I have been gaming for 26 years and am not showing signs of slowing any time soon. For many of those years I have taken the mantle of gamemaster (GM or DM) from time to time. In those games, where I am the primary storyteller, I have developed a reputation as a harsh GM.
This is not necessarily without merit.
Now, I do not consider myself a "killer DM" per se, but I do allow things to happen in the most realistic way possible. If a character does something to draw attention of a foe or puts themselves out there in an unusual way, I let the chips fall where they may.
Fuck em.
I am not here to hold your hand and wipe your ass. I am here to present a gritty and raw game that will kick you in the plums and leave you begging for more.
In my latest game, a 4th Edition D&D game centered around a home-brew campaign setting (term for a completely self populated fictional world of my own), I am running the characters through a dwarven ruin en route to a forgotten city (I said it was my own world, not completely original).
It was in the final stages of this trek through the ruins that the latest character death occurred: Dundrick the dwarf.
To give you some background;
Dundrick was not the character that his player had intended to play at the outset of the campaign. You see, his first character was killed in a rather nasty way. He was eaten alive by the digestive juices of a gelatinous cube.
Suck it Cavender
In D&D, much like life, it takes a while to adjust to life after a breakup. So he inevitably bounced from one-night stand to one-night stand, playing various trial characters for a single game session only to announce the next week that he has changed his character... again.
Then along came Dundrick. We all thought that it was another case of love em and leave em but this one took. He started off dull and cliche. Gruff Dwarven priest of Moradin. But after a few sessions, he began to take on some personality.
He had a drug induced vision of his ancestors refusal to allow Tiefling refugees through their gates following a genocidal cataclysm (my campaigns have some fucked up themes). As the innocents burned alive they cursed the watching Dwarves. Thus began Dundrick's hatred of the Tieflings (referred in the negative connotation "Diobae" in my world) for the fall of his race.
He was a cleric, but not a usual walking healing potion. He had some real spark. Then he died.
Shit.
That means that we are in for a few weeks of bimbo-slut characters until the next real one comes along. The problem is that the initial leg of the campaign is winding down and we are going on hiatus. I hope he finds one before we are stuck with douche-bag character #15.
Poor Dundrick.
You will be missed
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