DM makes a character that the entire party enjoys having around and gets connected with

>DM makes a character that the entire party enjoys having around and gets connected with
>kills them near the end of the campaign in the most brutal way possible

Sometimes it's nice to have a personal reason to hate the villain.

Still, it sounds like a really cheap move.

Why not make BBEG get his hands on NPC and have PC's fight against the clock to mount a rescue operation.
They will sure have a reason to hate the villain and an extra motive to get emotionally involved.

I use a character named Carl when my play group starts a new system. He is always helpful, friendly and shows my players the ropes. I kill Carl everytime in awful ways. Head blown apart while he drives pcs to saftey. Set on fire and screams until he collapses and dies. Found tortured by mobsters, telling the group that he didnt break before he dies. His death is usally sudden and out of nowhere. Everytime they run into a Carl they get attached.

Better than killing them off as soon as you start to like them. Developing the character and getting the party to like them before the punch is a lot more work on the DM, so I don't mind as much.

Would still prefer an opportunity to save them, of course, but I can understand the motive for killing them.

Heh, goddamn right. That'll teach the little bastards to form attachments.

Yesss....their transition to true murderhoboing is almost complete.

Let me guess: he shows the death in a cartoon that brainwashes all of his players into getting a despair fetish?

This is a complex meme.

Did he give you chances to save the character, but you missed them all because you took the character for granted? And then he died faithfully following you, believing in you so much that he trusted you were spending his life for a high price because it needed to be done, and not because despite liking him so much you treated him like an inventory piece instead of a person?

Because it's not really the most brutal way unless the DM can make you personally responsible, not out of malice or convenience or necessity or plot, but simply out of neglect.

Not a lack of immersion, but where you're so into being the big damn hero that you forget that they were facing all the same dangers without class levels or loot and gear upgrades. You've gone from country Knight to King but they're still just your squire, and you failed your duty to grow them with you.

Because if the villain never gets to do anything bad, he's not a real threat. He's a poseur, and an edgy one.

Ray T. Thorr, a vampire red knight who accompanied the party for like half the game helping and being the source of p cool side quests and many hearty laughs. Killed by the girl berserker the moment she saw how his name was written on paper.

>kidnapping
>enslaving
>torturing
>not doing anything bad

Outright killing, even in brutal fashion, is too simple and leaves only brief desire for vengeance.

If you have to save someone, you gotta do greater distances and put more effort into it.
Not to mention PC's would still have hope, even if it would be left to be crushed later on.

>follow up clues to find that friendly NPC
>form a plan to rescue NPC
>find a shelter for NPC and provide medical care
>deal with BBEG

instead of

>BBEG kills NPC
>PC's kill BBEG

Just like my motives.

Junko pls go and stay go.

I don't get it.

Because the gm wanted a reaction. None of his pkayers would be coming here to point out their emotional response to that weak bullshit... yet here they are telling us how terrible thy feel about the npc's death.

I like the latter, it ties up all the loose ends.

Also, it can establish a villain as really evil and fucked. When one NPC villain cornered the PC's love interest, I thought he was going to rape her/NTR him.

He didn't. Instead, he cut off her head and began to make out with it. When we fought the final battle, he had the girl's body dressed up like a doll, and he had her head in a jar. That was the most memorable villain, because he was pure psychotic evil that said very little. This guy was an evil fuck who never ranted or said much of anything, and he just expressed purest contempt for the party.

The only time his expression really changed was when he killed him, and then it was to something like joy.

This

I don't GM like this. If a character died, then that's because something successfully killed them, which means the players could have stopped it.

>Make a char with family or ties with friends, etc
>GM kills them to rise the stakes or prove the BBEG of the week is strong and mean
>Make a char without family (either dead of old age, killed in a war/raid/whatever, or unknown because abandoned at birth)
>"Holy shit, user, you so edgy"
You can't win

Only way to win is to play with a GM who won't murder your family, mang. We just had a lovely session visiting the party bard's brother and sister-in-law. They're out there. Fighting the good fight.

To be fair, if victory means having no investment in the world, characters, or story of the game, then your "victory" isn't terribly far removed from "failure".

>I must kill your family/loved ones to make you invested in the game
>When I can't I'll complain and blame you for something
Maybe your game is shit if you need to do that to make it interesting

I think that user's point was that his investments in the world are misused by unimaginative GM as an excuse to railroad.

If you are a GM and have to kill off family, friends or waifus of PC's to get your story going, then you are a failure.

I'm planning on sacrificing an npc warrior the old group traveled with to buy the new group time to escape a situation that would likely kill them.
This is several years after the previous campaign ended, and a new crop of heroes are coming up led by the veteran
2 of the old pcs are returning
They will not be there when their bro falls in battle

>GM uses liked npc to guilt trip PCs onto quest that has a very high party wipe chance
>other options are to refuse quest, or take route that will end in us failing the quest because it's slower but safer
>multiple dex skill checks to survive, can't even improve our odds
>non dex PCs at disadvantage
>despite taking the fast, almost killed us route the quest was supposed to fail anyways
>the lone survivor shows us a safe route out of zone that is risk free
le magical hidden trap door no one knew about but him meme

going to start refusing side quests, there's no reason to do them.

"Getting a reaction" only works the first time you pull that shit.

The second time, it's all like "well, it sucks but what are you going to do.

The third time it just becomes expected at this point.

Nobody is going to create bonds and ties when they know that they'll just get killed off to satisfy the GM's railroad.

If anything, me making a character with no investment in the world is your fault because the way I see it, he'll have no reason to go back to his old life anyways so why bother putting in the work for no return?

they might be stupid or empathetic and stay

hope you have a plan for that, it'll suck for them otherwise. in the cliche stories heroes don't leave a man behind.

I agree that it's a cheap and predictable move. I've also always held that belief myself and I've explicitly said that I won't go out of my way to do anything like that myself.

However, I don't really understand the motivation behind building your character around the idea that they should have no earthly attachments, just so that nothing tragic can happen.

I mean first of all, that also removes the possibility of having interesting NPCs who are friends or family, and makes your character seem like they have no place in the world.
And second of all, even if it does come down to a GM killing off your family or something, isn't that still more interesting to roleplay than if you just start out by saying "I'm an orphan and the orphanage burned down"?

I mean it's not like a tragedy happened to you, the player. It's just an opportunity to ham it up or get a dramatic haircut or whatever you like.

Or is it just that people are so tired of the trope that they'd rather have a boring character than be exposed to it?

What are people afraid will happen?

>going to start refusing side quests, there's no reason to do them.
user, unless this is a long running habit, you are being tha faggot that throws the baby out with the bathwater.
To wit, how the hell do you know if something is a "sidequest"? This shit is Oblivion, there is no fast travel marker that shows you this leads to the end boss.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and assume that the shit you're talking about probably is NOT Oblivion, considering it did have quest waypoints and fast travel.

>However, I don't really understand the motivation behind building your character around the idea that they should have no earthly attachments, just so that nothing tragic can happen.

Because when a shitty GM removes those earthly attachments from a player and uses it in some cheap gag to force melodrama and stakes into the game, it just makes the player less inclined to waste his time giving the GM ammunition to fuck with him later on.

>I mean first of all, that also removes the possibility of having interesting NPCs who are friends or family, and makes your character seem like they have no place in the world.

Most GMs who murder friendly NPCs are not the type to roleplay a happy well adjusted family for levity.

>And second of all, even if it does come down to a GM killing off your family or something, isn't that still more interesting to roleplay

No, because that's time being flushed down the toilet just so the GM can force "muh despair" into shit.

Sounds good.

Will npc warrior leave something behind to remember him by?

It is not about being worried of loss itself, than just being tired of GM's railroading. If they do that all the time, then all you are doing is giving them more excuses for lazy GM'ing.

And perhaps, if you won't give GM cheap hooks, they will get better at improvisation and creativity, finding other, better ways to get the group going that just butchering their loved ones.

>hope you have a plan for that
Kill them.
Seriously, the situation they are in is an "Escape the situation that has gone so ploin shaped you could bottle it and sell it as a laxative".
It won't help that the warrior is going to be dying of magic aids anyway, the result of the last time he held the line for a pc group. He will tell them such, and instruct them on how to get out before holding a chokepoint as long as he can.
If they stay, he will, if lucky, die on his feet, and then their once easy escape will now turn hellish.
I have no issue with a near tpk, as I don't consider such things some unforgivable GM sin, but the end result of critical missteps by the players choosing bravado over survival.
Which is perfectly fine, I do it myself, but I've eaten tpks in the past doing so, and had outrageous success as well.

>focusing 90% of response on terminology you don't like
paladins are tanks

>To wit, how the hell do you know if something is a "sidequest"?

Because we already have a destination that we know will advance the plot and it involves an NPC that will likely either be someone who cannot be saved or ends up betraying us halfway through.

Just safer to assume that anything that isn't getting us closer to the BBEG is just another setpiece designed to force the idea that "hurr durr can't trust/save everyone" even though we've already had that situation happen multiple times during previous sessions.

Sounds like your DM is dogshit m8

>Nobody is going to create bonds and ties when they know that they'll just get killed off to satisfy the GM's railroad.
Eh, I had a DM good for that, but I would still form the attachments because camaraderie, and it made no sense to go Pssh Nothing Personell just because they had a expiration date on their head.
I would go full Brethren Before Wenches Brohammedian, shed a tear when they fell, take up their burden and fight in their name.
One character tattooed his fallen friends names on his hands and arms, so they could fight on with him in spirit. Had a sleeve at one point lol.

I've been in almost half a dozen games and this has happened commonly enough that I just assume the worst.

Rule of thumb, if a GM complains about me playing an orphan with no bonds, I just tell them to give us an NPC that won't be killed off or end up betraying us partway through the campaign.

They never bring it up after that.

Yea, you got it.
Shush, faggot, cismen are talking.
And how do you know it's going to take you closer? How do you know it isn't a dead end?
Also
>unless this is a long running habit
>turns out it is
So why are you bitching here, instead of to the DM? Call him out.

Well you're certainly braver than me.

I just end up making filler characters until I'm sure that the GM can be trusted, at least that way if they die I have a replacement on standby.

>Will npc warrior leave something behind to remember him by?
The new blood is going to meet up with the old blood after the debacle, and the warrior's last words will be to ask them to tell the old guard (gives names and basic description) he found a good enough place to die, and he apologizes for breaking his promise to buy that tavern after their last adventure together.
I know the players, it will twinge the heartstrings, since all of them mentioned they enjoyed his antics, but he existed because the players were shorthanded, and now the party swells with players.
For a quickly thrown together trash pc to fill space, I'm happy he worked out with the party, with all the dmpc horror stories out there.

>And how do you know it's going to take you closer? How do you know it isn't a dead end?

Because after each session he always flaps his gums and admits that he has something "really fucking cool and awesome and shit" waiting for us at the prescribed destination and I couldn't be arsed enough to go off the rails since it usually involves disposable NPCs that rarely survive three sessions after they're introduced.

Usually, it ends up being a boss fight with a BBEG's general or some shit and for what it's worth, the combat isn't total ass so we at least have something fun to look forward to.

Again.
Call.
Him.
Out.
Don't be a goddamn fool, put up with bullshit, then come vent on Veeky Forums. Put him to the fucking horns, and if he can't knock it off, kick him out of the gm seat and put your own ass in it.

Using an old enemy or getting family, etc involved seems to be a favourite go-to.

I generally keep my backstories closed off to limit cheap attempts at heart strings or vengeance. Murderhobos and overly sympathetic characters aren't fun for me anyways. Would rather find my own reason to keep a character in the party, or make an enemy along the way.

I generally don't mind my backstory, that the gm required, is used for something else besides a waste of time and ink.
It need not be the end all, but I always make sure o have a few plot pings in it for the enterprising gm to use.

>players make characters that the entire party enjoys having around and get genuinely connected with
>DM kills them near the end of the campaign in the most brutal way possible

Best ending

>DM makes a character the the entire party enjoys having around and treats as the team pet
>Turns out they were a projection of the masked Big Bad/the Big Bad themself the whole time

What's your take on this?

Spider/Redips fucked me up as a kid

If they incidentally die during the final hardships/battles, maybe.
If the DM just pulls murder out of his ass that then kills them, definitely not.

>arbitrarily kills beloved characters
>confuses this with 'drama'

PROTIP: If your GM ever admits to being a Joss Whedon fan, run - don't walk - away, never to return.

The moment I knew I made an NPC my players loved when NPC failed his Athletics check to jump across a pit to the other side and three of my players frikkin jumped to grab her. Glad thing the Wizard remembered to Feather Fall.

That said, should I roll checks for NPCs in those situations or just let them jump?

Whedon is a good writer he just needs someone to reign him in.

...

>the lone survivor shows us a safe route out of zone that is risk free
Behead him.

>I'm a fan of Joss Whedon.
>Out of respect for him, I won't use any of his tricks.

Keep running, or pause?