[RPG] How to help the players figure out how to stay alive in a realistically-deadly sandbox campaign

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Related:
What to do when a player character does something that seems suicidal?
and
How can DMs effectively telegraph specific dangers in D&D?

I like playing sandbox-style RPGs (whether pen and paper or computer), so when I GM that's the style of game I run. However, I find myself far too eager to kill off characters.

I will invent some plot of the form, "Things in this area work this and this way," then I let the characters loose in the world. They often miss the clues I expect them to find about key dangers. (Dangers such as: antagonists can be unknown to them, such when an assassin who seems innocent until it's too late; a deadly trap that is regularly maintained so that it doesn't have skeletons giving it away; and so on.) Because of this, the PCs often stumble into significant dangers completely unwitting and unprepared and get killed. I think my players are getting frustrated when a character dies suddenly and they never know why.

A good example is the aforementioned assassin. This NPC assassin had made his risk calculations, done the necessary background research on the group, prepared appropriate equipment, designed and rehearsed the ambush, prepared multiple contingency plans, and had made remaining undetected a high priority in the ambush plan. As a result, the target PC gets a crossbow bolt in the throat and nobody ever spots the assassin.

One thing I know I should do more of is to better explain the dangers of the setting to the players. I know I should, but how to do that effectively is a skill acquired from GMing practice and studying the genre, so knowing I need to improve that doesn't immediately help.

I've considered changing the game genre/tone to something more heroic and fetch-quest-like: "You are heroes and clearly above normal people. In the pub, a villager asks your group to go to the river and bring a bucket of water for his sick mother. He has no time for such a quest, as he has to plough his land". That's not a very satisfying or believable sort of game for me, though.

Maybe I should talk to the players outside of the game and make it clear that "dangerous things are dangerous!!!" but I would have thought that all the dead PCs and NPCs would have already made that clear.

What else can I do to reduce player character mortality, while retaining as much of the tone of realism, consequences for choices*, and player autonomy as possible?

* An by consequences I mean, for example, if one kills a cop in our own world the chance of continuing to live a free life are pretty slim. The players should be free to choose such risky actions, but should also have some way of knowing that it is risky.

Best Answer

First and foremost, a GM should always remember that the objective of a game is to have fun. The thing is that "fun" can mean different things to different people, and it sounds like what's fun for you to create isn't as fun for the players when it's executed - and the end result isn't all that fun for you either, since you're sharing this issue here.

Here are my suggestions:

  1. Create expectations for the game world before you begin play. By talking to your players and letting them know you will not be pulling punches nor delivering "level-appropriate encounters" exclusively, they are more likely to on their toes and less likely to rush into danger because they (as players) KNOW that there is a possibility that this particular adversary is too strong for them. If this happens, though, expect to see a decreased reliance on combat resolution on behalf of the PCs.
  2. Treat the players actions with the same degree of respect you expect from them. A player can only control his or her character in the entire game world. If they do something that should trigger a response, make sure your NPCs respond in a way that is congruent with the setting and with the knowledge that the NPC have of the actions (as opposed to the knowledge that you, as a GM, know). For instance, if your players kill off a guardsman but do it without leaving obvious traces, consider how far the authorities would be willing to go to track down the killer and respond accordingly. Ever played a videogame in which you kill off an NPC in a secluded area of the game world and cops/guards immediately show up guns blazing even when no one SHOULD even know a crime was committed? If your players feel like that, they have no reason to be careful, since they feel the game world will just react according to the GM's whims.
  3. Danger is fun; immutable doom is not. As a GM, you always have the power to kill your players, but there are ways that are fun and ways that aren't. Since the job of a GM is partly to provide entertainment (for himself AND the other players), make it a point to find ways to throw threats at your players without instantly killing them. "Lightning strikes you. You die" is a perfectly legitimate thing for a GM to say. After all, he controls the world, which includes weather. Is that fun for a player, though? The example with the assassin that you mentioned, from the player's perspective, amounts to pretty much the same thing. As cool as the concept of the undetectable assassin is, the assassin missing his first shot (or perhaps not scoring a killing blow) makes for a gaming experience as the PCs scramble (they don't know if more shots are coming their way), try to find out who fired the shot (and probably fail since your assassin has escape plans), and are generally spooked because the situation just demonstrated that a) someone is out to kill them, and b) they're good enough to get away with it undetected. This puts the ball in the players court, as they decide what to do about it, and lo and behold, you have a game.

As a final comment, I'd like to recommend Robin's Laws of Good Game Mastering. This book has plenty of tips and hints on how to make your sessions fun for both yourself and your players. It's a resource you might find useful to liven things up around your gaming table.

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