The GM Advice thread: Killing your players quickly

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > The GM Advice thread: Killing your players quickly

Brother Entropy: Dec 27, 2009

HatfulOfHollow posted:

Read this quote out of context and my first reaction was “so the dogshit is sentient???”

yeah, they're called gnomes

# ¿ Oct 25, 2017 03:24

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# ¿ Jun 1, 2024 09:27

Brother Entropy: Dec 27, 2009

Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:

My dungeon world group pissed off a group of liches and have no idea. (They pseudo-permanently shut down a huge power source that the arcane brotherhood were also drawing from.) I want them to be unexpectedly menaced by them in some way at a session, while still having an unrelated job to do. They are drow working for the intelligence arm of the "kingdom in exile" after the dwarves beat them at war, working with fire giants as new allies to establish a new kingdom/home. I don't have great ideas - a straight up fight with a lich is a little cheesy, I want them to feel legit menaced, like it's the start of a long-term conflict not a one-and-done affair.

Their other mission was to assassinate a king who had been menacing fire giants in a certain region. They found a doppleganger in his place, and made him an asset instead, so if that could tie in, extra-cool.

(This is like, a side campaign to my main storm king's thunder campaign hence the D&D-isms.)

have them be stalked/chased by weird hosed-up flesh abominations long-term while they're doing some other quest; animals with no skin, too many eyes, bones sticking out at awkward angles

underline that they're being specifically targeted by these things and that only really powerful dark magic could create things like that

and then from there if they want to start looking into things, have them eventually find out that there's one magic-user in particular who used to study that kind of poo poo but he suddenly disappeared long ago blah blah blah he's one of the liches now and they could follow a trail towards them

# ¿ Oct 28, 2017 01:49

Brother Entropy: Dec 27, 2009

Whybird posted:

My favourite way of dealing with this is to get the players to agree in advance what rating the game is getting (as in, PG-13, R, whatever.) Because while creepos don't get "don't be a creepos" every nerd gets what is and isn't R-rated, and because it then becomes a lot easier to interrupt players with phrases like "...bearing in mind this game is PG-13 rated, how do you make the prisoner talk?" or "no, you can't roll to do that, not if this game's going to pass the censors".

It's great because it lets you slap players down while blaming an external force (those pesky censors!) and because the slapdown acknowledges that yes, well done, you're wacky and hilarious for suggesting that, but no it's not going to happen.

yeah but then you only get one utterance of 'gently caress' in the whole campaign and you just know every player will want their character to be the one who gets to say it

# ¿ Sep 17, 2018 02:13

Brother Entropy: Dec 27, 2009

if your group is down for supernatural high school drama there's always the classic monsterhearts

# ¿ Oct 25, 2018 18:24

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