Hello everyone, I am the current GM for a Black Crusade Campaign with four player characters. I have run into a grave problem however, one of the players, without exception, gets killed within the first hour of every session. At this point in time, I have tried everything from making his character (In order) a Human Daemonhost, Possessed Chaos Space Marine to even an Iron Warrior Warsmith in a warp-forged Contemptor-Pattern Dreadnought with a Dreadnought-Sized Daemon Weapon. The problem is that he has the worst luck imaginable when it comes to rolling dice (during one session around a month ago, he failed on a +50 Tech-use test, he even failed the Infamy Point reroll)

When we first started playing these sorts of games around January last year, he was a star player, always knowing the best way around whatever problem I threw in his path. Anyway, now whenever the rest of us play a session, he sits outside writing short stories on fanfiction.net. I know that if I can't solve his problem of terrible luck then he won't be playing another session with me again. Please Help!

If the dice gods are not on your side then there really isn't anything you can do. Despite all the power of a GM, he is powerless compared to the infinite potency to screw someone over that is the dice gods. They are all powerful and must be obeyed!

What's got him killed though? Is it his own stupidity and putting himself recklessly in situations he could have avoided or has he been thrown into situations by others...some more context perhaps. If a player kills themselves as a result of their own foolishness then I have zero sympathy for them and they get what comes to them. If however they are able to avoid it or wasn't something of their making then fine and I'd be happy to consider some leniency but you should be careful about allegations of favouritism.

Depending on the situation you as a GM, while you cannot (and really should not unless absolutely necessary) change the dice rolls, you can change the effect and change the manner of what happens to them when they fail. For example say a character is working on defusing a bomb. They fail so epically that the bomb detonates. Rather than give them the full force of the blast if you really do want to go easy on them (again, careful of favouritism allegations) then you have your discretion as a GM to perhaps say that some of the explosives didn't go off properly. Reduce the damage. Warp engine failure? Have it so that rather than obliterated as the engines fail, they happen to be stuck on a ship fragment drifting through space alive.

Writing fan fiction though in a session openly...that would brass me off. If you have written or are running a game for them then you would expect some level of courtesy to entertain your efforts to portray the adventure and not have them mess around doing their own idling. That's rather rude...

It sounds like he just doesn't want to play. He might know what he's doing and be getting his characters killed so he can duck out of the campaign. Without knowing details I can't say if your table is screwing up the rules, bad luck, or bad decisions on the player's part.

Bad luck can only factor in so much, smells like there's an underlying problem to me.

If the dice gods are not on your side then there really isn't anything you can do. Despite all the power of a GM, he is powerless compared to the infinite potency to screw someone over that is the dice gods. They are all powerful and must be obeyed!

What's got him killed though? Is it his own stupidity and putting himself recklessly in situations he could have avoided or has he been thrown into situations by others...some more context perhaps. If a player kills themselves as a result of their own foolishness then I have zero sympathy for them and they get what comes to them. If however they are able to avoid it or wasn't something of their making then fine and I'd be happy to consider some leniency but you should be careful about allegations of favouritism.

Depending on the situation you as a GM, while you cannot (and really should not unless absolutely necessary) change the dice rolls, you can change the effect and change the manner of what happens to them when they fail. For example say a character is working on defusing a bomb. They fail so epically that the bomb detonates. Rather than give them the full force of the blast if you really do want to go easy on them (again, careful of favouritism allegations) then you have your discretion as a GM to perhaps say that some of the explosives didn't go off properly. Reduce the damage. Warp engine failure? Have it so that rather than obliterated as the engines fail, they happen to be stuck on a ship fragment drifting through space alive.

Writing fan fiction though in a session openly...that would brass me off. If you have written or are running a game for them then you would expect some level of courtesy to entertain your efforts to portray the adventure and not have them mess around doing their own idling. That's rather rude...

He is the sort of guy to either have the best luck, or the worst (usually a 1:2 ratio) He is nearly always the first person to react to a scenario/conflict or whatever and everyone else generally follows his lead to some degree. However, he is the only CSM player in the group, the others play squishy humans (one of which has a suit of terminator armor) and one of which attempts to hide behind his character whenever a conflict breaks out. This, combined with his (normally) terrible luck at dice, he has a tenacity to die at the most inopportune times (just when a leman russ tank turns the corner for example)

Anyway, about your thing of modifying the results to something less destructive, I'll have to give it a shot seeing as the current campaign involves blowing up the Dark Angel's Fortress-Monastery with an archaeotech DIY Make-Your-Own-Sun kit.

As for him making fanfiction, I really can't care, seeing as he has nearly every single Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader, Deathwatch, Black Crusade and Only War book's in PDF format (Saving me both money and time) and on the plus side he basically acts like a second GM, which I don't mind seeing as he can make the dullest scenes come to life.

Essentially, he controls the scene, terrain and non-critical things like that and I deal with the general story-line, combat, diplomacy and everything else.

Anyway, I'll have to give your idea a shot, better then sitting around and doing nothing.

Cheer's-sks303

He is the sort of guy to either have the best luck, or the worst (usually a 1:2 ratio) He is nearly always the first person to react to a scenario/conflict or whatever and everyone else generally follows his lead to some degree. However, he is the only CSM player in the group, the others play squishy humans (one of which has a suit of terminator armor) and one of which attempts to hide behind his character whenever a conflict breaks out. This, combined with his (normally) terrible luck at dice, he has a tenacity to die at the most inopportune times (just when a leman russ tank turns the corner for example)

Anyway, about your thing of modifying the results to something less destructive, I'll have to give it a shot seeing as the current campaign involves blowing up the Dark Angel's Fortress-Monastery with an archaeotech DIY Make-Your-Own-Sun kit.

As for him making fanfiction, I really can't care, seeing as he has nearly every single Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader, Deathwatch, Black Crusade and Only War book's in PDF format (Saving me both money and time) and on the plus side he basically acts like a second GM, which I don't mind seeing as he can make the dullest scenes come to life.

Essentially, he controls the scene, terrain and non-critical things like that and I deal with the general story-line, combat, diplomacy and everything else.

Anyway, I'll have to give your idea a shot, better then sitting around and doing nothing.

Cheer's-sks303

I'd consider different dice...however if the dice gods say no then not much you can do.

With infamy burning, the trick is that you control how they avoid the death. I'll give you a chunk of text from the DH2 core book which explains more appropriately. It uses Fate Points on the good side but the idea is the same.

Still haven't seen an example of what actually happened, so can't make a judgment.

I always add a NPC to my player group, who is de facto a party member. That character is normally played by me, but in the case a PC dies, the player of the deceased character will take control of the NPC for the remaining gaming session. This ensures that the player can join in decision making and take part in battles, and has no time to do non-game-related things that disturb the event. Maybe you could install such a feat in your group as well. It helped me greatly so far.

Buy a new set of dices. That is the only way to brake the curse... the dices need to attune to the character. I usually goes with one set per character just to be safe. Good luck