I sincerely hope none of the people arguing "he didn't MEAN to kill him" ever own actual guns in real life.

I never said that he didn't mean to kill him. The player did in the first post. Yes, I have owned many guns in my life and I know that you can shoot someone without killing them. It's all about where you shoot them at. Shooting someone in the kneecap or the arm isn't going to kill them. Shooting them in the face, chest, stomach, and neck will kill them.

Magistrate: "So, you shoot and kill people to teach them manners sir?"

PC: "As a point of fact your honor, I shoot and kill people for a multitude of reasons, however this would be one amongst them, yessir."

Magistrate: sighhh "Very well sir, the court in fact finds you guilty. You are to be fined 500 credits and are responsible for funeral and burial costs of the deceased, and cleaning fees for the bar. Case closed. Next case balliff!"

Magistrate: "So, you shoot and kill people to teach them manners sir?"

PC: "As a point of fact your honor, I shoot and kill people for a multitude of reasons, however this would be one amongst them, yessir."

Magistrate: sighhh "Very well sir, the court in fact finds you guilty. You are to be fined 500 credits and are responsible for funeral and burial costs of the deceased, and cleaning fees for the bar. Case closed. Next case balliff!"

I guess you missed the part in the original post where the player stated that he didn't want to kill the guy, but hurt him. Reading comprehension FTW!

I sincerely hope none of the people arguing "he didn't MEAN to kill him" ever own actual guns in real life.

I never said that he didn't mean to kill him. The player did in the first post. Yes, I have owned many guns in my life and I know that you can shoot someone without killing them. It's all about where you shoot them at. Shooting someone in the kneecap or the arm isn't going to kill them. Shooting them in the face, chest, stomach, and neck will kill them.

EVERY gunshot is potentially lethal.

Trying to shoot someone in the kneecap can easily result in instead shooting them in the femoral artery -- quick bleedout, dead.

Trying to shoot someone in the arm can easily result in instead hitting their torso, or just missing entirely, or hitting something you didn't intend to.

On the other hand, a surprising number of people survive being shot in the head, chest, or stomach, especially when it's a pistol involved.

There's no police or military force I can think of that teaches "shoot to wound" -- once the situation rises to the level of justifying lethal force, then that force is used lethally. "Shooting to wound" is more cinematic nonsense than it is anything actually done by trained shooters in real life.

I don't see any removal of agency.

That depends entirely on how you do it.

The player was clearly not expecting or desiring this outcome, and he was certainly not in sync with the GM's mindset.

However, the moment the GM set the tone as adversarial ("then you shouldn't have shot him, should you?"), it became clear that what the player wanted, or what he did, no longer mattered. It is a fine line to walk between "justifiable consequence" and "jerk move". That line is easy to cross when you're a GM and you clearly act to teach a player a lesson.

While I have never been in exactly this situation, as a player I have certainly been in similar situations. I state an intention, or an action, and the GM takes it away from me in some fashion. That's usually only a problem if its done in an adversarial or unpleasant manner, but its always disconcerting to some extent.

Magistrate: "So, you shoot and kill people to teach them manners sir?"

PC: "As a point of fact your honor, I shoot and kill people for a multitude of reasons, however this would be one amongst them, yessir."

Magistrate: sighhh "Very well sir, the court in fact finds you guilty. You are to be fined 500 credits and are responsible for funeral and burial costs of the deceased, and cleaning fees for the bar. Case closed. Next case balliff!"

I guess you missed the part in the original post where the player stated that he didn't want to kill the guy, but hurt him. Reading comprehension FTW!

I guess you missed the point where I'm just trying to insert some fun into a thread that's turning into a piss fest? Reading between the lines comprehension FTW!

I sincerely hope none of the people arguing "he didn't MEAN to kill him" ever own actual guns in real life.

I never said that he didn't mean to kill him. The player did in the first post. Yes, I have owned many guns in my life and I know that you can shoot someone without killing them. It's all about where you shoot them at. Shooting someone in the kneecap or the arm isn't going to kill them. Shooting them in the face, chest, stomach, and neck will kill them.

EVERY gunshot is potentially lethal.

Trying to shoot someone in the kneecap can easily result in instead shooting them in the femoral artery -- quick bleedout, dead.

Trying to shoot someone in the arm can easily result in instead hitting their torso, or just missing entirely, or hitting something you didn't intend to.

On the other hand, a surprising number of people survive being shot in the head, chest, or stomach, especially when it's a pistol involved.

There's no police or military force I can think of that teaches "shoot to wound" -- once the situation rises to the level of justifying lethal force, then that force is used lethally. "Shooting to wound" is more cinematic nonsense than it is anything actually done by trained shooters in real life.

Wow that's a big derail. Care to point out where I said anything about the military or shooting to kill? My comment was about where it's possible to shoot someone and it not be considered lethal. You just can't stop building strawman arguments can you?

Something I've had (and still have to) come to terms with is that not every player/GM defines every choice in the same manner. I would say most actions taken in character seem perfectly reasonable to the person controlling said character at the time. Sometimes, these a character's actions can generate a, "WTF?!?" from one or more other the other people involved in the game. Often, the person performing said action doesn't understand why anyone else believes what their character is doing is ridiculous, because in their head, this action already passed the, "Is this stupid, or not?" mental certification process.

In the example of this post, it appears the player believed shooting someone in a bar over an insult was an acceptable way for their character to react. They announced a declaration to attack, and even began assembling an initiative pool. The GM seems to have taken this as a completely unreasonable reaction, and stated that the the shot killed the dude in the bar.

Was this the right thing to do? I don't know. I wasn't involved.

I think the big takeaway for anyone reading this topic is that sometimes players/GMs will do stupid things. Often, I find people make these stupid choices because not enough information was given when the GM set the scene, or when a player describes what their intentions are. When situations like this occur, a simple time-out and OOC, "Wait, what do you intend for that to accomplish?" is all it takes to keep these events from spiraling out of control. And this system has a built in mechanic for handling narrative retcons/after-the-facts/Oh I forgot to mention that/By the way.../You get a feeling that doesn't seem like a good idea/etc. They're called destiny points.

TL;DR: A little intent clarification goes a loooooong way.

The main argument I see here regarding 'player agency' is this... roleplaying games in general gear a player towards a certain order of operations. This has nothing to do with whether the player should have fired the shot in the first place, just my take on the actions as presented.

1. Declare general intent: "I will shoot him"
2. Initiative: "Awesome, he wasn't expecting me to draw down!"
3. Declare specific intent: "Gonna use stun!"
4. Roll for action: "Suck space taser, jerk!"
5. Result: "Woo, look at him twitch!"

I wasn't at the gaming table, but the argument presented HERE goes something like this...

1. Declare general intent: "I will shoot him"
2. Skipped
3. Skipped
4. Skipped
5. Result: "Your target has died of laser dysentery. You are a horrible person."
6. Player: "Wait, what!?"

Basically, what we have here, is a failure to communicate. The player declared a general action, and the GM presumed the method the character wanted to take to do it. The player did not lay out all of the details of his plan in his initial statement, leaving room for misinterpretation. This works fine in DnD style games where it doesn't matter, but this is touted as a narrative system, and the narrative got skipped.

Anyway, sorry if I stirred the pot, my intent isn't to do so... just from my perspective, it looks like the issue is being circled and not met head on.

I sincerely hope none of the people arguing "he didn't MEAN to kill him" ever own actual guns in real life.

I never said that he didn't mean to kill him. The player did in the first post. Yes, I have owned many guns in my life and I know that you can shoot someone without killing them. It's all about where you shoot them at. Shooting someone in the kneecap or the arm isn't going to kill them. Shooting them in the face, chest, stomach, and neck will kill them.

EVERY gunshot is potentially lethal.

Trying to shoot someone in the kneecap can easily result in instead shooting them in the femoral artery -- quick bleedout, dead.

Trying to shoot someone in the arm can easily result in instead hitting their torso, or just missing entirely, or hitting something you didn't intend to.

On the other hand, a surprising number of people survive being shot in the head, chest, or stomach, especially when it's a pistol involved.

There's no police or military force I can think of that teaches "shoot to wound" -- once the situation rises to the level of justifying lethal force, then that force is used lethally. "Shooting to wound" is more cinematic nonsense than it is anything actually done by trained shooters in real life.

Wow that's a big derail. Care to point out where I said anything about the military or shooting to kill? My comment was about where it's possible to shoot someone and it not be considered lethal. You just can't stop building strawman arguments can you?

It's a refutation of the idea of "shoot to wound" as a legitimate claim -- it isn't something that's widely done by people who actually work with firearms.

Not everything in a post responding to you has to be a precise counterpoint to something you specifically said and constrained to exactly that frame, in order to be relevant to something you said -- other posters are actually allowed to provide examples illustrating that your position is wrong. "Strawman" has an actual specific meaning -- you might want to learn it.

If you bring up "shoot to wound", you are in fact implicitly bringing whether that actually works, and whether there's a bright line between that and "shoot to wound", into the discussion.

Gahhh! Too many nested quotes!

To the topic at hand: get players involved in the narrative, and you can avoid these sticky situations.

Player: "I shoot him with my blaster."

GM: "Okay, go ahead and narrate his death at your hands."

Player: "I didn't want to kill him, just hurt him."

GM: "Okay. He goes down with an automatic crit. Go ahead and roll for the crit, and then narrate it for me."

I sincerely hope none of the people arguing "he didn't MEAN to kill him" ever own actual guns in real life.

I never said that he didn't mean to kill him. The player did in the first post. Yes, I have owned many guns in my life and I know that you can shoot someone without killing them. It's all about where you shoot them at. Shooting someone in the kneecap or the arm isn't going to kill them. Shooting them in the face, chest, stomach, and neck will kill them.

EVERY gunshot is potentially lethal.

Trying to shoot someone in the kneecap can easily result in instead shooting them in the femoral artery -- quick bleedout, dead.

Trying to shoot someone in the arm can easily result in instead hitting their torso, or just missing entirely, or hitting something you didn't intend to.

On the other hand, a surprising number of people survive being shot in the head, chest, or stomach, especially when it's a pistol involved.

There's no police or military force I can think of that teaches "shoot to wound" -- once the situation rises to the level of justifying lethal force, then that force is used lethally. "Shooting to wound" is more cinematic nonsense than it is anything actually done by trained shooters in real life.

Wow that's a big derail. Care to point out where I said anything about the military or shooting to kill? My comment was about where it's possible to shoot someone and it not be considered lethal. You just can't stop building strawman arguments can you?

It's a refutation of the idea of "shoot to wound" as a legitimate claim -- it isn't something that's widely done by people who actually work with firearms.

Not everything in a post responding to you has to be a precise counterpoint to something you specifically said and constrained to exactly that frame, in order to be relevant to something you said -- other posters are actually allowed to provide examples illustrating that your position is wrong. "Strawman" has an actual specific meaning -- you might want to learn it.

If you bring up "shoot to wound", you are in fact implicitly bringing whether that actually works, and whether there's a bright line between that and "shoot to wound", into the discussion.

Again you are performing a strawman by bringing forth a position I do not hold to defeat. Fact: You can hit certain parts of the body and it will not be considered a lethal wound.

At any rate, you're just going to sit there and argue with me for the sake of arguing.

Something I've had (and still have to) come to terms with is that not every player/GM defines every choice in the same manner. I would say most actions taken in character seem perfectly reasonable to the person controlling said character at the time. Sometimes, these a character's actions can generate a, "WTF?!?" from one or more other the other people involved in the game. Often, the person performing said action doesn't understand why anyone else believes what their character is doing is ridiculous, because in their head, this action already passed the, "Is this stupid, or not?" mental certification process.

I agree with this, and indeed most of your post. I had a similar situation in our last session. The players were dealing with a sand demon, a massive armored arthropod. It began to chase one of the players, and rather than race off on his scrap bike...he chose to point it out into the desert and roll off the back, in an attempt to lure it away.

They're literally in the middle of the desert. The monster is not faster than the bikes. I could not for the life of me figure out why the player chose to do as he did. In my old days, I might have killed the character (he botched his piloting roll horribly)...simply because the player wasn't thinking as I was thinking. In the end, it turned out the player simply had other priorities: He wanted to get to the caravan the critter was attacking to save some people, and saw the bike as an acceptable sacrifice to get that. His way of thinking was in no way in tune with mine, but that did not make him wrong.

In the example of this post, it appears the player believed shooting someone in a bar over an insult was an acceptable way for their character to react. They announced a declaration to attack, and even began assembling an initiative pool.

I've bolded the part that I found particularly relevant. The player was under the expectation that in order to do what he wanted, mechanics would need to be involved, not just a loose declaration of intent.

When the GM skipped the mechanics it literally caught him off guard, and did in fact take away his agency.

Shooting people runs a high risk of killing them, end of story.

The PC pulled out the blaster, aimed it at another person, and pulled the trigger. If the player wanted to stun or wound the NPC, he should have said so as part of his statement of intent, up front. But he didn't, he just attacked him with his blaster.

The PC killed the NPC.

A player having their character whip out a blaster and shoot someone, with no stated qualifiers, is leaving the result up to the random hand of the dice -- and expecting the GM to bail them out "because narrative" is weak.

There's no record of damage being rolled so you can't say that.

The GM said that the player killed the NPC. The player had zero choice in the matter. He didn't even get the chance to say that he would put the weapon on stun since that does qualify as hurting the NPC. Naw it's best to side with the murderhobo, PC agency removing, and rules ignoring GM, and blame the problem on the player.

The player made his choice when he said "I attack the NPC with my blaster".

Yes and the GM made the choice to not run combat as required and kill the NPC even after he was told that the shot was not lethal. I guess you missed that part. Let me guess you believe that GM's that take over characters and ruling through fiat are okay. I'm certainly glad that I don't game with any of you guys.

"...as required..." is to be determined by the GM. A PC deciding to shoot someone is not always grounds for a combat encounter to begin. Clearly this drunkard at the bar was a non-combatant who was easily overpowered by the PC, no combat necessary.

In my own games I only initiate combat if there are possible significant outcomes for either side or if was scripted. I would have done the same as the OP: no combat round, the PC can easily defeat this NPC, no roll necessary. I do the same for some skill checks.

How do you know that the NPC was drunk? You keep adding things to the situation that wasn't described in the first post to make your argument. In debate they call that a strawman and you are building it. So you regularly remove player agency, make decisions for the players, adjudicate to hit and damage without dice being rolled all the time? Like I said, I'm sure glad I don't play with you.

Reread the original post. "... I know it's just a game, but shooting a random drunken bigot in a bar is ..."

Reading comprehension FTW!

I sincerely hope none of the people arguing "he didn't MEAN to kill him" ever own actual guns in real life.

I never said that he didn't mean to kill him. The player did in the first post. Yes, I have owned many guns in my life and I know that you can shoot someone without killing them. It's all about where you shoot them at. Shooting someone in the kneecap or the arm isn't going to kill them. Shooting them in the face, chest, stomach, and neck will kill them.

EVERY gunshot is potentially lethal.

Trying to shoot someone in the kneecap can easily result in instead shooting them in the femoral artery -- quick bleedout, dead.

Trying to shoot someone in the arm can easily result in instead hitting their torso, or just missing entirely, or hitting something you didn't intend to.

On the other hand, a surprising number of people survive being shot in the head, chest, or stomach, especially when it's a pistol involved.

There's no police or military force I can think of that teaches "shoot to wound" -- once the situation rises to the level of justifying lethal force, then that force is used lethally. "Shooting to wound" is more cinematic nonsense than it is anything actually done by trained shooters in real life.

Wow that's a big derail. Care to point out where I said anything about the military or shooting to kill? My comment was about where it's possible to shoot someone and it not be considered lethal. You just can't stop building strawman arguments can you?

It's a refutation of the idea of "shoot to wound" as a legitimate claim -- it isn't something that's widely done by people who actually work with firearms.

Not everything in a post responding to you has to be a precise counterpoint to something you specifically said and constrained to exactly that frame, in order to be relevant to something you said -- other posters are actually allowed to provide examples illustrating that your position is wrong. "Strawman" has an actual specific meaning -- you might want to learn it.

If you bring up "shoot to wound", you are in fact implicitly bringing whether that actually works, and whether there's a bright line between that and "shoot to wound", into the discussion.

Again you are performing a strawman by bringing forth a position I do not hold to defeat. Fact: You can hit certain parts of the body and it will not be considered a lethal wound.

At any rate, you're just going to sit there and argue with me for the sake of arguing.

See above, re "strawman". It doesn't mean "facts inconvenient to ThePatriot winning".

As you just said, right there, in your post (again) -- you think shooting certain parts of the body is "non-lethal" -- pointing that out and then refuting it is not a "strawman" argument.

Reality don't agree with your opinion -- the best you can hope for is less or more likely to be lethal. This idea of a reliably non-lethal way to shoot someone is nothing more than nonsense perpetuated by pop mythology, Hollywood, and RPGs.

Yes, I know, facts are inconvenient and also mean.

This idea of a reliably non-lethal way to shoot someone is nothing more than nonsense perpetuated by pop mythology, Hollywood, and RPGs.

Well, thank goodness we're playing a hard, reality based combat simulation game.

. . . . oh, wait.

I sincerely hope none of the people arguing "he didn't MEAN to kill him" ever own actual guns in real life.

I never said that he didn't mean to kill him. The player did in the first post. Yes, I have owned many guns in my life and I know that you can shoot someone without killing them. It's all about where you shoot them at. Shooting someone in the kneecap or the arm isn't going to kill them. Shooting them in the face, chest, stomach, and neck will kill them.

If you've ever touched a gun in your life you should also know that the first $%ing rule is to never point it at something you don't want to kill.

I sincerely hope none of the people arguing "he didn't MEAN to kill him" ever own actual guns in real life.

I never said that he didn't mean to kill him. The player did in the first post. Yes, I have owned many guns in my life and I know that you can shoot someone without killing them. It's all about where you shoot them at. Shooting someone in the kneecap or the arm isn't going to kill them. Shooting them in the face, chest, stomach, and neck will kill them.

If you've ever touched a gun in your life you should also know that the first $%ing rule is to never point it at something you don't want to kill.

What does real life have to do with a flipping game? Not a darn thing. Oh I already know and if you do point a weapon at someone you better be prepared to pull the trigger.

A gun, whether it fires bullets or blaster bolts, is an actual object about which we know things.

When actual objects don't act like reasonably like themselves in fiction or a game, it detracts from the verisimilitude.

Although I will say that there's something very bizarre about the blaster bolts depicted in the canon SW material... they're very randomly lethal, and it seems to have nothing to do with where they hit or what kind of protection the target is wearing.

I sincerely hope none of the people arguing "he didn't MEAN to kill him" ever own actual guns in real life.

I never said that he didn't mean to kill him. The player did in the first post. Yes, I have owned many guns in my life and I know that you can shoot someone without killing them. It's all about where you shoot them at. Shooting someone in the kneecap or the arm isn't going to kill them. Shooting them in the face, chest, stomach, and neck will kill them.

If you've ever touched a gun in your life you should also know that the first $%ing rule is to never point it at something you don't want to kill.

What does real life have to do with a flipping game? Not a darn thing. Oh I already know and if you do point a weapon at someone you better be prepared to pull the trigger.

If a player character shoots someone and is then surprised when they die then they're clearly mentally deranged and should be locked up, not the protagonist of a space adventure. It's basic actions v consequences and I can't believe I have to spell this out; if your response to being insulted by some rando in a bar is to gun them down in cold blood, you aren't the hero. You aren't even an anti-hero. You're the psychotic antagonist.

People ***** about the GM "removing player agency" by not jumping into combat--the hell would accomplish? Would the guy be less dead if he was shot multiple times instead of once?

I also like how that's supposed to be a defense for his actions, as though starting a shootout and endangering the lives of everyone around you is supposed to be a reasonable response to name-calling.

A gun, whether it fires bullets or blaster bolts, is a real-life object.

When actual objects don't act like reasonably like themselves in fiction or a game, it detracts from the verisimilitude.

Funny but slugthrowers lack the stun setting on a blaster. I guess you kind of missed that from your verisimilitude. Now you really are arguing for the sake of arguing.

This idea of a reliably non-lethal way to shoot someone is nothing more than nonsense perpetuated by pop mythology, Hollywood, and RPGs.

Well, thank goodness we're playing a hard, reality based combat simulation game.

. . . . oh, wait.

Actually if you don't take it in the brain bucket, and make it to a hospital with a heartbeat, statistically you've got a 96% chance of survival.

A gun, whether it fires bullets or blaster bolts, is a real-life object.

When actual objects don't act like reasonably like themselves in fiction or a game, it detracts from the verisimilitude.

Funny but slugthrowers lack the stun setting on a blaster. I guess you kind of missed that from your verisimilitude. Now you really are arguing for the sake of arguing.

You're in the same incoherent ragey "how dare people present facts and rational arguments against my position!" state you were in regarding the Je'dai(iiiii) -- go cool off.

If the PC in question wanted to stun the unarmed, unarmored, drunk NPC*, he should have said "I stun him with my blaster," not "I attack him with my blaster". If the player was counting on the combat mechanics to bail him out after the fact, then too bad. The dice could just as easily resulted in the NPC dying -- and relying on the dice to bail you out from the potentially lethal outcome of your decisions would be like shooting at someone in real life and then telling the judge "but I didn't think he'd die, I mean, what were the odds?"

* all based on facts presented, so don't bother with your silly little "reading comprehension" comments again.

This idea of a reliably non-lethal way to shoot someone is nothing more than nonsense perpetuated by pop mythology, Hollywood, and RPGs.

Well, thank goodness we're playing a hard, reality based combat simulation game.

. . . . oh, wait.

Actually if you don't take it in the brain bucket, and make it to a hospital with a heartbeat, statistically you've got a 96% chance of survival.

On the other hand, you can bleed out in mere moments, and not have a heartbeat before anyone even thinks to check. It's not reliable.

Which is why people with a whit of sense don't shoot things that they don't intended to kill or break.

If a player character shoots someone and is then surprised when they die then they're clearly mentally deranged and should be locked up, not the protagonist of a space adventure. It's basic actions v consequences and I can't believe I have to spell this out; if your response to being insulted by some rando in a bar is to gun them down in cold blood, you aren't the hero. You aren't even an anti-hero. You're the psychotic antagonist.

People ***** about the GM "removing player agency" by not jumping into combat--the hell would accomplish? Would the guy be less dead if he was shot multiple times instead of once?

I also like how that's supposed to be a defense for his actions, as though starting a shootout and endangering the lives of everyone around you is supposed to be a reasonable response to name-calling.

The GM never gave the player a choice to switch a non-lethal attack. The player was expecting the GM to go the mechanical route after he declared a general action. After the GM declared that the NPC was dead the player clarifies that it wasn't meant to be lethal. Clear case of lack of communication and the GM telling the player what his character does in an adversarial manner. There is a certain expectation and trust by the players that the GM would follow the mechanical organization of a narrative game. Let me spell it out for you.

1. Declare general intention to begin combat.

2. Roll Initiative

3. Player declares specific action, "I don't want to kill him, just hurt him."

4. GM asks for clarification on what the player means by "just hurt him".

5. Player specifies exactly what he means.

6. Action is resolved through the mechanics of using dice for to hit and damage.

7. GM narrates what happens to the NPC as it relates directly as a reaction to what the player wanted.

This is what happened in the game.

1. Declare general intention to begin combat.

2. GM ignored

3. GM ignored

4. GM ignored

5. GM ignored

6. GM ignored

7. GM narrates action to the NPC regardless of what the PC wanted.

You do realize that blasters do have two settings right; Stun and kill? The GM never gave the player a chance to detail the action he wanted to take. That did remove player agency and was adversarial to the player. The GM didn't care what the player wanted and refused to even discuss alternative actions. The GM then has the gall to write on a forum to complain about the player while acting like his crap doesn't stink. It does stink and you are letting it get all over you. Stun doesn't do kill damage, so yes the NPC would be less dead aka alive. Do I really need to flowchart this out for you because you are that dense?

It's funny that you're the one that is defending the murderhobo GM, so maybe you should get locked up? One last thing, fictional game =/= real life to you. In reality it's fictional game does not equal real life.