GM's worst punishment
 

I've been reading loads of posts here and since I myself am going to be GM this weekend, I was hoping for some inspiration from my fellow posters.

What is the worst any GM has ever done to your character?

I'd guess this would bring many horrible memories, and I'd like to hear/read them.

PS: For players who are playing in my campaign,you know who you are, don't worry your little heads about this........

http://saltnpepper.files.wordpress.c...punishment.jpg

picture from ukraine military punsihment

Well members from the old forum may recall that unfortunate tale of one of the PCs in my campaign, US Army Ranger Sgt Che Jesus Cortez. He was captured by thugs in the employ of the CIA in New Jersey and was repeatedly sodomised by them. It was like an urban version of that scene in "Deliverance". Nasty.

It wasn't intended as a punishment, but I did kill three characters in four sessions, all of them belonging to the one player. The first time he was abandoned by another player when they were attacked, the other two were bad luck - once he went the wrong way round a building and came face to face with an MG nest, the other time he totally fluffed an obs roll and walked straight into an ambush. Still doesn't beat my five characters in five sessions of Cthulu.... Three dead, one crippled and one completely barking bonkers mental.

Going back a bit here - D+D module Tomb of Horrors (if you plan on playing it and dont want a spoiler stop reading).....








Basically there is a chance a charachter gets his soul drained by the demilich and subsequently destroyed forever. Anyone who has played old A D+D will appreciate how long it takes for a friend of yours to build a char all the way to a level 17 mage - he wasnt a happy bunny... In the interests of friendship and the ongoing campaign, I cost the group big time in wishes/cash/favours etc to quest for a way of bringing him back - so I was a big softy in the end :p

I'd guess this story will enter the deep and dark "anals" of roleplaying hehe

Does that pun count as a GM punishment?:D

ROTFLMAO.... I campaigned for over five years with the same character, but we did have one guy who had to bring at least five extras with him to each session. His record was four self-distructs in one six hour session. Kid would never learn. As for punishing the characters, nawwwwwww.. they punish themselves.

I GMed that a long time ago (my best game memory ever). However, the PC were saved by one of them as this PC had never played before. While all experienced PCs were paralized by fear and old-time game memories, that unexperienced PC did the simplest thing and destroyed the demilich (not even knowing what it was). :)

I GM'd a campaign that lasted about 4 months, nearly every weekend. Had about a PC death each weekend. not on purpose but we just kept things realistic and that in itself lent that life was hard. If you rolled a 20 you had to reroll if you didn't maintain your gun to risk it exploding. They got all sorts of infections and would put each other out of their misery.

But, with this group we RP'd many games over about 6 years very hardcore. From Mechwarrior to Star Wars to Vampire and of all of us that campaign (only one I really GM'd) was everyones favorite.

Only time I was mean to a player is their was one guy who wanted to join and used to try and cheat ALL the time in our previous games. So I had this homebrew thing to get gear when ppl started out. He cheated and ended up with everything cool and overpowered. Had his own damn hovercraft, etc.

First encounter for him to link up with the group I told them before hand to not let him auto get in. They were driving along in a NATO tank and saw this Soviet hovercraft speed up toward them, which they promptly killed him and blew up all his precious gear.

He got the message and was a fair PC after that.

Worse thing you can do to a PC is kill them for little or no reason. To just be an asshole or to not listen or pay attention to them.

memories
 

WE used roll like that back in the old days .Do not think there was much cheating though - but app one pc death every gaming weekend.Making life hard enough that sometimes PCs dont make it makes it a better game imho.As for me , I have killed ( or rather they have been killed ) 3-4 PCs in a 5 player group over the last 4 years .But I think I have been too soft .

So this the 5th season I am getting back to my old style from the early 1990s.

IMHO, it's a fun way to GM...

BUT, all players before they get started should know that. Because they won't feel so bad when they get killed. Also the longer the campaign goes on, the ones that live will fight harder to help each other, which if they did in my campaigns I'd now and then give them an act of God to keep a player from dying. Maybe they'll get hit and lose a limb or an eye. Get POW'd. whatever.

When theirs big risk, theirs big reward.

I took part in the 90´s style campaign HQ is talking about, and although a lot of the PC deaths were caused by other PC´s base greed or stupidity, I heartily embrace the return of a rougher environment:D It simply adds a lot of flavour to the experience when you just don´t know if your character will survive the session.
As for punishment, XP penalties are obvious and effective IMO.

nah..
 

trying t o get there again ..

Woohoo!

I played in a D&D game years ago, we were going through the module "Shrine of the Kuatoa". My character happend to touch an idol of thier diety. The DM pulled me into another room and told me the character was instantly transported to the goddess. She cursed my character, he had to kill 666 life levels of drow. After he was transported back to the party, they removed the curse- by killing my character!

I've rarely had to punish PCs except for cheaters, and maybe one annoying drunk. Last we saw of his character he was fighting a nasty case of food poisoning in a hostlie wilderness...

I've actually been much harder on PCs when I'm playing (9 PC kills in 3 battlelords sessions, including two duels and a a few flushed out an airlock for not listening), though my old Ninjas & Superspies group might disagree. I swear it was just coincidence that one PC got crippled, another suffered a debilitating brain injury, and a third died when he was blown through a wall and fell three stories into a truckbed (through the roof of the cap on it) the night after a bad date.

I've also been known to allow PCs to plot against each other sometimes (mostly in Vampire and such) but a memorable one was a MechWarrior campaign where one PC bribed another's technician to wire his auto-eject into his fire control computer. Everything seemed normal until the guy triggered an alpha strike and got sent for a jack-in-the-box ride in the middle of a firefight. Of course the guy that arranged it all quit laughing when he realized he was left with no backup against a Demolisher in a city. His head got blown clean off a round or two later...

I found that most of the time, you don't have to punish a player. The other players will do it for you!

yes and no
 

sometimes a group is like politicians - they dont tell on others if they are indicted - that would leavre them out in the cold in a way .

I "punish" players who dont act their part of being in a FTF sesseion .talking out of hand ,doodeling when I try to explain something ,texting on their cell ( or worse -talking while at the table ), being wasted or disorderly - the punishment is simple - just skip their turn until they have composed their weak shit again -or ask them to leave the room if they are disturbing the proceedings .Warnings are given and then by stating that they now have lost x number of xp or initiativ points ( severe )- escalate .

I dont believe in punishing by cursing them ,saying that they have been killed ,having them loose limbs or otherwise doing them a bad turn - but I DO believe in stating that there is risk of being killed,cursed,disabled,maimed,bankrupt,ill, or whatever -if this or that course of action is pursued.

Then ,when their dicerolls against the odds of making it I am with Paul - the players punish themselves..

Worst than dying
 

I’ve never punished a player but I’m always use extremely consequent with the game setup, so I haven’t any kind of mercy and I’ve never change my occult rolls to save a character’s live or the final result of a gaming session. I know some masters recommend not doing it and that it’s better to change or to ignore the result of hidden rolls to keep the rhythm, the fun or the climatic situation. But as a player, I would feel myself swindled I would know that in the critical moment of the game, a deciding action of my character or a risky situation was not so deciding or so risky because the master has decided a happy ending in advance. Of course, it’s always my opinion.

And following with this principle, the cruelest end of a group of players in gaming session was the conclusion of the longest campaign I’ve ever run. The characters didn’t die, but for them the final was worst than dying. The game was Traveller and, near the end of the campaign (the final fate of the human race was at stake, of course :cool: ) one of the main bad guys, an alien infiltrated as a head of an important intelligence agency, manipulated their minds, changing their memories and sending the characters, back home. They arrived safely to their homeworlds, at time for the End, happy and ignorant of what was about to come. Of course, the players knew it… A sad end of end epic campaign with a lot of great adventures…

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I think that counts as a GM's punishment for stupid ideas. :p

...would giving the PC's a short ranged nuclear recoilless rifle count as GM punishment. seeing how they won't die if they don't do anything retarded with it(but you know they're going to.)

Role-playing jiu-jitsu
 

I agree wholeheartedly--put the offending player(s) into situations where their own annoying character traits will eventually draw them into "pushing the red button" and erasing themselves (and hopefully not too many undeserving others) from this dimension. If greed is their draw, and they're cutting gold rings off corpses fingers, just make sure they get a bunch from a group that was hit by a nuke--irradiated gold, so his fingers'll fall off, or he'll get a nice rad burn next to the pocket he's keeping them in.