My First PC Kill

As I sat in front of my computer last night, playing around with MasterPlan, and with visions of PC deaths dancing in my head, I started reminiscing about my first PC kill.

I remember it as coming as a bit of a shock, as I didn't even know that the PC was bloodied, and on a crit, I destroyed any chance of this PC rising to glory again.  How did I deal with my first PC death?  I'm not going to lie; there may have been some jesting involved.  Some laughter.  Some dancing.  Even some fist pumping.

Yep, buddy. Consider yourself flayed.

Now, you think that this would break me into the joy of killing PCs and watching the negotiations that would follow.  "But why would you kill *insert random character name here*?  He/She is awesome and was so close to leveling!  And I was going to buy him/her a *insert random magic item here* back in *insert random town name here* and make the world a better place!".  Crazily enough, I always get a little panicked when my PCs come close to death.  What if the PC gets angry?  What if they get upset?  What if the flip the table and vow vengeance on all DMs for the injustice done to them this day?  And some PCs are super sweet, and the look of disappointment that they get can be drowning on an up and coming DM.

So how can I deal with these feelings of "Why can't we all live happily ever after"?

Well, I can always just hold back.  Start to make the encounters easier.  Tweak my crits to fails.  Wouldn't that help?  Nope.  That would just lead to a very boring campaign with no challenge to the PCs.  Bored PCs are annoying PCs, as they start to look for shiny objects to amuse them instead.

Did I say crit?  I meant crit fail.  My bad.

Well, how about giving the PCs extra alternatives to get out of a particular mess?  Like really weird skill challenges or something?  Nope.  Then the encounter loses the point of being a fight, and starts to mimic that more of a circus routine.

Just do five backflips off the statue, and then the dragon gets scared away by your lack of language skills.  That's totally legit.

Well, I can just distance myself from the PCs.  I mean, yes they're my friends, but at the table they are my mortal enemies who deserve nothing but the backhand of the StrictDM.  Just throw everything out there, and let the gods sort them out.  If they can't survive it, then they have the bad character builds.  That's their fault.  Not mine.  Nope.  Then they get frustrated, and I get bored with the imminent rising death toll.

Let me just file your character sheet for you in the "There's Still Hope" section.

I think the real answer is balance.  And it isn't an easy thing to find.  Too much PC death is downright disheartening, and too easy a campaign is too boring for everyone, in my opinion.  Eventually, it gets easier for everyone.  I'm probably just being a pansy about the whole thing, but I think it's nice that I still have that connection with my PCs.  I don't want to become totally cold and not care about how the game effects them.  Not until they tick me off anyways....

Back up character sheet; don't leave home without it

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Time Is Of The Essence - Speeding Up The Game

I would like to think that I'm a patient person, but when your turn plays out like this, I tend to get a tad frustrated:


PC1: (Finishes tweeting something) Is it my turn?
Me: That's why I said you're on deck.
PC1: Okay, what's happening now?
Me: Are you attacking anyone?
PC1: I'll attack the goblin.
PC2: No! The goblin is on our side now! Attack someone else.
PC1: Okay. Let me just find my power.
Me: Seriously? Are you screwing with me?  There was like 10 minutes of play before your turn came up.
PC1: I didn't know it was my turn.
Me: Your name is up on the screen and I told you that you were on deck.
PC1: It will only take a second to find.
*10 minutes later*
PC1: Okay, I'll use sly flourish.
Me: On who?
PC1: The guy in the back.
Me: The one behind the wall?
PC1: ....yes.
Me: I hate you so much right now.

I would like to think that we have all seen this play out a few times around the table, and due to the inexplicable rage that this causes me, I've put some rules in place to fight against it.  These rules apply to me, too.  I'm not a total jerkface.


Rule #1: No laptops at the game table.  This is hugely distracting to not only yourself, but the other players too.  No matter how good someone is, they can easily be pulled away by watching Bieber getting kicked in the groin, or seeing Keyboard Cat making a triumphant return.


Rule #2: Every PC gets 2 minutes per turn.  This includes their move, minor, and standard action, as well as giving me all the damage and effects.  if they run out of time on their turn, and don't get a chance to give me their damage, then it's too late.  If you have 5 other PCs before you, plus all the creature damage as well, there is no excuse for you to not be fully prepared for your turn.  My PCs have adapted to this beautifully.  And when they mess up, the panic in their faces in that last 10 seconds brings me a certain amount of joy.


Rule #3: The DM controls the timers.  There are a ton of free programs/apps out there so you can set your timers up.  Or, if you like playing with code, you could always write your own.  The DM is also responsible for stopping the timers for the unusual extra things that might happen.  Some examples being; pizza delivery, dog distracting, children frolicking, llama releasing, and so on.


Rule #4:  Immediate interrupt?  You have 30 seconds to get all of your stuff in.  The way I see it; if you are jumping in all of a second with an attack, you don't jump in and think what your next action will be.  It's called an "immediate" interrupt, not a "stop and ponder what to do next".  My PCs have made me quite proud with making cheat sheets with all their interrupt actions on them.  If an interrupt happens, then the 2 minute timer from the original turn pauses.  If you only have 3 seconds left for your original timer and you still have a ton to get in, then think fast.


Rule #5: At the top of the round, I will allow 2 minutes for role playing dialogue between the party on what to do next.  This massively cuts down on needless chatter during or in between turns.  I have trouble seeing my PCs going to battle and having conversations in the middle of each hit.  IRL, pretty sure they would be destroyed pretty quickly.


Rule #6: If a rule is a bit sketchy and requires a bit of debate first, then the timer does not start.  I will either make a decision on how the rule will play from now on (for I am all knowing and my word is the law), or I will put it out to the table and get a vote on how we will all proceed in the future.


Rule #7: At the beginning of every session, we will have a recap of what happened last session. The PCs will do the recap for me.  This makes sure that everyone is on the same page, and that all the crucial information was taken away. This is where using Masterplan is really handy for tracking. 


Throw all of these handy dandy rules together, and you've got yourself a pretty smooth game.  Where we would usually only get 1 1/2 encounters in per night over the span of 4 hours, we can now get in 3 or more, plus a bunch of other fun stuff.  Like PC death.  We always need more PC death.


If you think of any other ideas to make the game as fluid as possible, please let me know in the comments field below.  Or, take these rules away and make them you're own.  


Word.

Let the epic quest begin...

   So I've been involved in D&D for a couple of years now, and have been DMing for about a year.  There have been ups and downs, and even some lefts and rights (mostly rights).  I decided that I should go ahead and make a blog to track the antics that come from my jerkface fun loving PCs and the effect it has on my drinking habit sanity level.  


   I can guarantee to you that this blog will be filled with all the wackiness that occurs around my dining room table every other Thursday.  I'll even have the occasional all day session, which should hopefully be pretty epic too.  If you ever have any questions for me, I will be more than happy to answer them.  I'll even throw questions out to my readers as well, because I value the opinions of all on how to kill challenge my PCs.


   I think the first thing we should cover is meeting my PCs.  This should give you a more rounded look at what I have to deal with, and hopefully justify my reactions which vary from doing the happy dance, to jamming a bag of D20s down someone's throat.


Mark is the go to guy when it comes to weird and wacky rules.  When even the most knowledgeable DM/PC is stumped, he's your man.  His nerdery knows no limits.


Tammy is the gal with all the dice.  Seriously.  She strikes fear into you with her million dice rolls.  A basic attack from her, usually leads to a ridiculous amount of damage, and some evil after effect that I was so not ready for.  She's not so sweet and innocent.


Mike is guaranteed to have some of the wittiest comments around the table. He kind of has that "born leader" way about him and is really good at pulling people down to Earth again.   


Ian is the guy you find yourself always scrambling for duct tape for.  He prides himself on making life difficult for me, and I pride myself on crushing his hopes and dreams.  I know it's wrong to pick favourites, but smiting him brings me an unusual amount of joy.


Alec is the nice guy where I can test out all my different status effects on.  He's a huge fan of being stunned and has love-hate relationship with his dice. Favourite phrase would probably be, "What the frak?".


So these are the main players on our stage.  Let's see how this all plays out.


Word