Ok I need a little help. I am my 2nd session in on a Dungeon World game (Dark Sun hack) and one of my players died last session. Granted we were absent 1 player so only 3 players and they could have chosen to run.
The characters are taken from the Darksun playbook (Gladiator, Bard, Druid) I sent a small group of two creatures then a “soft move” of bringing in two more reinforcements since these mooks have only 3 hp and they were dropping them VERY quickly. Then as a Hard move I brought in a creature which was a solitary creature (there were only 1 left of the mooks…who ran away).
A combination of players rolling 6- each for 4 or 5 attempts to take down this creature and my rolling high damage (d10+5) repeatedly took down the players quickly then resulted in one hp 0 (-4). We finished out the fight and with the epic end of the fight, we resolved the “Last Breath” move.
As the Deal with Death , death offered the druid the option of allowing the next Defiler (detroyer of nature) that they meet, to not come to harm by his hands. The druid refused and thus died. The player was completely happy with the choice and the decision since he was not liking some of the “unfinished” look of the Dark Sun Druid and wanted something else.
My situation, as a new MC I think I was using “deal damage” too often. Is there such a thing? Did my ‘deal with death’ seem too harsh?