History Main / KillerGamemaster

* Palladium's ''Beyond The Supernatural'' was tough, but not overtly hard if you weren't fighting a cosmic being. However, the corebook included a suggested game mode where the characters played normal people, and the GM rolled up a horrific monster which they had to survive against. The idea was to simulate the sort of stuff that goes on in a slasher flick. HilarityEnsues. The fact that the suggested character class for this is called the "''[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Victim]]'' OCC" should have been a tip-off.

** ''Series/KamenRiderExAid'' has three different game masters in charge of ''Kamen Rider Chronicle'' over the course of the show, and ''all'' of them are this trope. The game's creator Kuroto Dan, a raving lunatic with a god complex, is the ''nicest'' GM, because his version is theoretically beatable...if you played it every day for sixteen years and survived. [[spoiler:Then Kuroto's DragonWithAnAgenda Parado kills him and takes over, intent on using the game to slaughter humanity as revenge for their repeatedly destroying video game characters like himself. And then Kuroto's sociopathic father Masamune usurps control by using ''Chronicle'' to transform into the absurdly powerful Kamen Rider Cronos, aiming to become the absolute ruler of the world.]]

* ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnline'''s BigBad Kayaba Akihiko, locked his players into a virtual reality game where reaching Zero HP equals real death. Then he prevents the artificial intelligence that was supposed to help the players deal with this trauma from helping them by locking her inside Cardinal. Third, he creates rooms where healing and teleportation crystal (literal lifelines) are rendered useless. The 25th floor boss is a DifficultySpike, along with the 50th and 75th one. If all of that weren't bad enough, [[spoiler:He disguises himself as Knights of the Blood's guild leader so he can perform an epic betrayal at the final level.]] On the other hand, "safe zones" are definitely always safe, which Kirito notes and becomes a plot point in one of the side stories. [[spoiler: He also invokes LetsFightLikeGentlemen with his final duel with Kirito, and though he kills both Kirito ''and'' Asuna, he allows both of them to survive Aincrad's destruction.]]

* ''Webcomic/PennyArcade'': Tycho is shown to very much adhere to the "Players are the enemy" mindset, and tries to encourage Gabe to do the same in [[http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/11/25 one storyline]]. However, that story [[{{Deconstruction}} Deconstructs]] this trope by having Gabe's players get rightfully frustrated and quit, and when Tycho tries to convince him that this should be the ''desired'' result for any good [=DM=], he's forced to admit that he hasn't actually [=DMed=] a game since junior high school, showing exactly what being a Killer GM will get you in the long run.

* ''Webcomic/PennyArcade'': Tycho is shown to very much adhere to the "Players are the enemy" mindset, and tries to encourage Gabe to do the same in [[http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/11/25 one storyline]]. However, that story [[{{Deconstruction}} Deconstructs]] this trope by having Gabe's players get rightfully frustrated and quit, with Tycho later admitting that he hasn't actually [=DMed=] a game since junior high school, showing exactly what being a Killer GM will get you in the long run.

* Mewgle in the Pokemon Fanfic ''FanFic/LatiasJourney'' is as sadistic as they come. In his first appearance, he removes every save point in the game, [[UpToEleven and this is the tamest thing he does]]. He returns for ''Fanfic/BraveNewWorld'' as a ''literal'' GM who abuses GM privileges like hidden die rolls, extremely broken equipment for his own character and making the game UnwinnableByDesign (until Leo out [[MyRuleFuIsStrongerThanYours Rule-Fus]] him). He ends up being banished by the "Holy Dice of St. Gygax".

* ''TabletopGame/DontRestYourHead'' plays a strange subversion of this trope by which the GM is basically encouraged to try to kill the Protagonists, but the game rules don't allow for quick deaths. Instead, the session slowly wears the Protagonists down until they die, collapse (a FateWorseThanDeath) or turn into a [[AndThenJohnWasAZombie Nightmare]] (a Fate [[UpToEleven Even Worse]] than Collapsing). The result is that Protagonists are often fairly resilient but, once the game gets going, always a little to close to the edge for comfort. It's a horror game, so this is deliberate.

* [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Yukio Tonegawa]] in ''Manga/{{Kaiji}}'' was TheDragon to the ringleader for the DeadlyGame that Kaiji found himself in, and organized most of the events which were seemingly designed to keep as many people in debt as possible so they could have more [[KillThePoor poor people maimed for their amusement]]. In the second round the contestants are forced to [[ThePrecariousLedge race across narrow beams]] in exchange for their prize... which is revealed to be the opportunity to do it all over again from an even ''more'' precarious height in order to finally get their money.

** ''Series/KamenRiderRyuki'' is about twelve people being recruited to participate in the Rider War, a Highlander-style game where they must fight until only one remains. What they don't know is that the twelfth Rider, Odin, is under the direct control of the GameMaster, Shiro Kanzaki, and ''impossibly broken'' to such a degree that any of the others winning the war is impossible. Whenever things don't go the way he wants, Kanzaki can use one of Odin's many powers to reset time all the way back to the beginning of the Rider War.

** The campaign recapped in ''[[RefugeInAudacity The Adventures of Herr Schnitzelnazi]] rolls with it,'' wherein, as the name suggests, the players deliberately came up with [[AssholeVictim unlikeable assholes who are intended to be crushed to paste at the earliest opportunity]] (to whit, a JerkJock with an indeterminate ammount of identical brothers, a republican senator who is openly hostile to Green Energy Initiatives and poor people, the senator's bodyguard, and a 92-year old, thoroughly bonkers [[BoomerangBigot afroamerican nazi]] who was Hitler's chauffer). Schnitzelnazi lives a surprisingly long time, surviving his carload of dakka being eaten by a monster, a plane crashing into a gas station, a fight with the army, and finally, making a HeroicSacrifice to nuke the Great Old Ones power nexus.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'' is well-known that nine out of ten Johnsons will deal straight with you, but the tenth is the one you really have to watch out for. Characters in a Killer Game-Master's game will be lucky to see a single Johnson who will deal straight with them, and more often than not, [[TheCakeIsALie the reward they are promised will inevitably turn out to be a lie]]. ''Shadowrun'''s zig-zagged this one, having gone through an early phase where player characters were incredibly hard to kill if they had a decent Body stat and armor. It became a joke that ''stuff'' happens, but no one cares since it can't penetrate your t-shirt. Later editions over-corrected by upping the lethality, then wound up dialling it back.

* In ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'': Vriska Serket, when playing FLARP (which is basically LiveActionRolePlay, but with players suffering real-life consequences, including death. Hence the F, for Fatal). She makes monsters that are impossible to beat, and when Tavros refuses to make a move, she mindcontrols him into jumping off a cliff, causing his paralysis. She [[DieOrFly assumed he'd be fine]]. In her formal introduction we learn that she ''actively'' tries to kill the other players in FLARP so that she can feed them to her troll-eating lusus rather than get eaten herself. Eridan works similarly, but kills the players' lusii rather than the players themselves (typically the lusii of Vriska's victims, for efficiency's sake).

* The line of ''Grimtooth's Traps'' books are clearly targeted at this type of GM. Each book includes a selection of trap concepts suitable for any fantasy RPG setting, all presented in a light-hearted manner encouraging the reader to make his players scream for mercy. One installment, titled ''Grimtooth's Traps Lite'', focused on the less-lethal traps for game masters who would rather not simply kill off their whole party in one go.

* The ''Manga/YuGiOh'' manga and its [[Anime/YuGiOhFirstAnimeSeries first anime adaptation]] is this trope taken to its ultimate extreme: the DM (Dark Bakura, [[DemonicPossession an evil spirit possessing Ryo through the Millennium Ring]]) is not just intending for the players to lose, he's actually outright cheating and even goes as far as to ''invoke evil magic'' against them. Getting a natural 99 or cheating on ''their'' side traps all of the players in their figurines -- and by the rules of the game, if their characters run out of HP or the figurines break, they're dead. The trouble for Dark Bakura starts when his good side (a much fairer DM) starts screwing with him. He actually avoids [[RocksFallEverybodyDies instantly killing the entire party]], instead giving them a (.96)^3 chance of dying (which he considered merciful).

* The ''Manga/YuGiOh'' manga and its [[Anime/YuGiOhFirstAnimeSeries first anime adaptation]] is this trope taken to its ultimate extreme: the DM (Dark Bakura, [[SplitPersonality Ryo's dark side]]) is not just intending for the players to lose, he's actually outright cheating and even goes as far as to ''invoke evil magic'' against them. Getting a natural 99 or cheating on ''their'' side traps all of the players in their figurines -- and by the rules of the game, if their characters run out of HP or the figurines break, they're dead. The trouble for Dark Bakura starts when his good side (a much fairer DM) starts screwing with him. He actually avoids [[RocksFallEverybodyDies instantly killing the entire party]], instead giving them a (.96)^3 chance of dying (which he considered merciful).

* Monokuma from ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc'' is trying to get his captors to kill each other as part of their Mutual Killing game, especially since whoever "wins" becomes the SoleSurvivor. He's even willing to cheat to do so [[spoiler: like using the corpse of someone he killed as a victim to frame someone he doesn't like or drive people into madness.]]

* ''LightNovel/GoblinSlayer'' has the god Truth. Truth and other gods of their ilk treat the world as a role-playing game with random rolls. Truth will tip the odds against the characters by increasing the number of monsters, cranking up monster power, putting traps in rooms and other dangers.

* In the word of ‘’Noah_Cadwell- Gervais’’ ‘’Baldur’s_Gate’’ has “a script in one hand and a sword in the other”

* ''Fanfic/WhateverHappenedToElfstar'': As in the original tract, Gina Frost springs a trap on Black Leaf, Marcie's character, even though Black leaf would have seen it coming, then declares her dead without a saving throw. The fic actually gives her a more realistic motive: she's only a Killer GM to that ''one'' player, because she's jealous and wants to drive her away.

* The ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' Second Edition playtest module ''Doomsday Dawn'' has a side mission called ''Heroes of Undarin'' that is designed end in a TotalPartyKill by having the player characters face waves of enemies that are way more powerful than what they can reasonably be expected to beat at their level. Since it is part of a playtest module, it was written as a way of testing the game's combat system by putting the players in an unbeatable scenario. And even if the players do manage to win, [[AWinnerIsYou there is no reward because they don't get to use the same characters in later parts of the book]], and if the player characters all die the ritual the players are defending will always be finished just as the last character dies so their deaths are not in vain, so it technically isn't possible to actually fail the mission either.

** Meanwhile, the [[FixFic "good version"]] [[http://blog.fantasyheartbreaker.com/2010/04/21/whatever-happened-to-elfstar/ fanfic]] actually [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation gives her a more realistic motive]]: she's only a Killer GM to that ''one'' player, because she's jealous and wants to drive her away.

* In the word of ‘’Noah_Gervais’’ ‘’Baldur’s_Gate’’ has “a script in one hand and a sword in the other”

* The ''Manga/YuGiOh'' manga and its first anime adaptation is this trope taken to its ultimate extreme: the DM (Ryo Bakura, or at least [[SplitPersonality his dark side]]) is not just intending for the players to lose, he's actually outright cheating and even goes as far as to ''invoke evil magic'' against them. Getting a natural 99 or cheating on ''their'' side traps all of the players in their figurines -- and by the rules of the game, if their characters run out of HP or the figurines break, they're dead. The trouble for Dark Bakura starts when his good side (a much fairer DM) starts screwing with him... He actually avoids [[RocksFallEverybodyDies instantly killing the entire party]], instead giving them a (.96)^3 chance of dying (which he considered merciful).