Should I be a complete bastard?

In our longer campaigns, I think our regular DM tries not to kill our characters. He’ll never hit a man when he’s down, for instance. And area of effect spells pass over fallen heroes. I’ve never asked him directly about this, but I suspect he thinks it would reduce our enjoyment. That, or he believes these epic sagas need to follow a single fellowship from level 1 lemmings to level 12 invincibles. The narrative thread must not be frayed.

In other adventures though, in between campaigns, he doesn’t mind stacking an encounter against us. I think we got through 7 characters in 3 sessions once when we dipped our toes into the shark infested waters of Saltmarsh.

The former, the longer form saga of levelling up, feels like you’re building an incredible machine to perform an elaborate routine of combat manoeuvres every time you roll initiative. You don’t survive against the odds. You excel, enjoying every time you level up or loot the dungeon to get some sparkly new toys.

The DM god of these campaigns is a benevolent deity, bestowing gifts on her brave but foolish children. Let them play.

The other god though, he’s ready to go Old Testament on yo’ ass.

Indulge me. Let me share an example with you. Nathan, the O. G. Gorgon, was playing a Marxist bear called Jarmo in Kobold Press’s Scarlet Citadel, a warlock whose hexed pickaxe was inscribed with the words, “this machine kills fascists” - a nod to the godfather of American folk. We all loved that character, speaking in a thick scouse accent, trying to awaken class consciousness in every waitress, blacksmith and goblin that we met. So we were all gutted when he was cut down in battle by an army of trolls, returning to a blood-spattered staircase to stabilise his fallen “comrades.”

I could see he was a bit bummed out. The fight was impossible. We went down faster than coins in a well. The rest of us were unconscious but stable. It should have been a TPK. But the DM decided the trolls took us prisoner, presented us to their cruel overlord to laugh and leer at. I thought this was another sign that he was pulling his punches.

I was wrong.

In our next session, we kneeled before the troll’s cut-throat king, ready to provide him with some “entertainment.” And who knew this ugly brute was such a fan of interior design? He waxed lyrical about his carved throne, his spiral sconces, his Elven vase and his new rug. Oh no! Our dear friend’s furry hide “really brought the room together.”

O, you brilliant bastard! That’s how you create a villain. Of course, he doesn’t give two shits about your heartfelt sorrow.

Now it made sense why they spared us, why they brought us here, rested, but unarmed, to strain at our chains like hungry beasts, our words tasting bitter in our mouths.

“Let grief convert to anger: blunt not the heart, enrage it.” (Macbeth)

And, thus, Jarmo’s death breathed new life into an adventure that offered few opportunities for roleplay and character development otherwise.

So should a DM be out to get you?

Here at Greedy Gorgon Press, we really enjoyed playtesting Highway to Hell and Stairway to Heaven because it was so competitive. It was players vs DM. Me and Col vs Nathan. Can we kill his overpowered pets? He gets hilariously tetchy every time we draw blood - simultaneously pantomime and genuine. And in those games, we died A LOT. Thats the core mechanic. You die; you level up. You die; you level up. It allows you to have a go at those crazy nova damage builds that Colby calculates on YouTube. (We’d been stuck in the doldrums of level 1-8 for so long that it felt fucking great to cast a spell above level 4.)

“Now, gods, stand up for bastards!” (King Lear)

In this game, the DM is a real arsehole, a grade A, 100% pure, uncompromising cunt. (Sorry, mum! But he totally was. Every spell lower than level 4 was automatically counterspelled. The monsters’ list of immunities was longer than a wizard’s sleeve. And I loved it. There. I don’t care what the ladies at church are saying. He was a cunt. And it was great. And I punched the messiah in the face. D&D really is everything they feared it was in the 80s.)

Buuuuuut there are no consequences here. You don’t really die. To borrow a turn of phrase from that grandiloquent Victorian, Charles Dickens, star of The Muppets Christmas Carol, you are “dead to begin with.” It’s safe to go after your players; ultimately, they benefit from it.

At UK Games Expo last year, some guys came over who’d bought Highway to Hell the year before. They couldn’t wait to tell Nathan just how they’d managed to overcome six out of seven of his sins and only died once. “Don’t take it easy on them,” Nathan advised their DM. The players laughed. The DM protested, a nerve well and truly touched. “I didn’t!”

This kind of competitive play, complete with scheming and sledging is rare in D&D, but is well perfectly suited to those adventures.

The only other place I’ve seen such open shithousery is before a session of Call of Cthulhu. Let’s be honest, when we play that brilliant game, we look forward to a cosmic climax that takes our sanity if not our life. We are willing martyrs to the cause. In fact, you feel let down if you come out unscathed when everyone else was possessed by the awakened spirit of a heretical priest, mumbling incoherently in the foetal position, or decapitated by the mandibles of a giant insectoid alien.

The narrative structure of this Eldritch horror is built on suspense, ratcheting up and up to an awful peak. Starting off with light-hearted threats - “I hope you’re not too attached to your beliefs, or your characters, because they are about to be strained to breaking point” - that’s all part of building tension.

Even though our attachment to our characters is different in D&D, couldn’t creating nervous anticipation - fear, threat, suspense - call it what you will - doesn’t this increase enjoyment? Doesn’t it challenge us to play well, to earn our successes?

And for those feelings to take root in your players - listen closely DMs - you must make a sacrifice to the god of death. This is the truth George R. R. Martin knows so well. Take a hero, make us care about them, show us their strengths, then kill them at the end of book one, or cut off their sword hand half way through book three.

This is the world you’re playing in. It has fucking monsters in it, and trapped dungeons, and cults of evil mages. It’s dangerous! Act like a dickhead and you’ll soon realise you’re not the hero, you’re the ones that die before the real heroes show up.

After all, how do we measure a hero?

They overcome the odds. They succeed where others would falter or fail. And sometimes the only way to succeed is to sacrifice themself for the cause. They are are not invincible. I mean, have you read Beowulf?Have you watched Avengers: Endgame?

God bless you Jarmo Scarkill. You, my friend, were a hero.

So, I guess I’ve taken the long road to get there, but my answer is this. Killing players is an essential part of world-building. The villains are powerful and ruthless. The monsters are destructive and dangerous. Play with fire, kids, and you will get burned. They can buy plate mail but not plot armour. If you’re not comfortable being a bastard yourself, you at least need to be comfortable with creating some NPCs who are, and placing them in a dog eat dog, morally grey world.

Practice. No, seriously. Get some practice. Play Highway to Hell and get used to fighting to kill. The players have no problem doing it; the monsters shouldn’t either. (Hence why Keith Ammann’s book The Monsters Know What They’re Doing is in my humble opinion the best DM supplement out there…that isn’t published by GGP.) Try running a game of Call of Cthulhu - the entry adventure, “The Haunting,” is perfect. Get a feel for that crescendo and climax. Then bring that to an adventure like Song for the Dead, Unsinkable or Blood on the Trail. Play it over two or three sessions. Let them get attached to their characters, double down on role play, skill checks that matter and problem solving, and then - bam! - hit them with a fucking hard final showdown where they might lose if they play badly or the dice gods “kill them for their sport” as they are sometimes want to do. They need to know you’ve got it in you. Like every good vampire, you’ve tasted blood, and it tasted fucking great.

Then, when you start your next campaign, tell your players, “I might not want to kill you, but my monsters do. Remember that.”

“All they that take the sword, shall perish with the sword.” (Matthew 26:52)