Well the biggest murderhobo in the OT is Luke Skywalker. He killed all those innocent Death Star workers with two proton torpedos.

So innocent they were going to blow up a planet...like they already had done once before.

You're not doing your case any favours by tossing out words like "innocent" when it clearly does not apply.

The only people guilty of blowing up Alderaan is Tarkin, Vader, and the guys working the superlaser controls. All the rest like stormtroopers, TIE pilots, janitors, food service people, and construction workers were innocent. Luke "Greatest Murderhobo" Skywalker killed more people in 10 seconds than his old man did in 20 years as a Sith.

I honestly thought you were joking at first. I legitimately don't know what to say.

I am joking. I'm using their logic.

Well the biggest murderhobo in the OT is Luke Skywalker. He killed all those innocent Death Star workers with two proton torpedos.

So innocent they were going to blow up a planet...like they already had done once before.

You're not doing your case any favours by tossing out words like "innocent" when it clearly does not apply.

The only people guilty of blowing up Alderaan is Tarkin, Vader, and the guys working the superlaser controls. All the rest like stormtroopers, TIE pilots, janitors, food service people, and construction workers were innocent. Luke "Greatest Murderhobo" Skywalker killed more people in 10 seconds than his old man did in 20 years as a Sith.

Lawful combatants, on a legitimate target, during time of war. It's not murder.

As far as we know there isn't an actual declaration of war against the Rebellion. The Empire considered them to be terrorists.

War crimes are still prosecuted regardless of official declarations. A declaration has no part in the laws of armed conflict.

Ooooh we're about half a page away from proving Godwin's law. After that comes the inevitable thread lock.

Days like these, I miss EricB.

Awww. Does this help?

Let us all take a moment of silence to remember Gary the Stormtrooper, his daughter, and loving wife. He and his family died on the Death Star at the hands of Luke "Murderhobo" Skywalker. Gary you and your family will be missed.

Let us all take a moment of silence to remember Gary the Stormtrooper, his daughter, and loving wife. He and his family died on the Death Star at the hands of Luke "Murderhobo" Skywalker. Gary you and your family will be missed.

Lies and slander, Gary was present on the second Death Star.

Let us all take a moment of silence to remember Gary the Stormtrooper, his daughter, and loving wife. He and his family died on the Death Star at the hands of Luke "Murderhobo" Skywalker. Gary you and your family will be missed.

Lies and slander, Gary was present on the second Death Star.

No, that was his twin brother Garry.

Let us all take a moment of silence to remember Gary the Stormtrooper, his daughter, and loving wife. He and his family died on the Death Star at the hands of Luke "Murderhobo" Skywalker. Gary you and your family will be missed.

Lies and slander, Gary was present on the second Death Star.

It's confusing, I know, but here are their pictures.

This is Gary, killed by Luke Skywaker:

And this is Garry, Gary's twin brother, killed by Lando Calrissian and his murderous band:

Both were unique individuals, and both will be missed and forever memorialized.

Let us all take a moment of silence to remember Gary the Stormtrooper, his daughter, and loving wife. He and his family died on the Death Star at the hands of Luke "Murderhobo" Skywalker. Gary you and your family will be missed.

Lies and slander, Gary was present on the second Death Star.

It's confusing, I know, but here are their pictures.

This is Gary, killed by Luke Skywaker:

And this is Garry, Gary's twin brother, killed by Lando Calrissian and his murderous band:

Both were unique individuals, and both will be missed and forever memorialized.

You moron, you switched them around!

Stepping away from the debate for a moment to get back to the original issue:

1. GM has an NPC insult a player character, most likely expecting insults in return or a fistfight--either one would be an interesting diversion

2. PC's ego is fragile so he decides he's going to pull his blaster, a weapon which we've seen is 99% lethal in Star Wars, and shoot at his attacker

Now at this second point we have the argument that the PC was expecting to get the PokeMon battle music and grid map, where he and Rando Calrissian would engage blaster shots until one of them "fainted".

3. GM clearly was not expecting this and obviously doesn't want to waste time rolling up a pointless combat, so he skips to the logical conclusion where the PC guns down poor Rando in the bar

4. PC cries foul, because he wanted a PokeMon battle where being shot with blasters isn't lethal because ????

But okay, let's entertain this fantasy. Let's say that they engage in this combat encounter, the PC shoots at Rando, and since Rando is most likely a mook (Because why on Earth would he be anything else) he dies in one shot, maybe two from a blaster pistol after subtracting his 2-3 Soak.

GOTO 4, where the PC then insists that he would have been shooting to stun.

GM: "Then you should have %&$#ing said that."

Ok, alternate scenario, same logic. For sake of argument, let's pretend you like pizza and HATE mushrooms.

Me: "Hey, wanna get lunch?"

You: "Sure. How about pizza?"

Me: "Awesome!" *Orders pepperoni and mushroom pizza*

You: "Hey, I didn't want mushrooms."

Me: "Then you should have %&$#ing said that."

Also, regarding Greedo pointing the blaster at Han - Yes, he was! And what did Han do to him? Nothing! Han was about to get murderhobo'd, he just won Initiative. Either way, some fool was getting killed in a bar. I'd like to state that I was saying that it is something that obviously happens in Star Wars - I was not making any sort of judgement on whether it was justified or not.

I'm realllly trying to not be argumentative, and to that effect I'm going to limit future input to the occasional off-the-cuff joke in this thread, but it doesn't seem like you want to address any counterpoints, and want to treat this like it was a pub down the street in a realistic community, not the type of setting it is.

Funny how you're not trying to be argumentative while accusing me of doing the exact thing you just did. :V

Saying "oh well Star Wars is a setting where people get gunned down all the time" is only true if you strip out all context of the cantina scene and insert rationality into the OP's example where there is none. From an in-character perspective, the PC murdered a man for grade school name-calling. From an out-of-character perspective, the player was relying on metanarrative mechanics instead of roleplaying his character.

Either way you shake this the fault is not on the GM's end.

Ok, despite my own better judgement, I'm going to try one last time to show where I'm coming from here.

The blame lies equally on GM and player here. The player because he followed the "standard RPG format of declaring actions" without clearly expressing his intention from the first word. The GM because he was pretty obviously annoyed with the turn of events and decided to fill in the narrative (in a cooperative narrative game) without the player's input. Things like this almost never come down a single point of failure.

I don't think we're going to see eye-to-eye on the whole Cantina thing, though I'm still pretty sure Obi-Wan was the first to draw a lethal weapon in what was to all appearances a simple brawl.

This is kinda getting out of hand...

Can't we play nice?

I tried for the 'let's make funny scenarios with the random murder', didn't seem to take.

It wasn't aimed at you, 2P51. The regulars here - you, Desslok, kaosoe, Donovan, whafrog, mouthymerc et al - are normally civil even if you argue your point forcefully.

A few posters seem to be making it a bit... personal. Which is what made me take a year off here in the first place.

Stepping away from the debate for a moment to get back to the original issue:

1. GM has an NPC insult a player character, most likely expecting insults in return or a fistfight--either one would be an interesting diversion

2. PC's ego is fragile so he decides he's going to pull his blaster, a weapon which we've seen is 99% lethal in Star Wars, and shoot at his attacker

Now at this second point we have the argument that the PC was expecting to get the PokeMon battle music and grid map, where he and Rando Calrissian would engage blaster shots until one of them "fainted".

3. GM clearly was not expecting this and obviously doesn't want to waste time rolling up a pointless combat, so he skips to the logical conclusion where the PC guns down poor Rando in the bar

4. PC cries foul, because he wanted a PokeMon battle where being shot with blasters isn't lethal because ????

But okay, let's entertain this fantasy. Let's say that they engage in this combat encounter, the PC shoots at Rando, and since Rando is most likely a mook (Because why on Earth would he be anything else) he dies in one shot, maybe two from a blaster pistol after subtracting his 2-3 Soak.

GOTO 4, where the PC then insists that he would have been shooting to stun.

GM: "Then you should have %&$#ing said that."

Ok, alternate scenario, same logic. For sake of argument, let's pretend you like pizza and HATE mushrooms.

Me: "Hey, wanna get lunch?"

You: "Sure. How about pizza?"

Me: "Awesome!" *Orders pepperoni and mushroom pizza*

You: "Hey, I didn't want mushrooms."

Me: "Then you should have %&$#ing said that."

Also, regarding Greedo pointing the blaster at Han - Yes, he was! And what did Han do to him? Nothing! Han was about to get murderhobo'd, he just won Initiative. Either way, some fool was getting killed in a bar. I'd like to state that I was saying that it is something that obviously happens in Star Wars - I was not making any sort of judgement on whether it was justified or not.

I'm realllly trying to not be argumentative, and to that effect I'm going to limit future input to the occasional off-the-cuff joke in this thread, but it doesn't seem like you want to address any counterpoints, and want to treat this like it was a pub down the street in a realistic community, not the type of setting it is.

Funny how you're not trying to be argumentative while accusing me of doing the exact thing you just did. :V

Saying "oh well Star Wars is a setting where people get gunned down all the time" is only true if you strip out all context of the cantina scene and insert rationality into the OP's example where there is none. From an in-character perspective, the PC murdered a man for grade school name-calling. From an out-of-character perspective, the player was relying on metanarrative mechanics instead of roleplaying his character.

Either way you shake this the fault is not on the GM's end.

Ok, despite my own better judgement, I'm going to try one last time to show where I'm coming from here.

The blame lies equally on GM and player here. The player because he followed the "standard RPG format of declaring actions" without clearly expressing his intention from the first word. The GM because he was pretty obviously annoyed with the turn of events and decided to fill in the narrative (in a cooperative narrative game) without the player's input. Things like this almost never come down a single point of failure.

I don't think we're going to see eye-to-eye on the whole Cantina thing, though I'm still pretty sure Obi-Wan was the first to draw a lethal weapon in what was to all appearances a simple brawl.

Obi-Wan pulled his lightsaber because Doctor Whatshisname pulled a blaster. The bartender shouts "no blasters!" and dives under the bar, Doc fires, Obi-Wan chops his arm off. It's a pretty rational escalation.

Days like these, I miss EricB.

As do I. Nonsensical though he was, he was never personally uncivil to me.

And we spectacularly derailed most of his threads and made them fun. The 50+ page one was a thing of beauty.

Days like these, I miss EricB.

As do I. Nonsensical though he was, he was never personally uncivil to me.

And we spectacularly derailed most of his threads and made them fun. The 50+ page one was a thing of beauty.

Mind you, I wont let this slander stand. He spelt it Erik not Eric! Have you people no decency?!?

It's kinda lucky Lucas wasn't using the F&D rules, as I shudder to think how much Conflict you'd get for blowing up an entire space-station...

Obi-Wan pulled his lightsaber because Doctor Whatshisname pulled a blaster. The bartender shouts "no blasters!" and dives under the bar, Doc fires, Obi-Wan chops his arm off. It's a pretty rational escalation.

Could be. I just watched the clip without sound, but I'm pretty sure the first visual sign of the blaster is after the lightsaber comes out. Looks like shove luke, lightsaber ignites, blaster comes out, man dies. Again, pretty bad viewing conditions here at work, so I could be wrong. Been a few years since I've watched ANH. I don't remember the guy firing a shot before the saber comes out, but I'm willing to admit I could be wrong there. At the heart of it, though - that kind of violence is unremarkable enough that the music starts back up a few seconds later and people carry on like nothing happened.

It'll be pretty high...

It's postulated that the Death Star I had a population of 31,622,963 in The Technical Book of Science Fiction Films. That's the only number I have.

As GM would you consider Luke's actions to be murder or resorting to violence?

Obi-Wan pulled his lightsaber because Doctor Whatshisname pulled a blaster. The bartender shouts "no blasters!" and dives under the bar, Doc fires, Obi-Wan chops his arm off. It's a pretty rational escalation.

Could be. I just watched the clip without sound, but I'm pretty sure the first visual sign of the blaster is after the lightsaber comes out. Looks like shove luke, lightsaber ignites, blaster comes out, man dies. Again, pretty bad viewing conditions here at work, so I could be wrong. Been a few years since I've watched ANH. I don't remember the guy firing a shot before the saber comes out, but I'm willing to admit I could be wrong there. At the heart of it, though - that kind of violence is unremarkable enough that the music starts back up a few seconds later and people carry on like nothing happened.

You can hear the blaster shot just before Ben swings the saber and takes off his arm.

Look, my point isn't that sudden violence is out of place. My point is that in this scenario the PC was not Han Solo or Obi-Wan Kenobi--he was Doctor Evazan. He flipped out over nothing and gunned someone down because there wasn't a Jedi Knight or roguish anti-hero to stop him. That's not the kind of PC I would want in my game, nor one I think anyone else would want to deal with.

The people in the bar don't react because Evazan and Greedo were about to murder someone and got what was (Proportionately) coming to them--there's a distinct air of "don't start sh!t, don't get shot". If Evazan had gunned down Luke, I imagine nobody there would've been comfortable drinking in the same cantina.

I'm sorry, but I am failing to see how "I shoot him with my blaster" is at all an attempt to scare or subdue the guy. What happens in Star Wars when characters get shot with blasters?

I think the question should be "What happens in this game when a character makes an attack with a blaster?" The use of the various dice results can easily mean that the declared attack does no significant damage but instead disarms the opponent, startles them (Setback dice), damages a piece of scenery, or has some other dramatic effect. In this game, the intent to do any of those things is not declared ahead of time. Rather, they are determined after the declaration of action by the results of the dice. The character might have been going for some sort of trick shot and hoping for the Triumphs to pull it off without killing the guy, but without the dice roll, the GM did effectively remove an element of player agency.

Yeah, but he said "I shoot him with my blaster."

If it was a miscommunication, it could have (should have) been handled appropriately by two adults who are trying to play a game together. But I'd have made the same call at the outset: "Okay, he's dead. Carry on."

If the player then said, "Wait, hold on, I didn't mean I wanted to kill him. I wanted to shoot at him," or, "I just wanted to wing him," or, "I just wanted to roll the dice," or, "can we let the dice tell the story." Those would all be fine requests and, if the player will wanted to roll his dice, I would totally let him.

All the while questioning his character's reason for whipping out his blaster...

Yeah, but he said "I shoot him with my blaster."

If it was a miscommunication, it could have (should have) been handled appropriately by two adults who are trying to play a game together. But I'd have made the same call at the outset: "Okay, he's dead. Carry on."

If the player then said, "Wait, hold on, I didn't mean I wanted to kill him. I wanted to shoot at him," or, "I just wanted to wing him," or, "I just wanted to roll the dice," or, "can we let the dice tell the story." Those would all be fine requests and, if the player will wanted to roll his dice, I would totally let him.

All the while questioning his character's reason for whipping out his blaster...

But the player did say that he didn't want to kill the NPC, but hurt him. The GM didn't want to resolve it narratively through the dice.

Yeah, but he said "I shoot him with my blaster."

If it was a miscommunication, it could have (should have) been handled appropriately by two adults who are trying to play a game together. But I'd have made the same call at the outset: "Okay, he's dead. Carry on."

If the player then said, "Wait, hold on, I didn't mean I wanted to kill him. I wanted to shoot at him," or, "I just wanted to wing him," or, "I just wanted to roll the dice," or, "can we let the dice tell the story." Those would all be fine requests and, if the player will wanted to roll his dice, I would totally let him.

All the while questioning his character's reason for whipping out his blaster...

But the player did say that he didn't want to kill the NPC, but hurt him. The GM didn't want to resolve it narratively through the dice.

Okay, so the player character shoots a guy in the knee over a schoolyard insult. He's still an unhinged psychopath.

Yeah, but he said "I shoot him with my blaster."

If it was a miscommunication, it could have (should have) been handled appropriately by two adults who are trying to play a game together. But I'd have made the same call at the outset: "Okay, he's dead. Carry on."

If the player then said, "Wait, hold on, I didn't mean I wanted to kill him. I wanted to shoot at him," or, "I just wanted to wing him," or, "I just wanted to roll the dice," or, "can we let the dice tell the story." Those would all be fine requests and, if the player will wanted to roll his dice, I would totally let him.

All the while questioning his character's reason for whipping out his blaster...

But the player did say that he didn't want to kill the NPC, but hurt him. The GM didn't want to resolve it narratively through the dice.

Which just takes us back to the fact that you don't shoot something you don't intend to kill.

Yeah, but he said "I shoot him with my blaster."

If it was a miscommunication, it could have (should have) been handled appropriately by two adults who are trying to play a game together. But I'd have made the same call at the outset: "Okay, he's dead. Carry on."

If the player then said, "Wait, hold on, I didn't mean I wanted to kill him. I wanted to shoot at him," or, "I just wanted to wing him," or, "I just wanted to roll the dice," or, "can we let the dice tell the story." Those would all be fine requests and, if the player will wanted to roll his dice, I would totally let him.

All the while questioning his character's reason for whipping out his blaster...

But the player did say that he didn't want to kill the NPC, but hurt him. The GM didn't want to resolve it narratively through the dice.

Those situations were reversed in order, though. The GM decided not to resolve it via the dice because, "hey, you shoot a guy with a blaster, he's dead, end of story." Up to this point, the players' communication had seemed complete and concise, and the GM's call was good.

The situation then dissolved because the player hadn't fully thought through the situation (or had perhaps miscommunicated) and GM was trying to set an example. It could have been resolved easily in any number of ways, but now probably requires the GM and player talking to each other to make sure that this sort of occurrence is less frequent in the future, and when it does happen, it can be made less painful.

Those situations were reversed in order, though. The GM decided not to resolve it via the dice because, "hey, you shoot a guy with a blaster, he's dead, end of story." Up to this point, the players' communication had seemed complete and concise, and the GM's call was good.

The situation then dissolved because the player hadn't fully thought through the situation (or had perhaps miscommunicated) and GM was trying to set an example. It could have been resolved easily in any number of ways, but now probably requires the GM and player talking to each other to make sure that this sort of occurrence is less frequent in the future, and when it does happen, it can be made less painful.

Ultimately, this comes down to expectations. Does the GM normally handle violent encounters by arbitrarily deciding what happens, or does he normally handle it in the manner some of us have outlined (or similar)? If it's normally the latter, then it's absolutely pulling the rug out from under the player to just change up. However, if combat is normally resolved in the "I shoot him" -- "Ok, he's dead" manner, then carry on.

Okay. I disagree, but this discussion has been going long enough to show that no one is changing anyone else's opinion