We Need to Talk About Adventure Lethality

I feel like we need to have a serious conversation about adventure lethality.

A couple weeks ago, I ran a horror-themed one shot adventure at Gamehole Con (more about that in the blog soon) in which the players, knowing full well that the adventure was emulating a grim horror movie, took far too few risks in fear of losing the lives of their pregenerated characters. By playing it safe, they actually missed out on discovering essential clues about how to defeat the threat.

In turn, as GM, I often find myself reluctant to up the danger level in sessions at my OWN tables because I know how frustrating it can be to take wounds or even become incapacitated (yes, we're focusing more on Savage Worlds here).

Last night, I ran a published adventure for my weekly game group. As written (and I'll avoid spoilers), the adventure should have been FAR more dangerous with overwhelming numbers of opponents, very real chances of the heroes being captured, and extremely powerful attacks by the "big bads."

While I reined in (and altogether skipped) several scenes mostly for the sake of time, I know full well that I also adjusted things to ensure that we didn't end the night with a table full of dead heroes.

But why???

Just like the aforementioned adventure at Gamehole Con, last night’s game was a one shot using a few pregens that the players shouldn’t really have cared about, right? Shouldn’t one shots by their very nature be all about taking wild risks and putting your heroes in danger without fear of consequences?

I sometimes feel like we take injury and character death far too personally, even in the case of simple one shots where backup characters (I had two) are standing by should the heroes fall. In turn, we also find ourselves irrationally frustrated with the GM for daring to use an enemy’s listed Special Abilities or Powers and/or (heaven forbid) rolling well when they attack!

What are your thoughts? Should we as GMs not worry about our NPCs smacking down the heroes, especially in one shots? Or are we somehow obligated to “play it safe” in order to keep everyone at the table alive and happy?

I worry that constantly reducing threat, avoiding certain attacks, or not taking advantage of PC vulnerabilities (especially when the player has consciously put their heroes in great danger) would make for pretty dull game sessions. As a player, I always want to feel challenged and I want to know that rushing into situations without Bennies or other defenses can be DANGEROUS. How do you balance that without coddling your players or feeling like you're dropping them all into a meat grinder with no chance of escape???