[NOTICE: This post is designated GM'S EYES ONLY. Players advised to move along.
There is nothing to see here.
Non-GMs reading beyond this point should immediately report to the nearest Player Re-Education Center for RETCON treatment.]As a silver-back GM of the Old School Dojo, I'll drop my two nuyen into the well:
Just between us GMs, it's a good idea to kill someone on the 1st or 2nd Run. Just to show them that you've got the stones to let the dice fall where they may.
I'm not suggesting just up an offing a PC. Not at all. But someone screws up, someone rolls a bunch of skulls, my advice is - let the mechanics of the game grind them in its cold, heartless gears.
This is probably the most important thing you can do as a fledgling GM. Done right, killing a PC is the best damn thing you can do for your game.
Sounds callous, neh? Cruel? Maybe.
But I've had players THANK me for killing their favorite PC. Not right away, mind you...but once they saw objectively what it brought to the table, indeed they did.
If you kill a PC early in the campaign (and to be clear here, by "KILL" I mean "allow to be killed legitimately through their own series of bad decisions and poor rolls") your players will immediately grok that their Fate is uncertain. Any die roll could go sideways, and you...a heartless bastard born of the loins of Hades and Lady Luck...will not save them.
Thus freeing your hands to step in, when the story requires, and maybe fudge a little. *Grin*
And killing a PC early in the game is easy to fix - they're only a few points of Karma behind the rest of the group, and the only real investment they had in their character was whatever bond they developed during CharGen. They'll do the same (grudgingly, but they will do the same) during the next CharGen, and probably build a better character from what they learned.
Think about it. If I run a game for ages, and I never kill ANYONE they care about...where's the risk? Where's the challenge?
Where is the fear?Your job, as GM, is to be a good storyteller. The job of the Players is to meet you half way, by suspending their disbelief. But how can they live up to that if they know...
really know, deep down, that you don't have what it takes to pull the trigger?
The best thing you can do for your players is to tell them, right from the start, that you are an impartial arbiter - you tell the story, but the dice are sacrosanct and you will abide by their ruling. This is a LIE - but they can never know this. They must believe - they must KNOW for a cold hard FACT - that you're a
killer.
Once they know this, you remind them, from time to time, by killing an NPC they really love. These sacrifices make your game better, in the long run.
If there's one thing I know about GMing, it's the long run.

-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist