First i would like to start off with i have not played or run a game scene 3.5/pathefinder.  I have nothing but new players or players that have had only home-brew systems to play.  ALSO I HAVE EXTREME ADD AND DYSLEXIA SO SOMETIMES SPELLCHECK CANT FIGURE OUT WHAT I AM TRYING TO SPELL.  So please a little slack on the structure of this.   This campaign started with 3 players and we managed to add in a 4th but the campaign they had agreed to use was " The Storm Kings Wrath" a very deadly campaign that gives out a lot of wealth and nothing to spend it on.  Needless to say they were having some trouble so i Nerfed many of the encounters i mean at level 5 fighting 2 fire giants and a small squad of orcs and orocs on horned beaks is just insane so of coursers i fudged a few saves and hits to give them a chance.  

   So 2 levels later "7th" we now have 6 players and 10 characters. ya i know i probably should not have let them make a few extra playable's but we need to fill out the missing party areas.  We have made it to roughly the middle of the campaign running around with Harsnag the Frost Giant.  Here is were i realize that they don't necessarily take it seriously.  They run into any danger or fight like its a video game that they Could just hit the rest button when and if they die. , note i have not killed anyone yet but have come close to a few times they have fallen and needed to make death saves but always come through,  they say that they like their characters and the they have become attached to them i mean we have been playing with them for at least 6 months and it has helped us with the quarantine to play online.

  okay now what has made me wright this post.  in the current part of the campaign they are headed north to see the oracle that lives in the eye of the all father.   They have the Harpers blessing at this point so they decide to cut the time down in a half by using the teleportation network that is available to them.  They travel from one city in the east to one in the north west, witch is closer to their destination.  I thought that i would make this a learning point for them and told them in advance that it was not going to be easy, you know plan ahead get geared up try and get some info basic player things, its also at this point i realize they don't spend the time to learn what they can do or what skills are for.   So with that advance warning they teleport into a raging battle, the city is in ruins and they have to make a run for it.  I had set it up so there would be some very obvious encounters in front of them and some hidden ones, depending on how they handle it the could  lead to ether escape or a big battle with a pair of frost giant necromancers. 

after two game sections of them just running into everything they can with out thinking and they are currently fight things like vampire spawn and reverent and so on.  min CR 5 per creature.  They have taken damage and have used a decent amount of spells.  One character uses the fly spell to scout the area by flying up.  that lets them see the EVER GROWING ARMY OF UNDEAD AND THE GIANTS!!!!!   also they see an ice wall made by magic slowly forming in the direction that they have to go.  in fact had they moved as a group they could have made it passed it and hidden from the enemy but they spent so much time dilberating and splitting the part by this point they are in at leas 3 different areas, not far apart but easily 3 turns from one another.   so i decided to close the wall off making it impossible for them to cross .  This is were i expect the one that only had a minute left on the fly spell to land back on the other side of the wall with their allies.  nope they land on the side with the enemy army only 100 ft away!!!!!!  the rest of the party is half upset and half ignoring them. 

So now i have a choice do i let the enemy see the paladin and see if he can survive, do i let the players go over the wall in time.  I feel like they need to learn a lesson here.  oh by the way they are planing to poly-morph a character into a young black dragon to fly them over one by one.  because the wall of ice causes damage much like a fall of fire,  my take on it.

in the past i have really need to use lethal force on my players and in thous rare instances they understand why it had to be done.  but i feel like i may have babied them to long or strong in the beginning and should have just let them die early and have to make new characters to learn the value of discretion and planing.  again the have had close calls in the past but i had to nerf them hard t let them survive .  i just have never felt this distraught by a group of players.  and no  i can just walk away i need to fix it.  these players are my only friends in the area i moved to resantly and out side of the game they are lovely people, mostly.  

any advise would be grate. 

I think the most important question to ask is: are they having fun? The second most important question is, are you having fun?

If the answer is yes, then just keep rolling on and have fun.

In the games I play in and the games I run, sometimes the tone is deadly serious, deep RP,  and danger. Other times, my bard is sitting in a pool of Holy Water splashing water at a vampire and taunting it. Both styles are incredibly fun.

I can understand your frustration but the goal is for everyone to have fun. Six months is a long go for a game. Keep on rolling dice and have fun.

That is my advice.

If you still feel the need to course correct, I'm happy to continue the conversation.

thanks i know that they are having fun. but i feel like they lost their way.  the wanted a learning game consequences and all. but they seam to ignore or don't even consider if their actions will result in the lost of a character or hurt the part they seam to be moving all for them selves right now.  witch could be do to this dam quarantine.  

thanks

i will keep it going i just don't know if i should let them get away with not trying to be responsible. 

Cormis, I don't think everyone takes D & D as seriously as you seem to. As a DM, you obviously have a story you want to share. You want to enjoy telling it and I'd assume, you want the group to enjoy playing it. It takes a pretty hardcore player to enjoy having their characters killed for the resolution of a good story but, nothing says you can't beat them within an inch of their life on a regular basis. Even if you do kill a couple characters, the rules can allow them to be brought back.

I guess long story short, pull punches if you make a mistake but, not always if they do.

So if they die, do they just generate a new char, at the level they left off?  Level 1?  Make sure you know the consequences before killing them.  If they come back just as powerful as they were, they will learn nothing from player death.  Likewise, if they are lower than the rest of the party, They will feel ****** and will get annoyed quickly.

My rule is, I never punish when I the DM make a mistake.  If i make an encounter too hard, a simple puzzle too difficult, I pull punches to be fair.

If my new players make a mistake, I try to let them know what might go wrong, to help them learn, if they still insist, i move them to my next category.

If my more experienced players make a mistake, I say the words "DM Warning" (my table knows, that's my way of saying, you being kinda dumb, and you are getting a chance to rethink) and then I ask them again what they do.  If they insist on continuing their course of action, I bump them to the next category.

If they are doing something REALLY dumb, including DM warning, I punish ruthlessly.  I don't fudge dice, I don't pull punches, and I will have enemies act very intelligently.

And remember, when people are making death saves, most sources of damage cause 1 automatic failure, and melee attacks and critical hits cause 2 auto failures.  Most unintelligent monsters wont attack someone that is down, but most intelligent enemies know healing is plentiful to heroes and will attack a downed hero.

"Two in the head, you know they're dead."

New characters coming into a 7th level scenario at 1st level is a bit harsh imo, but I agree that there has to be consequences or as the op said, players will just hit the reset button & treat the game like a video game. 

1 trick I use to boost character investment is the level drop. Your character dies or you want to trade your character for another, sure, go ahead, but the new character comes in 1 level lower. This gives players the incentive to at least try to stay alive, and still allows them to switch out characters if they discover what they originally put together really doesn't fit with the rest of the party.

For 1 player running multiple characters: unless your players are professional actors or have 10+ years roleplay experience, it reduces character investment &  adds to the whole video game feel. Best option here is to ask your players which character they want to play and convert all the others to NPCs, which gain levels much slower than PCs. 

If the need is to kill them off, Cutscenes always work.

well thank you everyone.  I have read everything you all have had to say and after talking it out with myself and a few other DMs that i know. 

it has been decided that the one character that went off and trapped them selves with the enemy will have to play it out with me a few hours before the rest of the game to determine what happens. i have decided that they are going to be given a slim chance at survival but it will come down to how they play it out.  they are currently trapped inside a building with a small army of undead out side.  and one frost giant.  they have ways of moving around and deciding if the will need to fight it out or run. ether way it is going to be a tough fight mostly fatal, if they play it lawful stupid as the have been so far.

Fu----------------------------------------------ck Me!!!!!!!

well some of my players are not happy with me running the extra section and not being able to help the other character out.  so they have hijacked my game and decided to not play this week so that they can try to save them next week.  I'm at the end of my rope here.  i even wanted to talk this evening so we can iron out the problems in the game.  and remind them that they wanted a learning game that had real consequence so they can get better at the game.  but i guess that that was a lie.   i may just end this game and never play with them again. if they think they can just ignore me and decided the outcome of the campaign themselves.  i mean who needs a Dm anyway right? 

this is more of a rant anyway.

but i have never played in a game or run one and felt this level of disrespect towards me and other players.  and it comes down to one or two players that are doing this.  they feed of each other and the game becomes the (insert player name here) show, running into everything like a side scroller and ignoring or talking over other players because they have the personality that they can never be in the wrong.  so one of my other players' called them out on it last night and it kicked off.   this may actually end a friendship or two.  maybe i am taking it personally but i am not spending days coming up with encounters, NPCS, environments and challenges so they could learn the basic rules and the should have at least learned enough by 7th level to run the team like a team and characters well.  but no its like a vaudevillian act the entire time. 

i am not saying that i am the best DM in the world hell i am a better player then i will ever be a DM. but i try and yes i do take i to heart because i want them to have fun. but it feels like just a big wast of time and effort and trying to talk to the offending players is like dealing with two kids one that is never wrong and one that wines when things to go there way. 

I agree, rebellious characters are so annoying. Just cutscene-kill them. works every time.

just ask them. hey guys do you want to play a proper game of dnd where you make smart decisions and there are real consequences to your actions, or do you want to play a game where you can all be murder hobos and run around doing stupid things because there ARE NO CONSEQUENCES. if you want the former, please be more respectful to the creator of your world who is the only veteran here and wants you to have fun. if you want the latter then fine but find another dm who will put up with this shit

there's nothing wrong with murder hobos, if you don't want them specify beforehand, they may be basing it off their character and sometimes it falls that way, other times they just want to be different than real life (after all nobody plays GTA to mirror real life, that'd be no fun.)

The problem is when they ignore the dm. make a really humiliating way to die for them if they do it that way.

yah i may just tell the player who is punishing the party by having 3 people say they cant make it so we cant play.  to just run his own game.  i found out that he has been planning his own game seance i started mine. and he cant wait till its over to run his.  

Quote from Kotath >>

Quote from I_Love_Tarrasques >>

there's nothing wrong with murder hobos, if you don't want them specify beforehand, they may be basing it off their character and sometimes it falls that way, other times they just want to be different than real life (after all nobody plays GTA to mirror real life, that'd be no fun.)

 The way I look at it, if someone wants to play a murder hobo, why not stick to board games? Or MMO's?

 Because D&D has more complexity, and is far more fun to murder hobo in.  You get invested in the character more, and thus its more rewarding.  As a DM I generally enjoy running murder hobo games, especially if I can make it bite them in the end.  D&D has its origins in being murder hobo's (in fact xp used to be based purely on kills and gold/treasure 'found' and no rewards for bypassing or placating obstacles.  So there is absolutely nothing wrong with murder hobo's, but that's if that is the expectation of the game.

You could say "if all you want to do is roleplay, then why not just sit around and tell stories instead of playing D&D"

There is no wrong way to play D&D, even if i prefer following the rules as written/intended, over the rule of cool.  The closest I would say is the "wrong" way to play outside of cheating is: bringing a character to the table that doesnt play the way the group wants to play.  Bringing an RP char to a game intending to be murder hobo's is 'wrong', bringing a murder hobo to a RP table is 'wrong', but those are more 'wrong' because someone is likely not going to have fun.

Quote from Hekiryuu >>

Quote from Kotath >>

Quote from I_Love_Tarrasques >>

there's nothing wrong with murder hobos, if you don't want them specify beforehand, they may be basing it off their character and sometimes it falls that way, other times they just want to be different than real life (after all nobody plays GTA to mirror real life, that'd be no fun.)

 The way I look at it, if someone wants to play a murder hobo, why not stick to board games? Or MMO's?

 Because D&D has more complexity, and is far more fun to murder hobo in.  You get invested in the character more, and thus its more rewarding.  As a DM I generally enjoy running murder hobo games, especially if I can make it bite them in the end.  D&D has its origins in being murder hobo's (in fact xp used to be based purely on kills and gold/treasure 'found' and no rewards for bypassing or placating obstacles.  So there is absolutely nothing wrong with murder hobo's, but that's if that is the expectation of the game.

You could say "if all you want to do is roleplay, then why not just sit around and tell stories instead of playing D&D"

There is no wrong way to play D&D, even if i prefer following the rules as written/intended, over the rule of cool.  The closest I would say is the "wrong" way to play outside of cheating is: bringing a character to the table that doesnt play the way the group wants to play.  Bringing an RP char to a game intending to be murder hobo's is 'wrong', bringing a murder hobo to a RP table is 'wrong', but those are more 'wrong' because someone is likely not going to have fun.

 Right, if you roleplay, eventually become a murder hobo, the excuse is "that's what my character would do" Because that is what the character would do, DnD is built around roleplaying, and an effect of that are murder hobos.