal their willingness to flee by doing something like All out Defense with Retreat every Turn but that could just encourage aggression. After all, where did PCs learn to be "MurderHobos"? From running into endless series of "MurderNomads".

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

As long as we're talking about 3.x and retreating we should mention the way "Attacks of Opportunity" complicated retreating. AoO actually discouraged many kinds of imprecise swanning about in combat ("Roll for Initiative." "What do you do for your first action?" "I climb a tree.") but it was triggering an AoO by trying to break off combat that fixed in people's minds that it could be very difficult to do this successfully.

How's this supposed to work? For the first turn, starting in an enemy's reach would be unusual and decidedly not a situation where vague swanning about makes sense. For general withdrawal, there's a perfect solution named...Withdraw. Prevents the AoO and gives you full double movement.

Now, if you're white-rooming there is something that makes it hard to back off, but that's Charge, not AoO. (If you're not white-rooming, any kind of obstructive terrain can block the charge.)

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Gurps can make it pretty difficult too. Burning those 3 movement pts to spin around so you can run away full speed will generally give your opponent an attack you can't Parry or Block. Sometimes yu have to do something like encouraging disengagement by taking a Retreating Defense when you think the enemy is ready to flee.

Turning your back on an enemy in melee range to run away is a terrible idea unless you have reason to believe they're happy to let you run. Opening space by backing up with defensive maneuvers or Wait, that's a much more sensible approach. (Then you can take to your heels once you're not in reach.)

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Opening space by backing up with defensive maneuvers or Wait, that's a much more sensible approach. (Then you can take to your heels once you're not in reach.)

This is where Gurps' relentlessly "fair" alternation of Turns becomes problematic. You can back up every Turn but your enemy can advance every Turn in pursuit. It's not likely that you're going to hit terrain where you can back up but he can't follow you. A friendly pike wall isn't exactly "terrain". :)

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

As long as we're talking about 3.x and retreating we should mention the way "Attacks of Opportunity" complicated retreating. AoO actually discouraged many kinds of imprecise swanning about in combat ("Roll for Initiative." "What do you do for your first action?" "I climb a tree.") but it was triggering an AoO by trying to break off combat that fixed in people's minds that it could be very difficult to do this successfully.

The rules for retreats in AD&D1/2 worked in a similar manner, and were just as punishing. I think the real difference was that after about 3rd level damage relative to hit points was considerably lower in earlier editions, so getting hit as you ran was less punishing.

Gurps can make it pretty difficult too. Burning those 3 movement pts to spin around so you can run away full speed will generally give your opponent an attack you can't Parry or Block. Sometimes yu have to do something like encouraging disengagement by taking a Retreating Defense when you think the enemy is ready to flee.

And back-pedaling is just as useless for making distance.

[sjmdw45]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

This is where Gurps' relentlessly "fair" alternation of Turns becomes problematic. You can back up every Turn but your enemy can advance every Turn in pursuit. It's not likely that you're going to hit terrain where you can back up but he can't follow you. A friendly pike wall isn't exactly "terrain". :)

What's to stop you from declaring that you'll Wait until he attacks you, and then attack him back and step away from him while turning? Then on your next turn you're already an extra yard away (so probably two yards total), and you Move another 6 yards or so away, and 7 yards per turn thereafter until you run out of endurance.

[mburr0003]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Yeah, that excuse is always weak. "Left to the GM" with no guidance and not even discussion is omitted with a fig leaf.

There were like three small paragraphs in the DMG.


Yeah, yeah, I know. Which is why I mentioned Mike Mearls attitude about D&D, I suspect Murder Hobo was his preferred style, so it got baked into 3e. There are reasons my group hasn't played D&D since 3rd ed.

Originally Posted by whswhs

I was going to include this in my last post, but I can't figure out how multiquote is meant to work; when I click the icon I don't get a box to type in.

Once you've clicked the "multiquote" button on the post you want to multiquote you need to actually quote another post, or hit the Post Reply button at the bottom of the page. If it's not workign for you... it might be your browser doesn't support multiquote.