May22
on May 22, 2018
Another Mark on the Wall
When I run the game, my friend Bryan is the death magnet. But when I play, I attract player character deaths like a brutalised adventurer attracts flies. In the high level mini-campaign we’re currently playing, my PC has died something like three or four times. I’m pretty much averaging once per session. Even in games run by other GMs might character is the one who falls to their death, gets savaged by zombies, is felled by a lucky critical, gets blown up, shot in the head, or partially crippled by a shuttle crash.
And people wonder why I prefer to be the Dungeon Master…
I wonder how you could build a game around ‘The PC must die’?
Maybe a divine fox-hunt? Some guys prayed for a celestial whatchamacallit to be sent to them for hunting purposes, the PC plays the role of the hunted creature; their job is to be chased and ultimately be killed in a prosperity-bringing ritual hunt.
Or maybe you could work Ysgard in; a guardian of a sacred artifact whose duty is to test the mettle of anyone who comes to claim it, who will ultimately be killed (and due to Ysgard’s nature, resurrected) by a sufficiently competent hero.
Well, during my long adventuring career I’ve seen many dungeons and adventures purposefully made to be meat grinders, with no apparent reason for it. We tried some, and never got to the end of the path, because losing one PC after another got us bored in the end. The sad fact is that those were all published adventures, like Whiterock Castle, Tomb of Horrors, Return to Undermountain, and most of the Ravenloft ones. I wonder how the writers set the parameters for playtesting on those products before selling them…