Anti-climatic deaths and bad GMing
Inside a discord server I'm in someone just said "Anti-climatic is bad GMing" and this is something i've been thinking about for the last hour. My thoughts are not that deep, for starters this is a subject of table preference, like a lot of things in ttrpg groups this can be resolved with talking, if the players and the GM (let's not forget they're also there to play and not only provide) have agreed to have a easy death game experience, then it's not bad GMing. This is something very akin to shadowrun's 'Black trenchcoat' and 'pink mohawk' gamestyle where the game doesn't change but rather the way things go do, one is gritty and laid to the ground while the other is over the top. And this again comes to table preference.
Let's put a cyberpunk 2020 example:
Two characters are in a car coming home after a gig, they interchange words, and park near one's house. While still in the car the gm has an npc appear next to the window. Suddenly that npc unloads a 12ga slug into the driver's chest for 26 dmg. The character is instantly put in MORTAL states. Combat starts and the death save says the character is dead.
This is anti-climatic and bad gming, out of nowhere someone comes and kills the character, no ammount of 'This is Night City' or that kind of bullshit is going to help the matter 'But this was an edgerunner like you and they just came from a horribly gone job and they wanted the car to run away like a player would' don't care. Night City (or wherever you're playing a cyebrpunk setting) is dangerous, but this is no excuse. This could be used to unravel another plot hook of whoever killed their friend and their afiliations, but in general unless a player has asked for an execution of their character it's anti-climatic bad gming
Example part 2:
The crew has accepted a job of stealing something in some facility, they know the guards are no joke but they get spotted by one after a failed stealth, this promps the guard to fire first and ask later, they roll initiative and the guard is first, the guard shoots, unlucky devil the character who just got headshotted for 24 damage, 10 after armor, still it's a headshot, the character is instakilled.
This is anti-climatic and regular gming, as it's the regular game played raw, with a regualr encounter and all players agreed to play this high lethality system. If the players decided they wanted a less anti-climatic game the gm could drop this encounter in favour of another one, a rival gang from a characters lifepath comes also to steal that mcguffin. Still it's 2020 and high lethality and quick deaths is something written in the system by itself, players should know what they're getting into. If your player want cyberpunk but not as lethal as 2020 or 2013 try RED and while RED coudl be considered lethal among other ttrpgs it lends itself better to not have this anti-climatic oneshot deaths.
The thing is: There's not a singular correct way to play ttrpgs